JAC’s staff picks
Jacinta (she/they) has been wearing many hats at Lost City Books since mid-2022. You can often find them chatting loudly behind the counter, hosting Meet Cute on the second Tuesday of every month, or at home with her beloved four-legged son Baron.
THE STARS TOO FONDLY by Emily Hamilton
I read this the way you do any good book: feverishly, over the span of a day and a half, haunted by it every time I closed my eyes. It has everything. The sudden disappearance of the Providence I crew–the spaceship set to make the first colonial expedition in outer-space–on Launch Day no less! The accidentally-on-purpose grand theft auto planned by Cleo McQueary and her friends over boxes of take out 20 years later. Physics defying, time-and-space bending sapphic love. RIYL: Gideon the Ninth and This Is How You Lose the Time War.
LUCKY RED by Claudia Cravens
When her father dies of dysentery (a snakebite) on the Oregon Trail (in the Kansas Prairie), our main character must quickly decide whether she’s got what it takes to survive in the Wild West. With her Jolene-like flaming locks of auburn hair, Bridget draws eyes wherever she goes – a benefit at the brothel she finds work, until the legendary (read: hot) female gunfighter Spartan Lee arrives in town…
FIFTY BEASTS TO BREAK YOUR HEART by Gennarose Nethercott
What is the most hideous thing you have ever nurtured? A collection of hazy, fever-like stories from folklorist-author GennaRose Nethercott, of which I am the exact target audience for. Short, gothic fairytales that linger long after you turn the page or close the book. This evocative, poetic, tender collection also contains the incredibly important element of two girls kissing behind a hot dog stand. Welcome to the Eternal Staircase that is life, love, and humanity – Watch Your Step.
GENTLEMEN CALLERS by Corinne Hex
An absolutely strange, kind of poetic, silly and sensual story from Belgian author Corinne Hex. Exactly what it says on the back of the box — a collection of erotic dreams our narrator has featuring different men. From Museum Guard to Gas Station Attendant to Young Priest 2, each encounter proves that you truly can make a euphemism out of anything. HMU if you’re trying to be the overheated tradesman to my fountain of running water.
WE LOVED IT ALL by Lydia Millet
“Language is the key to our redemption,” and in these pages, Lydia Millet helps take us there. From the Beginning to what comes after, her stunning prose blends between essay, memoir, and nature writing, all with a very poetic heart. It hurts, that much is true: it hits you in your gut and in your chest, but that’s the whole point. We were here. We hurt. We loved it all.
FUNNY STORY by Emily Henry
Without a doubt, Emily Henry has settled into her voice – it’s incredible the way that her skill, characters, and overall world & relationship building continues to age like a fine fucking wine. When her fiancé decides that what he actually wants is to marry his best friend Petra, our main character Daphne moves in with Petra’s ex-boyfriend, Miles Nowak. Forced proximity, and-they-were-roommates, and a love interest that is so Nick Miller coded? Giving this five stars is as easy as breathing and never did I think that another book would be fighting Beach Read for my #1 EH spot.