#amberlough

[leyside]

sorry for being insane. as if its my fault.

#hot and fresh leyside oc #augustine the first #cyril depaul #astarion #tlt #bg3 #amberlough #now my pinned post bc this is my new specialest post that i love so much #and bc i dont celehar post as much bc of the improvements in the mental illness

[wiltking]

finished Amnesty. can i get a welfare check. on my self

straight up going to get into spoilers because there is no other way to talk about this. it took me a while to get to Amristice after finishing Amberlough because id heard things get different after the first book. and yeah, it was a different setting, but the characters were still there. the stakes were still high. there was still glam and violence and pain and espionage. and Aristide. still kicking. somewhere under a layer of thick sadness and alcoholism.

Amnesty, however, was a shock? im still in shock. first of all, how slow and dull it had all become. the monotony of lillian's life as an imperfect wife and mother. i hadnt expected any kind of followup to her story after Armistice was frankly unsure of this... slow, beige crawl for the entire first half of the story. it was hard to care about her campaigning and meetings and the future of a city just beginning to thaw. after all the fighting has ended. after aristide and cyril's renunion happened in chapter fucking three. while their painful, stifled gravtitational orbit was tearing me to shreds with every scrap of interaction. the way i had to linger, and reread every single word they said to each other. it was hard to be peeled away from that just to be subjected to another scene about lillian and jinadh's cold marriage.

but ari? and cyril? older and colder and sicker and and sadder and alive? despite everything? it made me sick. it made me feel so sick in the head. it made me want to scream and never stop. i dont know what i was expecting, how i envisioned them to possibly fit into each others lives again but it wasnt that, and YET what else could it have been? what else, but this? and from the halfway point to the end i was a goner. screaming in my head with mounting intensity. staring off into the distance. hoping. hoping. watching in horror as i got closer and closer to the end and everything kept going wrong and when they finally, finally................... it was better, than i could have imagined. it was everything and more. and now im sniffling face down in the bed because literally the only thing they have left is each other and it took everything, everything, just to get that. and a red sand beach

#THE old man yaoi. of all time #🌅🧎‍♂️ #im ok. im soooooooooooo okay. #amnesty #amberlough #book thoughts #like i dont even know what else to say. that felt surreal and raw and so. so fucking painful #and now its over and they.......... they............ *loud sniffling* #when aristide put the rouge back on that was like rock lee taking off his weights

[natjosten]

btw if anyone wants a callum nova dupe but who is infinitely times better i have just the man. (no it’s not andrew minyard). it’s cyril depaul from the amberlough series (which is my fav series of all time)!!! he’s blond, rich, stupid, a genius, totally in love, and he actually has an incredibly satisfying character arc!!! he’s everything i wanted from callum. pls stan cyril depaul with me, there are like zero amberlough fans out there

#the atlas six #the atlas paradox #the atlas complex #amberlough #callum nova #cyril depaul

[magpiefngrl]

Sept Books

Photo Credit (original): Ed Robertson

Sep 2023

I read 9 books in the past month. None of them were from my stack of unread physical books 🫤 and I filled 2 categories of my Reading Challenge. Overall, I'm doing well as regards my third 2023 reading goal (and not so great as regards the first).

Books I enjoyed and you might like too:

Amberlough by Lara Elena Donnelly (spy fantasy)

I've had this on my TBR for years and am thrilled I finally got to it. It's a fantasy without magic, set in a world reminiscent of 30s Berlin with the nightlife, the cabarets and the rise of the Nazi. Gay main couple. Similar vibes as Swordspoint but without the happy ending. Great prose.

Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid (hockey m/m romance)

Everyone RAVES about this. I bought it years ago but postponed reading it (contemporary is a hard sell for me and hockey is an alien concept). Anyhow, I finally got to it and it turned out as amazing as everyone says. Lots of UST but also cute moments, top-shelf banter, a phenomenal love interest (I ❤️ Ilya) and great pacing. I was meant to move on to a different book afterwards but I couldn't tear myself away from this world and I inhaled most of the series in 4 days. I particularly enjoyed Role Model. The sequel to HR, The Long Game, is also fantastic, an amazing conclusion to Shane and Ilya's story. I haven't been this obsessed about a series since CaPri.

two of the original works of spit_kitten on AO3

What a delight! Enjoyable, well-written m/m romance stories, all around ~25k. Fans of KJC and Cat Sebastian will love these.

What's next?

I just started a reread of MDZS and I'll prob read the rest of spit_kitten's stories.

#books #book recs #2023 books #Amberlough #heated rivalry

[lilaabard]

Lies came to him easily. The truth was much, much harder.

#amberlough #amberloughedit #litedit #the amberlough dossier #here have whatever this is #the series deserves better than this crappy edit #but this has been in my drafts since 2018 and i can't stand seeing it anymore so #*shrugs* #also i'm finally reading base notes so it's time to publish this #edit #graphic*

[poisindonottouch]

Queer reads: The Amberlough Dossier, by Lara Elena Donnelly

These books, y’all. These books. 

Here’s day 20. 

First of all, these books wrecked me. They are like, gaslamp fantasy? In a not our world, but there’s no magic. They have a lot of 1920s/30s flavor, and there’s some serious political shit going on. The blurb by Holly Black says, “James Bond by way of Oscar Wilde,” which is pretty accurate. 

Cyril DePaul is a spy and government agent, while his lover,  Aristide Makricosta, is a smuggler and the emcee of a cabaret. Their relationship goes along fine as long as they don’t talk about what they do when they’re apart. This comes crashing down on them as the political stakes intensify, and shit hits the fan. These books definitely made me cry. In a bad way, and then in a good way. 

Read them when you’re in the mood for complex politics, morally gray characters, and an emotional roller coaster. 

#Sandi reads #happy pride 🌈 #queer books #Amberlough Dossier #Amberlough #Armistice #Amnesty #Lara Elena Donnelly

[relnicht]

i just finished listening to amberlough by lara elena donnely and i must say it is a very tumblr book and i mean that both positively and negatively but mostly positively

#amberlough

[niroke]

Would anyone want to talk about the Amberlough series?? I really want to talk about it but no ones read it

#amberlough #amberlough series #book recs #niche fandom

[valpwca]

oh also masquerade (series) is at least at the same house party as the amberlough dossier (fucked-up gays messing with the gov't in fantasy-but-not-fantastic worlds)

#baru cormorant #amberlough

[cyril-depaul]

god i really can’t think too hard about the time scales in the Amberlough Dossier because if i do my brain shuts off and all function is replaced with “eight YEARS they didn’t see each other for EIGHT YEARS motherFUCKER”

#amnesty spoilers #text #it makes me utterly rabid #amberlough #amberlough dossier

[trutletruffle]

amberlough takes me the fuck out every time like what the hell???

he couldnt rememeber the last time hed slept through the night...it had been months ago in Aris flat. 

her life...but shed given that up for gone sometime yesterday, under the thin mans steel toed boots. 

this time we will only tell small lies

its so good it fucking hurts

ari waiting alone in the hell he escaped for his love who’ll never come.

#amberlough #amberlough lara elena donelly #queer books

[leyside]

extremely funny that some summaries of Amberlough (including the one on goodreads) call Cyril a “master spy” did they even READ the book???

#amberlough #amberlough dossier #cyril depaul #pringles jar

[wiltking]

3 pages into Amnesty and im already tearing up

#5 years......... 5 more years are you fucking kidding me #this is going to make me go primal and feral #book thoughts #amnesty #amberlough #about to go nuclear

[emblazonet]

I fucking love Cordelia Lehane but am afraid of spoilers since I’m only halfway through the Amberlough Dossier and so I can’t safely look for fanart or anything. Alas.

#amberlough #the audiobooks are kickass #I want to scream about these books so much but no one has read them #._.

[honey-from-hell]

Alphabet TBR

Inspired by this TikTok 

Not-so TikTok popular books A-Z on my TBR

A- Amberlough by Lara Elena Donnelly

B- The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

C- Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes

D- Dead Dead Girls by Nekesa Afia

E- Elysium Girls by Kate Pentecost

F- For the Killing of Kings by Howard Andrew Jones

G- Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith

H- Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White

I- In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

J- Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera

K- Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel

L- Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

M- Missing, Presumed Dead by Emma Berquist 

N- Night of the Raven, Dawn of the Dove by Rati Mehrotra

O- The Ones We’re Meant to Find by Joan He

P- Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li

Q- The Queer Principles of Kit Webb by Cat Sabastian

R- Radio Silence by Alice Oseman

S- Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor

T- Theme Music by T. Marie Vandelly

U- Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

V- Vengeance Road by Erin Bowman

W- Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda

X- The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

Y- You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson

Z- Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes by Cory O’Brien, Illustrated by Sarah E. Melville

#amberlough #the beautiful ones #chilling effect #dead dead girls #elysium girls #for the killing of kings #grasshopper jungle #hell followed with us #in the dream house #juliet takes a breath #kaikeyi #let the right one in #missing presumed dead #night of the raven dawn of the dove #the ones we're meant to find #portrait of a thief #the queer principles of kit webb #radio silence #strange the dreamer #theme music #upright women wanted #vengeance road #woman eating #the poet x #you should see me in a crown #zeus grants stupid wishes

[wearethekat]

September Book Reviews: Amberlough by Lara Donnelly

Picked this one out semi-randomly at the library. This was a rather odd novel-- it’s something of the same genre as Baru Cormorant, which is to say imaginary history without any fantastical elements. It’s set in Amberlough, the capital city of a confederation balanced on the edge of catastrophic political change. Amberlough borrows a little from New York during Prohibition and a little from Germany sliding gently into fascist rule. 

Which all sounds very nice, but unfortunately I disliked all three of the POV characters. They were written with an opacity and cruelty that made it hard to emphasize with their motivations or even believe that they were strongly attached to the people they supposedly loved. Normally I’m all for women’s wrongs, but I like the wrongs to be in service to something, even if that something is a terrible idea. Cyril DePaul-- spy, saboteur, and the main POV-- goes turncoat and becomes the linchpin of a fascist plot for apparently no stronger motivation than vague threats towards his own person. And Donnelly doesn’t shrink from showing the consequences of the change in regime, either.

Interesting setting and concept, but I wouldn’t read the sequel after bouncing so hard off the characters. 

#my book reviews #september book reviews #lara donnelly #amberlough