Hey, my friend @RachelFellman's first fantasy novel, The Breath of the Sun, came out today! I want to tell you a bit about it.
Rachel is the long-time friend of my partner Mielle. She's utterly brilliant, so even though I hadn't read any of her fiction, I had high expectations.
And... she blew them away. The novel is so stunningly good.
I love literary fantasy & sci-fi and lament its rarity. I want the strange, new worlds I read about to be imaginative, yes, but also constructed with cultural and emotional truth. Goodness, Rachel kills it.
I'll admit to a little bias because the book has all my favorite things: sparse fantasy elements, ice and snow, monasteries, a philosophically ruminative narrator...
But it has so much more. A wonderfully creative frame narrative, vibrant queer characters, sumptuous & insightful prose that turns over the paradoxes of religion, conquest, love... It's like emotionally rich Borges.
It's legitimately one of the best books I've read recently, and I can't recommend it enough. Here's the beautiful cover art. Yes, that's a comparison (apt) to The Left Hand of Darkness in the cover quote. 
Oh, and if you're in the Bay Area, she'll be doing a reading at Borderlands in September!
I'm going to tag some people who I think will really dig this! @catacalypto @lmichet @johnnemann @unormal @bravemule @ghoulnoise @lorenschmidt @alexiskennedy @inurashii @ohnoproblems @logodaedalus @tanyaxshort
(oh, imo avoid reading the blurb that's on the Aqueduct's site or in the Amazon description... it's too spoilery )
