Do you like sapphic fantasy romances, inter-dimensional weirdness, and women going their own way despite entrenched organisational stuffiness? Then How to Get a Girlfriend (When You’re a Terrifying Monster) by Marie Cardno will be your kind of trip.
This book is set partially in Dunedin/Ōtepoti and partially in a dimension of eldritch abominations. It’s part fantasy, part sci fi, part horror, all sweet sapphic romance.
In a way, this book reminds me of old stories serialised in the magazine Weird Tales in the 1930s. Specifically, I’m thinking of the Jirel of Joiry stories by CL Moore, which were written in a time when the three main speculative genres hadn’t yet cleaved. But in Marie Cardno’s work, instead of sword and sorcery shenanigans saving the day, it’s the tenacity of two women (?) who just want to get all the world-ending horror out of the way so they can finally smooch.
This is a novella-length story, a perfect evening snack of a book.
Life is tough when you’re an eldritch abomination.
Trillin isn’t technically a person. She’s a tiny breakaway piece of consciousness from the all-devouring Endless, doomed to eventually rejoin it. But when a human witch stumbles into her world, Trillin suddenly has a new reason to figure out individuality–one shape-shifting tentacle at a time.
Sian is sure important magical discoveries are just around the corner, if she can just get her portals to work reliably. Reaching the dimension of the Endless without being eaten on sight is a dream come true, and Sian is determined to explore every bit of it. For science, of course, not for the strangely adorable life-form who keeps popping up and trying to… flirt?
But Trillin’s world can be a dangerous place, and keeping Sian safe might risk drawing the attention of the Endless itself–which will swallow Trillin up along with all her dreams of humanity. Together, can this unlikely duo escape the Endless, figure out the optimum number of appendages, and maybe even find love?
How to Get a Girlfriend (When You’re a Terrifying Monster) is a sweet, low-heat F/F sapphic romance between a witch scientist and a shape-shifting Cthulhu monster. HEA guaranteed!
