Wild Shrew Literary Review (WSLR) is Sinister Wisdom’s online book review project. To complement the longer list of suggested books available for review, each month we feature a selection of books being released that month. If you would like to write a review, or if you would like to be added to the WSLR email list to receive the monthly complete book list with book descriptions, please email the WSLR editor, Chloe Berger, at chloe at sinisterwisdom dot org.


September 2026 Featured Books:
1. Locusta by Emily Dexter
2. Our Arab: Diaspora and Its Aftermath by Zaina Arafat
3. The Bed Trick: Sex and Deception on Trial by Izabella Scott
4. Witches of the Wheel by Lindsay Merbaum
5. Heatstroke by Meredyth Cole
6. A Thousand Monstrous Forms by Saratoga Schaefer
7. Lavender Witchcraft: Crafting Queer Magical Practice by Sam Wise
8. The Vision Through My Lens: My Life in Basketball and Beyond by Natasha Howard
9. The Politics of Lonely: Why Is Friendship So Hard? by Lee Arden
10. oceanleaving by Daze Jefferies


Book descriptions:

Locusta by Emily Dexter: Circe meets The Lost Apothecary in this sapphic romantasy duology featuring Ancient Rome’s most infamous poisoner who changed the course of history to save the woman she loved.

Born in the ancient region of Gaul, Locusta is the last of her kind—a Druid whose communion with the spirit world grants her the dangerous gift of identifying and wielding deadly substances. When Roman soldiers attack her home and slaughter her mother, Locusta is captured and enslaved, taken to the heart of the empire where political plots abound and death commands a high price. Guided by Arawn, the god of death, she must learn to survive within the brutal, glittering world of ancient Rome.

Her strange talents soon catch the attention of the Roman elite, and she becomes ensnared in a double life—poisoner by night for the cunning Domina Decima, and lady-in-waiting by day to Livia, the Emperor’s ambitious niece. As Locusta plants the seeds of revenge against those who destroyed her home, her connection with Livia deepens into a passionate, forbidden romance that threatens them both. Surrounded by danger and deceit, Locusta’s poisons become their only protection against the increasingly unstable Emperor Caligula and the enemies lurking in every shadow.

A sweeping historical romantasy, Locusta reimagines the rise of one of history’s most complex women through a lens of myth, power, and feminine rage. Rich with ruthless twists, deadly magic, and a sapphic love story that burns from sweet to spicy, this is a story of survival, defiance, and the dangerous alchemy of love and death in a world ruled by men.

Our Arab: Diaspora and Its Aftermath by Zaina Arafat: A poignant, moving essay collection on the longing and hope of living in diaspora and what it means to be Palestinian today, from the Lambda Literary Award-winning author of You Exist Too Much.

Of the many Palestinian Americans in the diaspora, few have direct experiences or memories of their ancestral land, if any at all. So how does one maintain a connection to a home so volatile, ever-shrinking, and nearly unattainable? And how does a child of diaspora raise a child of diaspora, at a time when Palestinians throughout the world—particularly those living in their homeland—are vulnerable to massive violence?

Our Arab is Zaina Arafat’s highly anticipated follow-up to her critically acclaimed novel You Exist Too Much, with essays that coalesce around the fundamental characteristic of living in diaspora, the state of longing: longing to be elsewhere, longing to return home, and longing to know what home is. This is a book that holds many truths at once about society, identity, and family, filled with flashes of radical compassion and anger and forming an incredibly complex portrait of what it means to be Palestinian today.

The Bed Trick: Sex and Deception on Trial by Izabella Scott: A riveting, brilliant account of a court case in which a woman accused her best friend of impersonating a man during sex, and won—a study of desire, performance, truth, and the stories we tell about ourselves in public, online, in love, and in law.

A woman falls in love with a man. His name is Kye Fortune. They meet online and begin spending time together every weekend, in hotel rooms or at her apartment. Kye is doting, and funny, and handsome—at least in his photos, since he won’t let her see him in person (she agrees to wear a blindfold, even during sex). Years go by before the blindfold slips off, and she’s shocked to encounter not a man named Kye but a woman named Gayle Newland, who happens to be her best friend.

A woman named Gayle Newland falls in love with another woman, her best friend. Both of them are closeted. Their relationship must be kept a secret. Together they invent a persona known as Kye Fortune, to make their relationship bearable, make it normal. It’s a role-play, a script they write together, with props (a dildo, a blindfold). Eventually Gayle’s best friend breaks character and turns on her.

These two stories collided in a famous court case in Manchester. The trial captured national attention and challenged some of our most basic assumptions about sex, consent, gender, and identity. In her riveting and forensic examination, Izabella Scott interrogates the case from every conceivable angle, exposing the slippery side of consent law, the many myths and archetypes that crowd the courtroom, and the shifting rules of deceptive sex to ask: Whose narratives are heard? Who is seen as a credible victim and what is considered a credible crime? The Bed Trick is a lucid, vivid story about stories—their limits, their merits—and the ways we lie in love, in life, and in law.

Witches of the Wheel by Lindsay Merbaum: In her metaphysical mystery Witches of the Wheel, Lindsay Merbaum weaves a spellbinding tale of mythology, bartending, and queer belonging.

Gold grows up knowing only a few things about herself: something lets her see ghosts and read her neighbors’ secrets, and her mother seems to hate her. But when she strikes out on her own, she stumbles into a job at The Wheel, a literally-underground lesbian bar where a coven gathers every Thursday and each entrance requires a painful sacrifice. It feels like the first place she’s belonged.

But the bar, its patrons, and its history are more complicated, and more dangerous, than Gold ever realized. As she entangles herself in her new community, she learns more about herself than she wanted to know—and attracts an ancient goddess’s deadly attention.

Heatstroke by Meredyth Cole: This deliciously unhinged debut novel, for readers of Ottessa Moshfegh, Marlowe Granados and Mona Awad, follows a young woman’s descent into a feral and glamorous hell.

A devoted lover and wannabe screenwriter, January is unable to love or write after finding out her (now ex) girlfriend has cheated. Restless and questioning it all, January and her stoic bestie Laura travel to a menacing California in search of recreation and inspiration—anything to alleviate the grief.

There, January submerges herself into a life of indulgence—until she makes eye contact, poolside, with a telepathic bunny. Inhabited by the spirit of Caroline Lamb, the eclipsed muse of Lord Byron and a self-described footnote in the history of English literature, this magical, brassed doe coaches January through the messy past and the increasingly sinister present. And she may not be the only lost soul hell-bent on capturing January’s attention.

A Faustian bargain for modern times, Heatstroke unwinds through a rippling tale of heartbreak, obsession and creativity. With it, Meredyth Cole signals her prodigious talent and offers us a spicy, boundless realm where “going insane is low-key sexy.”

A Thousand Monstrous Forms by Saratoga Schaefer: Bluebeard gets a gothic horror and sapphic romance twist in this fairytale retelling from the author of Serial Killer Support Group and Trad Wife.

A young ceramic artist moves into her new wife’s isolated manor and gets drawn into dark discoveries that stain her marriage—and her very soul.

Artist Poppy Reed doesn’t care if others think her marriage to Celia Marie Fox, a wealthy art dealer, is impulsive. Sure, they’ve only known each other for six months, and Celia has an infamous romantic reputation, but Poppy is brimming with excitement when she moves across the country to Celia’s home: a formidable, isolated, and art-filled manor called Busirane.

As Poppy tries to celebrate her first weeks of marriage and enjoy her new home, Busirane seems intent on rebuffing her every attempt to settle in. Strange noises and confounding occurrences lead Poppy to believe the house is haunted, a suspicion worsened by Celia’s insistence that Poppy avoid the locked basement.

When Celia leaves for a work trip, Poppy is left alone in the house, then finds herself snowed in. Surrounded by secrets, stalked by faceless statues, and beset by bodiless whispers, she struggles to trust her wife—and her own mind. When Poppy is eventually drawn to the forbidden basement, dark truths shatter everything she thought she knew, throwing her into a desperate bid for survival.

Drenched in dread, this contemporary gothic folktale retelling will have you checking all the locks. Twice.

Lavender Witchcraft: Crafting Queer Magical Practice by Sam Wise: Combining thorough research, hands-on practical exercises, and thought-provoking discussions to help queer witches and allies build a magical practice that is authentic to them.

Step into the magic of your own identity and embark on an affirming spiritual practice.

For thousands of years, various cultures around the world have drawn connections between magic, spiritual power, and LGBTQ+ identity. This guidebook retraces these ancient connections and weaves them into a secular witchcraft practice deeply rooted in modern queer history and culture. Hands-on practical exercises and thought-provoking discussions serve as guideposts to help queer witches and allies create a spiritual path that is authentic to them, no matter how they identify. Topics covered include elemental magic beyond binary gender, queer planetary magic, spiritual allies for all identities, sample holiday rituals, and more. Through this work, we cast a magic circle inclusive of all bodies and identities.

The Vision Through My Lens: My Life in Basketball and Beyond by Natasha Howard: The past three years have seen a worldwide explosion of interest in women’s basketball and the rise of young superstars like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and Paige Bueckers. As the audience grows exponentially, the public is hungry to know more about some of the women who have ushered the sport into this bright spotlight, including elite and still-active veterans like Breanna Stewart, A’ja Wilson, Natasha Howard, Napheesa Collier, and others.

Before Natasha Howard was a three-time WNBA champion, before she was named Defensive Player of the Year, she was a thoughtful girl growing up in very difficult circumstances. Her mother faced challenges of her own while shepherding her four children between cities, and sometimes in and out of homeless shelters.

Young Natasha’s life changed when her uncle Greg introduced her to basketball—with a bribe that included candy. Tash was instantly hooked. But what does a basketball player do when her school doesn’t have a girls’ team? She joins together with a friend to demand that they be allowed to try out for the boys’ team. Which is what Tash did—and then became a starter.

In 2025 Natasha Howard was named MVP of the 2025 WNBA Commissioner’s Cup. She currently plays with the Minnesota Lynx and shows no signs of slowing down at the age of thirty-four. The Vision Through My Lens is her powerful story of building a life for herself through basketball. As a gay, Black woman, she used all her strength to forge forth, to triumph over an astonishing array of obstacles. Coauthored by Deyscha Smith, this memoir tells an unusually empowering tale of a strong girl becoming a stronger woman.

The Politics of Lonely: Why Is Friendship So Hard? by Lee Arden: Why is it hard to make and keep friends as an adult? Even if you finally find time to see each other, can you connect more deeply than just catching up over coffee? How many do you count as ride-or-die pals who’ll always show up with effervescent banter and deep conversation—your “chosen family?”

Widespread loneliness reflects a world of crappy jobs and unaffordable housing that makes it almost impossible to have close, interwoven friendships. A dwindling social safety net takes a toll on us and on our relationships. Particularly for queer people, friendships can be crucial relations of equality, constancy, and care. Still, we disappoint each other and fall into irreparable conflict.

A less lonely world is possible. Through interviews, research, and personal narrative, this book shows how people build tight connections despite living in the austere conditions of colonial capitalism—boldly weaving a new social fabric as this one unravels.

oceanleaving by Daze Jefferies: In oceanleaving, Daze Jefferies’ counter-history of rural trans and sex worker resistance evokes the ebb and flow of intergenerational love at the margins. Guided by archival relationships, dreaming, and regard, her lyric, visual, and prose poems are fierce in their address of colonial and sexual violence, gendered labour, and cultural loss in Atlantic Canada. With/holding and recasting the intimate presence of a watermother, a grandmother, a brothel mother, and a trans mother, oceanleaving offers a sensuous kinship between tenacious women and the sea.