Lit & Liquor's triumphant return with the first of our brand new episodes is somewhat diminished by book quality this week, but don't worry, we pull through the good and the bad like always. Mostly with the aid of, you guessed it, extra liquor. Pulling us through the rough patches this week is a Dowager Empress, a drink of Kassandra's creation featuring our Liquor of the Week, Empress 1908 Gin.

This delicious drink was paired with two books that were decidedly less pleasant on the palate: "We Hunt the Flame" by Hafsah Faizal, and "A Memory Called Empire" by Arkady Martine. It is in these books which we learned that you totally can have brain surgery in a black market alley and go on to save the world a mere 11 hours later, or make a dark ninja assassin hero too angsty for even Kassandra and Ashley to enjoy--a feat they would have said was completely impossible.

As sadly happens so often on L&L...we were proved wrong.
Welcome back to our brand new and current bi-weekly episodes, folks. We've missed you all.