A colorful fantasy setting, strong female protagonists, same-sex romance, and explicit but tender sexual content.
A princess finds unexpected love on her dangerous quest to right a wrong in this queer new-adult fantasy.
After rejecting seven matrimonial prospects, Princess Helena decides to make a match with pleasing No. 8—Prince Branson of the kingdom of Osdeth. Helena delays the engagement when her parents reveal that they are cursed and dying, the consequences of their involvement in a slaughter of witches and a child given up long ago. Appalled at the injustice her parents perpetrated before she was born, Helena embarks on a secret quest to find the child, now an adult, and bring her home to her rightful place in the kingdom. Her only companion: Dresden, a high-ranking female officer in the Royal Guard who is secretly in love with the princess, whom she is honor-bound to protect. Much of this well-crafted novel focuses on the tender bond that develops between Helena and Dresden during their hazardous journey (intermittent bloodshed, an attack by a ferocious denizen of a dark forest, a raid on a witches’ camp). On their long trek, the barrier between royal and commoner falls away, and Helena realizes she has romantic feelings for Dresden. Poirier couches the book’s limited but explicit sexual content in terms of love and mutual respect. Here, same-sex relationships are authentically part of the fabric of the world the author has created; royals are expected to produce heirs, but lovers of either sex outside of marriage are accepted. In the book’s vivid fantasy twist, central to the plot, color is synonymous with life force. (“In the beginning, all was a colorless void. Then God, the Artist, saw fit to paint the universe in color...and that divine color resided in every living person.”) The colors of nature, of décor, of clothes, of hair and eyes are noted throughout; the absence of color is anathema. Female strength and integrity are the admirable cores of the book save for a few out-of-character, stereotypical “smirks” and “pouts.” The saga continues in Book 2, The Color Plague (2019).
A colorful fantasy setting, strong female protagonists, same-sex romance, and explicit but tender sexual content.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-983300-27-1
Page Count: 420
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
FANTASY | ROMANCE | EPIC FANTASY | FANTASY | LBGTQ
A wonderfully weird horror romance that requires an acquired taste and a strong stomach.
A shapeshifting monster finds love with a human whose family hopes to exterminate her kind in this mix of fantasy, horror, and romance.
Shesheshen’s yearly hibernation is interrupted when a group of monster hunters disrupts the makeshift nest she’s made in the bowels of a ruined manor. She typically takes the form of an amorphous blob, but quick thinking leads her to construct a more humanoid appearance to trick the nosy hunters. Her hard work, constructing a new body from the remains of past feasts, isn’t convincing enough, and she’s driven off a cliff to her death. Her saving grace comes in the form of Homily, who nurses Shesheshen back to health, fully believing the alien creature is simply a young woman just like her. Homily’s nurturing ministrations cause Shesheshen to feel something foreign to her: love. However, Shesheshen begins to realize that her version of love doesn’t quite align with the very human Homily’s. Shesheshen wants to be honest with Homily and reveal her true form, until Homily confides that she’s a monster hunter of sorts, determined to seek revenge on a shapeshifter who cursed her family. In the realm of monster romances, Shesheshen is quite physically different from the typical humanoid love interests. For example, the book’s title is a direct reflection of the way Shesheshen initially wants to communicate her affection for Homily: by injecting the woman with her eggs until the young hatch and inevitably eat her from the inside. Shesheshen makes for an interesting narrator, as readers experience these new feelings and sensations right along with her. Seeing her find ways to describe and parse new emotions like friendship and love is often more interesting than the romance itself. Referring to this merely as both an opposites-attract and a secret-enemies-to-lovers romance doesn’t quite encapsulate the bizarro narrative that debut novelist Wiswell has created. While inventive enough to push the boundaries of romance and dark fantasy, this may appeal mainly to niche genre-fiction fans.
A wonderfully weird horror romance that requires an acquired taste and a strong stomach.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780756418854
Page Count: 320
Publisher: DAW
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
A queer and fantastical romance that enchants in more ways than one.
Fairy mischief descends on Regency England once again.
The Caesar family occupies a delicate position in 1815 London. They are welcome at most society functions because Lady Mary is the daughter of an earl, but they're kept at arm’s length because her husband is a Senegalese freeman, leaving the family's three children at odds as they enter adulthood. The eldest son, Mr. Caesar, knows he ought to find a career and settle down, but he has no interest in doing so—he's a dandy, plus he's only attracted to men. For the most part, he keeps to the sidelines, until he punches a major in the teeth for insulting the older of his two sisters, Miss Caesar. Not long after, Miss Caesar makes a deal with a fairy that turns her into "the Beauty Incomparable," making the Caesars the center of conversation across London. All this sudden excitement brings Mr. Caesar into repeated contact with Captain Orestes James, a Black man who lives his life much more authentically alongside a steadfast group of soldiers called the Irregulars—which causes Mr. Caesar to imagine other possibilities for his life. And who recounts this complex and quirky story for our mortal enjoyment? Just as in Hall’s Mortal Follies (2023), it’s none other than Robin Goodfellow, still in exile from the court of Oberon and grumpy as ever at having to write up yet another story of foolish mortal behavior in order to make ends meet. (And while this volume stands alone fairly well, it will be best enjoyed after having read the first). His deliciously cruel and flippant voice once again provides a clever framework for the story’s balance of levity and gravity. As “the vagaries of mortal physicality mean little” to Robin, the story is fairly closed-door by Hall’s standards, but there are sparks of chemistry between Mr. Caesar and Captain James. And though the romance often takes a back seat to the grander plot, thanks to piles of rich detail, mythological references, and interactions with the Other Court, readers may not even notice.
A queer and fantastical romance that enchants in more ways than one.Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9780593497586
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2024
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