By Queerly Recommended
4.9
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The podcast currently has 123 episodes available.
Last episode, we said we love you and to take care of yourself. That's more true than ever.
This week, Tara and Kris trade stories about the week of the US election, its aftermath, and more importantly, what comes next. They settle on being pirates.
We’re still here, folks, and we’re going to be here until the wheels fall off this thing. Kris doesn’t have a recommendation this week, but Tara has come through with not one but two Christmas romances.
Official Recommendations
From Tara: A New Leash on Love and Frosted by the Girl Next Door by Jaime Clevenger and Aurora Rey
This week, Tara is recommending two Christmas romances that take place in a small Colorado town and run in parallel with each other.
A New Leash on Love by Jaime Clevenger and Aurora Rey (Bella Books) is about an interior designer who's back in the hometown she hates, only to fall for Shawn. Shawn is as sweet as the cupcakes her sister bakes for the family business and can't help falling for Kit right back.
Frosted by the Girl Next Door by Aurora Rey and Jaime Clevenger (Bold Strokes Books) features Shawn's sister Tara falling for Kit's friend Casey. Casey's new to town and opens a sex shop next door to their cupcake store. Is the shop a town scandal or the best thing that's happened to it in a long time? Read it to find out!
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It's a big week. We love you and hope you're taking care of yourself, whatever that may look like.
Kris gives an update on her visit to P-Town for Women's Week and her plans for Friendsgiving. Tara talks ice queens and participating in The Lesbian Review's event.
As always, we have a bunch of recommendations. We hope they give the distraction you need from the world outside.
Official Recommendations
From Kris: Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
This week, Kris caves to peer pressure in the best possible way to watch the film Portrait of a Lady on Fire. It’s the story of a young painter who masquerades as a walking companion to capture a reluctant subject in her last days of freedom before marriage. The ending isn’t happy, but it is, according to Kris, "satisfying," because this movie has a different take on love.
From Tara: Most Wonderful by Georgia Clark
This week, Tara recommends the holiday romance, Most Wonderful by Georgia Clark. It follows a trio of siblings as they find love (and themselves) when they head home for the holidays. One is a showrunner who has fallen for their star. Another is a complete disaster trying to… not disaster. And the third has recently discovered their lifelong friend is super hot. Tara loved it. Great vibes all around.
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Kris is out this week because it was recorded when she was heading off for Women’s Week. But fret not! Tara is joined by none other than Becks, reader and listener extraordinaire, and Director of Outreach for GCLS. They talk books, cozy games, politics, and so much more.
Official Recommendations
From Becks: positivity!
Instead of a film, TV show, or book, Becks recommends… positivity! We're living in difficult times, so it's important to reach out and let the people who make your life better know that you appreciate them.
Maybe that means sending an author a nice email. Maybe it’s posting a review for something that moves you to tears. Whatever it is, Becks suggests you act on the positive impulse you get from what moves you.
From Tara: Reverence by Milena McKay
This week, Tara recommends Reverence by Milena McKay. Set in the world of 1980s ballet, Reverence is a beautifully written sapphic romance with an ice queen and some quality angst (but not too much).
For Tara, it’s so much more than that, though. Reverence is an important book for us all to be reading right now, given what's happening in the world. What’s past isn’t always prologue, but we need to know what came before to deal with what’s in front of us. Read this and get back to Tara. She’s desperate to talk about it.
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Welcome everyone, to a big update about Kris’s neighborhood! We have Orange Kitty, weird neighbors, maybe new neighbors, and everything in between. Come on in and be entertained.
Official Recommendations
From Kris: Will & Harper (Netflix)
This week, Kris recommends the new documentary Will & Harper. It’s about Will Ferrell and his best friend Harper, one of the writers he met and came up with at Saturday Night Live. Harper transitioned later in life, and she and Will go on a trip across America to reconnect, learn and experience a very different world. It has tough parts and joyous parts, and it made Kris cry three times.
From Tara: The Duke’s Sister and I by Emma-Claire Sunday
This week, Tara recommends (checks notes) a Harlequin Historical Romance?!? The Duke’s Sister and I by Emma-Claire Sunday is a story about a woman trying to get married to a duke and falling for his raucous sister. Tara found this book and the hidden history it presents joyous and uplifting. Maybe history didn’t happen quite like this (we'll never know), but this book is a celebration of the fact that we have always been here.
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Project 2025's introduction makes it clear that the very existence of LGBTQ people is under threat, and that includes cutting off access to fiction that represents us. Because most queer fiction is published in the US, that means access could be dramatically restricted for everyone worldwide. And even if Project 2025 isn't rolled out, state-level challenges are unlikely to slow down anytime soon.
Laura Green from the Sapphic Book Review podcast joins Kris and Tara for this important bonus episode to talk about the very real and current threats against the books we love, and share tangible steps that anyone can take, whether you live in the US or not.
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We come up with new terms like knife queens™, heart punchers, and the dangers of sneak reading. All of that is followed by recommendations, as always.
Official Recommendations
From Kris: In Bloom by Kat Jackson
This week, Kris recommends In Bloom by Kat Jackson. It centers around two damaged people, burned by love, who discover that they may not have actually experienced love until now.
This is a difficult book, with lots of hard emotions. Kris praises the writing, including Jackson's way with words and characterization, as well as the book's sense of humor. Run, don’t walk, and get ready to feel something.
From Tara: View from the Top by Rachel Lacey
This week, Tara recommends View from the Top by Rachel Lacey. Tara has read five books by this author, and this smalltown romance is her favorite. She describes it as a "one-night stand to enemies (ish?) to friends to lovers" and it immediately went to her to-reread list.
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Kris talks about her new book Perfect and her first-ever experience working with a sensitivity reader. Tara shares about vacationing without children, finding a signed copy of one of her favourite books, and the joys of a newly painted house. After a month apart, they have a lot to catch up on!
Official Recommendations
From Kris: Sense8 (Netflix)
This week, Kris recommends the 2015 Netflix series, Sense8. Eight strangers across the globe suffer a traumatic vision that also seemingly connects them to each other. They begin to experience what the others experience and are able to communicate across great distances through their senses. Kris adored the concept and was unable to stop watching.
From Tara: Second Verse by Natasha West
This week, Tara recommends Natasha West’s Second Verse, a tropetastic sapphic romance that Tara found delightful. It's a friends-to-enemies-to-lovers romance told in two timelines, with two women who had once experienced an intense connection at the end of high school and parted on disastrous terms, reuniting 20 years later when their children become best friends.
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Kris provides an update on the situation with the feral cats in her neighborhood, including her ongoing campaign to love them (despite their attempts to gently murder her while she sleeps). Tara and Kris take a quick detour to write a book together before diving into the Olympics and then — drum roll — recommendations!
Official Recommendations
From Kris: Consecrated Ground by Virginia Black
This week, Kris recommends Virginia Black's debut novel, Consecrated Ground. It’s an urban fantasy with a romance, set in a world with witches and vampires, and it just hits. While Kris praises all aspects of this book, the pacing and juggling of the many storylines stood out the most for her.
From Tara: The Boyfriend (Netflix)
And this week, Tara recommends Japan’s first gay dating show, The Boyfriend (Netflix). Nine young men live together in a house in a small seaside town, dividing their time between working at a coffee truck and... finding true love? Tara loved how gentle the show was in comparison to a lot of Western dating shows, and how it showcased male vulnerability.
Read the article that Tara references.
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This week, Tara sits down with Frederick Smith (he/him), author of Tara’s official recommendation from Episode 86, One and Done. Fred talks about his early writing aspirations, the books that inspired him in his youth, his experiences as an author writing about Black gay men, and who he’s reading right now.
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Kris and Tara are back from the annual GCLS conference. They're energized, motivated, and… suffering from Covid, in Kris’s case. They talk all about their experiences at the best sleepaway camp for sapphic fiction fans before getting deep into those recommendations.
Official Recommendations
From Kris: The Man with 1000 Kids (Netflix)
This week, Kris recommends The Man with 1000 Kids, a limited documentary series that tells the real-life story of a Dutch scammer, accused of traveling the world and deceiving mothers into having his babies on a mass scale. Kris came into this series “completely naive” on the fertility industry and found the scale of the man’s crimes and the laws around it horrible, but in a way that also made it a compelling watch.
From Tara: Loser of the Year by Carrie Byrd
This week, Tara recommends Carrie Byrd's debut novel Loser of the Year. Mattie is a Jewish lesbian working at a Catholic school with a morality clause in its contract, which she didn’t notice when she took the job. Shouldn't be a problem except for the soccer coach, Jillian, who starts as an enemy and over time becomes (you guessed it) a lover. Tara loved this one and thinks you will too.
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The podcast currently has 123 episodes available.
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