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Tag: Lara Elena Donnelly

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

After a slight drought in the month of March, I believe that the readathon kick-started my reading, and I am now ticking along very nicely once more. I actually have news to report! (Stop by Book Date to see what other folks are reading.) What I Read Last Week: A bunch of stuff! I finished up Han Kang’s The White Book, which was strange and beautiful as translated by Deborah Smith. A favorite line: A person who had met the same fate as that city. Who had at once time died or been destroyed. Who had painstakingly rebuilt themselves on…

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Authors in Fandom: An Interview with Lara Elena Donnelly

Happy Monday! As y’all may know, I’ve been thinking a lot about the boundaries between fanfic and literary fiction and genre fiction, and one of the ways this has manifested is that I chased down Lara Elena Donnelly, author of the wondrous secondary world fantasies Amberlough and Armistice, to ask her many questions about her background with fandom and fanfic. If you haven’t read her books yet, I recommend them highly: They are about the performers and owners and patrons of a glam-as-fuck nightclub in a country where fascists are slowly taking over. This interview contains no spoilers for either…

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Review: Armistice, Lara Elena Donnelly

I’ll eat my hat if Lara Elena Donnelly hasn’t written a damn lot of fanfic, and I mean that as a very high compliment. Armistice is the sequel to last year’s book Amberlough, which was sold to me as a gayer secondary world Cabaret, an extremely accurate description of its contents. Armistice is, frankly, even awesomer, and I am delighted as hell that it exists in the world. Armistice picks up three years from the close of Amberlough. Cordelia has spent the last three years working for a fragile resistance against the Ospies, whose hold over Unified Gedda has only…

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Review: Amberlough, Lara Elena Donnelly

Oh marvelous Audra of Unabridged Chick for putting me onto Amberlough by describing it (accurately) as “a gay spy thriller that’s allegedly Le Carre meets Cabaret.” This is a terrific and accurate description, although Cabaret is already pretty gay. Please hold while I go down a rabbit hole of watching YouTube videos from Cabaret and then conclude that this piecemeal bullshit is no good and I need to watch the movie again in its entirety. Enjoy this book cover while you’re waiting. Cyril De Paul is a half-hearted spy for the government of Amberlough, one of four loosely affiliated governments…

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