Second paragraph of third chapter:
The poor freshman gives me a confused look but tries again, blowing into his clarinet. Thomas makes a spluttering, sad excuse for a sound, then lowers the clarinet and sighs.
Next up in my reading of the Lodestar Award finalists, this is a sweet sapphic love story about two Asian-American girls in Los Angeles, one in our world or somewhere very close to it, one in a parallel world where magic works and tech is less well developed. They meet through a rift between the worlds, struggle to manage teenage problems and also prevent the bad guys from destroying both versions of the city. And there’s also lots of food and coffee. Very breezy and cheerful. You can get Coffeeshop in an Alternate Universe here.
2026 Hugos: Novella | Novelette | Short Story | Dramatic Presentation, Short Form | Professional Artist | Poem
Best Novel: The Incandescent | Shroud | The Raven Scholar
Best Graphic Story or Comic: The Invisible Parade | three more finalists | A Wizard of Earthsea
Best Related Work: Colourfields | The Cuddled Little Vice | Inventing the Renaissance
Lodestar: Holy Terrors | Coffeeshop in an Alternate Universe
Where to get them | Goodreads/Librarything/StoryGraph stats