October 2017 – Bran Lindy Ayres

This past week, October 22-28, was asexual awareness week.

Asexual Awareness Week is an international campaign that seeks to educate about asexual, aromantic, demisexual, and grey-asexual experiences and to create materials that are accessible to our community and our allies around the world.

Asexuality is not a widely known orientation so when I realized Holly Drummond in Perfect Rhythm identifies as ace, I was absolutely thrilled. And a little worried.

Pop star Leontyne Blake might sing about love, but she stopped believing in it a long time ago. What women want is her image, not the real her. When her father has a stroke, she flees the spotlight and returns to her tiny Missouri hometown.

In her childhood home, she meets small-town nurse Holly Drummond, who isn’t impressed by Leo’s fame at all. That isn’t the only thing that makes Holly different from other women. She’s also asexual. For her, dating is a minefield of expectations that she has decided to avoid.

Can the tentative friendship between a burned-out pop star and a woman not interested in sex develop into something more despite their diverse expectations?

A lesbian romance about seeking the perfect rhythm between two very different people—and finding happiness where they least expect it.

Thankfully, I didn’t need to be. Jae is a fantastic writer and I’m so glad I grabbed this book. I saw a promo for in on Tumblr and the mention of a lesbian from my home state of Missouri piqued my interest. Granted, I’d never read contemporary f/f before and I wasn’t certain what to expect.

What I got was a lovely, blossoming relationship between two amazing women. When I first started I braced myself, unsure if I’d be able to connect with Leo Blake, the main protagonist. I needn’t have worried. She is wonderfully down to earth and relatable for a pop star. She’s stubborn and full of pride but not so much that she won’t admit mistakes or try her best to rectify things that have gone wrong.

While I love Leo, Holly was the one I really connected with for obvious reasons. I really appreciated how Jae handled Holly’s asexuality, including being frank about how pressured we can feel in relationships.

So many parts of this book hit home for me and not just the setting. It was refreshing to read a story where the asexual character wasn’t ‘fixed’ by having sex or ever pressured into the act at all. I also greatly appreciated the content warning before the chapter that had a sex scene in it.

All the characters were wonderfully fleshed out and made the whole journey with Leo and Holly that much more interesting. I loved having plenty of time to get to know them. I know a lot of people call this a ‘slow burn’ romance, but it is still fast-paced by my standards. xD

Overall, I delighted in reading this book. It was thoughtful, funny and moving.

October is my month to read and plan for NaNoWriMo. It’s a good way for me to get through my TBR pile … if it quit growing. Anyway, I decided to kick the month off with the brand new release Seers Stone by Holly Evans. Part of the Ink Born world, it is full of fun and magic. Here is the official blurb:

My name’s Kaitlyn Felis, and I’m a treasure-hunting alchemist.
51nauuwe29l I was given the opportunity of a lifetime to work for a mysterious elf called Fein Thyrin. Not only did he give me my dream alchemy lab, one that came with a beautiful part-nymph assistant (she’ll be the end of me, in the best possible way) he’s also hired me as his personal treasure-hunter. To say I was excited is a drastic understatement.

First on my treasure-hunting list? The Seers Stone – it’s a thing of legends, and I’m going to be the first hunter to get my hands on it.

Seers Stone stars Kaitlyn Felis, a fun, feisty, flirty heroine who I quickly fell in love with. Her companion will’o-the-whisp, Wispy, is adorable and adds just the right touch of humor when things are getting a bit dicey. And they do indeed get dicey at points. Kaitlyn might be an alchemist but she also craves adventure and treasure hunting is the perfect outlet for that. While most of the time I find characters like her grating, she was amazingly well grounded and not above calling herself out on her own bullshit. Something I’ve come to love about Holly’s writing is the fact that her protagonists are allowed to make mistakes and be assholes, but they also acknowledge where they went wrong when the time comes.

I will also say that typically I don’t care for characters who sleep around. Mostly because of personal reasons. I’m demisexual and the thought of sleeping with someone I’ve just met is both baffling and terrifying. But this felt so much different. Kaitlyn is all about adventure and trying new things, and sex is just another component of that. It helped that encounters didn’t feel forced and the scenes were sweet and emotion-focused rather than your typical blow-by-blow erotica (don’t get me wrong, I love those too, when in the right place).

It was great to see Tyn again as well as a couple other familiar faces. As always Evans took us to some spectacular places as well as some rather creepy/depressing areas. It’s nice to see such a well-rounded world. Yes, there is wonderful beautiful magic, but there is also a rather dismal and terrifying underbelly as well. And magic definitely has its cost.

Overall, this was a fun, fast-paced read and I’m very much looking forward to more of Kaitlyn.