• The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow
• Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst
• Otherbound by Corrine Duyvis
• Adaptation by Malinda Lo
• Inheritance by Malinda Lo
• Ash by Malinda Lo
• Huntress by Malinda Lo
• The Abyss Surrounds Us by Emily Skrutskie

Hello, Voyagers!!!! How's everyone doing in this fiiiiine day? I hope good and ready for some fun time with this day's guest, Dahlia Adler! She is the author of several favorite books, such as: Behind the Scenes, Under the Lights and Just Visiting. We also really like her NA books: She has released Last Will and Testament, and her next one is coming out on March 15th *cough* steamy!

But today we're going to talk about friendships and girls and the perfect mix for what makes a good friendship between girls work. We love Dahlia and she is definitely the Queen of Book Recs. We'll leave her blog link down below so you'll check all the amazing recommendations she makes.



The Book Voyagers: Why is it important to show healthy relationships (and friendships) between girls?

Dahlia Adler: My friendships with girls have gotten me through some of the hardest times and also helped me enjoy some of the best. It makes me really sad to see depictions of girls in constant competition, or of friendships that completely dissolve once a guy comes in to the picture. I think it's so important to show the ways girls can be there for each other and support each other and understand each other. And of course I think it's important to show romantic relationships between them too, because those are real and valid and don't appear in media nearly enough, especially with happy endings.

TBV: Victoria and Reagan's friendship is so special. They have this bond that clearly no one can break and we smile to see them conquer the world step by step. When you wrote them - their friendship -, what was the most important thing you wanted to show to the readers? 

DA: The number one thing I had in mind when I wrote them was that I wanted them to be real friends - not frenemies. I wanted them to genuinely want the best for each other, even when they weren't getting along. Because that depth of love and support is what matters, and it doesn't go away just because you clash every now and again.

TBV: And if there was a crossover between Behind the Scenes (Ally and Van) and Just Visiting (Victoria and Reagan) what do you think they would do together as a group in Valentine's Day?

HELLO GUYS! This is Day #3 of #GirlsConqueringBooks Valentine's Day event (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧  Today we're giving the floor to bloggers. We asked a few bloggers about their favorite female relationships and friendships in books. We wanted to know why they chose them and why they thought those friendships were some of the best in literature. We also asked them to choose two heroines (either from different books or same ones) that could work really well if they were to collaborate on a Chemistry project - like in school - and the reason they chose those two.

We obviously wanted them to have fun picking and hopefully you guys did, and here are the answers they gave us!

Our second guest is Audrey Coulthurst, author of the upcoming Of Fire and Stars.(STAY TUNED FOR THE COVER RELEASE ON THE 16TH, exciting, no?)  We were so excited to show off more great books with GREAT f/f relationships. It was such a blast to work with you, Audrey. <3
Audrey Coulthurst writes YA books that tend to involve magic, horses, and kissing the wrong people. Her debut novel OF FIRE AND STARS will be published by Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins. When she’s not dreaming up new stories, she can usually be found painting, singing, or on the back of a horse.

Audrey has a Master’s in Writing from Portland State University, is a member of SCBWI, and studied with Malinda Lo as a 2013 Lambda Literary Foundation Fellow. She lives in Santa Monica, California. Find out more about Audrey and her books at audreycoulthurst.com or follow her on Twitter at @audwrites.



Without further ado...
1. Why is it important to show healthy relationships (and friendships) between girls? 

Many pieces have been written on the tendency of books about queer girls to end in tragedy—happy endings have eluded us for a long time. When I started seeking out YA books about queer girls years ago, most of what I was able to find were stories about coming out or secret relationships, like Annie on My Mind, Dare Truth or Promise, or Keeping You A Secret. The central struggle for the main characters in those books was often not only coping with a first same-sex relationship, but also the pressures of unaccepting parents or peers. While those stories are still crucial, and a real part of life for many teens, we’ve reached a point at which it’s also important to show that queer girls can be the heroes of any type of narrative. What I’m excited to see now are more queer girls whose biggest problem isn’t being queer, but perhaps figuring out how to save the world (or the galaxy!), coping with problematic magical powers, handling challenging relationships with parents, or perhaps navigating multiple marginalized identities.

As a writer of fantasy, one of the most awesome things I get to do is to create worlds in which queerness or other identities marginalized in our society are not condemned. That was one of my goals with OF FIRE AND STARS. The obstacle standing between my main characters, Dennaleia and Mare, is not the fact that they fall for one another, but the circumstances under which it happens—that Dennaleia is betrothed to Mare’s brother for a necessary alliance.

2. For Valentine's Day what would Mare give Dennaleia as a gift? And what would Dennaleia give Mare? 

Knowing that Dennaleia is huge reader who enjoys scholarly pursuits, Mare would likely give her a book on some sort of academic topic to help her learn more about the new kingdom she’s moved to—something like WARRIORS OF WIND: A HISTORICAL EXPLORATION OF RELIGION AND HORSEMANSHIP IN EARLY NOMADIC MYNARIA. As for Dennaleia, she knows that music is one of the things that brings out Mare’s sensitive side, so she’d put together a private concert for the two of them. She might play music on her harp that was important to Mare in childhood and some songs they can sing together.

HELLO VOYAGERS. We're here on our very first day of #GirlsConqueringBooks event. Today our guest is the lovely and talented - Emily Skrutskie. And give her a big congratulations... BECAUSE THE ABYSS SURROUNDS releases today!!!!! We love this book quite a lot in the TBV fam and we wanted Emily to be the first one up to share the joy of her book and the greatest relationship we have seen in a book.
ES: They’re very practical. Swift would get Cas a pistol. Cas would get Swift an alarm clock.

Valentine's Day is just so close! (▰˘◡˘▰) Hearts, love, cuteness overload -we at The Book Voyagers came up with an event that it's basically a week to share the love for books that have strong female friendships and also strong female relationships. This idea came because Mana and I realized that there's too many books that embrace the plotline of girl vs girl. Or even worse, slutshaming. Which we girls shouldn't be represented by that in books because it's awful and disgusting. Why compete in something when girls can be perfectly good friends and allies in good and bad? 

We were tired of seeing this same pattern over and over, so the #GirlsConqueringBooks event is about girl power and friendships and love. We hope you enjoy all the posts and guests we have planned for it and share the love!!!!