Queen of Coin and Whispers by Helen Corcoran

“She loved me as I loved her, fierce as a bloodied blade.”
★★★★★

Queen of Coin and Whispers is a sapphic YA fantasy novel by Helen Corcoran that focuses on political intrigue instead of magic. Corcoran has described Queen as “a low-fantasy novel with a historical basis,” because elements of the novel are inspired by Elizabethan spycraft, which is basically the coolest thing I’ve ever heard (check out this Twitter thread where she goes into more detail on her research). 

Queen was one of my most anticipated Summer releases, and I was lucky enough to win a physical copy in a giveaway hosted by my friend Manon (aka @themaliciousreader). It took a few weeks to arrive via Book Depository, but once I started reading I devoured it in less than 48 hours and loved every minute of it! 

Queen follows two leads alternating between their perspectives:

• Lia is the newly ascended queen of a struggling kingdom. The throne she inherited has become mired in corruption, and she vows to right the wrongs of her predecessors and be the ruler her people deserve. 
• Xania is a member of the lower court who spends her days working in the royal treasury, biding her time until the opportunity arises to avenge her father’s death (which was, Xania suspects, actually a murder). 

The paths of these two girls would normally not cross, but they find themselves working together (and eventually, developing feelings for one another) when their mutual friend, Matthias, recommends that Xania become Lia’s spymaster – a highly important, secretive, and dangerous position known as Master of Whispers. 

I found myself totally immersed and invested in this world and the characters that inhabit it. Corcoran has developed an incredibly well thought out system of government, which I honestly found to be more interesting than many magic systems in high fantasy novels.

And we haven’t even truly discussed the romance yet! I absolutely loved Lia & Xania together, and I found myself squealing like a schoolgirl when Lia made the first move, flirting by loaning Xania a lesbian romance novel. Queen was a relatively slow burn, but not so slow that the characters don’t get together til the very end, which I appreciated. 

My only real gripe is that Queen felt like it should have been a New Adult book. It didn’t click with me how young the two leads were until the scene on Xania’s eighteenth birthday, and it was honestly sort of jarring. I know the point is that Lia and Xania are young women whom people underestimate, but that sentiment would still have remained had they been in the early twenties instead. Especially because it seems like Xania had had her job in the treasury for several years at the start of the book, which would imply she’d started at 15-16? 

Anyway, all in all Queen of Coin and Whispers was an absolute joy to read, and while the ending and epilogue were more than sufficient, I found myself not ready to part with Lia & Xania. Luckily, Helen Corcoran wasn’t ready to part with them either and has released a set of four, free prequel stories which you can find here! I’ve been saving them to use as a special treat, but I have no doubt they’ll be just as enjoyable as the novel!  

Synopsis:
When teenage queen Lia inherits her corrupt uncle’s bankrupt kingdom, she brings a new spymaster into the fold … Xania, who takes the job to avenge her murdered father.

Faced with dangerous plots and hidden enemies, can Lia and Xania learn to rely on each other, as they discover that all is not fair in love and treason?

In a world where the throne means both power and duty, they must decide what to sacrifice for their country – and for each other…

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Queen of Coin and Whispers At A Glance
Genre: YA, Fantasy of Manners (with prominent f/f romance subplot)
Themes/Tropes: Queer Royals, Political Intrigue, Rich Girl/Poor Girl (sort of)
LGBT Rep? Yes! Lesbian MC, with lesbian, bi, & gay side characters
OwnVoices? Yep
Content Warnings (CWs): Murder/Violence, instance of psychological abuse (might be forgetting some, I forgot to jot them down because I was so engrossed in the story, sorry!) 

We Had No Rules by Corinne Manning

“Can I exist if I’m only in relation to myself?”
★★★★★

We Had No Rules is the debut short story collection from non-binary author Corinne Manning, and I’m completely obsessed with it.

I could immediately tell We Had No Rules was something special, a collection of stories I’d never want to end. By the end of the third story, I’d already ordered a paperback copy for my collection. By the seventh, I was scared to keep reading, worried I’d binge the rest of the stories in one go. In fact, I intentionally avoided finishing it for weeks because I wasn’t ready for it to be over, but, as I received an advance copy for review, I could only prolong the inevitable for so long. 

There are eleven stories in all, each fully realized and unique and messy and irreverent. Manning forces the reader to reckon with queer people as we really are – flawed, multifaceted human beings – by exploring some of humanity’s darker impulses, filtered through the perspectives of queer characters with varying LGBTQIA+ identities. The results are as unsettling as they are brilliant.

One Goodreads reviewer, Erik, summed things up perfectly: “Each story in We Had No Rules pries apart the tension that lies at the heart of queerness: in being who I am do I become like everyone else or stand out? What is the right answer?”

If I had to choose my favorite story (please don’t make me), I’d be hard pressed to decide between two of the more humorous offerings: Gay Tale and Ninety Days. 

Gay Tale begins “Oh, fuck it. I’m writing lesbian fiction. I know I’d do better to write gay fiction, or in some academic circles, queer fiction. How many people, I wonder, have stopped reading already?” and made me laugh aloud multiple times. 

Ninety Days is told from the perspective of a queer femme, and (as a femme myself) I found many of the character’s observations and sentiments to be highly relatable: “As someone assigned female at birth who presents as femme I have to make a series of conscious decisions to be visible as queer, and I still have to come out, multiple times a day.” 

I could go on, but I’d rather allow Manning’s prose to speak for itself. I highly recommend checking out We Had No Rules, especially for queer readers. It was refreshing to see the complexities of modern queerness explored so unflinchingly. It’s not an easy read, but it’s an important one.

Synopsis/Description:
“A defiant, beautifully realized story collection about the messy complications of contemporary queer life.

A young teenager runs from her family’s conservative home to her sister’s NY apartment to learn a very different set of rules. A woman grieves the loss of a sister, a “gay divorce,” and the pain of unacknowledged abuse with the help of a lone wallaby on a farm in Washington State. A professor of women’s and gender studies revels in academic and sexual power but risks losing custody of the family dog.

In Corinne Manning’s stunning debut story collection, a cast of queer characters explore the choice of assimilation over rebellion. In this historical moment that’s hyperaware of and desperate to define even the slowest of continental shifts, when commitment succumbs to the logic of capitalism and nobody knows what to call each other or themselves – Gay? Lesbian? Queer? Partners? Dad? – who are we? And if we don’t know who we are, what exactly can we offer each other?

Spanning the years 1992 to 2019, and moving from New York to North Carolina to Seattle, the eleven first-person stories in We Had No Rules feature characters who feel the promise of a radically reimagined world but face complicity instead.”

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We Had No Rules At A Glance:
Genre: Short Story Collection, LGBTQ+ Fiction
LGBTQ+ Rep? Yes! So much queer rep!
OwnVoices? Yes!
Content Warnings (CWs): Unfortunately, I was so engrossed in these stories that I forgot to keep a running list of CWs for this one. It definitely tackles some heavy, potentially triggering subjects, so read with care!

ARC Note: Thank you to Arsenal Pulp Press and Edelweiss for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.