This looks ideal for our tastes--thank you!

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

The Chaotic Orbits trilogy by Beth Revis:
--Full Speed to a Crash Landing (2024)
--How to Steal a Galaxy (2024)
--Last Chance to Save the World (2025)

My pleasure! Special shout-out to the Rendon series, Native author writing a Native MC in the 1970s and pulling no punches.

--Broken Fields by Marcie R. Rendon
--A Botanist's Guide to Rituals and Revenge by Kate Khavari
--King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby
--Kills Well with Others by Deanna Raybourn

A) Josephine. I am not made for murder-based diplomacy and thus would disappoint Leliana and Briala. And I think Vivienne is a master of the Game, but her skill is reliant on her being, well, her.

First playthrough I was Sereda Aeducan, and so I 100% chose Harrowmont and said some exceptionally rude things to Bhelen as I drop-kicked him out into the Deep Roads. Then I found out that Bhelen is actually a better monarch than Harrowmont, and chose him in later playthroughs. But grudgingly!

I highly recommend any of La Tienda's sampler boxes (www.tienda.com/gifts/samplers), especially Five Flavors of Spain!

B, but also very definitely D, and she was proud of it.

Genres in order:

--Fantasy and time travel, deconstructing the hero
--Historical fiction about nuns in 1950s Britain
--MG historical fantasy about Gullah children in the 1960s
--Urban fantasy, also deconstructing the hero
--Historical queer mystery set in CA in the 1950s
--YA fantasy, bonus romance

I just finished @alixeharrow.bsky.social's The Everlasting, which is fantasy and a study of the power and effect of Story.

And I am a quarter through In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden, about a group of Benedictine nuns in the 1950s, and the life and culture and faith are fascinating to me.