New Release! Dissenter Rebellion: The Rattri Extraction

Dissenter Rebellion: The Rattri Extraction is on sale now!

A Place of Refuge series.

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#TBRChallenge – Love Is Love: The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune was a gift from a friend who is a bookseller.

I’m glad I made the time to read it; it’s a very soft, hopeful novel set in an alternate world, roughly contemporary with ours, which includes many different magical populations and a 1984-like government that requires them to be registered and controlled (“See Something, Say Something” signs are everywhere.) The Protagonist Linus Baker is a meticulous career bureaucrat whose job is to inspect magical orphanages, to make sure the children are not being mistreated. He’s unexpectedly assigned a case at an island orphanage with children like no others he’s ever met, including an incredibly powerful six year old and one child whose species is unknown.

Linus takes his cat and leaves behind the city, where it always rains, emerging into the literal sun and seeing the ocean for the first time. His innate kindness soon wars with his fear of how he’ll be treated by Extremely Upper Management if he fails their expectations, and what will become of him afterwards, but he soon finds ways to assert himself as well as protect the children, and to tentatively reach out to potential new friends. Linus is strongly drawn to the mysterious master of the orphanage, who has his own secrets. It’s a sweet and satisfying book, even when elements of it are melancholy.

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My May Reading Log

Fiction:
The Unraveling by Benjamin Rosenbaum is set in a far future in a semi-utopian habitat where people (I assume humans) have two genders, Vail (ve, vir) and Staid (ze, zir); they still use the terms “Mother” and “Father” but either gender can bear children after suitable body modification. Also, most people have multiple bodies, usually three, which can all operate independently but know what the other bodies are doing and sensing. Everyone is linked into The Feed, in which all people can watch what any other people are doing at any time, and comment positively or negatively in ways that impact one’s social status; spaces with no access to The Feed are rare. Vails and Staids are expected to behave in certain set ways, and societal disapproval seems to keep this fairly rigid. Until, of course The Unraveling of the title. The story follows a Staid child named Fift, who does not, cannot, follow expectations despite wanting to do so in order to please zir parents and preserve zir familial Cohort. As a result, things change; I won’t spoil exact events since this is a relatively new book, but the scope encompasses not only gender but the disruptions of art, how and why societies change, and how individual activists, and groups with divergent opinions, can all make a difference; that includes people who make vids (Clip Operas) and write fanfiction (Real People Fiction in this story). It was lovely to read some science fiction that really made me work to get into the world, at least for the first few pages; Rosenbaum did a splendid job with worldbuilding that was never ponderous or didactic.

A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole is a contemporary romance in which a penniless graduate student in Public Health, Naledi, is wooed by Thabiso, crown prince of the fictional African country of Thesolo. The twist is that Naledi was betrothed to him as a child, but due to her parents’ deaths, is ignorant of this fact and has been raised in a series of New York foster homes. Plot elements include royalty in disguise, rich man/poor woman, and the difficulty Naledi in particular has in truly opening herself emotionally to anyone after a life of constantly losing the people she loves; as well as learning from her relationship with Thabiso, Ledi learns and grows in her relationship with her flighty, needy best friend, Portia. I loved secondary character Likotsi, Thabiso’s snappily dressed lesbian personal assistant, and hope she’s being set up for her own happy ending.

The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older is a mystery set in a gas giant-circling habitat, featuring a lesbian detective and her former lover who’s now an academic specializing in the lost environments of Earth through literature (at one point, she’s studying Watership Down by Richard Adams, with its meticulous descriptions of flora known to rabbits). There’s a lowkey second chance romance woven into what, at first, seems like a locked room murder mystery but turns out to be much more complicated and unexpected. There’s a thematic undercurrent relating to how humans might cope with and adapt to have destroyed their home planet and left it behind.

Fanfiction:
Sorry If You’re Starstruck by heyjupiter is alternate universe fanfiction in which Tony Stark is a movie director and Bruce Banner wrote a wildly successful series of children’s books. While recovering from an accident, Tony gets treatment for addiction and reads Bruce’s books, and after a rocky start, the reclusive author comes to visit him. There are no superheroes in this world; Bruce’s transformations into Hulk are seamlessly redrawn as dissociative identity disorder, and Tony is Hollywood royalty instead of a technological pioneer. It’s a lovely friends-to-lovers romance.

My May TBR Challenge book was The Dos and Donuts of Love by Adiba Jaigirdar.

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#TBRChallenge – Freebie: The Dos and Donuts of Love by Adiba Jaigirdar

This review is in advance of publication. The Dos and Donuts of Love by Adiba Jaigirdar will be out June 6, 2023. I received this ARC from Netgalley, so it fits the “freebie” theme.

This book was a lot of fun!

Teenaged Shireen Malik, daughter of Bangladeshi immigrants to Ireland, is depressed from a recent breakup and because her best friend, Fatima, is spending the summer in Bangladesh with her family. Shireen is propelled out of her doldrums when she’s chosen for a junior baking show, but less thrilled when she learns her ex-girlfriend, Chris Huang, will also be a contestant. Can they learn to at least be friends again? What baking challenges await? Will Shireen’s baking experience pay off in a win that will help her parents’ donut shop stay open? Stay tuned!

I was initially drawn to this book by the baking show plot element. The fictional Junior Irish Baking Show mashes up elements of several different types of reality shows: a confessional booth for the contestants, weekly impromptu challenges (no pre-planning for the bakers), and different rules for different episodes. There are punning nods to real world celebrities Paul Hollywood, Mary Berry, and Gordon Ramsay.

Fictional Padma Bollywood, one of the show judges, is Shireen’s favorite professional chef, and their relationship offered a nuanced exploration of the value of mentorship and how race and culture figure into that. When racist trolls target Shireen and Chris, the only contestants of color, on Twitter after the first episode, they’re upset by how their fellow contestants are dismissive of the abuse. Padma is able to support them when others don’t, and later is able to leverage what power she has in helpful ways which I will not spoil here. I loved the contributions of supportive adults, especially Padma and Shireen’s parents, to the story.

Chris and Shireen have a hint of a Romeo and Juliet vibe (minus the tragedy!), in that their parents own rival donut shops across the street from each other, and they first interact via conflict. Both shops are suffering from declining business when the book opens; I loved the way those issues were resolved, as well.

Overall, I loved this book and would definitely read more by this author. I’ve been burned out on Young Adult for quite a while, so I was especially happy to read a teen romance that felt fresh and new.

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My April Reading Log

Fiction:
The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen by KJ Charles is a male/male historical romance set in Regency England in Romney Marsh in Kent, an area known for its culture of smuggling. Gareth Inglis, raised by his distant uncle and saddled with a bullying cousin, inherits a baronetcy and a house in the small town of Dymchurch from his estranged and selfish father. Unexpectedly, after his arrival he encounters a lover from a few anonymous but intense encounters in London. Joss Doomsday, along with his powerful mother, is the “gaffer” of the local smugglers and his duties in that role are almost immediately at odds with Gareth’s “outmarsh” ideas. When Gareth begins to follow in his father’s footsteps as a naturalist, he becomes embroiled in a mystery and must find ways to work with Joss to protect his half-sister and his own reputation from serious threats. Meanwhile Joss, while still being a caretaker for all, struggles to balance his uncle’s increasing bad behavior and his mother’s reluctance to chastise her brother as needed. The plethora of realistic conflict made this book a page-turner to the very end. My favorite secondary character was Joss’ grandfather, a former enslaved man who’d escaped Georgia; he is a conduit of local information, a steadying influence, and a valuable advisor at critical moments. Warning for some child abuse, mostly off-screen, that is not addressed by the characters as quickly as it should have been.

Bitter Medicine by Mia Tsai is contemporary fantasy romance featuring a Chinese near-immortal, Elle, and a half-fae Frenchman, Luc, who both work for a mysterious and powerful supernatural agency. It’s got many Xianxia (Chinese “immortal heroes” fantasy) vibes. After traumatic events with her family, for which Elle feels responsible, she’s in hiding, which means concealing the true extent of her power as a descendant of a god of medicine. Luc is concealing the reasons he continues to work for the domineering head of their agency as a fixer and sometimes assassin. Of course, Elle and Luc fall in love, but their conflicting responsibilities and the true selves they hide from each other add a lot of excellent tension, resulting in difficult but ultimately satisfying decisions. There’s a lot of fun banter and some side characters I’d love to see again. Warning for some instances of magical coercion.

Pretty Ring Time: Matches Making by L.A. Hall is nineteenth in the “Clorinda Cathcart’s Circle” series and was another soothing visit with old friends, some of whom have intriguing new acquaintances. I believe we have now reached 1851 in their timeline, given that various characters reference the Great Exhibition. I would recommend starting at the beginning of this series, The Comfortable Courtesan, which is set in Regency London, to get the most out of these stories, as the current “Circle” stories feature children and grandchildren as well as the initial characters.

The Murder of Mr. Wickham by Claudia Gray includes almost all of Jane Austen’s married couples at a house party where George Wickham shows up and gets himself murdered. Gray has given the completed Austen novels a reasonable chronology so the couples are spaced out in age and time of life; Marianne Dashwood and Colonel Brandon are the most newly-married, while Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett have been married for over twenty years. Gray constructs connections between all of them, some close and some more distant. Original characters are the detectives: Jonathan Darcy, eldest son attending with his parents, and Juliet Tilney, who’s attending her first house party alone, which means that Austen’s canonical characters are the suspects. Gray ramps up the conflict between Wickham and the Darcys, and adds motives for the rest by extrapolating Wickham’s seducing ways and adding in blackmail and a plausible fraudulent investment scheme. I am not sure if anyone has fanfictionally murdered Mr. Wickham before, but it’s a great idea and I was entertained, more by the canonical couple dynamics than the mystery itself. As for the original characters, Juliet is an ingenue who privately questions constraints upon a young woman’s behavior as part of her strong sense of right and wrong. She was realistically spunky and I loved her. Jonathan is clearly portrayed as a person with autism, though I felt the traits he exhibited (good at numbers, overwhelmed by crowds, socially rigid) were in my opinion a bit stereotypical and hammered in in relation to the rest of his characterization; note the author does not have autism but did employ a sensitivity reader. Jonathan’s perspective made a terrific foil and complement to Juliet’s; I would have liked more of Jonathan’s dialogue and investigations with Juliet. I am assuming the book is intended as a possible series opener [ETA: confirmed!], and am curious if the next murder victim would be a canonical character or not. ETA: I’m expecting the second book will expand the roles of the original characters.

My April TBR Challenge book was Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark.

Otherwise in April, I read some fanfiction but did not make notes on any of it.

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#TBRChallenge – Unusual Historical: Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark

Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark is a novella set in 1922 Georgia, mostly in Macon with a set piece at Stone Mountain. It’s a dark fantasy that includes body horror, in which white supremacists use the initial release of “Birth of a Nation” in 1915 to enact a ritual bringing demons into the world. The human racism and racist actions of these white supremacists are subsequently exacerbated by these monstrous creatures who devour both hatred and people, including some of the supremacists. As always with Clark, a historian, the significant details of the time period are skillfully deployed, lending deep resonance to the story’s thematic concerns.

I particularly enjoyed the wide range of women characters. The protagonist, Maryse Boudreaux, was called to become a monster-hunter first via trauma at the hands of white supremacists, then by a supernatural weapon gifted to her by ambivalent otherworldly beings. She brings the mystical sword with her when called to fight “Ku Kluxes” by the wise old Gullah woman, Nana Jean, who serves as the group’s mentor and counsels Maryse not to be led by her hatred of those who harmed her. (I loved that Nana Jean and Uncle Will, who leads the Shouts that raise power, have a romantic relationship.) Maryse’s hunting companions include Sadie, a brash, fearless sharpshooter, and an older woman, Chef, a butch lesbian who dresses as a man, is an explosives expert, and fought in the Great War with the Harlem Hellfighters. German Jewish widow Emma Krauss, the only sympathetic White character, is a socialist who provides both similarity and counterpoint views to the Black characters she lives among.

The book isn’t long, but it packs in a lot of history with its examination of hatred’s harm to both haters and hated, leaving them in a vicious cycle that allows no relief or resolution.

NPR’s review. Before We Go’s review.

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My March Reading Log

Fiction:
The Iron Princess by Barbara Hambly is her first fantasy novel in about a decade and a half. To me, it had elements that reminded me of both the Darwath books and the Windrose Chronicles; it’s likely meant to be a world in the same universe, where magical travel between different worlds is possible through a void, mageborn people can see in the dark, and messing with things humans don’t understand can lead to disastrous invasions from outside our ken. The world where most of the story takes place is in the midst of industrial advances via colonialism and slavery. Magic is fading and becoming unreliable, except for that of the Crystal Mages, who rely on the magical dust adamis. Mining for adamis seems to be the origin, or at least the expansion, of the colonialist invasion, which has pushed the indigenous people further and further from the coasts, assuming they can avoid being enslaved as workers. Protagonist Clea is the daughter of the most wealthy of the colonialists, but her mother was a powerful indigenous magic user, and after her father has her mother executed for political reasons (He’s definitely got some Henry the Eighth vibes going on), she connects with her mother’s people and begins to work towards revolution. This novel is more about the monster plot than the nuts and bolts of revolution, but I appreciated that so many issues were at least raised; I’m curious whether there will be more stories set in this world.

A Tempest at Sea by Sherry Thomas is seventh in the “Lady Sherlock” series, and felt a bit like taking a breath with a shipboard mystery/spy story, after the intense Moriarty plotline semi-resolved in book six. Charlotte Holmes’ sister Olivia is at long last free of her mother and going on a long voyage to warmer climes with her beloved older relative, accompanied by her sister’s lover, Ash, and his two children. Then her mother shows up unexpectedly on the same ship. At the same time, Charlotte Holmes and Mrs. Watson are in disguise, looking for some highly classified materials amid the passengers. The mystery has a fair amount of typical Thomas flashbacks that illuminate the mystery with new information or different points of view, but otherwise was fairly standard. I enjoyed it, and will buy the next one.

Bitter Medicine by Mia Tsai is contemporary fantasy romance featuring a Chinese near-immortal, Elle, and a half-fae Frenchman, Luc, who both work for a mysterious and powerful supernatural agency. It’s got many Xianxia (Chinese “immortal heroes” fantasy) vibes. After traumatic events with her family, for which Elle feels responsible, she’s in hiding, which means concealing the true extent of her power as a descendant of a god of medicine. Luc is concealing the reasons he continues to work for the domineering head of their agency as a fixer and sometimes assassin. Of course, Elle and Luc fall in love, but their conflicting responsibilities and the true selves they hide from each other add a lot of excellent tension, resulting in difficult but ultimately satisfying decisions. There’s a lot of fun banter and some side characters I’d love to see again. Warning for some instances of magical coercion.

Nonfiction:
My TBR Challenge book for March was My Father’s Ghost by Suzy McKee Charnas.

Fanfiction:
Castor and Pollux by Ione is a delightful crossover: Frederica by Georgette Heyer, with the Aubrey-Maturin Series by Patrick O’Brian. Frederica is pregnant; she and her family make some new friends.

Human Touch by Edonohana Biggles and von Stalhein from the W.E. Johns books are experimented upon by an evil scientist and must support each other to escape. A perfect hurt-comfort bonbon.

If There Was a Me for You by westernredcedar is a Check Please! AU in which Eric and Jack don’t meet until middle-age. Jack is a retired NHL star, divorced with two kids; Eric is directing commercials, having given up on making a career out of baking long ago. It’s time for a change, for both of them. I really enjoyed this.

Snap Decisions by heyjupiter is an Avengers AU in which there are no superheroes. In their thirties, Tony Stark is an unhappy CEO and and Bruce Banner is a high school teacher with complex PTSD from childhood abuse. They’re both coaching high school academic decathlon teams (the author’s note explains a great deal I never knew about the many different variations of decathlon/bowl). For the most part, it’s a sweet romance between the two with a Greek chorus of high schoolers, until Chancellor Thanos closes half the schools in New York City. Crushed beneath the weight of too many expectations, Bruce needs Tony’s help to survive; meanwhile, Tony has learned a lot from Bruce about how to deal with his own issues. There’s a very satisfying happy ending.

edge of providence by adiduck (book_people) and whimsicalimages is a massive “fixit” for the Star Wars prequel trilogy, in which Obi-Wan Kenobi and his teenaged padawan Anakin Skywalker stumble across the vast clone army being assembled on Kamino while the clones are still teenagers and younger. I saw the prequel trilogy once, in the theater when it came out, and never felt the urge to see it again; I have not seen the Clone Wars animated series and am not that familiar with Star Wars: Legends (the Expanded Universe/EU), but I managed to follow just fine. Ultimately, in this story there’s a romance between Mandalorian Jango Fett (the source of the clones) and Obi-Wan, while Anakin finds the social support he lacked in canon. One of the things I hated most about the prequel movies was the disposability of droids and clones; their purpose in the story felt half-baked, like an excuse for massive CGI battles instead of an integral element of the worldbuilding. This story focuses on the clones and on Mandalorian culture and politics; though I was still extremely dubious about Jango Fett’s initial motivation for the clones and the whole convoluted Sith plot, I ended up enjoying this alternate universe saga quite a bit.

Unbranded Air by suitesamba is a Sherlock AU set in 1890s Wyoming; Sherlock is injured while investigating cattle rustlers and is brought to John Watson, the only available doctor who is trying to forget his widowhood by being a rancher. A gentle romance and an excellent partnership ensue. Spoiler: Mrs. Hudson is fine because Watson is an excellent doctor.

And This, Your Living Kiss by opal_bullets is a mundane Supernatural AU in which Dean Winchester becomes a (very reclusive) poet, at least until his father’s death sends him into depression. After he moves to California to live with brother Sam and his family, he reconnects with his former English teacher Missouri Moseley, who tells him to take a poetry class with Professor Castiel Novak. Romance, and eventually more poetry, ensues. I loved this exploration of another plausible career for Dean, linked to his love for rock lyrics.

Until I Can Say It Myself by westernredcedar is an Olympics AU in which Eric Bittle became an ice dancer and Canadian citizen instead of attending Samwell, and meets Jack Zimmermann when he’s playing for the Canadian national team. As well as a romance, this is a story about standing up to homophobia and realizing how harmful inaction can be. Warning for a hate crime that is not seen, but is briefly described afterwards.

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A Place of Refuge omnibus!

The A Place of Refuge omnibus is available for sale.

They lost the revolution. But then, they found sanctuary—and hope.

Telepathic warrior Talia Avi, genius engineer Miki Boudreaux, and augmented soldier Faigin Balfour fought the fascist Federated Colonies for ten years, following the charismatic dissenter Jon Churchill. Then Jon disappeared, Talia was thought dead, and Miki and Faigin struggled to take Jon’s place and stay alive.

When the FC is unexpectedly upended, Talia is reunited with her dearest friends and they find sanctuary on the isolated planet Refuge. The trio of former guerillas strive to recover from lifetimes of trauma by building new lives and forging intimate connections with each other.

This omnibus edition of the novellas Finding Refuge, Accepting Refuge, and Embracing Refuge also includes a Refuge glossary and character list, plus the short story “A Day in the Life: Jefri Dantagnan.”

Image of the boxed set "A Place of Refuge," which looks like three hardcover books in a box, featuring the cover of Finding Refuge.

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#TBRChallenge – Baggage: My Father’s Ghost by Suzy McKee Charnas

My Father’s Ghost (2002) by Suzy McKee Charnas is a memoir by one of my favorite science fiction writers and favorite people, as well. As you can guess from the title, it’s focused on her relationship with her father, Robin McKee. She passed away earlier this year at age 83, after I’d already added this book to the list, so it was a different reading experience than I’d planned, and had different resonances. I read the entire thing in one day.

Onward. This month’s book definitely, definitely fits the theme!

Suzy’s parents got divorced when she was a child, so she didn’t know her father as well as she would have liked. She had an older half-brother, from her father’s previous marriage, whom she didn’t get to know until she was an adult, and a younger sister who lived in California, whom she kept in touch with mostly over the phone. Her mother had died young, and she’d not seen her father much since she’d moved with her husband to New Mexico. When he began to have health issues, and could no longer live alone in his cheap artist’s apartment in Greenwich Village or support himself, she invited him to live near her and her husband in New Mexico; she took care of Robin until his death a couple of decades later.

This is a melancholy book, and also one about reminding yourself to accept and appreciate what you have rather than yearning painfully after what is no longer possible. It demonstrates the difficulties of supporting someone who is cynical, extremely introverted, and secretive about their health problems. Yet at the same time, it’s not as sad as I would have expected. Though getting him to talk about the past and their family was extremely difficult, it was clear how much he meant to her, even when he was cranky, obstreperous, and distant. And he did experience some intense late-life happiness, shortly before his death, which gave Suzy happiness for him as well.

When Robin had moved to New Mexico, he’d left behind almost all of his possessions and unsold artworks, and never went back to being an artist, possibly related to his failing eyesight and other health issues. Among his few belongings were decades of journals, ending shortly before the move. He did not want his children to read them while he was alive, but he had brought them with him. After his death, Suzy began to read them and piece together a larger picture of her father’s life. Selections of his quirky, inquisitive writing are scattered throughout, resonating with his time in New Mexico.

This book gives a clear-eyed and realistic picture of Suzy’s father and his relationship with her, the man he had been and the man he became. His memory for a blessing.

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My February Reading Log

Fiction:
The Iron Children by Rebecca Fraimow will be out in early April; I read an ARC via Netgalley. In this novella, two countries are at war. The larger and more powerful Levastani want to take back the smaller country, which split off long ago due to their Celesti religious faith. The Celesti faith includes a strong belief in service, and in true speculative fiction fashion, some of their nuns gave up their bodies to become armored warriors who can telepathically control the bodies of armored Dedicate soldiers. If the Sor bodies are killed, usually the Sor can be moved into a new body. The Dedicates mostly originated as children orphaned by the war, who are now sealed within armor with an extra set of arms to aid them in battle, and a chip of “godstone” in their necks that allows the nuns, the Sor-Commanders, to control them at need. The Dedicates cannot remove their armor, and when they are killed, it is permanent. The story opens with a young nun in training, Asher, accompanying her Sor-Commander and a small group of Dedicates to the front, but then disaster strikes and Asher is left in command, relying heavily on Sergeant Barghest for advice and reconsidering all that she thought she knew about her world. Asher, Barghest, and a traitor in the group are all narrators at different points; their deep characterization enriched the worldbuilding and various ethical concerns of this intriguing secondary world. I would happily read about these characters again, to learn how their experiences in this story change them and their society.

Mai Tais for the Lost by Mia V. Moss is a noir murder mystery novella, set in an undersea habitat for the rich on post-apocalyptic earth. Absolute best part: a sarcastic octopus who can talk to humans. Narrator Marrow, a detective who usually uncovers infidelity, is thrust into a more dangerous world when her older brother is murdered. Marrow, the child of domestic workers, was adopted by a wealthy family after her family was accidentally killed, to avoid bad press. Raised in a world of decadence and partying, she’s still looked at askance and constantly navigates societal borders. The worldbuilding was a lot of fun, especially details like fashionable “mer-suits” and ocean-themed food and drink; the mystery takes a while to get going, and felt bigger than the length allowed for it. I wanted to know more about the androids/robots (both words were used) who had Artificial Intelligence; so far as I could glean, AI was created and owned by corporations, but I wanted a lot more about that, and related ethical concerns, than I got. That aspect of the story intrigued me. An epilogue gave me hope for a possible sequel.

Fanfiction:
This month,I read a number of of fanfictional Queer Eye episodes, in which the Fab 5 from the Netflix show do makeovers on an assortment of fictional characters. These are the ones I enjoyed most.

Queer Omens by Lurlur crosses over Queer Eye with the television version of Good Omens. Post-Armageddon-that-wasn’t, Crowley kidnaps the Fab 5, who don’t make over Aziraphale’s bookstore, but do help the angel and the demon with relationship issues.

A Lifetime of After by Casloveshisfreckles is both a crossover and an alternate universe. The Fab 5 makes over Castiel Novak, a board game designer, who was nominated by his best friend and roommate, elementary school teacher Dean Winchester, and foster their romantic relationship. This is an alternate universe version of the show Supernatural, with no supernatural elements.

Queer Eye for the Staten Guy by lousy_science features Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. from Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. I’ve seen maybe a couple of episodes of that show, from early on in its run, but I was able to follow the story anyway. Sonny recently received his law degree, but his loving Italian-American family says he’s been distant from them since, and hasn’t wanted to celebrate his achievement. Sonny, meanwhile, has been dealing with several emotional issues, which the Fab 5 help him to overcome. There’s an epilogue in which he gets together with the person he’s been crushing on.

Queer Eye for the Spider Guy by sahiya is also both a crossover and an alternate universe. Tony Stark survives Thanos and has become even more of a father figure to Peter Parker, whose identity has recently become public now that he’s a PhD student at NYU. Peter’s having trouble balancing his Spiderman duties with everything else, which led to his breakup with MJ, and finds it difficult to accept help from his loved ones, even his Aunt May. The Fab 5 help Peter to go from “Spider-mess to his Spider-best!”

Queer Eye For the Science Guy by heyjupiter features Bruce Banner, who lives in Avengers Tower after helping fight off the Chitauri invasion. Bruce only has two pairs of trousers, all his t-shirts used to belong to Tony Stark, and he forgets to leave the building for weeks at a time. The Fab 5 have their work cut out for them…plus they want to know what’s up with the Science Bros relationship.

Starting a New Chapter by lilithilien crosses Queer Eye with The Old Guard (movie version). After his exile from the group, Nile has recommended Booker for a makeover. At least he knows how to cook. There are many puns on books, reading, pages, etc..

This one is not a crossover! Locked Out by JustLookFrightenedAndScuttle is a Check Please! AU in which Jack Zimmermann takes a year off before signing with the Providence Falconers, rather than going to college. He meets Bitty at the train station, where Bitty’s just locked himself out of Lardo Duan’s car. They hit it off because of course they do; this is a lovely romance that leads to Bitty coming out to his parents and grandmother, and Jack’s father getting interested in baking.

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