Heaven's Graveyard, also known as, a book perfect for readers like me. I adored it from the beginning to the very end!

Big fan of Grace Curtis !!

This was so good. I feel like they’re slowly becoming a fan favorite of mine 😍

Heaven’s Graveyard is a sapphic fantasy with a touch of mystery. Coda is a doctor researching a mythological figure that she believes really existed, when she finds some evidence she rushes back to her home city, to show her mentor. Set amongst of backdrop of brewing war between church and state, this story packs a lot in.
I loved that the story revolved around mostly female characters, male characters only appear in supporting roles, it made my feminist heart happy. Cod is great, her character is autistic-coded, though no explicit diagnosis is given, but scenes where she fails to understand social nuance or respond in a way other people deemed appropriate felt authentic to me. I enjoyed the complex relationships between the characters, Cod and her ex, Sparrow, Cod and her academic rival Thal even Cod and her mother, though we mostly saw that through flashbacks.
The world-building was great, detailed without feeling too heavy or with large chunks of exposition. I enjoyed the mythology which was a key aspect of the plot.
Warning, there is an animal death. It was necessary for the plot but I still found it a tough read.
If you are interested in female-lead fantasy stories, I recommend giving this book a go!

4.5 ⭐
This book is a surprising blend: part archaeological thriller, part queer myth, part powerful reflection on war, family trauma, and what it means to be neurodivergent in a world that often makes no room for difference.

The protagonist isn’t trying to be a perfect heroine. She’s disoriented, often unaware of the bigger picture around her and that makes the narrative feel incredibly intimate. She’s entirely focused on herself, her fears, the pain she carries, and because of that, the outside world feels blurred by her own confusion.

It’s a hard book to categorize, but one that truly stands out with a heartbreaking mother-daughter relationship and a deep love for mythology that comes through on every page.

Side note: I requested the ARC for the cover and the title.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc of Heaven's Graveyard! I'm rating it 4.5 stars.

I was sold on Heaven's Graveyard as soon as I saw it described as a "sinister lesbian history mystery" in a science fantasy world. It was somehow exactly as described and not at all what I expected, and I had so much fun reading it!

Heaven's Graveyard is part sapphic thriller novel, part archaeological mystery, and part a story about humanity's tendency towards war. And, it's a story about child-parent relationships, being neurodivergent, and whether we run away from or stay to confront difficult situations.

I haven't read Idolfire, which is set 2,000 years earlier, so my review will be entirely focused on Heaven's Graveyard.

This book makes a lot of chilling points about warfare and religion, and I loved that about it. At the same time, I found it sometimes frustratingly lacking in details — but that was because the protagonist didn't pay any attention to current affairs. She was constantly surprised by what was going on and never asked people questions about themselves or their backgrounds, so I also understand why us readers didn't get more information. All the same, I kind of wish someone had given the protagonist a talking-to and filled her in a bit on things so that we could have learned about it. For me, I think that would have been enough to make this a five-star read.

I also adored our queer, autistic-coded protagonist who is so passionate about the myth at the heart of this mystery, and who also cares so deeply despite others not seeing it. Cod's relationship with her mother and how that affects her sense of self made me cry.

Maybe it's because I'm also an archaeology geek, but I also loved the mythological aspects of this novel and the magic system.