Dragons, Jewish Families & LGBT Romance

Author Shira Glassman recently announced a new republished collection of what she has dubbed her "Mangoverse books", a whimsical fantasy series featuring queer Jewish characters forging their own paths and forming chosen family through the bonds of adventure. Each book has new color cover art a Hebrew and Yiddish glossary, and the series as a whole gets a new tie-in with a collection of short stories called Tales from Perach. Here's some quick and witty summaries of each book:

• The Second Mango - origin story, in which the gay Queen and hetero demi warrior woman become BFFs
• Climbing the Date Palm - Queen helps the bi prince from next door rescue his activist boyfriend from Certain Doom
• A Harvest of Ripe Figs - Queen solving mysteries in her capital city, chiefly the theft of a priceless violin, while raising a baby with her bi partner
• The Olive Conspiracy - Queen saves her country from a plot to sabotage her country’s agriculture

Glassman's books are breezy and whimsical without coming off as insubstantial. Queen Shulamit carries power and agency and shows that kindness and compassion need not mean weakness or uncertainty, and is probably easily my favorite non-dragon character.