Recs if you like Lirael...

JK Rowling is a bigot who uses her platform to hurt transfolks and other marginalized groups (plus she literally just quoted Mein Kampf on the bird site). If you're still supporting her in 2025, don't bother talking to me.

2026 is merciless. We lost another one, people. Pour one out for a legend. I'm devastated. Clue is one of my all-time favorite movies. I saw Rocky Horror Picture Show on the Queen Mary when I was in high school. They wrote slut on my chest and had me perform sapphic erotica for the audience. I had misread the vibe and was wearing a sailor suit my friend had cut the legs and crotch out of. It was an incredible (eye-opening) evening for me. We will miss you so much, Tim.

There will be no one breasting boobily anywhere here.

Some criteria:

• women characters should be multidimensional with their own goals, agendas, and flaws
• the main character should be a woman, and there should be at least one other female character who is significant to the plot
• women characters’ role should not be defined solely by her relationship to a man
• author is a cis man
• one book per author

Let’s hold male authors to a higher standard because it is possible.

fantasical libraries and whimsical bookshops, these books add a magical charm to familiar bookish places

Because magic and murder do kind of mix

fiction books with a main character or prominent side character that fits the D&D Artificer class. also features their creations! here for the tinkering, the magical device-making, the "i can make this thing drive"! recs and input welcome!

Books featuring our favorite four-legged companions

for when you want to feel like a Mortalitasi death mage of Nevarra's Grand Necropolis.

(or: books that feel reminiscent of Nevarran culture in the Dragon Age series; worldbuilding that centers death and necromancy as a major facet of culture, spirituality, and political structures)

Books where a library is a key part of the setting, or featuring a fictional library that captures the imagination

Leading the way while raising the dead.

Necromancy, bone magic and hauntings