#v. ivan

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Fiction Free-for-All Book Bracket Tournament: Preliminary Round

Choose a book:

Love Kills Twice by Rien Gray

In the End, You Kill Us Both by V. Ivan

Voting ended onFeb 8, 2025

Book summaries below:

Love Kills Twice by Rien Gray (Fatal Fidelity series)

She needs an assassin. They’re the best in the business. Falling in love was never part of the deal. Desperate to escape her abusive husband, Justine hires a contract killer. Campbell’s services come at a high price, and their dark, seductive charisma leads Justine right into their bed. Hiding an affair while Campbell designs the perfect murder has Justine walking a tightrope of stress, but each time the two of them sleep together, it’s harder not to get attached. Campbell struggles with their own traumatic past, convinced that the truth will drive Justine away. There’s a faint hope that things could work, save for one problem: Justine’s husband wants her dead too. Revenge is easy—heartbreak could cost both of them everything.

Romance, contemporary, thriller, novella, adult

In the End, You Kill Us Both by V. Ivan

"A beautifully gruesome detailing of two peculiar people."

It's nearly Halloween, the sky won't stop weeping, and from the guts of Olympia's Eden Valley Psychiatric Unit emerges nineteen-year-old Leo Welch, staggering blindly into the streets of an unfamiliar city where her only company is a peculiar roommate, her two eldest children, and a bizarre collection of ladybug figurines. Jobless, pill-reliant and emotionally wounded, a life spent with one eye glaring at the past and the other squinting fearfully at the future is all Leo knows—until she meets fellow ex-inpatient Elowen Reeves, a mysterious drifter who swiftly captures Leo's attention and emboldens her resentment towards the monster who destroyed her life in Ely.

When a sudden, horrific event shatters Leo's image of her unusual new friend and sends them both on a dizzying road trip across the American West, Leo must finally face a choice she's spent years ducking from—allow the pain to consume her once and for all, or dive headfirst into the underbelly of her Nevadan hometown to kill her demons before they can get another stab at killing her.

Horror, revenge story, surrealist horror

[leechjuice]

the magnolia club by v. ivan

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Fiction Free-for-All Book Bracket Tournament: Round 2B

Choose a book:

Even Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk

In the End, You Kill Us Both by V. Ivan

Voting ended onMar 22, 2025

Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:

Even Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk

Endorsement from submitter: "Angelic shenanigans, private detectives, and sapphic love"

A magical detective dives into the affairs of Chicago's divine monsters to secure a future with the love of her life. This sapphic period piece will dazzle anyone looking for mystery, intrigue, romance, magic, or all of the above.

An exiled auspex who sold her soul to save her brother's life is offered one last job before serving an eternity in hell. When she turns it down, her client sweetens the pot by offering up the one payment she can't resist―the chance to have a future where she grows old with the woman she loves.

To succeed, she is given three days to track down the White City Vampire, Chicago's most notorious serial killer. If she fails, only hell and heartbreak await.

Fantasy, historical fiction, 1940s, mystery, noir, novella, adult

In the End, You Kill Us Both by V. Ivan

"A beautifully gruesome detailing of two peculiar people."

It's nearly Halloween, the sky won't stop weeping, and from the guts of Olympia's Eden Valley Psychiatric Unit emerges nineteen-year-old Leo Welch, staggering blindly into the streets of an unfamiliar city where her only company is a peculiar roommate, her two eldest children, and a bizarre collection of ladybug figurines. Jobless, pill-reliant and emotionally wounded, a life spent with one eye glaring at the past and the other squinting fearfully at the future is all Leo knows—until she meets fellow ex-inpatient Elowen Reeves, a mysterious drifter who swiftly captures Leo's attention and emboldens her resentment towards the monster who destroyed her life in Ely.

When a sudden, horrific event shatters Leo's image of her unusual new friend and sends them both on a dizzying road trip across the American West, Leo must finally face a choice she's spent years ducking from—allow the pain to consume her once and for all, or dive headfirst into the underbelly of her Nevadan hometown to kill her demons before they can get another stab at killing her.

Horror, revenge story, surrealist horror

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Fiction Free-for-All Book Bracket Tournament: Round 1C

Choose a book:

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

In the End, You Kill Us Both by V. Ivan

Voting ended onMar 1, 2025

Book summaries below:

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

When four classmates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their center of gravity.

Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.

Literary fiction, adult

In the End, You Kill Us Both by V. Ivan

"A beautifully gruesome detailing of two peculiar people."

It's nearly Halloween, the sky won't stop weeping, and from the guts of Olympia's Eden Valley Psychiatric Unit emerges nineteen-year-old Leo Welch, staggering blindly into the streets of an unfamiliar city where her only company is a peculiar roommate, her two eldest children, and a bizarre collection of ladybug figurines. Jobless, pill-reliant and emotionally wounded, a life spent with one eye glaring at the past and the other squinting fearfully at the future is all Leo knows—until she meets fellow ex-inpatient Elowen Reeves, a mysterious drifter who swiftly captures Leo's attention and emboldens her resentment towards the monster who destroyed her life in Ely.

When a sudden, horrific event shatters Leo's image of her unusual new friend and sends them both on a dizzying road trip across the American West, Leo must finally face a choice she's spent years ducking from—allow the pain to consume her once and for all, or dive headfirst into the underbelly of her Nevadan hometown to kill her demons before they can get another stab at killing her.

Horror, revenge story, surrealist horror

[leechjuice]

v. ivan, 2023