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 proficient mix of bloodsuckers and quiet romance.
A modern-day vampire develops feelings for a human in Harrison’s supernatural debut.
Vampire Simon maintains a low profile among the thousands attending the University of Illinois at Chicago. His kind are a secret from humans, so he never hunts UIC students and keeps social interactions to a minimum. Yet he’s uncharacteristically drawn to sophomore transfer Anita Rothard. He fights his urge to feed when they’re together, and the two grow close but avoid the word date. Anita’s father, however, disapproves of their budding relationship, believing there’s “something off” about Simon. While she’s reluctant to side with her strict, Catholic dad, Anita admits she knows little about her new suitor. Elsewhere, Shafax, the powerful “King of Vampires,” arrives in the U.S. and makes a beeline for Chicago. He seeks the blood of Salem, another vampire, who’s apparently killed Shafax’s minions. Now the King of Vampires plans to mete out his lethal plan on his own—an encounter Salem narrowly survives. Salem has no choice but to turn to Simon for help. These two have fought for years, but Salem believes that only as a team can they defeat Shafax. While Simon struggles to keep his world hidden from Anita, Shafax drags the couple into his personal war, all in an effort to draw out his true target. This entails the fearsome vampire threatening one of Anita’s loved ones, which only makes the capable woman want to join the fight against him.
Harrison’s story boasts a sublimely understated relationship. Simon’s romance with Anita is an effective slow burn; he’s wary of “human emotion,” and she has trouble defining their relationship, probably because of her overbearing, religious father. Though readers may see parallels to a popular vampire-teen romance series, the vampirism, as well as the romance, is often subtle. There’s not much on the vamps’ backstories, with a mere hint of Simon’s mysterious origin. Similarly, the story adheres to genre conventions, including bat transformations, aversion to garlic, and crucifixes charring vampiric skin. Harrison fleshes out the characters, such as certain humans who become Shafax’s unfortunate victims. While Simon and Anita make an engaging couple, Salem is the most memorable. He’s cynical, charming, and he flippantly calls Anita “Breakfast,” “Snack Food,” or Simon’s “pet human.” A snowy Chicago is well portrayed: “The light wind blew snowflakes into swirling patterns around Anita as she stared over the side of the bascule bridge into the Chicago River below. A rusted red truss separated the sidewalk from the street, although some passing cars honked and a few kicked up slush in their wake.” The narrative unfolds around Christmas, stirring up Anita’s questions of family and religion. Despite hefty character development, there’s plentiful action, especially in the novel’s latter half. These scenes, spotlighting multiple characters in peril, favor suspense over graphic depictions of vampire-related violence. The ending resolves some of the story, though Harrison clearly has a sequel in the works.
A proficient mix of bloodsuckers and quiet romance.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A realistic and inviting love story in the rock-music world.
A career Navy man unexpectedly finds himself caring for an injured young rock star in Merrill’s LGBTQ+ romance sequel.
This series installment picks up the story of the rock band Hush as they pull themselves together after the death of their friend and lead guitarist Gavin West. Members Silas Franklin, Carlos “Los” Morales, and Billy “Brains” Brennan are embarking with a new band mate, Jordan, on the cross-country Warped Tour. In Mountain View, California, their paths cross with 42-year-old Navy corpsman Paul McNally and his 21-year-old son, Bowie, who’s finishing a music degree and attending one of Brains’ guitar workshops. At this workshop, there’s immediate erotic chemistry between Brains, who sees Paul as “a stacked older dude,” and Paul, who gets “Actual goose bumps” when he hears Brains’ “deep, smooth voice.” Fate takes a hand in bringing them together when the band’s tent unexpectedly collapses, trapping Brains under a table and terrifying him. After Paul rushes to the scene, Brains begs him to stay, and the narrative develops into an unlikely romance that surprises not only Paul and Brains, but also all the other people in their lives. Over the course of this novel, Merrill writes about this burgeoning connection with smooth confidence, even when it hits rough patches, as when Brains needs physical therapy or when Bowie reacts poorly to his father’s new relationship. Merrill rests a good part of the story on a realistic appraisal of his characters’ fallibility: “People want to think they can handle anything that comes their way, but everyone has a breaking point,” Brains reflects at one point. It may seem like a standard unlikely-romance plot at first, but the author offers it to readers with considerable skill and style.
A realistic and inviting love story in the rock-music world.Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 344
Publisher: Celie Bay Publications LLC
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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