Every month we choose a book as our Book of the Month, one of our favorites that has contributed something great and unique to queer YA literature. We chose Pantomime because it is an excellently written fantasy/steampunk series with an intersex, nonbinary, and bisexual protagonist. There is also a large amount of diversity within the rest of the characters. All of these things are unique in queer YA, and when you put them all together, what you get is a wonderful and important read.
Shadowplay is the sequel to Pantomime. The third book, Masquerade is in the works. Unfortunately, Laura Lam’s publisher Angry Robot closed down, leaving the authors stranded. It was just recently bought, but authors from the YA imprint Strange Chemistry still don’t know what this means for them. Laura Lam is planning a Kickstarter project to raise funds for everything needed to get Masquerade published, but due to this recent development will be holding back to see if she can get the rights to all three of her books.
While we wait for news on that, check out the Vestigial Tales, short stories from the same world and featuring the same characters as The Micah Grey series, or buy up your own copies of Pantomime and Shadowplay. Make sure and keep up with lauraroselam‘s tumblr and Twitter @LR_Lam for the latest news (and fabulous posts!). We also had a great guest post from Laura about a year ago, which is definitely worth a read.
As usual, we’ll be interviewing Laura at some point within the next two weeks– so if you have a question you’d like us to ask her, drop it in the comments! We’ll also be hosting a mini book club for Pantomime, and having a giveaway of some Pantomime–related stuff later in the month, so stay tuned!
