April Reads and Reviews

Check the end for promos, free books, and special sales.

Sweet Vengeance
Viano Oniomoh
Erotic Horror, 2023

After being raped and brutally assaulted Joy seeks out the help of the demon Malachi to help her get revenge and ultimate kill her rapist. She wants to do the deed herself, but needs Malachi’s help to enact her plan at large and make it look like an accident. As the revenge plot unfolds, so does her sexual relationship with Malachi, ending in a lifetime romance.
While I find I loved the characters, I was only so-so on the intimate scenes. That’s not neccesarily a knock on the book but rather a reflection that my prefernece tends to veer less erotica heavy. If I wasn’t curious and able to get the ebook for free, I probably wouldn’t have picked it up because of that erotica marker. Which also means I can’t give it a fair review. It wasn’t in one of my preferred genres, so, of course, I’m going to have neutral to negative feelings about genre specific elements like the sheer number of intimate scenes. Not the books fault!
I feel like it did raise some very interesting narrative questions, however.
The first was more in the analysis of the “who’s the real monster” theme presented in the Joy-Malachi-rapist relationship. This was the thing that actually got me interested in the book. I feel as though I’m seeing a lot of this parallel for Joy vs Malachi. She’s the one who actually puts the knife in the chest of the man who assaulted her while Malachi simply does the cleanup. There’s something very fascinating there, but it feels weird to me to not extend that to the assualter. Combined with some other things that happens in the book, I see this comparison extending to the whole human race. The sort of monstrous things we do to each other compared to the actual demon in question. At the same time, an erotica doesn’t really have a lot of room to dive into it.
Another thing this book didn’t have a lot of time for as an erotica is the handling of Joy’s sexual assault and the subsequent PTSD. Recovery from such a thing, obviously, looks different for everyone and it’s far from a straight line. One sort of expects, however, to see some echoes of that assault in any sexual encounter going forward, particularly right after it’s happened. While there’s a throwaway acknowledgment that Joy had negative feelings about one not-quite encounter, so far, previous to Malachi, very little of it realistically carries over into her relationship with Malachi. As the book presents it she “gets over it” really fast. Now because this is erotica, however, do we view this as being disingenuous to a survivor narrative or wish fulfillment? Because that is very specifically the niche that erotica fills. It’s not meant to be a grounded discussion of different sexual or intimate narratives.
So I think that ends up being a more interesting discussion than the book itself.

May Day Flowers
Faeri Sami
Sapphic Fantasy Romance, releasing May 8th, 2024

I received this ebook as an arc, and it’s a lovely story about a human and a dryad currently presenting as a woman preparing for what may be the dryad’s last May Day celebration. It’s soft, ethereal and has this sort of flowing feel from line to line. While it’s not a slow burn by any means, there’s a deliberateness to it where the story builds in a very rich, intentional way.
It does use present-tense, omniscient third-person narrative, which ends up being a very interesting choice, in the end. It can feel a little head-hoppy but also gives a very free-flowing feel. Whether it’s something you connect would come down very strongly to personal preference. Present-tense is, also, typically more reminiscent of a sense of tension about an unknown future. As this book is very specifically a romance novel, we know that there will be a happily ever after. So instead this uncertainty feels more like a reflection of the character’s perception of their future, but that isn’t necessarily cohesive with the third-person pov like it would be with a first person pov. This make it feel more experimental with a harder time landing on how the diction feeds the story. It’s such a minor, complain, overall, that I don’t if I would have it were I not a writer myself.
It’s not afraid to use the physical gender-fluidity of the dryad to character to create intimate scenes that are little more…out of the box thinking. On top of all of it are themes of ecological destruction, found family, and coming to terms with one’s won identity.

Walking Practice
Dolki Min, tran. Victoria Caudle
Horror Science Fiction, 2023

What happens when you’re pushed off your home planet by an invading force and you crash land on Earth? How do you survive for fifteen years? For our mostly unnammed, shapeshifting alien main characters, it’s by eating people. How do we find these victims to eat? Dating apps.
What follows is a languid, drifting, sorrowful day-to-day diary of the only one of their species just trying to survive.

What you find is layers and layers of allegory for the simple act of being “other.” Of being marginalized. Of being forced to physically fit a body that’s not meant for this world into a template that will allow it to not thrive but simply persist for a short time. This manifests most strongly in the way our alien changes sexes to best meet the needs and desires of the partner their going to meet. This makes the story charged with sexual energy, this loneliness ultimately manifesting as a story about desires of the flesh in all possible ways.

Quag Keep
Andre Norton
Epic High Fantasy, 1978

You and you’re friends are sitting around a table, getting ready to play a tabletop war game with some brand new minifigs. When, suddenly, you’re not some dude named Mike, anymore. You’re Milo Jagon, warrior and sellsword of Greyhawk. You’ve also got this weird bracelet on your arm embedded with dice. And it seems that everything you do is determined by those rolls. Mastering your destiny is locked into mastering those rolls.
What we find here is the first Dungeons and Dragons novel and an early entry (if not the first) into the specific branch of portal fantasy involving games.
A book that forms part of the blueprint of modern epic fantasy, it’s also the perfect narrative experience of an actual Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Florid and equal parts harrowing and goofy, it’s a classic story and a wonderful time if you go in ready for it.