We're launching a Kickstarter! We want you guys to feel better about donating to help us open the store, so we've created an all-or-nothing campaign with several tiers! As Bindery subscribers, you get to know those tiers ahead of time!

• $5 - Bookmark/Sticker Pack - two bookmarks and a sticker

• $10 - Shirt - previous goodies plus a shirt

• $25 - Tote Bag - previous goodies plus a tote bag

• $100 - Permanent 10% Discount - previous physical goodies plus a permanent 10% discount on our online and physical stores

• $200 - Permanent 20% Discount - previous physical goodies plus a permanent 20% discount on our online and physical stores

If we are able to do any stretch goals, be prepared for annual book boxes and more!

Please consider following our Kickstarter and please share the link! <3

To help build our community, we have a Discord server! All you have to do is link your Discord account to Bindery and then click the icon in our header to join!

It's quiet now, but once we start to grow, we'll have a whole host of people to discuss books with! We also will use the Discord server to help spread announcements.

As of now, we are awaiting the Assumed Business Name Certificate and next month will hopefully be getting our LLC registered! Then it's on to get our website back up and running under a new design.

Have you seen our post about the Libro.fm 12 audiobook giveaway in celebration of Independent Bookstore Day? Just a few steps will get you entered for this massive Golden Ticket to a whole host of great audiobooks (may I humbly recommend the Green Bone Saga?).

Till next time!

I'm starting a new series called "What I'm Reading This Week."

I'll use this to showcase what I'm currently reading/plan to pick up before the week is over.

CURRENTLY READING

I'm currently reading two books. One as an audiobook and one as an ebook.

Butter by Asako Yuzuki--The cult Japanese bestseller about a female gourmet cook and serial killer, and the journalist intent on cracking her case, inspired by a true story

There are two things that I simply cannot tolerate: feminists and margarine

Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in the Tokyo Detention House convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, whom she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation’s imagination, but Kajii refuses to speak with the press, entertaining no visitors. That is until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew, and Kajii can’t resist writing back.

Rika, the only woman in her news office, works late each night, rarely cooking more than ramen. As the visits unfold between her and the steely Kajii, they are closer to a master class in food than journalistic research. Rika hopes this gastronomic exchange will help her soften Kajii, but it seems that Rika might be the one changing. Do she and Kajii have more in common than she once thought?

Inspired by the real case of a convicted con woman and serial killer—the “Konkatsu Killer”—Asako Yuzuki’s Butter is a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance, and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.

Hooked by Asako Yuzuki--Eriko’s life looks perfect—from her prestigious job at a Japanese trading firm to her spotless apartment and devoted parents. Her newest project, to reintroduce the controversial Nile Perch into the Japanese market, is as ambitious as she is. But beneath her flawless surface lies a consuming loneliness. Eriko has never been able to hold on to a real friend.

Enter Shoko: a popular lifestyle blogger whose work Eriko follows obsessively. Shoko lives a life of controlled chaos—messy apartment, take-out dinners, a kind, easy-going husband. She writes about daily contentment, though her fractured relationship with her father gnaws at the edges of her happiness.

When Eriko orchestrates a “chance” meeting with Shoko, the two women strike up an unlikely connection. For a fleeting moment, Eriko believes she’s finally found what she’s always longed for. But as her fascination turns to fixation and Shoko’s carefully balanced life begins to dissolve, both women are pushed to breaking points neither of them saw coming

WHAT I PLAN TO PICK UP

The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed--A world-weary woman races against the clock to survive a deadly forest in this dark, otherworldly fairytale from Nebula and World Fantasy Award-winning author Premee Mohamed.

At the northern edge of a land ruled by a merciless foreign tyrant lies a wild, forbidden forest ruled by powerful magic.

Veris Thorn—the only one to ever enter the forest and survive—is forced to go back inside to retrieve the tyrant's missing children. Inside await traps and trickery, ancient monsters, and hauntings of the past.

Dark Is Where The Devil Comes by Daisy Pearce--The woods are known as the place to avoid. What goes in, doesn’t come out.

Hazel has been gone from her small hometown of Idless in the English countryside for years. Now returned in the wake of a traumatic divorce and crumbling personal life, her simple plans are to lay low at her parents’ vacated house, reconnect with her prickly sister Cathy, and slowly get back on her feet.

She's his captive but something has come home with her.

Cathy is surprised when Hazel doesn’t show. Their relationship strained from a fallout half a decade ago, she didn’t expect them to get back into a sisterly rhythm…though she hadn’t counted on Hazel bailing, either.

But something isn’t adding up. Other people in town whisper of a threat that can’t be shaken. The woods are known for being restless. And Cathy knows the old saying.

Okay… I know. It’s been a minute since my last Bindery update 😭 but life has been lifing.

Per usual... 🙄

If you know anything about springtime + kids, just know they start acting like the rules never existed in the first place. On top of that, people have been out sick left and right… so I've basically been holding it down in the classroom by myself for the past month. So yeah, I've been tired.

But also… I've been really intentional about being gentle with myself this April. I'm not forcing anything. I’m not rushing through books just to say I finished them. I'm just reading because I actually want to.

Right now, I’m reading Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood, and honestly… she’s one of my comfort authors at this point. Like her, Meg Cabot, Simone Elkeles, and Kennedy Ryan… they are authors where I already know I’m going to enjoy the ride no matter what.

This book feels very much like a palette cleanser. It’s light, a little nerdy, a little funny, and the jokes are definitely giving "punny" in the best way. It’s been a really easy read to come back to after long days, which is exactly what I needed.

Next up, I’m deciding between No Ordinary Love or When I Think of You by Myah Ariel. Both of them feel like they’re going to hit in different ways, so we’ll see what mood I’m in when I finish this one.

Have you read either of these, comment down below!

And for my non-fiction read this month, I’m planning to pick up Rest Is Resistance by Tricia Hersey… which honestly feels very on-brand for where I am right now.

We’ll see if I actually finish all of these, but this is the plan for now 🤍

Welcome to New Release Tuesday, where I round up the sci-fi releases dropping this week that I think you should know about. I'm Zee, I'm a Tattooed Bibliophile, and if you are here I you probably are too, and my whole thing is diversity in sci-fi — meaning if it's queer, BIPOC-authored, indie, or just something the Big 5 didn't bother to tell you about, it belongs here. While sci-fi isn't the "it girl" right now, it's far from a dying genre. It may make it hard to find new releases, but that's what I'm here for, because I don't want you to miss a thing! So what's new?

First Mage on the Moon by Cameron Johnston (Angry Robot) Space Fantasy with a disabled wheelchair-using skymage who wants to fly to the moon to stop a war -gasps a deep breath- described as Gideon the Ninth meets The Expanse? Well, I haven't read The Expanse but you know if someone tells me it's like Gideon the Ninth I'm either out to devour it or hate read it just to tell you they are wrong, because nobody writes like my corpuscular Queen Tamsyn. And Angry Robot is an indie press so you know I love to support them...Although what does a girl have to do to get on their ARC list? I've been trying, I promise, because I want to read as many sci-fi books as possible to tell you if they're good or if they're shit!!! (I actually am 25% of the way into this audiobook and it's absolutely nothing like Gideon the Ninth, but it does have big Blood Over Bright Haven vibes, so I am moderately, but not entirely, really juuuuust barely, mollified.)

Last week I somehow missed the release of The Bloody and the Damned by Becca Coffindaffer (Macmillan) but it's a dystopian climate fantasy with an enby assassin who is trying to save their siblings and a thief as a love interest, AND they mention it's "perfect for fans of Iron Widow" so...I couldn't just not tell you! I love a villain story. And it's standalone, which is kind of an anomoly in the sci-fi and fantasy world. Or at least it used to be? I feel like? Someone argue with me with some stats, I am unconvinced of my own opinion on this. But I am picking this up next either way.

The Weathering by Artem Chapeye (Penguin RH) is a a post-apocalyptic climate (I think?) dystopia about a couple who returns to Ukraine only to find that the world as they once knew it no longer exists, and they have to partner with other survivors to form a new society, where "erosion floats in on a breeze..." I mean who writes these book descriptions? Erosion cannot, by definition, float in on anything, and the book description is so vague that I'm not sure if that's meant as a metaphor? Like they take a vacation into the mountains and then come back to the city and it's different, but they didn't know? Idk. If the book is anything like the blurb, I don't think this one is for me. Maybe it's translation error?

Wife Shaped Bodies by Laura Cranehill (Simon & Schuster) Ok first I just want to say that I don't love when authors seem to have book naming trends, or cover design trends. It's art, be yourself, ya know? But whomever is in charge of this kind of cover? I'm low key obsessed. These are so pretty and haunting and would make gorgeous tattoos. Ok, on to the actual book. This is a sci-fi women's lit horror mashup. Or you could just say thriller, you do you. All the women in the village are covered in mushroom growths, told those are repulsive, and sheltered into their homes until they are married and moved from one prison to the next. Then she meets another rebellious girl and gae things happen. And can we all just say a collective "YAY!"

The Infinite Sadness of Small Appliances by Glenn Dixon (Simon & Schuster) Tell me why my kitchen hood has wifi? And for what purpose does AI in a toaster have? In the (pretty near TBH) future where even the smallest of appliances are sentient, a young Roomba vacuum (after listeing to her human, Harold, read To Kill a Mockingbird to his dying wife) sets out to save the humans of her house from the omnipresent and always listening city AI Grid, who seeks to remove them from the home. Now, time for the tea! I went to scope out Glenn Dixon's IG, and he has AI generated images of him he posted for fun. Which is entirely counter to this satire he wrote about the danger of AI. We all contain multitudes, but it reeks of hypocrisy, and I was totally into the book before seeing that. Should I, or should I not, leave him a comment asking about it? Shall I or Shall I Not, start shit?

The Faith of Beasts by James S.A. Corey (Hachette) — Book 2 of The Captive's War from the duo behind The Expanse. Thought I'd tell you about it...too many diverse reads to get to to have picked this one up. Worth it or no, let me know in the comments.

Listen, romantasy may be the current pick me girl in Big 5 publishing (I mean come on, Goldsboro just changed their GSFF subscription to the "Fellowship" sci-fi is so unpopular,) (because who doesn't need a little escapism in late stage capitalism?) But sci-fi is a reflection of our hope for the future (or currently just a hope that there will be a future.) And HOPE IS RESISTANCE! So go forth and read some sci-fi and RESIST!

See you next week. You know, if we're not in a nuclear winter.

— Zee

If you liked this and want more of whatever THIS is (unhinged book analysis, barely contained rage at the state of the world, and occasional Tamsyn Muir references and em dashes that I will never apologize for) consider subscribing for $5/month. Every cent goes to people who actually need it, because I have a day job and a cause, not a brand deal. This is my middle finger to Big 5 publishing, dressed up as a book blog. Come hold it up with me.

Happy pub day!! This week’s new releases were honestly such a mix: some easy binges, some emotional hits, and a couple that… yeah, we’re not talking about those on IG for a reason 👀

Let’s get into it.

🎧 Audios I Binged

🖤 Deathly Fates
Read or skip: Read (especially for YA fantasy lovers)
Rating: 4.5 stars

This one surprised me in the best way.

A corpse-driving priestess, a not-so-dead prince, and a journey fueled by grief, duty, and survival? I was locked in. The writing feels thoughtful and intentional, and the themes (grief, family responsibility, what it means to be human) actually land.

Let’s talk romance expectations: this is a slow, slow burn. Very age-appropriate YA. It’s cute, but honestly? The story didn’t need it. The plot and character growth are strong enough on their own.

Final thought: A beautifully layered YA fantasy that sticks with you emotionally more than romantically.

🌪️ West of Wicked
Read or skip: Read
Rating: 4 stars

Wizard of Oz… but darker, a little spicier, and way more chaotic.

I’m usually skeptical of retellings, but this worked for me. Adult Dorothy trying to figure her life out? Loved. Tin Man as a villain? Even better.

The full cast audio absolutely elevated this; it felt immersive and cinematic. And that ending?? RUDE. I need the sequel immediately.

Final thought: A fun, darker reimagining with strong audio narration and a cliffhanger that will have you scrambling for book two.

💘 Romance That Made Me Swoon

💍 Save the Date
Read or skip: READ
Rating: 5 stars

Three POVs. Three messy love stories. And somehow… I cared about every single one.

This is peak chaotic wedding weekend energy with emotional depth underneath. Secret love, fake dating, complicated family dynamics...it’s all here, and it works.

Final thought: Smart, funny, and genuinely heartfelt. A rare multi-POV win.

💊 Love and Other Side Effects
Read or skip: Read
Rating: 4 stars

Deidra Duncan just gets it.

This feels like a romcom-leaning episode of Grey’s Anatomy: chaotic hospital energy, emotional stakes, and banter that actually made me laugh out loud.

Friends-to-lovers done right, with workplace tension and a hurricane thrown in for good measure. Asher? Loved. Jocelyn… frustrated me at times, but not enough to take away from the overall story.

Final thought: Emotional, funny, and just messy enough to feel real.

📚 Books I Read and Loved

✨ The Most Important Part
Read or skip: READ. Immediately.
Rating: 5 stars

I genuinely don’t know how to talk about this book without sounding biased, but here we are.

This is one of those stories where the characters feel real. The dialogue, the emotions, the decisions: it all feels authentic in a way that pulls you in completely.

But the standout? Grief.

It’s handled with so much nuance and honesty, especially through a teenage lens, and it hit in a way that felt deeply personal. Watching Bea begin to heal… yeah. That stayed with me.

Final thought: A powerful, emotional read that does something really special.

📜 The Lost Book of Elizabeth Barton
Read or skip: Read
Rating: 4 stars

Dual timelines, Tudor history, and a modern-day academic mystery? Say less.

This blends historical fiction with a slow-building mystery, and both timelines are equally compelling. Elizabeth’s story is intense and tragic, while Alison’s adds that creeping tension as things start to unravel.

Final thought: A well-crafted, atmospheric read that balances history and mystery beautifully.

😱 Horror That Freaked Me Out

🩸 Japanese Gothic
Read or skip: Read (if you can handle it)
Rating: 5 stars

Not for everyone. Absolutely for me.

This is horror rooted in family, trauma, and psychological unraveling, layered with Japanese mythology, samurai history, and dual timelines that slowly collide.

It feels like madness in the best way. A fever dream with purpose.

Final thought: Complex, brutal, and completely immersive. Another win.

🐾 Morsel
Read or skip: Read
Rating: 4 stars

A short, creepy Appalachian gothic that somehow balances campy and unsettling perfectly.

I don’t usually love novellas, but this hit that sweet spot. The grief, the symbolism, the setting...and the dog 😭

Final thought: A quick but impactful horror read that lingers longer than expected.

📚 Non-Fiction I Actually Read

⚔️ Those Who Are About to Die
Read or skip: Read (if you like history)
Rating: N/A (I don't rate non-fiction)

Structured as 24 hours in the life of a gladiator, which makes it feel immersive instead of textbook-y.

Super well-researched but still accessible, with just enough humor to keep it engaging.

Final thought: Informative without being dry; perfect if you love Roman history.

🚫 DNFs (Not on IG for a Reason)

😬 While You Were Seething
DNF at 61%

So many tropes I should have loved… but the execution just didn’t land. The pacing felt off, the emotional beats didn’t hit, and the MMC leaned more cruel than compelling.

Final thought: Fun concept, messy delivery.

🏁 Fast and Fastidious
DNF at 48%

This one had potential, but it felt like all setup and no payoff. Detached narration, minimal chemistry, and somehow… no romance in a romance??

Final thought: Interesting idea, but not for me.

✨ Overall Thoughts

This week really came down to balance.

Some books absolutely nailed emotional depth and character work. Some had incredible concepts but uneven execution. And a few reminded me that not every trope combo is a guaranteed win.

But The Most Important Part and Japanese Gothic? Those are the ones I’m still thinking about.

If you’ve picked up any of these (or have one on your radar), tell me everything. What worked? What didn’t? I’m always curious 👀

I wanted to highlight some April 14 releases we're excited for!

• THE KILLING SPELL by Shay Kauwe

• JAPANESE GOTHIC by Kylie Lee Baker

• WIFE SHAPED BODIES by Lauren Cranehill

• THESE FAMILIAR WALLS by C. J. Dotson

• MORSEL by Carter Keane

Pick these up by clicking the links in this update or by searching through our Bookshop.org page yourself! You can also pick up the audiobooks on our Libro.fm storefront (use code CHOOSEINDIE for a new membership and get a free audiobook!).

Happy reading!

Happy Tuesday, mis internet amigxs!

This week's introduction is VERY short for a myriad of reasons, but I did want to take a moment to acknowledge Sawyer Cole for mastermindering Bien Leidos Readathon this past weekend! They organized the schedule, bingo cards, volunteers, and amazing prizes. It was such a delightful weekend of reading in community! In fact, we read over 45 books in community and I'm so honored by all the participants who chatted and read with us all weekend.

I'll start by saying I missed a Latine release last week!

Devil of the Deep by Falencia Jean-Francois: First of all, you should support Left Unread Books here on Bindery, if you aren't already. I'm not always perfect, and this was a HUGE oversight, so I'm giving away a swag box I received for Readathon Bingo on Discord this weekend!

And now on to...

THIS WEEK'S RELEASES!

BRING MOON JOY TO YOUR LITTLES

If Your Abuelo Is An Astronauta by Ana Siquiera and illustrated by Irena Frietas

SPACE POETRY?!

These Spaceships Weren't Built for Us: Poems by Alan Chazaro

GRAPHIC NOVEL

Death to Pachuco by Henry Barajas and Art by Rachel Merrill & Lee Loughridge

Forgive-Me-Not by Mari Costa

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Axl the Axolotl Is Not a Frog by John Paul Brammer and Illustrated by Vanessa Morales

Nature's Partners: How Plants, Animals and Insects Team Up by Eugenia Perrella and Illustrated by Lucilla Tubaro

The Froggy Library by Julie Fiveash

NONFICTION

The Violence: My Family's Colombian War Adriana E. Ramirez (audiobook)

SELF-HELP

Light Work Journal by Keila Shaheen (audiobook)

xoxo,

Carmen