Book picks similar to
Night of the Flames by Joel Derfner


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The Abyss Surrounds Us


Emily Skrutskie - 2016
    But can she survive living among them?For Cassandra Leung, bossing around sea monsters is just the family business. She’s been a Reckoner trainer-in-training ever since she could walk, raising the genetically-engineered beasts to defend ships as they cross the pirate-infested NeoPacific. But when the pirate queen Santa Elena swoops in on Cas’s first solo mission and snatches her from the bloodstained decks, Cas’s dream of being a full-time trainer seems dead in the water. There’s no time to mourn. Waiting for her on the pirate ship is an unhatched Reckoner pup. Santa Elena wants to take back the seas with a monster of her own, and she needs a proper trainer to do it. She orders Cas to raise the pup, make sure he imprints on her ship, and, when the time comes, teach him to fight for the pirates. If Cas fails, her blood will be the next to paint the sea.

Maverick


J.A. Cipriano - 2017
    Badass, honorable, and able to go toe to toe with the best whiskey drinker this side of Tennessee, but when NASA comes to recruit her for a daring space rescue, she'll find herself among a motley crew of the supernatural world. Their goal is simple, keep the evil lord Zug of space planet Maverick from acquiring the Gideon cube and using its immense power to rain down destruction on earth. Sounds easy right? Well, it would be if not for the niggling thirty-six hour timeline that started yesterday...

Labyrinth Lost


Zoraida Córdova - 2016
    Even gods make mistakes.Alex is a bruja, the most powerful witch in a generation…and she hates magic. At her Deathday celebration, Alex performs a spell to rid herself of her power. But it backfires. Her whole family vanishes into thin air, leaving her alone with Nova, a brujo she can’t trust, but who may be Alex’s only chance at saving her family.

Girls Can Kiss Now: Essays


Jill Gutowitz - 2022
    There’s the time the FBI showed up at her door because of something she tweeted about Game of Thrones. The pop songs that have been the soundtrack to the worst moments of her life. And of course, the pivotal day when Orange Is the New Black hit the airwaves and broke down the door to Jill’s own sexuality. In these honest examinations of identity, desire, and self-worth, Jill explores perhaps the most monumental cultural shift of our lifetimes: the mainstreaming of lesbian culture. Dusting off her own personal traumas and artifacts of her not-so-distant youth she examines how pop culture acts as a fun house mirror reflecting and refracting our values—always teaching, distracting, disappointing, and revealing us. Girls Can Kiss Now is a fresh and intoxicating blend of personal stories, sharp observations, and laugh-out-loud humor. This timely collection of essays helps us make sense of our collective pop-culture past even as it points the way toward a joyous, uproarious, near—and very queer—future.

Bookburners: The Complete Season 1


Max Gladstone - 2016
    It’s trapped in ancient texts and artifacts, and only a few who discover it survive to fight back. Detective Sal Brooks is a survivor. She joins a Vatican-backed black-ops anti-magic squad—Team Three of the Societas Librorum Occultorum—and together they stand between humanity and the magical apocalypse. Some call them the Bookburners. They don’t like the label.Supernatural meets The Da Vinci Code in a fast-paced, kickass character driven novel (previously published serially at SerialBox.com/Serials/Bookburners) chock-full of magic, mystery, and mayhem, written collaboratively by a team of some of the best writers working in fantasy.

Plain Bad Heroines


Emily M. Danforth - 2020
    Flo and Clara, two impressionable students, are obsessed with each other and with a daring young writer named Mary MacLane, the author of a scandalous bestselling memoir. To show their devotion to Mary, the girls establish their own private club and call it The Plain Bad Heroine Society. They meet in secret in a nearby apple orchard, the setting of their wildest happiness and, ultimately, of their macabre deaths. This is where their bodies are later discovered with a copy of Mary’s book splayed beside them, the victims of a swarm of stinging, angry yellow jackets. Less than five years later, The Brookhants School for Girls closes its doors forever—but not before three more people mysteriously die on the property, each in a most troubling way. Over a century later, the now abandoned and crumbling Brookhants is back in the news when wunderkind writer, Merritt Emmons, publishes a breakout book celebrating the queer, feminist history surrounding the “haunted and cursed” Gilded-Age institution. Her bestselling book inspires a controversial horror film adaptation starring celebrity actor and lesbian it girl Harper Harper playing the ill-fated heroine Flo, opposite B-list actress and former child star Audrey Wells as Clara. But as Brookhants opens its gates once again, and our three modern heroines arrive on set to begin filming, past and present become grimly entangled—or perhaps just grimly exploited—and soon it’s impossible to tell where the curse leaves off and Hollywood begins. A story within a story within a story and featuring black-and-white period illustrations.

Gift of Time


Robin Alexander - 2007
    From the moment she meets antique dealer Reagan Montgomery, Leah's world is turned upside down. A unique gift given to her by Reagan leads them on a journey that defies logic and the laws of time. Gift of Time is a story of love, devotion and a bond that carries two women from one lifetime to the next.

Jericho


Ann McMan - 2010
    Her plans to hide out and heal her wounds go by the wayside as she gets drawn into the daily lives of the quirky locals and becomes fast friends with Maddie Stevenson, the enigmatic physician who has returned to the backcountry community to take over her late father’s medical practice.Ann McMan weaves a story of life and love in the beautiful mountains of Virginia.

Juliet Takes a Breath


Gabby Rivera - 2016
    She just came out to her family and isn’t sure if her mom will ever speak to her again. But Juliet has a plan, sort of, one that’s going to help her figure out this whole “Puerto Rican lesbian” thing. She’s interning with the author of her favorite book: Harlowe Brisbane, the ultimate authority on feminism, women’s bodies, and other gay-sounding stuff. Will Juliet be able to figure out her life over the course of one magical summer? Is that even possible? Or is she running away from all the problems that seem too big to handle? With more questions than answers, Juliet takes on Portland, Harlowe, and most importantly, herself.

The City Beautiful


Aden Polydoros - 2021
    For Alter Rosen, this is the land of opportunity, and he dreams of the day he’ll have enough money to bring his mother and sisters to America, freeing them from the oppression they face in his native Romania. But when Alter’s best friend, Yakov, becomes the latest victim in a long line of murdered Jewish boys, his dream begins to slip away. While the rest of the city is busy celebrating the World’s Fair, Alter is now living a nightmare: possessed by Yakov’s dybbuk, he is plunged into a world of corruption and deceit, and thrown back into the arms of a dangerous boy from his past. A boy who means more to Alter than anyone knows. Now, with only days to spare until the dybbuk takes over Alter’s body completely, the two boys must race to track down the killer—before the killer claims them next.Death lurks around every corner in this unforgettable Jewish historical fantasy about a city, a boy, and the shadows of the past that bind them both together.

The Queen of Ieflaria


Effie Calvin - 2018
    At age seventeen, Esofi's journey to Ieflaria is not for the wedding she always expected but instead to offer condolences on the death of her would-be husband.But Ieflaria is desperately in need of help from Rhodia for their dragon problem, so Esofi is offered a new betrothal to Prince Albion's younger sister, the new Crown Princess Adale. But Adale has no plans of taking the throne, leaving Esofi with more to battle than fire-breathing beasts.

A Curse of Roses


Diana Pinguicha - 2020
    With just one bite, cheese turns into lilies.There’s a famine plaguing the land, and Princess Yzabel is wasting food simply by trying to eat. Before she can even swallow, her magic—her curse—has turned her meal into a bouquet. She’s on the verge of starving, which only reminds her that the people of Portugal have been enduring the same pain.If only it were possible to reverse her magic. Then she could turn flowers…into food.Fatyan, a beautiful Enchanted Moura, is the only one who can help. But she is trapped by magical binds. She can teach Yzabel how to control her curse—if Yzabel sets her free with a kiss.As the King of Portugal’s betrothed, Yzabel would be committing treason, but what good is a king if his country has starved to death?With just one kiss, Fatyan is set free. And with just one kiss, Yzabel is yearning for more.She’d sought out Fatyan to help her save the people. Now, loving her could mean Yzabel’s destruction.Based on Portuguese legend, this #OwnVoices historical fantasy is an epic tale of mystery, magic, and making the impossible choice between love and duty…

The River Mists Of Talry


Terry Mancour - 2013
    . . and use them as leverage against Master Minalan the Spellmonger.Tyndal is out of his element - just barely a mage, he's far more adept with a pitchfork than a wand. But then the gods never asked his opinion, and he sets to his task with the determination of a mountain-born lad. And the attractive daughter of a local innkeeper persists in distracting him from his charge, an attention that Tyndal desires even as he recognizes the danger of such an entanglement.What's a young apprentice mage to do . . . especially when the worst of his fears are realized, and the checkered cloaks of the Censorate warmagi appear on the docks of Talry. Then Tyndal's only hope to save his master's bride and his family - not to mention his own life - is to trust in the River Mists of Talry!

The Circus Rose


Betsy Cornwell - 2020
    Twins Rosie and Ivory have grown up at their ringmaster mother’s knee, and after years on the road, they’re returning to Port End, the closest place to home they know. Yet something has changed in the bustling city: fundamentalist flyers paper the walls and preachers fill the squares, warning of shadows falling over the land. The circus prepares a triumphant homecoming show, full of lights and spectacle that could chase away even the darkest shadow. But during Rosie’s tightrope act, disaster strikes. In this lush, sensuous novel interwoven with themes of social justice and found family, it’s up to Ivory and her magician love—with the help of a dancing bear—to track down an evil priest and save their circus family before it’s too late.

The Tiger's Daughter


K. Arsenault Rivera - 2017
    Now, their border walls begin to crumble, and villages fall to demons swarming out of the forests.Away on the silver steppes, the remaining tribes of nomadic Qorin retreat and protect their own, having bartered a treaty with the empire, exchanging inheritance through the dynasties. It is up to two young warriors, raised together across borders since their prophesied birth, to save the world from the encroaching demons.This is the story of an infamous Qorin warrior, Barsalayaa Shefali, a spoiled divine warrior empress, O-Shizuka, and a power that can reach through time and space to save a land from a truly insidious evil.