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The Empress of All Seasons by Emiko Jean

Each generation, a competition is held to find the next empress of Honoku. The rules are simple. Survive the palace's enchanted seasonal rooms. Conquer Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. Marry the prince. All are eligible to compete--all except yokai, supernatural monsters and spirits whom the human emperor is determined to enslave and destroy. Mari has spent a lifetime training to become empress. Winning should be easy. And it would be, if she weren't hiding a dangerous secret. Mari is a yokai with the ability to transform into a terrifying monster. If discovered, her life will be forfeit. As she struggles to keep her true identity hidden, Mari's fate collides with that of Taro, the prince who has no desire to inherit the imperial throne, and Akira, a half-human, half-yokai outcast. Torn between duty and love, loyalty and betrayal, vengeance and forgiveness, the choices of Mari, Taro, and Akira will decide the fate of Honoku in this beautifully written, edge-of-your-seat YA...
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Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

Upright Women Wanted is a hopeful story about finding people like us in unexpected but wonderful places. The best parts of a western in the gaps of the post-apocalypse set against the specter of a vague forever-war. A scrappy novella with a big heart. 

I know I love most things I read, but I needed something happy right now and this was just the ticket. It's about people in the gaps, the spaces between what's supposed to happen and the edge of the next set of rules, the next scrutinizing town. It takes the wildness and danger of a Western and gives it a modern framing with a post-apocalyptic flair. Some of the backstories are either implicitly or explicitly filled with some terrible events, but it strikes a balance between showing and telling that leaves the really bad stuff to the imagination. It has a fair amount of blood and death for such an ultimately hopeful book, but the ending was so cathartic and lovely, just what I needed right now.

CW for murder, blood, death.

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Sideways silhouettes of people around a desert camp





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