Pride Review – Undergrounder by JE Glass

Hello again and welcome back to our Pride celebrations! As usual, I’m Jesse and this time we are taking a look at a great book called Undergrounder by JE Glass. She was born in the Midwest of the US, but moved near Washington DC as a child. Growing up hearing rumors of how the Free Masons and founding fathers used the area as a playground allowed her imagination to begin to run wild with stories. When not writing you can find her either in her workshop or garage working on a prop or costume for a cosplay or convention that she and her wife are going to. I would love to be able to do something like that, but I certainly don’t have the skills she does! You can check her out on her website, on Twitter @JEGlass_ or over at Linktree to see all her links and ways to connect!

Drowned by men. Saved by a monster.

The last place Alexandra Bailey expects her routine life of domestic journalism to lead is being sucked into icy floodwaters below New York City with a knife in her ribs. Headlines like this happen to other people, but it’s real, and she knows she’s dead. Which makes the circumstances of her survival as impossible as the woman who drags her from the water.

Saved but hardly safe, Alex wakes in the Underground, a world of misfits and monsters thriving below the streets. It’s a journalism goldmine. One Alex can’t resist digging into after learning her beastly savior is Leanna Farrow, adopted daughter of an infamous and “presumed dead” scientist. But Alex’s curiosity, coupled with her rapidly developing feelings for Leanna, put both women in danger when Alex’s inquiries pique the interest of a powerful family with bloody connections to the Underground.

If Alex wants to unravel the secrets of the world below she’ll have to walk the razor’s edge, but some mysteries are better left buried.

This book pulled me in from the very beginning. The book opens with a reporter named Alexandra Bailey being picked up by a few unsavory fellows who say she has angered their boss and she has to pay. The problem is she doesn’t even know who their boss is! They leave her stabbed and floating in the river where she is saved by Leanna Farrow and taken to the Underground to heal, a place where misfits and monsters can be safe under the streets.

This book features a lot of diversity, and not just from the fact that Lee is a female character based off of a rather “beastly” fellow from a Disney film. Lee is mute and doesn’t speak. Her aunt Em is blind. Several characters know sign language. There are characters of all walks of life and ways of living in this novel and I loved to see such diversity!

Besides Alex and Lee, I think that Em might have been my favorite character. She is sarcastic and witty and doesn’t let being blind stop her at all. She isn’t afraid to tell Lee that she is going a bit overboard, but at the same time isn’t afraid to side with Lee. She knows what she believes to be right and wrong and she won’t let anyone’s opinion sway her.

I can not stress enough how much I recommend this book. It fills so many things I wanted like diverse characters, a retelling of a fairy tale, queer love, great characters, a fantastic setting and an easy to read writing style. Go check out this book on Amazon and give JE Glass some love for a great book!