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3.5 

Venom & Vow

By Anna-Marie McLemore & Elliott McLemore
Venom & Vow by Anna-Marie McLemore & Elliott McLemore digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

Two enemy kingdoms are forced to work together to break a curse in this lush YA fantasy, featuring a transgender prince and a bigender dama/assassin in the lead roles.

Keep your enemy closer.

Cade McKenna is a transgender prince who’s doubling for his brother.
Valencia Palafox is a young dama attending the future queen of Eliana.
Gael Palma is the infamous boy assassin Cade has vowed to protect.
Patrick McKenna is the reluctant heir to a kingdom, and the prince Gael has vowed to destroy.

Cade doesn’t know that Gael and Valencia are the same person.
Valencia doesn’t know that every time she thinks she’s fighting Patrick, she’s fighting Cade.
And when Cade and Valencia blame each other for a devastating enchantment that takes both their families, neither of them realizes that they have far more dangerous enemies.

Cowritten by married writing team Anna-Marie and Elliott McLemore, Venom & Vow is a lush and powerful YA novel about owning your power and becoming who you really are - no matter the cost.

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134 Reviews

3.5
“I liked the story, was pretty intrigued by the magic system. I thought one of the twists could have been done without especially since it was wrapped up really easily…. i do however have a complaint about the audiobook. Okay… i understand wanting representation but not having a ton of options available to you or this decision may have been made without the authors input (could never be me but some people don’t have that luxury) BUT. If you’ve communicated one thing to one narrator then why not both? ESPECIALLY if you’re having a duet happen. And that duet seems like one person got the memo but not the other. At that point.. just have one narrator. Cades inner dialogue wasn’t in an accent which i guess could be a question of a different sense but he had an accent when he was speaking to Val. At least from his/her pov Cade sounded like an accent. The lore and character context seemed like an accent could happen but it was almost like a break in continuity?? Please correct me if I’m wrong or maybe I’m just not being diverse in my sense!?! I understand dual vs duet are different but it didn’t seem like vico was trying to change the cadence of the voice of Cade it simply seemed they were trying to have an accent where cades VA was just speaking without one”
Beaming Face with Smiling Eyes“As a disabled queer person, I loved having representation in this book.”

About Anna-Marie McLemore

Anna-Marie McLemore was born in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and taught by their family to hear la llorona in the Santa Ana winds. They are the author of The Weight of Feathers, a finalist for the 2016 William C. Morris Debut Award; 2017 Stonewall Honor Book When the Moon Was Ours, which was longlisted for the National Book Award in Young People’s Literature and was the winner of the James Tiptree Jr. Award; Wild Beauty, Blanca & Roja, Dark and Deepest Red, The Mirror Season, which was longlisted for the National Book Award, and Lakelore.

Elliott McLemore is a nonbinary trans guy who comes from mountains and loves trees. As a child, he romped in dresses, fought with plastic swords, and dreamed up his first stories. Between then and now, he has focused on academic and professional writing, research, and advocacy, including work toward adding nonbinary gender markers to California identity documents. Venom & Vow is his debut novel.

Elliott McLemore

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