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THE DOORS ARE OPEN (Imaginarily): Book Club Begins With a Sapphic Regency Romance That Has Dinosaurs In It

June 3, 2026

A magpie in tiny half-moon reading glasses flipping the cardboard “CLOSED” sign in a bookmobile window to “OPEN (IMAGINARILY),” one wing on the glass like it’s unlocking a real shop at dawn; a copy of “Damsels and Dinosaurs” by Wren Jones propped in the window display beside a tiny potted fern and a “NOW READING” easel; outside, a small orderly queue of would-be members waits in the morning light — a sentient cup of Earl Grey, a stack of library index cards in a bow tie, and one tiny Regency-cravat dinosaur checking a pocket watch and looking put out; a wall calendar inside has JUNE 3 circled in magpie-feather ink with “JUN 17 — MIDPOINT” and “JUN 26 — REVIEW” scrawled below; twinkle lights, a whistling kettle, golden hour pouring through the windshield

Okay. The sign is flipped. The (imaginary) doors are open. The reading window for book one is officially, as of today, go.

If you missed the whole pitch: a couple weeks ago I started a book club for a bookstore that doesn’t exist yet — The Magpie’s Library, the queer-centered cozy bookmobile that currently lives in a folder on my computer. The shop isn’t real. The books are extremely real. So we’re reading them together, one a month, for about two years, and building the audience before the van ever turns a wheel. No signup. No app. No quizzes. You read along, you talk about it, or you lurk in the back like a beloved gremlin. All valid.

Here’s what we’re starting with.

Book One: Damsels and Dinosaurs by Wren Jones

It is a sapphic regency romance with dinosaurs. That is the actual logline, and I want you to sit with how good that is.

The Fletcher family honey business is going under. Poppy Fletcher gets shipped off to a tropical island to retrieve her eccentric aunt — and because one disaster is never enough, the family also dispatches her arranged-marriage fiancé and her grumpy ex, Athena, to drag her back home. There are bees that do not behave. There are dinosaurs. It’s about six hours of reading, and I audibly said “oh, hell yes” in my kitchen when I read the synopsis.

This is exactly the kind of book the club exists for: the one you’d never find face-out on the front table at Barnes & Noble, the one a bookseller would press into your hands with a trust me. Consider this me, pressing it into your hands.

Where to actually get it

Same deal I promised at the start — for every book, the most indie path that exists, plus a way to read it free:

Damsels and Dinosaurs is self-published and sold direct, which is true of an enormous slice of sapphic mid-list work right now — and is one of the actual reasons a shop like the Magpie’s Library should exist. Buying direct and shouting about it is the indie move this month. So is checking it out from your library. Both count. Both help.

The schedule

  • Today — Wednesday, June 3: reading window opens. Go get the book.
  • Wednesday, June 17: midpoint check-in post — come tell me how the bees are treating you.
  • Friday, June 26: closing review, plus the reveal of Book Two.
  • That weekend: the monthly newsletter goes out with the wrap-up and what’s next.

Predictable enough to plan around, sparse enough to live alongside whatever else this blog is doing (which, this month, is a lot — sorry, I scheduled badly, it’s a whole thing).

How to join

There’s nothing to join. You’re already in. But if you want to do something:

  • Read along.
  • Drop a comment under the check-in and review posts when they go up.
  • Tag me on Instagram or TikTok (@dylannotdylan) when you finish.
  • Or lurk. Lurking remains a valid and beloved form of participation in this house.

Newsletter signup’s on the sidebar if you’d rather get the monthly digest in your inbox than chase it through an algorithm.

That’s it. The kettle’s on, the magpie’s got its tiny glasses on, and there’s a copy of Damsels and Dinosaurs at every place setting. Three weeks from grumpy-ex-on-a-dinosaur-island to talking about it together.

Stay curious, hoard shiny things, and meet me back here on the 26th to find out what the bees were up to.