3.5 stars. This was definitely a slow burn, but I would have liked more of a crescendo. The ending was good, but the rest of the book left me wanting more.

If Cicadas Sing of Summer Graves isn't one of the prettiest titles, then I don't know what is. Now on to the review.

I lived in Arkansas for seven years, right next to a large lake. After reading Cicadas Sing of Summer Graves I realize I got out of Arkansas in the nick of time! I was always suspicious of that lake. Even though there were snakey things and alligators in it, I swam there anyway because, like the people in Prosper, Arkansas, there wasn't much else to do.

Everything is weird in Cicadas Sing of Summer Graves but in a good way. Telescopes watch characters, even turning by themselves to keep watch. An elderly man runs into the water every night and weeps. Another older man (how old? perhaps millennia old) makes grotesque fireworks. Flowers grow wherever one young woman goes. They even grow in her hair while she sleeps. A dead desiccated catfish on a bar's wall spits pearls occasionally. And there's a mysterious box that won't open. But there's more!

All the characters in Prosper, Arkansas, both alive and dead, have something strange and magical about them. I have to admit that sometimes the strangeness became more than my suspension of disbelief could handle, but all in all it was an enchanting, and sometimes horrifying, read. And there were more bees than cicadas, but Bees Sing of Summer Graves doesn't have the same ring to it.

Thank you to Netgalley and Sourcebooks for allowing me to read and review Cicadas Sing of Summer Graves. Now I'm going to catch a catfish down at the creek to see if it spits pearls.

Thank you so much for an advance copy!

I have been trying and trying to get into this, I've had it for a few months. Unfortunately I just can't seem to get invested and I find the story a bit slow. It is beautifully written and I can see how this would be enjoyed by many! It just wasn't for me.

ℂ𝕀ℂ𝔸𝔻𝔸𝕊 𝕊𝕀ℕ𝔾 𝕆𝔽 𝕊𝕌𝕄𝕄𝔼ℝ 𝔾ℝ𝔸𝕍𝔼𝕊 𝔹𝕐ℚ𝕌𝕀ℕℕ ℂ𝕆ℕℕ𝕆ℝ


❤️❤️❤️❤️
4/5
I received this from Sourcemark and NetGally in exchange for my honest opinion.

Prosper Arkansas in the wake of an unexpected storm, the dam breaks and filled the valley flooding everything in the 1950’s.

This story follows three main characters, Cassie, June, and Lark. Each has ties to lake prosper, and we get to learn them throughout the story. Lake Prosper is also not all it seems to be. It may be a popular vacation destination, but it is also ghost from the past lurking around.

This book has so many different elements
magical realism
Multiple povs
LGBT
Spooky

Thank you Sourcebooks and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I’ll be completely honest, this one wasn’t entirely my cup of tea. If I’d known it had this magical realism element, I likely wouldn’t have requested it as I find magical realism very hit and miss and the magical realism in this book was mostly a miss for me.

There was also some horror elements that kind of missed the mark for me too. I could see what the authors were going for, but it felt lacking to me.

The prose was absolutely beautiful, though, and I was really drawn in by the relationship between Lark and June. These two characters were the only ones I actually cared about in this multi-POV book and they’re the main reason I bothered to finish the book, and I am glad I did.

If you’re looking for a unique part-sapphic literary piece, I’d recommend giving this a go, as it is very beautifully written.

A first read for me by author Quinn Connor. I will have to say very poignant, sadness, joy, time, healing, trauma, and loss. At times writing was somewhat dragging but otherwise a nice read. Would I read anything else by this author. Most definitely!

Cicadas Sing of Summer Graves feels like a heavy, somber, summer day. It is thick with sadness and joy, a layered story about time, healing, trauma, loss, and the ghost of our past. Straying away from my normal genre of SFF, This book put me into a trance from the very beginning.

It is a poignant tale, with an amazing cast of characters. This is one to look out for when it comes out, for all those who enjoy a good dive into the depths of the sadness of those around them. A story of facing your trauma and coming out on the other side.

The story is okay. There just wasn’t much to grab your attention and keep it. I struggled to care about any of the main characters. I was left feeling like things while things get wrapped up in the end that things were left hanging. But that could just be me because I didn’t feel invested in the story enough.

Thanks go to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this.

This book made me so invested in the characters that i read it in one sitting it was that good. I wanted to know everything. And loved how the story unfolded and i cant wait to read more from this author

NetGalley ARC Educator 550974

A menagerie of emotions, feelings and history rolled into this fantastic book. It's told from multiple points of views and has a bit of mystery and horror rolled in. Themes of poverty, family, friendship and pandemic effects lie within. Not a tale for the faint at heart but it's worth the risk.

I love the title and the cover, and the story inside certainly didn't disappoint. I enjoyed the mystical realism meets a taste of fantasy, although the end did drag a bit.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC.

Wow. I truly can’t wrap my mind around this book yet. When the book opened up with an explanation of "development-induced displacements“, I never expected to fall for a story so quickly. (Not because the topic doesn’t interest me but because it sounds so complicated.)

Cicadas Sing of Summer Graves is not a light-hearted read. It’s as deep and multi-layered, as the lake described in its story. It’s a story of ghosts, memories, letting go, loss and history.

The story is inspired by a real town - Buckville, Arkansas, which was flooded in the 1950s. We follow a set of three main characters. All of these characters share a deeper connection to Lake Prosper, which we get to explore throughout the story. We soon find out that lake Prosper is not only a pretty holiday destination but that there are ghosts of the past lurking around every corner.

If you would ask me to explain this story, I would not be able to. The story-telling and the characters were so unique and haunting, that this book felt like reading an old diary, which I loved. The set of characters is super diverse and I was able to connect to all of them on different levels.

I especially loved the author’s note in the beginning because it really gives a perspective on the importance of telling these kinds of stories. Being from Germany, it also really helped me to understand the history involved in the story.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with this arc.

Four friends have stolen aboard the Titanic. They're after the Rubaiyat - a book inlaid with priceless jewels. Josefa is a charismatic thief, Hinnah a daring acrobat, Violet an outstanding actress and Emilie a talented artist.

It is Josefa's plan, but she needs all of their skills. Despite their very different backgrounds, in a world of first-class passengers and suspicious crew members, the girls must work together to pull off the heist of their lives.

A well-written novel. The prose is simply beautiful. There are books that would take you more than 50 pages just to get into it but this book is different. It has a escalating charm to it. The magical realism aspect is there but it leaned more on the dark side - and that I indubitably love! It was certainly thrilling for me. .The cover is gorgeous so a physical copy is a must. have as it would be a nice addition to my collection and to other book lovers in need of a poignant read.


Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for granting me an E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

3 stars.

This book was ambitious, but it wasn’t really MY type of book. I could easily see how this would be more than 3 stars for others. I found it hard to get interested in the story, for me it took about 60% of the book to really start feeling committed. I don’t think I’m a person that likes a lot of wordy description. Some people find it beautiful, other people (like me) simply see lots of mostly unnecessary words and end up skipping chunks on accident.

I think I expected it to be a bit more spooky? The vibe was kinda mystery / paranormal(?) it’s definitely a hard vibe to classify!

Overall, there’s nothing wrong with it! I don’t regret reading it and I 100% think other people will like it. It just wasn’t my cup of tea!

P.s. we love the gay vibes and also that it’s not white-centric.

Cicadas Sing of Summer Graves is a deliciously slow, poignant novel that FEELS like summer. I don't know how to describe it, but reading it just gave me the feeling of literally being at a lake in the summertime. I felt like I was there with Cassie, June, and Lark going through everything with them, and I always felt the lake lingering in the background of every sentence. Right away, the note in the beginning about how manmade lakes affect oppressed groups with forced relocation told me what I was getting into with the novel, and I knew I'd love it. And I did. The authors, combined as Quinn Connor, create a poetic world of complex characters who are navigating a town's intergenerational trauma due to the tragedy behind the manmade lake. I don't know how to say much more without giving away spoilers, but once the big reveal came together, everything started to make sense. I wish we'd learned a little bit more about Catfish, but I think that was the point. We're not supposed to have all the answers about everything in life, and we've got to live with all those questions, which is something that Quinn Connor did remarkably well. Overall, I highly recommend this book and can't wait to see more from this duo!

Thank you to the authors and NetGalley for an eARC of this book.

I enjoyed this galley, but by the end it was starting to drag a little bit. The premise and the setting are incredibly creative and fitting for the story line, but I feel like there is a lot of wasted potential. There are too many things happening at the same time and in the end, I couldn't even tell you what the book was about.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I started reading this book and was pleasantly surprised. I ordered it because it mentioned LGBTQ+ as a category and I'm always on the hunt for great books in this genre that aren't romances. However, that category is surely not the reason you should or shouldn't buy the book. At all.

If I would have to categorize it I'd say "fantasy, slight horror" and would mention "most beautiful use of language." And the language part is something that will stay longer with me - meaning the description of everything: nature, horror, love, hate, people, everything.

Did I enjoy reading it? Yes. The plot is great, the history is interesting (and painful), and the protagonists are great. If I ever find the time (which is something I don't really have) I'd read it again to enjoy it again.

Why only four stars and not five? Mostly because of too many POVs, which made it hard to get to know the characters better. Maybe it would have been cool to turn this into two books - but... anyway: four really good stars for this one!

When NetGalley asks you why you requested a certain book, the options are something like: “title,” “cover,” “author,” “description,” and “I keep hearing about this book.” I requested this book for a highly specific and slightly silly reason: because I’m trying to read a queer book set in every state, and Arkansas was one of the states I still needed.

The book was engaging enough that I finished it in a week (which for me is neither particularly short nor particularly long; a very average amount of time), and it had a strong sense of setting, so it fulfilled my desire to check Arkansas off the list. Other than that, I’m not sure what to make of this book. I enjoyed it well enough, but didn’t feel strongly about it, and feel neither a strong yes nor a strong no about checking out the authors’ other/future work.

This is an odd book, and hard to categorize genre-wise. It feels contemporary at first, but it’s also a ghost story and has additional fabulist elements besides the ghosts. Normally this is exactly what I like in a book: I love when books are so weird that you don’t even know how to categorize them! But something about this book felt not entirely satisfying. Maybe it’s too weird to be a “normal” book, but not weird enough to be a weird book? (Or at least not weird enough to be satisfying as a weird book.) It felt strange to realize that I had reached the halfway mark of the book, because I felt like the plot had only just kicked off, and I still wasn’t entirely sure what the book was about.

There is something of a mystery element where certain plot threads eventually come together. I liked this but felt it didn’t quite stick the landing, like maybe some more rounds of revision would have made the revelations clearer and punchier. As it was, some of them felt a bit more nebulous than I would like. I don’t necessarily need a book to give clear-cut answers to everything, but I sort of get the feeling that this book thinks its answers are clearer than they actually are. But maybe this was my own failing as a reader.

Cicadas Sing of Summer Graves by Quinn Connor is a beautifully written ghost story with elements of magical realism. This book follows three main characters over the course of an Arkansas summer. Cassie is terrified of the water, but refuses to leave her lakeside hometown; Lark has come to her family's houseboat to pack it up after a traumatic event; June arrives unexpectedly in the middle of the night to stay with her aunt for a few weeks. There is also Bolt, Cassie's teenaged brother who is trying to navigate a tenuous friendship with the local trouble
makers.
I absolutely loved this book. It was ethereal and haunting, with a touch of mystery and magic. I enjoyed the multiple storylines, as each woman tries to navigate the mystery surrounding the lake they live on.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of Cicadas Sing of Summer Graves in exchange for my honest review.