Laura Lam

OK BUT I LOVED THIS???? FOUND FAMILY LADIES IN SPACE TRYING TO TOPPLE A CORRUPT EMPIRE WITH A LIL HINT OF A SAPPHIC ROMANCE AND I LOVE EVERY CHARACTER WITH MY WHOLE HEART.

eris, bb i would die for you. (i'd also die for ari and rhea) i hope you get to murder your evil brother so hard in the second book which i will be STARTING RIGHT AWAY.

absolutely loved and tore through this, def rec.

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: From the USA Today-bestselling author of Dragonfall comes a fantasy trilogy about a circus aerialist's quest to escape his past and decipher the magical prophecy that will shape his future

In a land of lost wonders, the past is stirring once more . . .

Micah runs away from a debutante’s life at home and joins the circus, harboring two secrets–one: he was born between male and female, and two: he may have powers last seen in mysterious beings from an show more almost-forgotten age. Micah discovers the joy of flight as an aerialist, courting his trapeze partner, Aenea, and confiding in the mysterious white clown, Drystan. He finally feels free. But the circus has a dark side, and Micah’s past isn’t done with him.

Meanwhile, the strange 'ghost' of a woman with damselfly wings whispers to Micah that only he can help magic return to the realm, and he fears she may be right...Micah has much to learn, and he must do it quickly—before his past and future collide, with catastrophic consequences.

Pantomime is a gorgeous and inventive fantasy with queer elements, inspired by Victorian Scotland. L.R. Lam weaves a coming-of-age tale, stirrings of first love, and prophetic whispers into this unforgettable first installment of the Micah Grey series.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Raised female as Iphiginia Laurus, PoV character Micah is always aware that the life of a privileged debutante is not just uninteresting to contemplate, it's also a violation of the essential self...recreated as Micah, then adds another identity called Gene...that's never going to fit into a world of binaries.

Major spoiler? When the publisher markets these revised and rereleased stories as "the Micah Grey series," I don't think it applies. Intersex people presenting themselves openly are vanishingly rare in both literary and real-life culture. Micah moving from female-presenting to male-presenting might not be ideal, but considering we live in an obsessed-by-binaries culture, it's honest.

Coming to terms with one's essential being's Otherness, coming of age in a world with Procrustean expectations and draconian penalties for failing to meet them, and falling in love while not falling off the highwire, as Micah navigates...enough for ten volumes of story. Author Lam packs a lot into a modest page count.

Revised (I am reliably informed extensively) more than a decade after bowing as an indie-published title, the DAW Books edition was my introduction to the circus world and its denizens. I like stories set in circuses, while disliking circuses themselves. (I will not knowingly go to a place where there are clowns and/or mimes.) The opportunities for honest exploration of self, of identities that make the normies cringe (like I do around clowns/mimes) are perfection for addressing YA audiences who are in their questing and questioning years. In this case, the protagonist knows, has powerful physical evidence for knowing, that the world demands too much when it insists there is no fluidity in our gender presentation. The protagonist falls in love, for the first time, and realizes that's really what matters...connection, caring, the desire to know and be known...all presented as worthy, ordinary quests for one to engage in. All this is set in a fantasy secondary world, one base on Scotland it would seem; one that's got elements of urban fantasy, steampunk-lite, and high fantasy.

Why choose is Author Lam's message as well as praxis. Much is discovered about this world, despite very little being directly said. It becomes a bit troublesome. While Micah's flashbacks to the past as Iphiginia are crystal-clear, with very sharp lines of conflict, the present-day Micah/Gene is not clearly in conflict with the circus's other oddballs and misfits yet lives in fear of being "outed" as intersex to them. Why? Never explained.

A few other things felt odd, like Aenea's oddly-pitched response to Micah's evident falling in love. So the read isn't perfect, but honestly I'm not mad about it. I'm happy to see someone making real and substantive excursions from the tediously heteronormative blob of YA publishing's masses of pages.

A solid four stars for the 2025 revisions! show less

It would be easy to dismiss Goldilocks by Laura Lam as a space drama. To do so, however, would mean ignoring the most interesting aspects of the novel, at your detriment. For, the power of the novels lies not in the fact that a majority of it occurs in space but rather all of the factors that brought the women together and keeps them on their mission.

At its heart, Goldilocks is a depressing and yet hopeful extrapolation of climate change projections and political policy harbingers. In other show more words, Ms. Lam simply looked at current data and political trends and made some guesses on what the future would look like should we, as a globe, continue on our same course. What she shows is not pretty. In fact, most of what she shows is downright depressing.

Thankfully, Ms. Lam does not dwell on what is but on what can be. Goldilocks becomes a call for widespread action to save the planet and save ourselves because, unlike in the novel, there is no backup planet. Even if there was, we still have no way to get there within one person's lifetime. Ms. Lam shows that we all must make tough decisions and that those decisions must not mean abandoning our moral compass.

In addition to the climate issues, Ms. Lam presents a hypothetical scenario should current nationalistic tendencies in global governments continue. Anyone living in the United States for the past three years will understand the growing misogynistic tendencies occurring in healthcare and education and will recognize Ms. Lam's future as a possibility, however distant. Readers immediately understand the frustration of all five women and the actions they take. Still, we must take heed of the warning and take steps to ensure the future of our daughters does not mimic Ms. Lam's hypothetical one.

Goldilocks is a book club's dream novel. It provides ample opportunities to discuss fact versus fiction and reality from imagination as it pertains to our current situation versus that posed by Ms. Lam. For those readers not in a book club, the novel still presents scenarios worthy of reflection and may even induce you to action. You can't ask for more from a novel than that. show less

Emberclaw is the sequel to Dragonfall and follows Arcady in first person as they begin a new life at university, where their path once again crosses with Sorin (told in third person). Back in Vere Celene, Everen is navigating the consequences of his actions and the disapproval of his family and kin, told in second person. The book introduces new characters through Arcady’s course mates and professors, but much of the narrative energy is focused on tying up questions raised in show more Dragonfall.

For some reason, I’d gone into this expecting the second book of a trilogy or longer series, not the conclusion of a duology. That may have shaped my experience, but I ended up enjoying this more than the first book. That could be because I was now accustomed to the POV switches, because the second person narration jarred less once Arcady and Everen were physically and emotionally separated, or because the expansion of Sorin’s role shifted the focus toward larger questions beyond Arcady and Everen’s romance. That change made the story feel more grounded and satisfying to me.

There were several standouts I really appreciated. The inclusive approach to gender in this world continues to shine, with the introduction of Willem and his (same gender) parents neatly consolidating groundwork laid in the first book. Rahela adds cultural and religious diversity without it feeling tokenistic or over-explained. I particularly valued the space given to Sorin’s journey, and the contrast between her path and Arcady’s in terms of self-knowledge and agency by the end of the novel.

Arcady themselves felt more likeable here, both in their capacity to forgive Everen and in the way their understanding of their grandparent evolves. The wider worldbuilding also leaves a lot open for future exploration, and the narrative around the serpent and the tree in the veil with a truly different type of world came across strongly.

Everen, even with the text’s self-aware nudging at his tendency toward self-pity, still didn’t fully come together for me as a rounded character independent of Arcady. Their romance also didn’t entirely land, and the love scenes occasionally tipped into saccharine territory as a result.

Overall, I’m glad I already had this on hand and therefore committed to reading it. In many ways it felt less like a distinct second book and more like a satisfying final act to a very long single novel. As a whole, though, the duology makes a meaningful contribution to shaping a new normal in LGBTQ+ fantasy literature, and I’m pleased to have read it. show less