I Talk Sh*t and Read

The Faithless by C. L. Clark 

Pub Date: March 07, 2023

Snapshot Review: If you’ve listened to the podcast before, then you already know I was all-in with C. L. Clark’s Magic of the Lost trilogy before I hit the midway point of The Unbroken. The second installment, The Faithless, is here with more political intrigue, power struggles, and tumultuous relationships.

Clark works all their strengths infusing this often brutal and gritty story with a simmering tension. The drama and angst between characters unravels in a painstakingly built world. Luca’s locked in a battle to regain control of Balladaire from her increasingly reprehensible uncle Duke Nicolas Ancier who refuses to relinquish his regency in favor of her rule. And now Touraine must reckon with both her intense feelings for Luca and her complicated relationship with the empire that stole her youth and her freedom in order to protect the gains made by the revolution in Qazāl by being Luca’s ally in truth, and in-person. Clark turns down the volume on the action to make room for deadly court intrigue. But this stellar follow-up offers enough murderous plotting and complicated heated relationship drama to be worth every single word put to page.

The Faithless‘ a harrowing stone cold groove written by someone unafraid to drag you through your feelings, challenges your belief systems, and leave you with (problematic) favs. Nothing should be taken for granted, especially not victory in love, or war. Set aside some time. You’re not going to want to put this one down once you start.  10/10 absolutely *recommend. 

***

Blood Debts by Terry J. Benton-Walker

Pub Date: April 4, 2023

Snapshot Review: Terry J Benton-Walker’s Blood Debts builds exactly the right tale of generational magic (and curses) set in a New Orleans you need. 

Sixteen year old twins Clement and Cristina Trudeau, heirs of a powerful magical legacy, are in mourning for their father and caring for their sick mother. On the anniversary of the greatest magical massacre that saw their family thrown from power, the twins discover that their mother isn’t sick, she’s cursed.  If they’re to save their family and avoid another massacre, this estranged duo will have to rebuild their trust that’s been lost with the swiftness. Benton-Walker’s New Orleans lives and breaths with fierce relevance.

The Trudeau’s intensely personal battle happens against a backdrop rife with political artifice and dangerous societal divides as unsettled gods and the undead lurk in the shadows. Debts’ shifting points of view add narrative insight with a deeply relatable edge and a side of tension. The character development keeps pace with the deepening drama offered with witty dialogue rife with biting one-liners. The allegory’s unapologetic and the cliffhangers stress-inducing. So go on ahead and put in a pre-order for the sequel, Blood Justice now. 

If contemporary fantasy is your bag, then Blood Debts’ blood-soaked tale of family drama steeped dangerous magic and life-altering generational trauma is absolutely it. *8/10 would recommend. 

***

The Blighted Stars by Megan E. O’Keefe

Pub Date: May 23, 2023

Snapshot Review: The Blighted Stars brings together Naira Sharp, a genetically enhanced spy intent on bringing down a wealthy corporate family by any means necessary and Tarquin Mercator, the wayward scion of said family pulled back into the fold and tasked with proving the safety of their mining processes.

What do you get when you blend an enemies-to-lovers and stranded on a planet full-throttle mystery in space together? A space opera built on sharp prose, stellar characters, and a finely-tuned dystopian hellscape. The Blighted Stars is a creepy, relatable, and incredibly immersive journey with exciting reveals and harrowing choices.  And, if you don’t like romance in your space opera to leave you properly conflicted, what are you even doing? 

O’Keefe’s The Blighted Stars collides at the intersection of science-fiction and horror with such vicious brilliance it’s a gamechanger for genre-bending. *9/10 you damn right I *recommend. 

Side-note: If you haven’t read Megan E. O’Keefe’s The Protectorate trilogy, go on ahead and throw Velocity Weapon onto your reading list because its the space opera you need to fill that hole left by The Expanse series…and then some. 

***

2023 is the place where time went sideways. These three novellas are wildly engaging and unique tone and fantastical tales. These authors are masters at rich worldbuilding and heart-stopping narratives. 

The Keeper’s Six by Kate Elliott

Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee

Empire of the Feast by Bendi Barrett

***

Pub Date: July 11, 2023

Pub date: July 18, 2023

Pub Date: July 18, 2023

Pub Date: July 25, 2023

Pub Date: July 18, 2023

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I had the opportunity to sit down with author Matt Wallace and discuss his epic fantasy trilogy. This epic opens with a seeming utopian society that relies on an expendable fighting force known as the Savages. Now there are plenty of books about empire building and fantasy worlds about a lurking evil beneath the surface of a seemingly peaceful society. But the Savage Rebellion offers action, intrigue, hidden dangers, and shifting loyalties bound up in an examination about the costs of ruling. 

Listen in as I chat with Matt about how the Savage Rebellion came to be and writing metaphorically without off the rails. Then go read (or listen to) the three books in the trilogy. You’ll thank me later. 

Synopsis: They call them Savages. Brutal. Efficient. Expendable. The empire relies on them. The Savages are the greatest weapon they ever developed. Culled from the streets of their cities, they take the ones no one will miss and throw them, by the thousands, at the empire’s enemies. If they live, they fight again. If they die, there are always more to take their place.

Evie is not a Savage. She’s a warrior with a mission: to find the man she once loved, the man who holds the key to exposing the secret of the Savage Legion and ending the mass conscription of the empire’s poor and wretched.

But to find him, she must become one of them, to be marked in her blood, to fight in their wars, and to find her purpose. Evie will die a Savage if she has to, but not before showing the world who she really is and what the Savage Legion can really do.

Synopsis: A war has begun. Savages, the empire’s most valuable resource, have been thrown at their captors’ enemies long enough. If their rebellion succeeds, it will undo a nation. At the helm of this Savage uprising is Evie, the Sparrow General. It isn’t a title she asked for or particularly wants, but she is the last hope for several peoples at the edge of extinction. Back in the empire’s city seat, Dyeawan, a brilliant young strategist…

Synopsis: The final war for the nation of Crache has begun. At the helm of the people’s rebellion is Evie, the Sparrow General. She has been captured by the Skrian, Crache’s vicious army, and is being brought back to the Capitol for punishment. But reinforcements are coming for her.

Dyeawan, who has climbed from street urchin to Crache’s highest seat of power through clever schemes and ruthless bloodshed, finds trouble on every front once she arrives. The rebellion approaches, and there are whispers of a martyr within the city who holds enough sway to stage a coup. If she doesn’t act quickly, her rule will be short-lived.

As the women who hold the nation’s future meet each other from different sides of the battlefield, will they be able to find a shared vision of Crache, or will they destroy each other first?

The final book Savage Crowns releases June 13, 2023. It’s a magnificent end to one hell of a ride 

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A Sleight of Shadows released April 25, 2023 and immediately made Ro’s top five list of April books. Listen in as Ro and Kat discuss her inspiration, writing process and her unflinching willingness to be ruthless when the story calls for it. Because, If you ask Ro, the best urban fantasy stories are the ones where things are dark and complicated.

Enter The Unseen World where the source of magic’s been corrupted and it’ll take more than a single confrontation to resolve the matter. Kat Howard confronts the price of magic by creating a world that makes you stare the real cost of winning, and happiness, directly in the eye with An Unkindness of Magicians. And now returns, six years later, with A Sleight of Shadows that forces you to wrestle with the question: how do you have a happily ever after if the world doesn’t want it?

Synopsis: In New York City, magic controls everything. But the power of magic is fading. No one knows what is happening, except for Sydney–a new, rare magician with incredible power that has been unmatched in decades, and she may be the only person who is able to stop the darkness that is weakening the magic. But Sydney doesn’t want to help the system, she wants to destroy it. Sydney comes from the House of Shadows, which controls the magic with the help of sacrifices from magicians.

Synopsis: After taking down the source of the corruption of the Unseen World, Sydney is left with almost no magical ability. Feeling estranged from herself, she is determined to find a way back to her status as one of the world’s most dangerous magicians. Unfortunately, she needs to do this quickly: the House of Shadows, the hell on earth that shaped her into who she was, the place she sacrificed everything to destroy, is rebuilding itself.

“The House of shadows sits on bones. All of the sacrifices, all of the magicians who died in Shadows, they’re buried beneath the foundations. Bones hold magic.”

The magic of the Unseen World is acting strangely, faltering, bleeding out from the edges. Determined to keep the House of Shadows from returning to power and to defeat the magicians who want nothing more than to have it back, Sydney turns to extremes in a desperate attempt to regain her sacrificed magic. She is forced to decide what she will give up and what she will lose and whether what must be destroyed is not only the House of Shadows, but the Unseen World itself.

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There are some stories that sneak up on you. Luring you in with subtle descriptions and a glimpse at a  character’s inner-most thoughts. You think you’re about to embark on a journey, and you are, but it’s definitely not the one you think following a young woman home – to the land she was stolen from – is likely to take you on. 

Instead of a slowly unfolding story about a soldier trying to find her footing, the character’s almost immediately thrust into thwarting an assassination attempt on a princess and carrying out orders certain to leave everyone in this squad of conscripts feeling some type of way about this homecoming. 

And that’s exactly how C. L. Clark’s debut novel The Unbroken begins.

This military/political fantasy centers Touraine, conscripted soldier, as she returns to the country of her birth as part of the colonizing force’s army and Luca an imperial princess determined to wrestle her throne from her uncle.

To prove her worthiness to rule, Luca aims to stop an colonial uprising by convincing the rebels she wants peace…when what she really wants is the means to rule unchallenged. Through a series of bloody events, Touraine finds herself under Luca’s authority and thrust into a world of diplomacy, intrigue and uneasy alliances that she’s in no way prepared for.

The Unbroken will challenge how you view military forces, colonial/post-colonial North Africa, power dynamics, and a women’s unconflicted willingness to be violent…and be hellaciously good at it. There’s magic, mayhem, love and what drives every good rebellion, tests of loyalty. 

In edition to simply being a fantastic story, the world The Unbroken is multifaceted and richly diverse. The lead women characters are queer; there are other lesbian, gay, and bi characters. There is also a trans side character (you’ll definitely want to see more of). 

If you only add one new author to your reading list in 2021, it needs to be C. L Clark. 

I had the pleasure of sitting down with the author to dig into how The Unbroken came to be, how the narrative hit me versus what Cherae readers would take away, and the multiple reasons to be found in this story that explain why I’m excited it’s the first of (at least) three books set in this world. Listen in and then be sure to pick up The Unbroken* that hit bookshelves March 23, 2021. 

C. L. Clark graduated from Indiana University’s creative writing MFA program and was a 2012 Lambda Literary Fellow. They’ve been a personal trainer, an English teacher, and an editor, and is some combination thereof as they travel the world. When they’re not writing or working, they’re learning languages, doing P90something, or reading about war and (post)colonial history. Their short fiction has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, FIYAH, and Uncanny, and on PodCastle, where they are currently a coeditor. You can follow them on Twitter: @c_l_clark.

*Ro received a review copy of The Unbroken in exchange for her honest opinion. 

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I Talk Sh!t & Presents: B!tch it’s a Book Club. This new segment will be a free wheeling discussion of books from various genres of speculative fiction. The set list’s built around novellas and designed to introduce authors and/or stories some may not know yet. First up is horror novella, The Murders of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson. 

Synopsis: For as long as Molly Southbourne can remember, she’s been watching herself die. Whenever she bleeds, another molly is born, identical to her in every way and intent on her destruction.

Molly knows every way to kill herself, but she also knows that as long as she survives she’ll be hunted. No matter how well she follows the rules, eventually the mollys will find her. Can Molly find a way to stop the tide of blood, or will she meet her end at the hand of a girl who looks just like her?

Listen in as we jump off a conversation cliff and unravel the themes that make Tade’s horror the kind that creeps up on you and leaves you wondering what you’d do if confronted with a murderous version of yourself. 

We have a lively discussion where horror, spycraft, and one epic existential crisis collide. No one’s quite sure what to make of The Murders of Molly Southbourne. So it’s a good thing there’s a sequel for us to dig into next meet up. 

I’m all about supporting independent shops so I’ve started a list on Bookshop.org where you can buy all the titles discussed on the show (this is an affiliate link so I get a small commission).  

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There really isn’t a better time to snuggle up somewhere with a book than in the Fall. I read regularly (which is a hobby once again gaining popularity) but during the days of distancing, it’s officially my go-to activity when I want to be outside in the sun but avoid people. 

If you’re trying to find things to do in what spare time you’ve got or are in need of some escapism well then Tuesday is ALWAYS a good day to think about buying (or putting in a request at your local library) some books. 

Synopsis: 

In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world.

Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man’s mind. Her ship carries one passenger. Described as harmless, the passenger, Serapio, is a young man, blind, scarred, and cloaked in destiny. As Xiala well knows, when a man is described as harmless, he usually ends up being a villain.

Crafted with unforgettable characters, Rebecca Roanhorse has created an epic adventure exploring the decadence of power amidst the weight of history and the struggle of individuals swimming against the confines of society and their broken pasts in the most original series debut of the decade.

Release Date: October 13, 2020

Buy the Book: Indiebound | Bookshop | 

Synopsis:

In the Jim Crow South, white supremacy reigns and tensions are high. But Evalene Deschamps has other things to worry about. She has two little sisters to look after, an overworked single mother, and a longtime crush who is finally making a move.

On top of all that, Evvie’s magic abilities are growing stronger by the day. Her family calls it jubilation—a gift passed down from generations of black women since the time of slavery. And as Evvie’s talents waken, something dark comes loose and threatens to resurface…

And when the demons of Evvie’s past finally shake free, she must embrace her mighty lineage, and summon the power that lies within her.

Release Date: October 13, 2020

Buy the Book: Indiebound | Bookshop | 

Buy the Book: Indiebound | Bookshop | 

I was lucky enough to get early access* to a few books releasing October 13th and I know I’ll be talking about these two all year. 

Quick Take: Ring Shout peers into the ‘dark heart’ of America with a story featuring  a group of badass women fighting a dark sorcerer – and literal demons – for the soul of the country. It’s bold, fierce, and deeply ironic. P. Djèlí Clark’s accessible voice and writing style grounds Ring Shout‘s inventive plot and works in a magic system built on spiritual elements rooted in Black culture. Clark mixes the supernatural into the past so imaginatively it leaves the reader no choice but to believe. Plus, there’s a magic sword. What else do you need? 

Synopsis:

D. W. Griffith is a sorcerer, and The Birth of a Nation is a spell that drew upon the darkest thoughts and wishes from the heart of America. Now, rising in power and prominence, the Klan has a plot to unleash Hell on Earth.

Luckily, Maryse Boudreaux has a magic sword and a head full of tales. When she’s not running bootleg whiskey through Prohibition Georgia, she’s fighting monsters she calls “Ku Kluxes.” She’s damn good at it, too. But to confront this ongoing evil, she must journey between worlds to face nightmares made flesh–and her own demons. Together with a foul-mouthed sharpshooter and a Harlem Hellfighter, Maryse sets out to save a world from the hate that would consume it.

Release Date: October 13, 2020

Buy the Book: Indiebound | Bookshop |

Quick Review: Alt-history on many fronts, Alix E. Harrow’s Once & Future Witches blends the mundane & the mystical into a tale of three sisters who are NOT to be discounted. It’s a masterful, magical, and savvy call to arms woven into a captivating adventure. This one builds slow, burns bright, and practically dares you to resist reading it through in one sitting. Harrow’s got a way with words that creates sublime prose and imbues it with the power to transport. 

Synopsis: 

In 1893, there’s no such thing as witches. There used to be, in the wild, dark days before the burnings began, but now witching is nothing but tidy charms and nursery rhymes. If the modern woman wants any measure of power, she must find it at the ballot box.

But when the Eastwood sisters–James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladonna–join the suffragists of New Salem, they begin to pursue the forgotten words and ways that might turn the women’s movement into the witch’s movement. Stalked by shadows and sickness, hunted by forces who will not suffer a witch to vote-and perhaps not even to live-the sisters will need to delve into the oldest magics, draw new alliances, and heal the bond between them if they want to survive.

There’s no such thing as witches. But there will be.

Release Date: October 13, 2020

Buy the Book: Indiebound | Bookshop | 

Victoria Schwab is a fantasy author who wrote my all time favorite superhero/villain origin story, Vicious. Schwab is best know for the Shades of Magic trilogy, a gaslamp fantasy (which means it’s set in a magical version of 19th century England) that’s a must read if you enjoy portal fantasies. 

Her latest, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue – released October 6 – is a story that’s been ten years in the making. And with the time put in, and given Schawb’s serious talent for building immersive worlds and weaving rich and magical tales, it’s almost certain to be a new favorite. 

Synopsis: 

France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.

Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.

But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.

Release Date: October 6, 2020

Buy the Book: Indiebound | Bookshop | 

Julie C. Dao is a Vietnamese-American fantasy author. She’s best know for her East-Asian-inspired story about the evil queen from Snow White in Forest of a Thousand Lanterns.  Dao has a smooth and readily accessible style that brings the drama, unravels mysteries and brings worlds to life with vibrant descriptions. She has a way with fairytale retellings and it should be an open secret by now how much I adore those. 

Her latest, Broken Wishes, is a the first in a series called The Mirror (built around a magical heirloom – and devastating curse)  and follows one family through the generations. Dao book will be followed by titles written by fellow authors, Dhonielle Clayton, J. C. Cervantes and L. L. McKinney to complete the series. 

Synopsis: 

1865 – Hanau, Germany

Sixteen-year-old Elva has a secret. She has visions and strange powers that she will do anything to hide. She knows the warnings about what happens to witches in their small village of Hanau. She’s heard the terrible things people say about the Witch of the North Woods, and the malicious hunts that follow. But when Elva accidentally witnesses a devastating vision of the future, she decides she has to do everything she can to prevent it. Tapping into her powers for the first time, Elva discovers a magical mirror and its owner—none other than the Witch of the North Woods herself. As Elva learns more about her burgeoning magic, and the lines between hero and villain start to blur, she must find a way to right past wrongs before it’s too late.

Release Date: October 6, 2020

Buy the Book: Indiebound | Bookshop | 

Synopsis: 

Tristan Strong, just back from a victorious but exhausting adventure in Alke, the land of African American folk heroes and African gods, is suffering from PTSD. But there’s no rest for the weary when his grandmother is abducted by a mysterious villain out for revenge. Tristan must return to Alke–and reunite with his loud-mouthed sidekick, Gum Baby–in order to rescue Nana and stop the culprit from creating further devastation.

Anansi, now a “web developer” in Tristan’s phone, is close at hand to offer advice, and several new folk heroes will aid Tristan in his quest, but he will only succeed if he can figure out a way to sew broken souls back together.

Release Date: October 6, 2020

Buy the Book: Indiebound | Bookshop | 

Synopsis: 

The Library of the Unwritten in Hell was saved from total devastation, but hundreds of potential books were destroyed. Former librarian Claire and Brevity the muse feel the loss of those stories, and are trying to adjust to their new roles within the Arcane Wing and Library, respectively. But when the remains of those books begin to leak a strange ink, Claire realizes that the Library has kept secrets from Hell–and from its own librarians.

Claire and Brevity are immediately at odds in their approach to the ink, and the potential power that it represents has not gone unnoticed. When a representative from the Muses Corps arrives at the Library to advise Brevity, the angel Rami and the erstwhile Hero hunt for answers in other realms. The true nature of the ink could fundamentally alter the afterlife for good or ill, but it entirely depends on who is left to hold the pen.

Release Date: October 6, 2020

Buy the Book: Indiebound | Bookshop | 

Synopsis:

Seventeen-year-old Shae has led a seemingly quiet life, joking with her best friend Fiona, and chatting with Mads, the neighborhood boy who always knows how to make her smile. All while secretly keeping her fears at bay… Of the disease that took her brother’s life. Of how her dreams seem to bleed into reality around her. Of a group of justice seekers called the Bards who claim to use the magic of Telling to keep her community safe.

When her mother is murdered, she can no longer pretend.

Not knowing who to trust, Shae journeys to unlock the truth, instead finding a new enemy keen to destroy her, a brooding boy with dark secrets, and an untold power she never thought possible.

Release Date: October 6, 2020

Buy the Book: Indiebound | Bookshop | 

Synopsis:

Lana Torres has always preferred dragons to people. In a few weeks, sixteen countries will compete in the Blazewrath World Cup, a tournament where dragons and their riders fight for glory in a dangerous relay. Lana longs to represent her native Puerto Rico in their first ever World Cup appearance, and when Puerto Rico’s Runner—the only player without a dragon steed—is kicked off the team, she’s given the chance.

But when she discovers that a former Blazewrath superstar has teamed up with the Sire—a legendary dragon who’s cursed into human form—the safety of the Cup is jeopardized. The pair are burning down dragon sanctuaries around the world and refuse to stop unless the Cup gets cancelled. All Lana wanted was to represent her country. Now, to do that, she’ll have to navigate an international conspiracy that’s deadlier than her beloved sport.

Release Date: October 6, 2020

Buy the Book: Indiebound | Bookshop | 

Synopsis:

Established in 2025, the purpose of the new organization was simple: To advocate for the world’s future generations and to protect all living creatures, present and future. It soon became known as the Ministry for the Future, and this is its story.

From legendary science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson comes a vision of climate change unlike any ever imagined. Told entirely through fictional eye-witness accounts, The Ministry For The Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, the story of how climate change will affect us all over the decades to come.

Its setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us – and in which we might just overcome the extraordinary challenges we face. 

Release Date: October 6, 2020

Buy the Book: Indiebound | Bookshop | 

Avery is an exceptional child. Everything he does is precise, from the way he washes his face in the morning, to the way he completes his homework – without complaint, without fuss, without prompt.

Zib is also an exceptional child, because all children are, in their own way. But where everything Avery does and is can be measured, nothing Zib does can possibly be predicted, except for the fact that she can always be relied upon to be unpredictable.

They live on the same street.

On an unplanned detour from home to school one morning, Avery and Zib find themselves climbing over a stone wall into the Up and Under – an impossible land filled with mystery, adventure and the strangest creatures.

And they must find themselves and each other if they are to also find their way out and back to their own lives.

Release Date: October 6, 2020

Buy the Book: Indiebound | Bookshop |

Synopsis:

Beatrice Clayborn is a sorceress who practices magic in secret, terrified of the day she will be locked into a marital collar that will cut off her powers to protect her unborn children. She dreams of becoming a full-fledged Magus and pursuing magic as her calling as men do, but her family has staked everything to equip her for Bargaining Season, when young men and women of means descend upon the city to negotiate the best marriages. The Clayborns are in severe debt, and only she can save them, by securing an advantageous match before their creditors come calling.

In a stroke of luck, Beatrice finds a grimoire that contains the key to becoming a Magus, but before she can purchase it, a rival sorceress swindles the book right out of her hands. Beatrice summons a spirit to help her get it back, but her new ally exacts a price: Beatrice’s first kiss . . . with her adversary’s brother, the handsome, compassionate, and fabulously wealthy Ianthe Lavan.

The more Beatrice is entangled with the Lavan siblings, the harder her decision becomes: If she casts the spell to become a Magus, she will devastate her family and lose the only man to ever see her for who she is; but if she marries—even for love—she will sacrifice her magic, her identity, and her dreams. But how can she choose just one, knowing she will forever regret the path not taken?

Release Date: October 13, 2020

Buy the Book: Indiebound | Bookshop | 

*I frequently received access to books via eARCs or physical ARCs and while that obliges me to share my opinion it doesn’t guarantee that it will be positive. The review will always be honest because otherwise, what’s the point?

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I’m always a fan of books that open with a unique sense of urgency. And fairy tales. I’m a sucker for a good retelling. One of my favorites this year beautifully blends the two. Author Kalynn Bayron’s debut young adult novel, Cinderella is Dead.

In Cinderella is Dead, Bayron, re-imagines the world of this classic with a striking sapphic story about a determined young woman willing to risk it all to expose the secrets and lies at the very heart of Cinderella’s mythic ‘happily ever-after’ in order to free a kingdom.

You can read my full review at Fiyah Literary Magazine.

But, after reading and reviewing this story, I couldn’t stop thinking about how much this re-imagining of Cinderella’s world stayed with me. So I thought I’d take my questions to the source. 

Kalynn agreed to sit down for a in-depth chat about her novel sharing what she hoped to accomplish by deconstructing the world of Cinderella and why the story and world-building took shape the way it did. 

Listen as I get a look under the hood and inside this story that so much more than a remake. 

Cinderella is Dead released July 7, 2020 in the US. In my opinion, it’s one of the best of the summer.  

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Words on Bathroom Walls is the latest contemporary romance adapted to film. The novel by the same name by Julia Walton release in 2018. It was wildly popular and viewed as an emotional look into living with an mental illness by some and an unnecessarily biting commentary on the Catholic Church by others. But overall, Words was well received and stuck a chord with many readers. It’s not completely surprising to see it made into a feature length film. 

Official Synopsis: Diagnosed with a mental illness halfway through his senior year of high school, a witty, introspective teen struggles to keep it a secret while falling in love with a brilliant classmate who inspires him to not be defined by his condition.

Words stars Charlie Plummer, Taylor Russell, Andy Garcia, AnnaSophia Robb, Beth Grant, Walton Goggins, Molly Parker, Devin Bostic, Lobo Sebastian. 

Since this film adaptation from Roadside Attractions hits theaters (yes, you read that correctly) August 21, 2020. It felt like a good time to sit down and discuss how a story initially told through journal entries translates onto the big screen. 

Ro’s joined by Shanna (co-host of the Supergirl recaps) for a dive into of how the film handles the book’s themes, its casting and what we really think works (plot and visuals) about Words on Bathroom Walls; with a few tangents along the way.  

Thor Freudenthal

Nick Naveda based on Julia Walton’s novel of the same name

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Documentary filmmaker Dawn Porter joins MTR critics Ro and Joi for a video interview about her latest project John Lewis: Good Trouble that premiering July 3, 2020.

Dawn Porter has a documentary style uniquely suited to walking Representative Lewis to walk through his own legacy.

This isn’t the first time she’s turned her focus on the work for equal rights. She’s turned her lens on the work Black public defenders do fighting for justice in a discriminatory southern legal system in Gideon’s Army. Her 2016 film, Trapped, follows the trench war over reproductive rights in states like Alabama, Mississippi and Texas.

Porter’s skillfully leads her subjects to the heart of the matter in ways that enlighten, humanize and challenge.

Settle in as Dawn Porter fields questions, shares her motivation and the direction for this look at Elder Statesmen John Lewis, and her process for deciding how to approach his legacy. 

This interview took place on June 2nd just as people took to the streets and Black people declared they had had enough. In the midst of the swirling upheaval and calls for redress, Good Trouble feels right on time. 

Be sure to check out Ro’s review and chat with Joi about the documentary.  

“Good Trouble” will be available on VOD and in virtual cinemas beginning Friday, July 3. Find the Film: https://www.johnlewisgoodtrouble.com/ 

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Ro and Joi are back to further share their delight and investment in Little Fires Everywhere  with a special interview with writer Shannon M. Houston. 

Shannon took lead on writing episode six, The Uncanny, my personal favorite. She agreed to sit down and talk all things LFE. If you don’t know the name Shannon Houston, trust me, she’s definitely one to watch. Listen in and see why we’re officially declaring ourselves super fans. 

Little Fires Everywhere is a dynamic and engaging adaptation. This is very much owing to it’s talent packed writers’ room lead by show runner Liz Tigelar. 

It took a village to bring this family drama to such dynamic life. Especially since this is one series that holds together of it’s entire story arc. This behind-the-scene clip of bringing this book to audiences gives a taste of what it took: 

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