dawn.vogel | May 15, 2024
A.Z. Louise’s Off-Time Jive (Neon Hemlock, 2023) is a gorgeous fantastical history, detective novella with fascinating characters and a great twist at the end! Set in an alternate version of the Harlem Renaissance, the story weaves deftly between magical dark academia and everyday people going about their lives. The main character, Bessie Knox (who mostly goes […]
dawn.vogel | April 24, 2024
Loving Safoa by Liza Wemakor (Neon Hemlock, 2024) is a novella featuring Black lesbian vampires, with aspects of vampirism that I haven’t seen in many stories featuring vampires. But this approach is interwoven into a story that spans centuries and locations. Cynthia begins the story as a mortal woman who is very close to changing […]
dawn.vogel | April 3, 2024
Foz Meadows’ novella Finding Echoes (Neon Hemlock, 2024) is a secondary-world fantasy story packed with great characters (queer and otherwise) and worldbuilding, plus a whole load of feelings. Snow has the ability to speak with the dead, getting information from them and sometimes helping them move on. When his ex-lover Gem shows up in need of […]
dawn.vogel | March 13, 2024
I backed last year’s Neon Hemlock novella series Kickstarter, and I’m looking forward to this year’s as well! From last year, I’ve reviewed Hybrid Heart and The Killing Ground, along with Suzan Palumbo’s Skin Thief, a collection including short stories and a novella, and I’ve got more of these on tap to review! If you’re curious to […]
dawn.vogel | November 29, 2023
Skin Thief by Suzan Palumbo (Neon Hemlock, 2023) is a collection of dark and atmospheric stories, the majority of which have been previously published in major speculative fiction magazines. The stories contain a variety of themes including family (particularly sisters, but also mothers and daughters) and Trinidadian culture. Stories I really loved in this collection […]
dawn.vogel | May 31, 2023
The Killing Grounds by Joan Tierney (Neon Hemlock, 2023) is a dark near-contemporary novella, set in a dystopia that doesn’t look too different from our own world. It’s an often grim look at the haves and have-nots, while dealing with issues of memories, family, and small communities. Bina works for a passenger transportation company, but […]
dawn.vogel | May 17, 2023
As a K-pop fan, I was excited to sink into Hybrid Heart by Iori Kusano (Neon Hemlock, 2023) and dive right into the world of J-pop. But this isn’t entirely your standard J-pop setting, as it’s also a near future light sci-fi novella that looks at identity and freedom, or the lack of both of these […]
