This week a sweet, sapphic holiday romance set in Victorian Scotland by Meg Mardell, and two gay romances… Astounding! by Kim Fielding, and the audio of Shattered Glass by Dani Alexander.
I really enjoyed this sweet sapphic novella. It’s a Victorian Christmas delight, a seasonal hug with just a nip of whisky. The two main characters are Sharda, an heiress who is just beginning to realise she is her own person and doesn’t have to run around after her terrible relatives; and Finella, a woman who’s taken over her father’s job as the manager of a Scottish estate. The contrast between them is very marked at the beginning of the story. Sharda has never had any agency and has been content to drift along trapped in the web her family have woven around her in their hopes of getting access to her fortune. Finella has had entirely too much put upon her by her scapegrace employer and is constantly weighted down with the responsibility of looking after the castle, farms and people in her care.
Initially this is a case of mistaken identity; but the two women move through that to cement first a friendship and then a romance. I really liked both of them and wanted them to sort their misunderstanding out. They are well drawn, well rounded characters and the secondary characters are charming, particularly Finella’s brothers! The period detail is nicely researched and held up well for me. I felt there was enough dialect speech to give a flavour of the period and the location, but not so much it overwhelmed the pace of the story. Recommend for a comforting holiday read! (Also the cover! It’s gorgeous!)
This is an homage to the golden age of science fiction magazines as well as a very satisfying, sweet love story. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything by Kim Fielding I haven’t loved, in particular her science-fiction and paranormal stories. This is no exception. The golden age of the science fiction magazines is over and Astounding! is dying. Carter, its founding editor, is a purposeless, broke and depressed borderline alcoholic. He writes a snippy rejection letter to a writer who persists in sending him terrible, terrible submissions and then in a fit of remorse drives to his house to apologise. The guy, John, is a) gorgeous and b) bonkers, as he claims to be an alien wanting to send a message via Astounding! to his people to come and take him home. They’re both lonely and they quickly make a connection despite Carter’s reservations. It’s a really satisfying read with the well-rounded, complex characters you’d expect from this author. There’s also a road-trip with Carter’s super-star-writer friend (who I pictured as a cross between George R. R. Martin and Arthur C. Clarke) and his husband, which is a delight. Recommend!
This is another favorite I suddenly realised I could get the audio for with Whispersync. And again, one of those stories that definitely allowed me to pick up further detail and depth in the audio. Contemporary USA. Austin Glass is a rich boy playing at being a Detective. He’s very good at it and wants to segue into the FBI. He’s got a society marriage lined up, he tumbles through life without much touching him. The reason for that is…revealed as the story goes on. He finds himself unexpectedly attracted to a male witness/suspect in a people trafficking ring. This is not something he’s prepared for and once that thread gets pulled, all sorts of things in his life begin to unravel. That’s the main focus of the story, but the thriller plot is very respectable and kept me interested, with another two books clearly being set up in this one. These haven’t happened yet, but I still check occasionally to see whether they have because this one is so good. The narration is great. Adds depth and clarity to the story and makes it really enjoyable.
This week my friend Ofelia is here in her persona as Holly Day to talk about her new release How to Soothe a Dragon and explain that it’s actually about aliens...take it away, Holly!
Hello! Thank you, Ally, for letting me crash the blog. (You’re most welcome!) I’ve written a story titled How to Soothe a Dragon. I was visiting Nell Iris yesterday where I talked about how this story turned into something completely different from what it was supposed to be.
I believed I was writing sci-fi – I have aliens! – but this is a fated mates dragon shifter story. (I mean, this could happen to anyone! – Ed.)
It has all the components of a paranormal romance story plus a badass alien race that has taken over Earth. The aliens are from the planet Pacuria, and they’re big and burly but mostly human-looking.
Pacurians are working all the top positions in society, leaving only minimum wage jobs for humans, and they can control minds. Most humans are lulled into a false sense of security and believe the Pacurian race has taken control to help them. Derek sees them for what they are, though. He’s not affected by their mind control, but he’s as powerless as every other human.
It has the premise of being a dark story, but it isn’t, not really. All Pacurians are dressed in uniforms similar to those The Beatles wear on the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band cover, and they’re allergic to lemons.
Yup, lemons.
Derek has heard about Pacurians being allergic to lemons, but he doesn’t believe it. There are still lemons to be bought in the shops, and he doesn’t believe there would be if the rumours were true.
It isn’t until he finds a button in his apartment that doesn’t belong to him – oh, I didn’t say I wrote it to celebrate National Button Day, did I? I wrote How to Soothe a Dragon for National Button Day, which is on November 16, so buttons play an important part in it 😆
Derek comes home one day and finds a button in his apartment from one of those Sgt. Pepper uniforms. A black button and his neighbour Ocren wears a black uniform. Derek has had enough. For years, Ocren has been chasing him up the stairs in the apartment building where they both live, but finding Ocren’s button on his living room floor is the last straw. He cuts a lemon in half and goes to confront him.
Excerpt
He grabbed a lemon, cut it in half, and opened his window. If Casey was wrong about the lemons, Ocren would get a good laugh, and then he’d kill Derek, but this had to end.
His legs were unsteady as he walked down the grid stair to Ocren’s apartment. With a deep breath, he stopped at the landing outside his living room window and squeezed the lemon so the juice trickled through his fingers.
Ocren was there. His green eyes bore into Derek, his dark skin was duller than he’d ever seen it, and the little ridges the Pacurians had where humans had eyebrows stood out like horns. They were similar to humans—lips, nose, the shape of their eyes, everything was the same. But they were bigger, and they had those little horns almost as lizards did. Ocren had one on each cheekbone too—most of the others didn’t.
And the eye color was wrong. Pacurians had different eye colors, as humans had, but they were more intense. And at times they glowed.
Ocren’s glowed a vivid green.
Derek held up a lemon, waiting for Ocren to laugh at him—he didn’t.
Seconds went by and neither of them moved. Derek’s heart banged hard in his chest, but he had no idea what he’d do now.
With the glass between them, they continued to stare at each other. The November chill was creeping into Derek’s core.
An eternity went by, and Ocren continued to stare at him. Slowly, he reached for the sash lift and pushed the window up.
“Derek.”
The growly tone made him shiver more. “Stay out of my apartment, fucker.”
Ocren raised his lips like an aggressive dog, showing off piranha teeth identical to those he’d seen at the bar. What the hell was wrong with the world? Had they suddenly been invaded by crazed aliens? Not suddenly—they’d been invading since long before Derek was born, and he’d always known they were far more dangerous than they’d let on, hadn’t he?
He nodded in reply to his inner monologue which had Ocren conceal his teeth with a frown. The color of his eyes grew more intense and pressure built behind Derek’s eyes.
“Hey! Cut it out!” He flung half a lemon at Ocren but missed, and it swished by him into the apartment. Ocren hissed, and Derek wiped at his nose to see if he was bleeding—he wasn’t.
“I’ll report you. I know you’re a cop, and you can threaten me all you want, but I won’t let you get away with this.”
He took a step back and Ocren paled. “No.”
The hoarse word made him pause. It wasn’t like a demand, more like a plea.
“No?” Derek glared at him, and he clearly had a death wish because he continued to speak. “No, you won’t get away with this? Or, no, I shouldn’t report you? I have the right to be here too, you know? I was here before you moved in, and you have no right to harass me.”
Ocren breathed in deep through his nose. “Derek.” His eyes flashed with the intense green again, and Derek prepared for the pressure to build behind his eyes, but it never came.
“Yes?” He looked away, which most likely was a mistake, but he feared it would be easier for Ocren to control his mind if he maintained eye contact.
“Derek.”
“Yes, dammit! What is it?” He glared at the buttons on Ocren’s uniform—none missing. It didn’t mean anything. He could’ve changed since he’d been there.
“Derek.” This time Ocren whispered his name. Derek frowned at him. The eyes were a soft green now, lacking the intense glow.
“What, Ocren? I’m not a mind reader, I don’t know what you’re trying to say by repeating my name over and over again.”
Viper green flashed in his eyes, and he reached out through the window.
“No! Stay!”
Ocren stilled but narrowed his eyes.
Derek’s heart beat so fast he feared it would stop from exhaustion. “Can’t you be normal for a few minutes?” He was taken aback by the desperation in his voice. “Stay inside and don’t try to grab me. Why are you always trying to grab me?”
Those horned almost-eyebrows pushed down over Ocren’s eyes. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? You chase me up the stairs, you abuse my door, you break into my apartment, and you don’t know why?”
Ocren’s eyes flashed green. “I’ve never been in your apartment.”
“Your button was on my floor.”
“No.”
Derek huffed. “Look man, your button was on my floor. I might only be a human, but I’m not stupid.” He took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m a bit stupid, but I’ve kept an eye on your Sergeant Pepper fetish, and this is your button.”
Ocren blinked. “Pepper? I don’t know any Sergeant named Pepper, and I have no fetish… I don’t think.”
Derek snorted. “Right.” He took a step back, putting one foot on the first step of the stairs. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but please stop. The piranha act is getting old.” He walked up another step. “The lemons don’t work, do they?”
“Lemons?”
“You’re not… allergic to lemons.”
The expression, Derek didn’t know if it was a smile, a flash of now mostly human-looking teeth, or a wince. “We’re not supposed to talk about lemons.”
“What?” A small chuckle escaped. He was standing on the fire escape, talking about lemons with a Pacurian who had piranha teeth one moment and normal teeth the next.
His life truly had gone to shit.
How to Soothe a Dragon
Derek Herman is living a nightmare. Long before he was born, the planet was taken over by a mind-controlling alien race, and everyone is affected except for him. Derek does his best not to draw attention to himself, but it’s not going well.
Ocren Starburst is obsessed with his human neighbor. Every time he sees Derek, he wants nothing more than to grab him, hold him, and keep him forever. And four years of chasing him up the stairs in their apartment building has resulted in Derek refusing to even acknowledge his existence. That is, until Derek accuses Ocren of breaking into his apartment.
Derek found a button on his living room floor, the same kind of button Ocren wears on his police uniform. And while Ocren hasn’t broken in, he knows the button means someone has. Ocren’s race has kept their shape-shifting abilities secret for years, but now his other form wants out to slaughter everyone that dares to get too close to Derek. And staying in control proves hard when threats toward Derek increase.
Will they be able to keep Derek safe without Ocren losing control of his dragon self?
According to Holly Day, no day should go by uncelebrated and all of them deserve a story. If she’ll have the time to write them remains to be seen. She lives in rural Sweden with a husband, four children, more pets than most, and wouldn’t last a day without coffee.
Holly gets up at the crack of dawn most days of the week to write gay romance stories. She believes in equality in fiction and in real life. Diversity matters. Representation matters. Visibility matters. We can change the world one story at the time.
This week I’ve been reading two touch-of-sff romances with trans characters by J. R. Hart and Jem Zero and a short gay novella playing with memory by Nathan Burgoine.
This is a wonderful, light, Christmassy book with brilliant world building and very good pacing. The North Pole is a business, a huge industrial complex, an employer of thousands. But it’s also a small town, with politics and potlucks and pettiness alongside family and friendships and living your best life. It’s so well drawn. It’s every small town based around one big employer you’ve ever been to, except alongside all that, there’s Christmas magic.
For me, a lot of that magic was intimately tied up in the main character Kristin, Santa Claus’ daughter. She’s a shoo-in for his job when he retires as per the family tradition…until she’s not. The story follows her shock, her devastation, and then her building confidence in her suitability for the job despite the ‘traditionalist’ members of the town council being against her. They are against her twice, once because she’s a woman and once because she’s trans.
I cried at various points during the story, partly because Kris is so well characterised. Her words of kindness to a trans child and their parent are beautifully set down and were one of my sobbing points. Her journey from self-doubt to self-confidence was a joy to follow. All the characters are well rounded and it was simply a pleasure to spend time with them.
Also you will need cookies as you read this. Don’t question this. Simply accept it and get them ready before you sit down to with this excellent book.
I came upon this book from a GR rec and it didn’t disappoint. I loved the premise…here’s our world…but aliens turned up in 2004. Humans don’t like them much and treat them as second class citizens. I liked the way the alien Rrhi culture was drip-fed into the story rather than info-dumped. And I think the stab at depicting how humanity would treat an alien species who had to leave their home planet and turn up on Earth asking for help is pretty accurate. Humans are so disappointing, generally.
I very much liked the human MC, Jax, a disabled, homeless trans twenty-something man with so many issues he needs a wheelbarrow to carry them round in. The story is told from his POV, but in second person, which I often find difficult but in this case worked well for me. It felt like I was experiencing his life alongside him, because that this is how he inhabits the world, keeping it at a distance.
Some bits of the story…Jax’s distress, his inability to allow himself to be anything less than utterly self-reliant because he is so afraid of being let down, his reactions to kindness…are heart-rending. But his gradual unfolding, his journey to get to a place that’s okay, not perfect, not a fairytale happy ending, but simply okay, is really engaging.
I loved Sei-vész, his alien boyfriend…a practical and kind person who happens to have tentacles, horns, very non-human sex organs and green skin. The relationship between them was beautifully drawn. I thought the contrast between Jax, so uncomfortable in his own human body, and Jax’s reaction to Sei-vész, so alien to Jax and yet someone Jax accepted unconditionally where he couldn’t accept himself was achingly well depicted.
Basically, if you like stories with messy protagonists trying to get their lives together, alien sex bit and a happy ending, you should read this.
I really liked this novella. I can’t write about it properly without spoilers I don’t think. But it reminded me quite strongly of the film Memento in the way it plays with time and memory. I couldn’t put it down, I was so invested in the main character’s story. I started off with one understanding of him and his life and by the time I got to the end that was all turned around like a Moibus Strip or an Esher drawing. I really enjoyed it.
This week we have two old favourite gay romances I’ve rediscovered in audio by Harper Fox and Z. A. Maxfield and a brilliant dystopian sci-fi with a tentative background sapphic love interest by Micaiah Johnson.
Another comfort-read for me that I have discovered included with my renewed Audible subscription. Beautifully narrated by Chris Clog, it’s a two-part novel set just after World War 2. Archie is a car-mad vicar without vocation. Rufus is a disgraced, shell-shocked archaeologist sent to investigate his church. It’s a story evocative of the shattered period after the war ended, bombed out houses still standing stark in London streets, men and women bent out of shape by years of fighting trying to fit back in to a more ‘normal’ life. Rufus and Archie are both damaged and hurt in different ways and Harper Fox’s delicate, precise writing paints them as perfect creatures with depth of character and emotion. The rural idyll of Archie’s village is laid over the top of past horrors in the same way the veneer of normality is starting to be laid over the horrors and displacement of the war. It’s one of my favourite books and I really recommend it, both in written form and narration.
I really love these ‘cops and psychics’ stories and am digging into as many as I can find at the moment. This one has a big hurt-comfort plot as Kevin, an ex cop who has become psychic because of an accident, tries to help cop Connor track down a child murder. Things are complicated because Connor’s childhood boyfriend was also taken and murdered by the same person. (I don’t think this is a spoiler, it’s pretty obvious right from the start where it’s going). Both men are vulnerable and hurting and the audio just hit the spot for me when I picked it up on Audible Whispersync. Recommended.
Wonderful far-future multiple worlds story. A brilliant scientist on Earth Zero (Our world? Who knows?) has discovered how to slip people between universes that have a similar vibration to ours…ie, that aren’t too different. But people can only traverse to another universe if their counterpart there is dead. Climate deterioration has split the world–all the worlds accessible to our characters–into haves and have-nots. And because the have-nots are less likely to survive in each world–poor food, no protection against the heat of the sun, poisoned water–they tend to be the traversers. There’s a fantastic plot, a tentative background sapphic love story and brilliant worldbuilding, all wrapped up in truly lyrical prose.
It seems to be The Week Of Promo ™ this week, so I thought I’d do a little blog post on all the different bundles, bookfairs and books giveaways I’m involved in.
They all end at the end of Pride Month, so you need to have a browse before 30th June 2021. There’s a good mix of giveaways, audiobooks, ebooks, sapphic and gay romance here, so hopefully you can find something you like!
