PAGE'S PAGES - Book Reviews by Eric Page

A smashing festive selection of books for all budgets – from stocking fillers to bodice rippers, superheroes to sex manuals, coming-out to teenage love, a book is always the perfect present. - Eric

Sarah Tighe-Ford Red Kate: A Tale of Lesbian Piracy (www. amazon.co.uk/Red-Katetale-lesbian-piracy-ebook/ dp/B08524WK9Y).

This is a superb book from a local author – a deep swaggering dive into the world of lesbian piracy and living outside the law in the 18th-century Caribbean. Our protagonist, Red Kate, is captain of The Challenge. Her sometimes lover and rival, Captain Morgan, ploughs the same seas, but where Kate commands respect and loyalty in her crew, Morgan is brutal and the worst type of thief, taking anything and anyone she wants. Tighe-Ford brings the sea-faring dangerous world of buccaneering privateers and their outlaw vessels vividly to life – you can feel the sting of the waves and tang of the salt in the prose and with a strong focus on our protagonist as her heart and authority are challenged by her conflicted feelings for Morgan. The narrative thumps along, with revenge, sea battles, piracy and fights galore, viewed from a personal perspective and the impacts they deliver to people. It’s rich storytelling of life aboard an outlawed ship, wrapping up interactions of crew and their hopes and asking why people run to such places, and what they find when they stay.

Red Kate is a love story, a love of adventure, from women lovers exploring a wild world where defining yourself and being who you want and need to be can be yours for the taking, if you’re brave enough or lucky enough to fall in with a protective crew. Tighe- Ford has introduced us to the utterly charming and rapier sharpwitted Captain Kate, swashbuckling her way across the Caribbean, parrying the blows of outrageous fortune, seeking a true direction, suffering setback and tragedy but ultimately learning to keep her crew safe, and fighting to become captain of her own heart. This is a heart-warming adventure book that takes in the lives of the strong independent women of the coarse 18th-century wild West Indies, who find love, compassion and adventure among themselves, on their own hard-won terms. Glorious!

Lucy Kirk (illus) Eat My Glitter Dust: Positive Words for Self-Care (www.mombooks.com, £7.99, published by LOM ART).

This sweet and beautifully illustrated little hardback is packed with motivating quotes and life advice, covering topics including love, friendship, work, and the allimportant chill time many folks struggle to prioritise. It’s queer self-care, allowing us to access the wise Unicorn best friend and guaranteed to bring a smile and give us a fierce one liner to get us through a difficult day.

Ruby Rare (author), Sofie Birkin (illus) Sex Ed: A Guide for Adults (www.wordery. com, £12.99, published by Bloomsbury).

Sex educator and body-positivity advocate Ruby Rare has condensed years of work into this wonderfully illustrated thick hardback, perfect for the bedside for a lot of reasons. Sex Ed is a practical and fun guide to sex. Rare brings her no-nonsense but caring approach to erotic information, dispelling insecurities with frank suggestions on how best to connect with our lovers and communicate effectively about sexual needs, how the brain is the most important sex organ all the way down to the ins and outs of physical squishy sex and all the various combinations of bodies we can generate. Although not specifically aimed at an LGBTQ+ audience, the book is focused more on us as sensual beings, rather than the labels people may put on our sexual tastes, so reaches across with shared experience. The content and voluptuous illustrations are explicit and the author takes us though how we can become healthier, happier lovers and enjoy our arousals, and what gets us there, completely.

Sunil Gupta Lovers: Ten Years On (www.stanleybarker.co.uk, £35).

Sunil Gupta’s Lovers: Ten Years On is a series of black and white portraits of gay couples from London taken in the 1980s. Some in the Tate. After Gupta’s own 10-year relationship ended, he decided to document the long-term gay relationships he encountered and the changing sensibilities of the social environment he found himself part of. This beautifully crafted book, which is an artwork in itself, captures a real feeling of the domestic sensibilities of being a gay man in the 1980s, and being in a partnership while exploring the complex relationships a photographer has with his subjects.

Alice Oseman Nick and Charlie (www.wordery.com, £6.99, published by Harper Collins).

Nick and Charlie are the perfect young gay couple – they’re inseparable. But Nick is leaving for university, and Charlie will be left behind. This sweet, short book asks the questions that everyone else is asking: are they staying together? Does absence makes the heart grow fonder? With two great characters from her graphic novel Heartstopper and plenty of illustrations scattered throughout the book, Oseman explores the questions our protagonists ask themselves as the time to say goodbye gets inevitably closer. Tender and insecure, wondering whether their love is strong enough to survive being apart. Because everyone knows that first loves rarely last forever. Oseman’s book is a delight, exploring more of the lives of the Heartstoppers folk (the Solitaire Series) in her fresh, cosy and tender explorations of teenage angsty love. Charming young person’s fiction.

Eleanor Crewes The Times I Knew I Was Gay (www.wordery. com, £14.99, published by Virago).

This is a classic, a joyful coming out story packed with humour, charm and tinged with a little regret, but the kind that comes from experience and understanding your own journey. Crewes takes us on a richly illustrated, no-holdsbarred retrospective of her own experience of recognising she was a lesbian, and learning what that meant, the potential and finally the pulsing rich brilliance of being authentically herself. The book is breathtaking, emotional and at its core honest, candid and human. One of the best coming out books I’ve read, and presented as a graphic novel, giving it a charm all of its own. Lesbian or not you’ll see your own coming out reflected here, echoed back in its painful, awful glory, but confirming the commonality of experience. The Times I Knew I Was Gay reminds us that sexuality is not often determined by falling in love with others, but by coming to terms with oneself; that people must come out not just once but again and again and the awesome power that bestows on us.

TJ Klune The Extraordinaries (www.hodder.co.uk, £16.99, published by Hodder).

Klune introduces us to a completely queer central cast and, apart from a few clunky remarks from a generally well-meaning police officer father, queer love and desire gets to breathe on the page. It’s a refreshing superpower narrative, no metaphors here. We follow protagonist Nick Bell as he explores his emerging queerness with his best friend, Seth, in its most awkward, nerdy, fanficinspired throes, wrestling with his infatuation, struggling with idolisation and authentic, genuine attraction. Nick is crushing on Shadow Star, whose timely intervention saves him from aggression. But can a superhero only truly love another superhero? Nick decides he needs to find out and become an Extra-Ordinary person of super attributes himself, setting out on a journey filled with adventure and secrets as he’s offered the opportunity to become a superhero. Klune gives us a feel-good, super-camp, funny narrative with queerness utterly centred and it’s great fun. There are some reservations about the do-gooder cop father, which just feels a little too soft-focus Disney in today’s climate of American police brutality, but overall the book succeeds with showing us Nick working to understand the grey zones of good versus evil and what needs to be done to protect those you love. Obviously setting itself up for a run of sequels, but that’s dealt with in a smart and interesting way. A great read for a young LGBTQ+ person.