Review: But Not Too Bold, by Hache Pueyo

The old keeper of the keys is dead, and the creature who ate her is the volatile Lady of the Capricious House⁠―Anatema, an enormous humanoid spider with a taste for laudanum and human brides. Dália, the old keeper’s protégée, must take up her duties, locking and unlocking the little drawers in which Anatema keeps her memories. And if she can unravel the crime that led to her predecessor's death, Dália might just be able to survive long enough to grow into her new role.
But there’s a gaping hole in Dália’s plan that she refuses to see: Anatema cannot resist a beautiful woman, and she eventually devours every single bride that crosses her path.

"I hate being seen."

Hache Pueyo's But Not Too Bold is a Mexican novella leaning heavily on the weird side, with an ephemeral mystery plot that's more there to push the story along. The narrative follows Keeper of the Keys Dália as she investigates a theft under orders of her employer Anatema, a spider eldritch being who lives as a recluse on the third story of an isolated mansion filled with devoted servants. Anatema is appropriately terrifying, the detailed descriptions of her appearance a nightmare not only for arachnophobes.

This is a short story about learning to be seen. It's not just the eldritch being who needs to learn that and to trust her servants and her wives with her appearance, but also Dália, with her reluctance to be anything other than a servant with no aspirations and desires. Slowly, she finds herself willing to take risks and accept and embrace her desires - in short, being bold. The sweet ending perfectly encapsulates the titular motto.

But Not Too Bold is a short delight.

✨ 3.5 stars

Snippet: Until the Last Petal Falls, by Viano Oniomoh

When Eru was eleven years old, he met an unforgettable boy.Only a few weeks after, he forgot all about that boy. Ten years later, after his parents’ sudden deaths, all Eru wants is to find a way out of the village he was supposed to leave behind, and escape the abuse of his grieving grandmother. When he receives a summons from Able Mummy, the wife of the High Chief, it seems all of his prayers have been answered.
Able Mummy needs his help. But she and the High Chief have a secret. Once Eru uncovers the truth, he finds that the fate of the village, and that of the boy he’d been made to forget, could lie solely in his hands.

“Choose to live.”

Viano Oniomoh's Until the Last Petal Falls is a sweet queerplatonic retelling of Beauty and the Beast set in present-day Nigeria, a cozy novella featuring Nigerian folklore, many pop culture references, and a lovely exploration of the blossoming bond between two young men who are both aroace. The book races through their relationship, making it difficult to really care about them, especially with many developments being off-screen. It's still a sweet read, a perfect palate cleanser.

✨ 3 stars

Review: Time's Agent, by Brenda Peynado

Since humanity discovered the existence of pocket worlds, academics have embarked on exploratory missions as agents for the Institute for the Scientific and Humanistic Study of Portal Worlds to study this new technology and harness the potential of a seemingly limitless horizon. Archeologist Raquel and her biologist wife Marlena once dreamed the pocket worlds held the key to solving the universe’s mysteries.
Now, forty years in the future, Raquel is a disgraced ex-agent, pocket worlds are controlled by corporations squeezing every penny out of all colonizable space and time, and Marlena now lives in a pocket universe Raquel wears around her neck in which time passes faster than on Earth, and no longer speaks to her. Standing in the ruins of her dream and her calling, Raquel seizes one last chance to redeem herself, to her wife and her own failed ideals and confront what it means to save something―or someone―from time.

"Without time, everything is beautiful."

Brenda Peynado's Time's Agent is a sci-fi novella about time and grief, an alt-history take on the disappearence of the Taino people in what today is the Dominican Republic. Set in a world teeming with hidden entrances to pocket worlds, it deals with capitalism and colonialism and it's vibrant with fascinating concepts and a lush prose that really sells the imagery.

At its heart, it's a quiet story about how to deal with loss, especially the death of a child, and how it can tear a marriage apart. The main character, a sapphic woman in her thirties, has to deal with this loss alone for a portion of the book, as her wife needs time and space and solitude. The two plots end up mixing well into a delicate but heart-wrenching epilogue.

Time's Agent is a small gem.

✨ 4 stars

Review: Legend of the White Snake, by Sher Lee

When Prince Xian was a boy, a white snake bit his mother and condemned her to a slow, painful death. The only known cure is an elusive spirit pearl—or an antidote created from the rare white snake itself. Desperate and determined, Xian travels to the city of Changle, where an oracle predicted he would find and capture a white snake. In Changle, Xian encounters an enigmatic but beautiful stable boy named Zhen. The two are immediately drawn to each other, but Zhen soon realizes that he is the white snake Xian is hunting. As their feelings grow deeper, will the truth about Zhen’s identity tear them apart?

"Destiny is an excuse people give not to fight for what they really want in life."

Sher Lee's Legend of the White Snake is an achillean YA retelling of a chinese story about a snake spirit who can take a human form. It's a fresh retelling, keeping some beats of the original story while giving it its own spin. The relationship between the snake and the prince feels very much like insta-love, but it works in the context of it being a retelling, and the two main characters face enough development that that doesn't feel like a problem.

At first the characters feel a bit mono-dimensional, but they are given time to breathe and are explored more. Filial love is explored, and so is piety. The final third, with its twists and turns, felt very fast, but not too much.

This novel is very precise in describing a multitude of cultural aspects, from how to walk in and out of a temple to the different ways of dressing. It feels like a tame introduction to more famous and definitely more explicit danmei novels, which isn't inherently a bad thing.

Legend of the White Snake is a lovely read.

✨ 3.5 stars

Review: Ice Upon a Pier, by Ladz

Ruta Pawlak is one of the most successful contract killers Pier-Upon-Pier City has ever seen. Convicted of five murders that landed her multiple life sentences, her kill count allegedly sits between fifteen and two hundred people. Some were just for practice, others for revenge, and others she executed for money to keep her potentially world-record setting reading collection going.
For the first time, a biographer sits down with the legendary killer to hear her story in her own words. Get the details on her relationship with her depraved bosses and her eclectic arsenal of murder weapons from ice magic to poison to even the sun itself. From her impoverished upbringing to her introduction to the Syndicates to her bizarre affair with fellow killer Frieda Masters to Ruta’s eventual downfall, this account goes beyond headlines and court proceedings, weaving a story of love, family, survival, and murder.

"My warped sense of morality embarrasses me."

Ladz's Ice Upon a Pier is a sparse novella chronicling the life of a sapphic contract killer with ice powers. The narration jumps from past to present as she recounts her first kills, her romance with a fellow assassin, and how she eventually ended up in prison. She's unapologetic in her stories, with a caustic tone that works well, and ends up being very sympathetic, given her backstory and her self-imposed rules.

The worldbuilding is truly minimal, but this is a nice palate cleanser, a story with a noir feel and an Interview with the Vampire vibe. Coincidentally, vampires do exist in this world where crime syndicates make war on one another, and one makes an appearance. One gets the feeling that a sequel could be in the works, but the story is perfectly self-contained.

Ice Upon a Pier is a compact novella.

✨ 3.5 stars