Notes from a Regicide

by Isaac Fellman

Notes from a Regicide is a heartbreaking story of trans self-discovery with a rich relatability and a science-fictional twist from award-winning author Isaac Fellman.

When your parents die, you find out who they really were.

Griffon Keming’s second parents saved him from his abusive family. They taught him how to be trans, paid for his transition, and tried to love him as best they could. But Griffon’s new parents had troubles of their own – both were deeply scarred by the lives they lived before Griffon, the struggles they faced to become themselves, and the failed revolution that drove them from their homeland. When they died, they left an unfillable hole in his heart.

Griffon’s best clue to his parents’ lives is in his father’s journal, written from a jail cell while he awaited execution. Stained with blood, grief, and tears, these pages struggle to contain the love story of two artists on fire. With the journal in hand, Griffon hopes to pin down his relationship to these wonderful and strange people for whom time always seemed to be running out.

In Notes from a Regicide, a trans family saga set in a far-off, familiar future, Isaac Fellman goes beyond the concept of found family to examine how deeply we can be healed and hurt by those we choose to love.

Genres: Queer, LGBT, Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Adult, Transgender

336 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 15, 2025

About the author

Isaac Fellman is the Lambda Literary Award-winning author of Dead Collections, The Two Doctors Gorski, and The Breath of the Sun.

Reviews

[Siavahda · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you one-star a book before there are even arcs of it I WILL five-star it, sorry-not-sorry.

Later: having now read it, can confirm it deserves ALL the stars!

Rtc!

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

if transphobic freaks are gonna 1-star this without reading it, you'd better believe I will cancel you out

[Melanie (meltotheany) · Rating 5 out of 5]

♡ r/fantasy's june 2026 book

“As a painter, I'm the Eight of Coins. The King of Coins, on my very good days. I paint bodies with my body. I make bodies with my body. I am a father of art. I'm not a teacher. I always felt that you wanted to know me better, to find my secrets, but I'm not sure that I have any. All I am is a man standing at a table with a coin, a cup, a brush, and a knife?”

i’ve read so many things, i’ve reviewed so many things, and i just feel like at this point in my reading journey, if you can do something that feels completely new and fresh, i will most likely enjoy your story. but if it also has elements that i know i already love? well, that’s when they become new all-time favorites (like the spear cuts through water and the saint of bright doors). and i truly haven’t read anything like this story before. and as of the half way mark of 2026, i think this could be my favorite story of the entire year!

this is a tale of two trans immigrants, who are revolutionaries, artists, survivors, and it’s being told by their trans son, who is a journalist. he is going through his father’s books, and translating both his parent’s lives, but also recounting his own life, from childhood to when they both have passed. they were from a canadian colony led by a dictator (yes, think about the title of this book), but their tale ends in a future, dystopian feeling, new york city, and we slowly learn more and more about a prince and how he died.

there is such a prominent theme in this about fighting to live a creative life, especially as a queer person, and that just really resonated so deeply within me. i have never read anything that has talked about that concept in the way in which this one did, and even though it was so brutally heartbreaking at times, i feel so thankful for the constant depiction of that theme alone. i also feel like this is such a beautiful reminder that there will never be a right way to transition, and that everyone's bodies are allowed to transition differently. and then all of this with the backdrop about art, and reclaiming one’s power with and through art, it just was perfection to me. and i extra loved seeing all of these different artists' different relationships with creating art, and also with viewing art, too.

this is a very harrowing feeling tale, because you know that both of griffon’s parents have passed. and there is a lot of darker stuff with mental health in this story, so please use caution. but, my god, is this a story all about love and family and the things you’ll do for the family you love. i actually think this book made me feel every emotion known to humans, and oh the tears that i did weep, extra at some beautiful tarot cards, but ultimately, this really is one big devotional love letter. and i really will carry etoine and zaffre’s stories in my heart forever.

trigger + content warnings: loss of a loved ones, suicide mention, cancer mention, alcoholism, addiction, overdose, captivity, vomit, agoraphobia, grief, self hate, transphobia, homophobia, use of f slur, misgendering, abandonment, very abusive parent, self harm, police brutality, prison, torture, blood, fire, needles, medical care (surgery / operations)

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[Bethany (Beautifully Bookish Bethany) · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up

Beautifully written queer literary fiction with a bit of a speculative twist. Not quite what I was expecting, and not entirely my thing stylistically, but a novel I think will resonate with the right audience. Notes from a Regicide is supposed to be a memoir/biography written by a trans man a thousand years in the future about his adoptive trans parents who were revolutionaries.

This is slow-paced, deeply character driven, not always linear, and ferociously queer and trans. Especially with what is happening politically right now in the United States, this feels like an important statement that trans people have always existed and aren't going anywhere. It's not an easy book- characters deal with oppression, abuse, addiction, mental health struggles and more. And yet in the midst of everything they find love and joy and ways to live more fully into themselves. While I sometimes found this book to be too slow for my taste and sometimes confusing in terms of the timeline, I love what it's doing and suspect that it's going to somebody's new favorite book. The audio narration is well done, and thankfully we get different voices for the narrator and the pieces written by his father before he died. I received an audio review copy via NetGalley, all opinions are my own.

[Jillian B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in the far future, this book tells the story of a quirky, deeply loveable couple who get caught up in a revolution. It’s framed as something put together by their adopted son, Griffon, as an adult—a compilation of his father’s journals and his own reflections on his relationship with them. All three main characters—father, mother, and son—are trans.

I’m not a huge sci-fi reader, but I love stories where deeply personal relationships play out against an apocalyptic or dystopian setting. The family at the core of this book live in New York City, but it is one with some major differences from the NYC we know today: people get around in part by a system of canals and electricity is deeply limited. The narrator’s parents come from a colony in what is now Quebec that is even more idiosyncratic. Our world is a distant past that they know only bits and pieces about.

I loved the richly developed characters in this story, and the way the author framed their complex relationship as a found family. Griffon loves his parents and is appreciative that they rescued him from his abusive biological father, and yet he lashes out and tests boundaries. As a teenager and younger man, he doesn’t quite understand the way their trauma has shaped them. Only in his adult years, and their old age, does he truly come to understand and admire them.

You definitely need to enjoy sci-fi at least a little bit to appreciate this book, but I do think it will appeal to my fellow lit fic readers!

Thank you to the publisher for gifting me a copy of this book.

[Maia · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a future so distant it feels like the past, a trans journalist, Griffon Keming, writes about the parents who adopted him as a teenager. They took him away from an abusive home, paid for his transition, and tried to love him and raise him as well as they could but they were deeply damaged by their own pasts. They were both artists and revolutionaries who helped topple a monarchy on the small island kingdom they called home before fleeing to a New York almost unrecognizable to ours. Griffon's narration is woven through a journal written by his adopted father while in prison, suffering from a disabling injury, alcoholism and grief, thinking the love of his life was already dead. This story has an ornate Baroque heaviness to the aesthetic and world building that make it feel like historical fiction despite some science fiction elements. It's a weird, nonlinear book which takes its own time to reveal its secrets and sweetness. I have no idea what to compare it to and I had such a good time with it! At its core it the story of a found family of trans folks surviving, broken but unbowed, systems that sought to crush them. It feels timely and timeless.

[John Wiswell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Isaac Fellman has done it again, adding a book to the SFF canon that nobody else would have thought up. Here we have a trans journalist discovering that his parents--the couple who took him in and helped him discover himself--were way more than just kind or eccentric. We all take our guardians for granted. Here, his parents may have been linchpins in a fight for revolution.

But Notes from a Regicide still isn't a story of warfare, or of a political movement. It's the story about this small family of three, and how much they impact each other's lives, so much so that the kid they meant everything to could have missed huge parts of their lives. It's beautiful and personal. It's a book that aches.

Avi Roque brings the novel to life with a vulnerable performance that always has a necessary undercurrent of resolve.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio for sending me the audiobook.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s been a little over a week since I chanced across this. It was one of those “readers also liked” listings down the page of something or other I was looking at, and the cover caught my eye. I didn’t recognize the author. (It turns out I’ve had his novella The Two Doctors Górski for a while but haven’t read it.) The somewhat misleading description appealed to me. Found family, political intrigue, and I’m conscious of needing to read from some other points on the rainbow these days. It was on sale at an impulse purchase price, but none of my GR pals had read it. I’m being more frugal about my book purchases, so I opened it up to sample the prose.

This is the point where so often books fail. They sound appealing, but half a page is enough to move them from hmmm to Hell, no! But Notes from a Regicide is one of the rare books to go from hmmm to Fuck YES! on the basis of a few sentences. (It’s not the sort of writing where I notice the cadences, but it was still very much to my taste.)

The description the publisher gives is very flawed, though I admit, I can’t think offhand of a better one. The titular regicide, the revolution, and Griffon’s angst with regards to his connection to his adoptive parents is very background. The book is framed as a book written by Griffon about Zaffre and Etoine using extracts from Etoine’s journal interspersed with his own recollections, and Etoine was oblivious to the revolution and while Griffon admits to his feelings with regards to the couple, he’s not going on and on about them or giving us the sort of internalized narration that lets a reader feel close to a character.

Griffon gives us something of his own coming of age, and relationship to Etoine and Zaffre, but the focus of the book feels very much on the older pair, and even there, we get only an outside view of Zaffre.

They’re a messy, prickly pair, but I loved them.

The sales copy would also have you believe there’s a “science-fictional twist” but I’m not sure what they’re referring to, and I don’t think any of the science-fiction elements were integral to the story. It would only have taken minor edits to turn it into a fantasy in my opinion.

Which brings me to the book’s main flaw. The handling of the setting. Now, I’ve said it before, but I loathe worldbuilding. When people say the setting feels like another character I run screaming the other way. I don’t give a rat’s ass what the furniture looks like, or how they have strawberries in winter or any of that bullshit. (Ok, you could probably make a good story focused on how they have strawberries in winter. Presentation is everything.) A story should be about people not places, not ideas. All that trash should be limited to the bare minimum required to understand the situation of the specific characters in focus.

So why am I ranting about setting here?

Because the setting is ostensibly a thousand years in the future, but the vibes are very pre-industrial revolution, and Fellman never really sets baseline expectations for the level of technology. Much has been lost, but just what is never made clear, and because of that there were a couple of times quite deep into the book where some technology or technique is referenced that just jolted me right out of the story. Some things need to be given early, or not at all.

This kind of thing jars all the more when the book is doing everything else so well. Still, it’s a forgivable flaw, and I enjoyed the book a lot. Maybe it didn’t give me everything I’d have asked for, and doubtless there was a lot of trans stuff that just went right over my head, but that just suggests to me there’s more than enough going on here to be worth revisiting someday, so I guess I’m rounding up.

[Zana · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a lot more literary sci-fi than I thought it'd be, which unfortunately, isn't really my thing. But I know some of my friends and mutuals would really appreciate this book.

I really liked how this book showed how each of its MCs (Griffon, Etoine, and Zaffre) dealt with their transitions and their trans identities. Each character's journey felt very personal and very real, like I was reading about a friend or an acquaintance's experiences. If not for the soft sci-fi portion, definitely read this if you're looking for trans voices in fiction.

But other than that, I wanted so much more out of the worldbuilding. It's set in the far future, with undead electors who vote in a ruler, and the city state(?) that's mentioned changes names as soon as the new ruler is in power.

There was so much potential with all of this, but instead it's a character study about a couple and their adopted son that could've been written in a contemporary setting without losing anything from the story.

The book does touch on what happened in Etoine and Zaffre's past during the revolution, but it felt very last minute and wasn't enough to whet my appetite. It felt more like set dressing than anything. But then again, I'm the type of person who prefers to read about revolutions instead of the aftermath. If you're more of a lit fic reader, then it might not bother you.

I did like the author's writing though, and I'll definitely check out their previous books.

Thank you to Tor Books and NetGalley for this arc.

[laurel [the suspected bibliophile] · Rating 4 out of 5]

So...I should have DNF'd.

Not because it wasn't good—it was—but it was not quite what I thought it was going to be.

And I should have known, given my love of Dead Collections, that I was going to be in for something a bit more of a character study, a deep-dive into personhood, than a tightly wound plot. But I wasn't quite expecting so much...meandering? I was hoping for just a little more plot and a lot less dancing around the issue.

Anywho, it IS good.

As a character study of transness in the far distant and not-so-distant future, it slaps. It's a gorgeous exploration of what makes a person a person and what makes them feel SEEN in their gender and how various societies treat gender expression and identity.

As a study in history and uncovering a person's life, it's also really good. Very tight POV, from Etionne's diaries, such that much of the revolution happens off-page. There is a lot of talk on art.

However, it was just too long, and there's even a note at the end that *this* book that Griffon the narrator has assembled is the rough notes version. The non-cleaned up version. And...I kinda wish that we had gotten the more streamlined version that was perhaps 100 pages shorter? I was SHOCKED to learn this is only 336 pages, because it feels like 500.

I wouldn't have been able to finish if I hadn't ended up checking out the audiobook.

Anywho, if you're looking for a book that takes its time, a slow build of remembrance and grief and a dash of revolution and much mental illness and a really beautiful exploration of what being trans means, this is the one.

If you're looking for a faster-paced sci-fi book about artists taking down corrupt regimes with trans characters, skip this one and read Phoenix Extravagant.

I received an ARC from the publisher, but finished with a library audiobook

[Hal Schrieve · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book hyperfocused on trans parents-- the sense of "parents" that means "a trans person who rescues another from their birth family". Set in a speculative world that is less a built-out futurescape and more a through-the-looking-glass present (which trans people do love to write about, don't we), it focuses on a t4t couple, both artists, who are living in New York a thousand years from now-- a NYC which seems effectively the same except without electricity, and with an implied relocation/raising, since skyscraper glass ended up in the ocean. The t4t pair are the complex, aged former revolutionaries who killed the prince of their home city-state, a place frozen in a kind of Renaissance drag somewhere in Quebec (?), and the narrative is split between the curated prison diaries of the scraggly-haired, sober alcoholic trans man and the meditations of their adopted trans son on his mentors' strange bond with each other.

The trans woman is the actual revolutionary; the trans guy just killed the prince because he thought she was dead. He got himself together for her; she has schizophrenia and is a genius.

The strength of this book is in its powerful emotional specificity about trans intimacy, and about the boundaries around it, the places it cannot carry us. It is a family memoir, with changed details serving to heighten the truth at its heart-- of people whose pasts are expansive and packed with deeds and misdeeds, who are not perfect mentors because of their own trauma, and who struggle with their own illnesses. The setting isn't really my aesthetic style-- I am much more interested in imaginings of worlds where social hierarchies have changed, rather than stayed the same, in the future-- but I love the very hyperfocused descriptions of art and its meaning in a future-feudal world.

[James 🦤 · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up. Usually I don’t round up for books under 4 stars, but it’s worth noting the ratings for this book got messed up by people 1 starring it before arcs were even available because it’s focused on trans characters.

I think this book as the potential to be a 5 star for someone, just not me, and I’ll fully own that I think part of it is just me. The concept is amazing and I love watching Etoine, Zaffre, and Griffon’s found family come together. It’s always refreshing to see books about older trans people because I feel like media has gotten caught up in only portraying teenagers and young adults. Outside of the trans thing, the story of the revolution is an interesting one and I especially loved the whole concept of the electors.

My issue ultimately comes with the pacing. I found myself getting bored which is not something you really want out of a book under 300 pages. I understand what the author was going for with the pacing being a bit all over the place, but I don’t think it worked. It made the book feel disjointed in a bad way. In retrospect it wasn’t really a slow paced book, but it felt like it while I was reading.

I really like Etoine and Zaffre, but frequently found myself frustrated or bored with Griffon. I liked getting peeks of their found family and domestic life, but by the end of the book felt like I was suffering through Griffon chapters to get back to Etoine.

I would really like more worldbuilding. I have finished the book and still don’t understand exactly where we’re meant to be (alternate New York? New York in the far future?) Stephensport got a decent amount of worldbuilding, but I still don’t feel like I understand where it is, why it exists, or what exactly the electors are no matter how cool they are conceptually.

[Christine Swisher · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was beautiful and powerful but confusing. Throughout the book I constantly went back and forth between absolutely loving it and not understanding what they were talking about, like I had missed an inside conversation.

[Ian Mond]

I’ve been talking about Notes From a Regicide a lot lately. I spoke glowingly about it on The Coode Street Best-of-2025 round-up podcast. It made it onto my top books of 2025, and I recently wrote a hundred or so words about it for Locus Magazine as part of my Year in Review essay.* In other words, I feel like I’ve said everything I need to say about Notes From a Regicide and, as such, would simply point you to this review by Roseanna Pendlebury, which elegantly sums up my thoughts on the novel.

But. Fuck it. I loved it so much, I’m going to review it anyway.

One of the key strengths of Notes From a Regicide is its “world-building”—or lack thereof. My first thought was that we were in a secondary world. Mention of Stephensport, a principality in the “north” ruled over (before he was deposed) by a Prince, screams high fantasy. Except that Griffon Kenning has already told us he lives in New York, the city where his adoptive parents, Etoine and Zaffre, fled to after a short-lived and violent revolution in Stephensport. “They came to New York,” Griffon writes, “the eternal city, which five hundred years ago was called New York, and in another thousand years will be called New York still.” So is this the future? Or an alternative Earth? Or something else?

I’d like to tell you, but piecing together when Notes From a Regicide takes place is, at least for me, part of the fun. I’ve seen criticism that Fellman should have eschewed the speculative elements and written this novel about revolution, found families, and trans identity as a straight (or realist) novel. I don’t agree. (Obviously.) The speculative foundations of the setting add a richness and a narrative ambiguity that suit a book all about self-discovery.

Like much contemporary speculative fiction, Notes From a Regicide resonates with and speaks to the current moment. Griffon’s experience as a trans man—rejected by his father, taken in by Etoine and Zaffre, who are also trans, and who assist with his transition—is depicted with a beautiful and raw physicality. The love and passion that Etoine and Zaffre display toward their new son, which Griffon more than reciprocates, isn’t just moving; it reinforces the message, without Fellman needing to belabour the point, that people don’t choose to be trans just so they can piss off conservatives and culture-war warriors.

That’s not to say that Notes From a Regicide isn’t an overtly political novel, because it very much is. Etoine’s scribbled notes from his time in a Stephensport prison, collected and edited by Griffon, are an account of a failed revolution that saw the Prince deposed, only to be replaced by a vicious authoritarian who changed the city’s name to match his own. We assume, at least initially, that Etoine was one of the key players behind the uprising. The opposite is closer to the truth. Etoine, a brilliant artist (and alcoholic), fell in love with an activist, Zaffre, whom he met when they were both commissioned to paint the portrait of one of the mysterious (and comatose) electors who rule the city. But unlike Zaffre, Etoine is cynical about change. He doesn’t view art as politically transformative; at best, it points out, after the fact, society’s flaws. His notes and Griffon’s commentary become a fascinating meditation on the nature of activism, protest, and revolution—and how violence shapes all of the above.

Like the pros, I’m going to end the review with a quote. You deserve a taste of Fellman’s evocative prose:

“Art works at the particle level. Tiny fragments of graphite in a pencil, tiny fragments of pigment suspended in oil. The thrill is manipulating these hundred billion little bits of stone into an image that will please you. People who want to make art, but can’t, are very unhappy. The only thing they can manipulate is people, and a person is a very unsatisfying particle—six feet tall and fleshy and full of frustrations, while the particles of paint are smooth and tiny and so many.”

*Which will be out in February.

[KMart Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those books that welcomes you into its pages and does not apologize for the messy, raw humanity within. This is not a book you rush through. It’s a book you sit with—one that asks you to slow down, breathe, and feel every bittersweet moment. Fellman has crafted something quietly magnificent here: a hauntingly poetic meditation on grief, trans identity, chosen family, and the stories we inherit. Every line feels like a small incision—sharp, aching, and impossibly full of meaning. Each sentence pulls double duty as both narrative and art.

It’s introspective and intentional, with a scifi backdrop that feels almost incidental. The speculative elements add weight rather than distraction. This world feels like ours, just tilted slightly. This is literary fiction with a speculative edge, and it will hit hard if you let it. It’s not always easy—this is a book about loss, and identity, and trying to make sense of a world that’s never offered easy answers—but it is deeply worth the journey.

At the heart of it is Griffon, and his relationship to his second parents—especially his father, whose journal anchors much of the book. The love here is imperfect and sometimes painful, but it’s real—and it asks hard questions about what we owe to the people who love us, who raise us, who break us and build us back up again.

This is literary fiction with a speculative edge, and it will hit hard if you let it. It’s not always easy—this is a book about loss, and identity, and trying to make sense of a world that’s never offered easy answers—but it is deeply worth the journey.

Beautiful, brutal, and resonant. I closed the final page in awe.

Thanks so much to Storygram Tours and Tor for the complimentary copy. This review is voluntary and all opinions are my own.

[Kat · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my anticipated new releases for this year. In Notes from a Regicide, Griffon retells the story of his adoptive parents' tempestuous lives in the insular city-state of Stephensport, interspersed with musings on his complex relationship with them. Also, all three are transgender and the plot is set a thousand years in the future.

This is a very odd and original little novel. On the one hand, it's determinedly litfic in its outlook. It's about Griffon reading through his father's memoir, and reflecting on what he saw of his parents as compared to who they were decades ago, and about Etoine's struggles with alcoholism and Zaffre's with schizophrenia. But on the other, this is a book with a complex and delicate framework of SF worldbuilding just below the surface. I won't spoil it all, since half the fun is piecing together what's going on from offhand references, but it's set a thousand years in the future in isolated Stephensport, which is determinedly neo-Baroque, and most sophisticated technology has been lost.

One of the quirks of Notes from a Regicide is that so much of the novel is centered around the building revolution in Stephensport, but the story itself is filtered through Etoine, who is ruthlessly apolitical and is simply not paying attention. Yes, he created the portrait that became the center of a movement, but he doesn't refer to the revolution except in the most offhand asides, despite the fact that Zaffre obviously is knee-deep in it. The focus on the personal and the intimate rather than larger political movements is one of the things that gives the book a distinctly litfic flavor. The reader gets in-depth reflections on Zaffre, Etoine, and narrator Griffon's transitions, but little more than a glancing mention of riots in the streets.

Utterly original, melancholy and intimate. Highly recommended, particularly for fans of Ray Nayler, Jinwoo Chong's Flux, or Premee Mohamed's The Siege of Burning Grass.

[Nicole · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sometimes I enter Goodreads giveaways for books I’d never otherwise read, just to try out new authors and genres. Notes on a Regicide was one of those books I said “why not” to.

I’m conflicted about my reading experience.

I found the narrative convoluted. So convoluted, in fact, that at times I wondered if I was too dumb to be reading this book / if my reading comprehension skills were in the toilet.

It felt overstuffed with themes and thoughts of what this book could be, but never picked a lane. The world building is ambitious, but for a book apparently set in a dystopian future, it felt like I was reading a book set in Victorian past (maybe a me thing; I have trouble visualizing what I’m reading).

The plot side was messy but I did appreciate the conversation about the trans experience in this book. And mental health. The character studies were very thoughtfully and intentionally done.

It’s unlike most queer books I’ve read in that this actually felt like a literary novel.

Overall, this book definitely wasn’t for me, but it was unbelievably nice to see a complex queer book for once (though it was way too complex for its own good).

[Monte · Rating 5 out of 5]

For most of my time reading this book, I thought I’d give it reserved praise in a review. It is slow, and messy, and frequently excruciatingly on the nose. It is also unlike anything else I’ve ever read, which is a pleasure I rarely encounter, and it scours with intensity and honesty experiences that are deeply intimate to me—queer and trans experiences, yes, but also the experience of surviving together while sick, somehow both suffering and thriving at once; of navigating the freezing and burning spots in close familial relationships and friendships that take years, or decades, to neutralize, if they ever do; and of a love so immense it must be gazed at over and over and over to even begin making sense of it. I have never before had the joy of seeing these particular wonders and agonies overturned and tilled with such care in a novel, in a way that spoke to me so specifically. By the end, Fellman broke down all my resistance. The last page had me crying. This book was gorgeous, was a wonder to read, and will stay with me a long, long time.

[J. L. R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Notes from a Regicide by Isaac Fellman is the latest in a contemporary movement of literary novels with light science-fiction or fantasy elements marketed as SFF. While it takes place one thousand years in the future and deals with a revolution, it’s not an action-packed thriller or twisty political drama. Instead, it’s a character study of a young trans journalist named Griffon Keming, who is himself chronicling the stories of his adopted trans parents, Etoine and Zaffre, through Etoine’s diary. As the title suggests, we learn early on that Etoine killed the king of his and Zaffre’s original home city, a place called Stephensport that changes names with each new king and is located in what we’d now call Quebec. As the counter-revolution came to crush this one, Etoine and Zaffre flee to New York City to start a new life. But the full extent of their roles in the doomed revolution is spooled out slowly, over the course of the novel.

The real heart and soul of Notes from a Regicide is in Etoine and Zaffre’s relationship, and how these unlikely parents end up informally adopting the young Griffon and helping him to transition and flee from his abusive father. Etoine and Zaffre are a complicated pair. Both are artists and painters, though Etoine is more famous for portraits of the wealthy and powerful while Zaffre prefers to create avant-garde and abstract work anonymously. Etoine is an alcoholic, while Zaffre suffers from schizophrenia, depression, and suicidal thoughts. While both play their part in the revolution, Etoine is mostly apolitical, while Zaffre is a true believer. Fellman is unflinching in showing us the dark and self-destructive sides of his protagonists; though they are undoubtedly better parents than Griffon’s birth father, they never planned on being parents and manage to stumble through a lot of it less than stellar ways. Their romance is not the dramatic, sweeping romance of a traditional romance novel, nor the agonizing slow-burn of a beloved fanfic; instead it feels real and messy and desperate.

The future setting of Notes from a Regicide is only briefly sketched out; it’s a thousand years into the future, and aside from Stephensports legislative branch being a congress of cryo-gentically preserved immortals, the world is mostly unchanged. The wheels of progress and destruction have turned many times, and humanity now lives without computer technology, television, phones, etc., though there exists black market HRT and relatively advanced medicine. We don’t see much of Stephensports or New York City - instead we’re kept relatively isolated in Etoine and Zaffre’s homes. Griffon isn’t out to tell the story of the revolution or provide any context for his world; he’s just here to work through his feelings towards these two people who he loves and who have shaped him so irrevocably.

While the book grapples with questions of art, revolution, parenthood, addiction, and mental health, there’s no theme more prominent than that of its trans characters. Each of the main three characters has their own complicated relationships to their gender and their sexualities, with each coming to their realization and transition at different points in their lives, with different views on medical transition and even different sexualities. Trans relationships can be difficult in some unique ways; what if one or both partners transition to a gender that the other isn’t attracted to? Notes from a Regicide shows one such complication, as Etoine has to learn to see Zaffre as a woman after she confesses her feelings towards him long before she medically or socially transitions. Etoine writes of discovering a new way of having sex, a romantic notion that plays on both every couple’s feelings that they’ve been the first to discover their kind of love, while also grappling with how queer people - especially when first exploring - need to figure out ways of sex and romance that don’t conform to the normal hetero methods.

I admit that it took some time for the book to click with me; like much of this still-unnamed literary SFF movement, it spends most of its time in the thoughts of its protagonists, with writing both beautiful and sometimes rather solipsistic and insular. But through the slow excavation of this central romance, through difficulties both personal and political, I came to really feel for these characters and even cried a little (something that rarely happens for me in books!) It’s one of the more in-depth examinations of trans identity and queer romance that I’ve ever read; if that itself sounds interesting to you, it’s definitely worth a read. However, it’s a hard book to recommend, and most readers will probably bounce off of it. Its light science fiction elements may still turn off more literary-inclined readers, while the same fact that its future feels so similar to our real world may be unsatisfying for SFF fans. Personally, it worked for me, though I do wish Fellman had fleshed out a little more of the background. I think history may repeat in similar cycles, but I don’t imagine a thousand years in the future to be so similar to now.

All in all, this is a wonderful, emotional story of two damaged and flawed people clinging tightly together through turmoil and danger, and of the kid they have to learn how to help.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts expressed are my own.

[Ren Astro · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

I thought this was a really solid read. while it didn't completely have that wow factor, there was definitely some sauce in this book. while the prose was clunky at times I felt that was more stylistic because the story centers around two messy and dysfunctional people.

A part of me thought (and wanted) the book would explore trans identity but it didn't. I was a little disappointed at first but realized that's not what this book is about, the characters just happen to be trans.

[Elena Enns · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5)

Unapologetically raw and earnest, Notes from a Regicide tells the important story of tragedy, found family, and becoming who one truly is.

[CJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is EVERYTHING TO MEEEE. It’s reads like trans Nabokov!? It has recovery, eldercare, mental health + art, generational shit, and makes me cry level romance, like real lived in romance. I love this book so much !

[Makana Yamamoto]

Gorgeous prose, incredible character work, intensely moving, and so so so trans. I want to eat this book and absorb its pages, to keep it close to my heart

[Zoe Ysabella · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that feels entirely new, I've read nothing like it before. An intrinsically trans family history textured by each character's trauma and background in a sci-fi/post-apocalyptic flavored world out of time.
I found the framing of the story as the narrator's autopsy of his parents and a reflection on their relationship to each other, to him, and to their pasts really engaging. The portion at the end where the narrator reveals that this version of the book he's writing, the one that we've just read, will remain solely his, and he'll write a different version to publish, echoing Etoine's book for no one, really hit me with a lot of emotion.K The whole book feels very intimate, which is an incredible strength.

I love how trans this story is, how core it is to the story. This is a trans book for trans people, in the way that many trans people have a gender description they give to cis folks and one they give to other trans folks, this feels like a trans person discussing gender with another trans person. It's so familiar, it feels like my friends and adoptive family, my own queer ancestry.

I was a little more partial to Griffon's sections because I loved seeing how both easy and hard it was to become a family, and especially Etoine and Zaffre's awareness of how Griffon's trauma informs his interactions and relationships with them, and how they try to work around it. Specifically this conversation (which I will not tag as spoilers because it lacks context for it to be spoilers):
"I should wait and earn your trust."
"I already trust you."
"But we haven't earned it. And we will. I promise you, I promise you." Oh my heart.

Every part of this book was exquisite, and I highlighted what feels like most of it my kindle, to the point where I am going to buy a physical copy just so I can mark it up as a keepsake. It's so beautifully written without abstracting violence or harm. Instead, it explores and expands and enhances it.

It feels like a book written for me in a lovely coincidence way rather than feeling like the books is catering to a specific person. It feels like this book was written for the love of the game and art as a whole. I will definitely be picking up the other books by this author, because finishing this one felt like it left a little hole in my heart. I thought about the book constantly when I wasn't reading it, and was captivated when I was. This book truly hit my head and heart like a meteor.

[E. Jamieson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book that very much succeeds in its primary goal: blurring and then removing all the boundaries between things that are living humans and things that are not living humans. The dead are often not really dead in this book, time serves at the whim of the narrator rather than to telos ho chronos apaitei, and art permeates the story in such a way that you can't tell if the characters are living for it, or if it is pushing the characters through life. Thoughtfully and gorgeously written, achingly sincere, just enough removed from reality to make you think you simultaneously have a bird's eye view and that you are trapped in Etoine's stomach with all that vodka and can't see a way out.

That being said, two things kept this from five stars, for me, both of which are probably just a consequence of the type of story it is (character study), but I found myself struggling to adjust my expectations. First, the worldbuilding needed to be tighter. Stephensport felt somewhat renaissance/enlightenment-y, and New York felt like Venice. Fine, makes sense, I can see these various modes coming around in a thousand years. But then you find clues and read discussions that place society exactly where it is now, with burgeoning trans care running up against the rigid philosophy of old farts, ugly abstract art filling the galleries of NYC, and just a few weird things that make it seem more like the 50s (girls should know how to cook, etc). There's a few throwaway lines mentioning "the ancients" having the same problems, as if to unify the narrative, or something? It didn't work for me. Though I will say I loved Stephensport as a setting, the almost-fantasy of it, the joy and magic hidden away in pockets of our real world brought to the fore, alongside the ugly truths of revolution as viewed by your average joe shmoe who's just trying to get through the day.

Secondly, I felt like I was promised more action. When we finally got to the grand, violent finale, that we'd been promised for so long, it took a page and a half and was described in a short, clinical manner. I mean, I'm glad it was on the page at all, since so much lit fic shies away from any sort of true, blood-pounding action, but after reading such colorful descriptions of Etoine wrestling with his demons, I know that Fellman can write conflict with vivacity, and so I felt a smidge cheated. Also! How did Etoine get out of prison the second time?? Did I miss something?

[Kathryn Siemer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this book on a whim based on the title and my brief glance at the blurb. I had no idea what to expect when I started the book, but within a few chapters, I was hooked.
Fellman’s writing style is absolutely gorgeous. I am in love with it. Much like the story’s artist protagonists, Fellman paints a rich picture with his details and descriptions. Even so, his prose isn’t too flowery or long-winded. Each detail serves a purpose, fleshing out the plot, backdrop, and characters. I also love how Fellman lays out the book as though Griffon himself is writing the book and curating Etoine’s jail diaries. Maybe I’m just a sucker for these kinds of flashbacks and interwoven narratives, but I feel like the book’s style drives the plot more and develops the characters more than typical straightforward stories.
Because the main characters are all trans, Notes from a Regicide naturally touches on themes of transformation. Yet Fellman doesn’t limit his focus on the topic to gender. Etoine’s, Zaffre’s, and Griffon’s transitions are central to their character development, of course, but the book also explores revolutions and societal change, personal growth and decline, and the forces that spur these transformations. Notes from a Regicide highlights that transformation—personal, societal, etc—is an ongoing process, constantly advanced by people and ideas (and art! I loved Fellman’s exploration of art as a medium for transformation).
There’s so much more I could say about this book, but I’ll leave it out for the sake of brevity. Long story short, I highly recommend Notes from a Regicide, and I’ll be sure to check out some of Fellman’s other works.

[Elisabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this, but it took a while for me to get there. It was very slow-paced without a clear narrative, which isn't necessarily bad, but I think there are good ideas in here that sometimes get a little lost.

[Kelsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

An eloquent, heartfelt book about messy people, messy politics, and messy family. Read it for big feelings on grief, love, transgenderism, and failed revolution.

[Standback]

Fantastic character portrait of a queer, trans family. In so many ways and along many different dimensions, they don't "fit cleanly" into the world, but find -- and create -- their place in it nonetheless.

Unfortunately, a lot of the threads of plot, worldbuilding, and social commentary felt undeveloped or sharply curtailed. The book puts a lot of emphasis on resistance and revolution (from the opening line, "I saw my parents at a riot once," to the titular promise of regicide, to the frequent framing of the main characters' part in destroying their home country). But in fact, almost the entire narrative during the promised revolution is told at a remove from it, from a character who is unconcerned with it, uninvolved with it, and most of all -- seemingly unaware of it. For me, this was quite a disappointment, especially in contrast with Fellman's marvelous The Breath of the Sun, which did an amazing job sketching both an intriguing, compelling society and also the protagonists' place and tensions within it.
Here, the characters are quite wonderful, and seeing them across time and transition and immigration and life changes adds nuance and layers and development. But the elements beyond their personal doorstep feel (to my mind) oversold and underdelivered, which seems a real shame.

[dobbs the dog · Rating 5 out of 5]

Received from NetGalley, thanks!

CW: war, injuries, child abuse

Okay, I finished this a couple of days ago and I'm still thinking about it. In fact, it left such an impression on me that I've pre-ordered the hardcover.

I'm not even sure what to say about this story. I see that it's tagged as being Sci-Fi, but it's not really? Other than that it is set in a far-flung future and set in a made up place. Otherwise, I didn't get Sci-Fi vibes from this book at all.

This is really just the story of a family, who found themselves over the years. Griffon ran away from his birth father, who was terrible and abusive, and found a home with Zaffre and Etoine, two married trans artists who had fled their homeland after their intimate involvement with a failed revolution.

It took me a while to get into it, as it jumps around A LOT, from the first person accounts of Griffon to Etoine's journal entries, but once I got into it, I WAS INTO IT.

I found it incredibly moving how Griffon, Zaffre, and Etoine are all trying to do their best for each other, while coming from very different backgrounds and carrying very different traumas. Over the course of the book they all hurt each other in various ways, but their love for each other always comes through.

The ending absolutely wrecked me; it's so beautiful and emotional and just kind of everything.

Also, I listened to the audio and it's narrated by Avi Roque, who I absolutely love as a narrator and who did a phenomenal job of this one.