Monstrously & Romantically Bookish

a book recommendation blog dedicated to the monster romance genre

[bookish-monster]

Bookblr Intro

Hello! This is a sideblog of @sagemonsters dedicated to reading and recommending monster romance books as well as books with good creature design (such as Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant).

For those who are new, I'm Sage, an asexual adult (est. 1997) who uses they/she pronouns and is based in the US.

Some quick stuff you should know...

This blog doesn't use a star rating system; I don't think it's possible to quantify a book's worth by a number of stars. Moreover, something in the story that might cause me to dock a star might be considered a good thing by a different reader - we all have different tastes!

As a general rule, I don't tend to focus on negative things when writing a recommendation (which is why I say "recommendation" rather than "review"). I will be honest if a book isn't for me, but I don't ever want to be cruel about that judgement.

Just about every single book I will write about on this blog features adult content (i.e. sex scenes). Therefore, I do not welcome interaction from minors. If you don't have an age in your bio, you will be blocked.

If you have a monster romance book that you want me to read, you can contact me through this blog or my Carrd. I'm always happy to read ARCs or already-published books that focus on monster romance! I don't read romances that involve non-con or are super dark, but that's about it in terms of hard limits.

You can find a masterlist of the reviews on this blog here.

I cannot be found on TikTok or Instagram, but you can read my reviews and peek at what I'm currently reading on my Storygraph (a Black-owned alternative to Amazon-controlled Goodreads). Feel free to reach out and toss me a friend request if you'd like!

[bookish-monster]

Book Recommendation

Stroopwafels & Starlight

by D. J. Russo -- who can also be found here on tumblr via @djrusso-romance

The storygraph link for this book contains information such as page count and publication date, as well as community-created content warnings.

Stroopwafels & Starlight is the 2nd installment of D. J. Russo’s City Aliens series—whose two books can be read as standalones—and it was a delightful, lighthearted cycling ride from start to finish. Set in the city of Eindhoven in the Netherlands, the entire book is a love letter to the city (where the author has lived!) and Dutch culture as well as chock-full of sexy good times. 

Our FMC is Sanne, a young Dutch woman who is studying interior design and has no social life to speak of. She works at a café run by a Polish immigrant named Marta, who is a bit of a nagging mother figure to Sanne. Our MMC is Five, an alien “consort” (read: sex slave) who has recently escaped from captivity and fled across the galaxy. He comes to Earth purely by chance, crashing his spaceship in the process, and now needs to find another ship in order to continue running from his pursuers. In Stroopwafels & Starlight, the POV switches between Sanne and Five, both of which are told in the first person.

Five is tall, muscular, and purple. He has wings and a tail, and in Sanne’s POV sections her internal narration likens him to a gargoyle. Sanne is a beautiful, white human woman, although she doesn’t think of herself as beautiful at all and struggles with self-esteem. She feels that she’s bad at sex because her previous boyfriend (who took all of their mutual friends in the breakup) couldn’t satisfy her and make her orgasm.

I really liked D. J. Russo’s sensitivity to readers’ potential need for content warnings. The book does come with them, which was very sweet, along with a short, easy to remember glossary of Dutch phrases and words to better equip the reader for this fun romp through Eindhoven. Once Sanne and Five agree to become sexually intimate, there’s a nice discussion about boundaries as well, which I thought was good. This isn’t a slow burn romance by any stretch of the imagination, and both of the characters are aware that they’re rushing into a more physically intimate relationship with each other. They talk about it.

Five’s biological need for sexual energy (he uses sexual energy as nourishment rather than food), which sparks Sanne’s intimacy with him, doesn’t come back to bite the couple later; instead, Russo crafts a (for the most part) gentle and fun narrative about interspecies love when one party is lonely and lost (Sanne) and the other is traumatized and also lost (Five). Ultimately, they find refuge with each other. There is a scene where Five is triggered by Sanne performing a seemingly innocuous social behavior that reminds him of his former owners, but it’s touched upon with a very light hand in a way that I don’t believe many readers would find upsetting.

Where Russo’s talent really shines in this short book is making domesticity and young love bring a setting to life. Five and Sanne are in love, and their growing adoration for each other lets the reader stroll through Eindhoven alongside them and see the city through rosy-tinted glasses. It’s Carnaval, there are bicycles and funny costumes, and at the end of the day there are also hot chocolate and stroopwafels. I started reading this book in the middle of a depressive episode, and its low stakes and coziness helped me pull myself out of the mire. It’s a quick read, but definitely a good one, and I can’t recommend it enough if you’re in need of a sweet, sexy read with coffee and a stroopwafel at your elbow.

You can find this book on Amazon Kindle

[bookish-monster]

Book Rec

Devout: An Anthology of Angels

edited by Quinton Li

with creative contributions from:

Freydís Moon

Morgan Dante

Emily Hoffman

Dorian Yosef Weber

Daniel Marie James

Angela Sun

Cas Trudeau

Rae Novotny

Tyler Battaglia 

rafael nicolás - @nicosraf here on tumblr

Ian Haramaki

Aurélio Loren 

(I gathered as many social links and author websites as I could, but was sadly unable to find all of them! If you're the creator of one of the contribution to Devout, feel free to reach out so that I can update this rec to include your links; I'd love to promote your work).

The Storygraph link for this book includes information such as page count, publication date, and community-created content warnings.

This anthology includes short stories, poetry, and a few pieces of artwork from a plethora of amazing creatives, all focused on themes of Christian and Jewish faith and the way angels intertwine with those belief systems—as well as how they interact with queerness, religious trauma, and much more. In the first story of the collection (written by Freydís Moon, who also wrote the superb Exodus 20:3 that I have reviewed here) the protagonist is a young trans man who has an erotic tryst with Satan in the back of a church after the fallen angel gives a sermon to the miracle-hungry congregation. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. 

This recommendation would be impossibly long if I were to describe every piece of creative work in this 200+ page anthology. I will try to be brief, then, and describe only my three favorite additions. However, one thing that stood out to me about all of the creative work in the anthology is that each written work is prefaced with content warnings created by the author. Since many of the stories and poems deal with content and themes that could be triggering, this was a really welcome addition.

The first story that grabbed me by the throat in Devout is “Seasons of God” by Angela Sun, which focuses on two French missionaries who come to a village in rural China to convert the locals to Catholicism. The story focuses on one of the missionaries, Francis, who attempts to save a local girl named Rui from being sold by her widower father due to her supposed uselessness. The story grapples with colonial attitudes and the possessive “love” of men who want to mold colonized people into perfect little Christians for further exploitation. Rui has a special power: she can see a strange, terrifyingly eldritch angel haunting the village. The story reaches an explosive conclusion when Rui’s father bursts into the church during Mass with an axe, seeking revenge for the financial loss of his daughter. 

The second story I loved is “And the Mountains Melt like Wax” by Tyler Battaglia, which is set during the modern era and follows a firefighter named Abel who is on a hiking trip with his service dog, Cain. Abel has severe PTSD after a particularly bad fire, and is seeking clarity on his hiking trip into the mountains. He is alone except for the dog. Abel finds an impact crater where an angel (whose design is inspired by the Book of Ezekiel) has fallen to earth, and shares a granola bar with the creature. Abel asks for forgiveness for what happened when he entered that burning building, and I think the beauty in this story is that he receives neither absolution nor damnation for what he did—just like with real-world religious torment, there are no easy answers or simple solutions.

The final story I want to speak about is “Misery in Company” by Morgan Dante (whose other book, Providence Girls, I have recommended here). This story is an adaptation of Doctor Faustus, a play originally written in the Elizabethan era by Christopher Marlowe, where the protagonist is the demon Mephistopheles rather than the human magician (Dr. Faustus himself) who sold his soul to Hell in exchange for amazing powers and knowledge… and receives the services of a demonic manservant as well. In this story, Mephistopheles falls in love with the magician whose orders he is required to obey, and dreams of sharing a place in Hell with his beloved once his mortal lover dies of old age. Like other demons, Mephistopheles is a fallen angel who constantly reckons with his betrayal of God, and is always searching for a way to upstage his creator. Ultimately, however, he is thwarted in that attempt—just as the original play is a tragedy, so too is this short story. And like everything I have so far seen of Morgan Dante’s work, it is also masterfully written.

These three short stories are just my personal favorites from the collection. For those who favor more of a raunchy good time, I think they would enjoy “Paradises” by rafael nicolás, which features the angel Gabriel (a twink) becoming the lover of the Aztec rain deity Tlāloc behind God’s back, as well as Freydís Moon’s aforementioned contribution. There’s something in this anthology for everyone, I think.

You can find this book on Amazon Kindle or Smashwords

[nicosraf]

The sequel to ANGELS BEFORE MAN, a queer retelling of the fall of Satan, is ANGELS & MAN, a queer retelling of the Flood. Otherwise known as a queer retelling of the Book of Enoch.

I know I've been fairly open about this on here but I've been making the official announcement everywhere so! I'm finishing up this book, and I'm excited to start talking about it openly :)

ANGELS & MAN is a queer retelling of the Book of Enoch. It includes angel x human relationships, a horrific flood, Michael x Satan gay shenanigans, angel gender weirdness, Cain.

I won't give an official release date but I'm pretty confident in an early 2024 release, or at least I'll have my part of things done. Regardless, you'll be hearing a lot more about this book as I share content warnings and a true synopsis and all that :)

[nicosraf]

Angels Before Man: Revised and Extended is out now!

Angels Before Man is queer retelling of the fall of Satan, featuring the beautiful, timid angel Lucifer searching for identity and purpose until the strong, proud archangel Michael comes into his life. Lucifer learns to love himself as his relationship with Michael seems to bloom into something more than the friendships angels are accustomed to. Maybe the first romance in the history of everything.

But this God is a jealous one, and maybe paradise is not paradise.

.

If you haven't been following, Angels Before Man (the first in a trilogy) was originally indie-released last year, then revised when there was some interest in getting it traditionally published. I ended up stepping away from publishers, though, and re-releasing it myself. The first page includes content warnings and I ask that you read them if you're sensitive to any content in particular.

The beautiful, beautiful, beautiful cover you see was illustrated by @iliothermia , who is phenomenal, and I wish I could thank him a million times. I also need to thank @quintonli for the editorial help and @swordvampire for the design help.

And you to everyone who's already read ABM! I don't want to be sappy again, but I never could have imagined all this. My entire life has been made. Thank you. Thank you, thank you.

.

Oh, and there's a pay-what-you-can option! Please feel free to use it, if you need :')

[finleyfenn]

An orc and a midwife up in a tree... 😈

Joarr and Gwyn are by the amazing Amarna! And they're from my book The Midwife and the Orc! (Which is free until Sunday, Sept. 24!)

[bookish-monster]

BOOK REC

Exodus 20:3

by Freydís Moon - find them on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok

the storygraph link for this book contains information such as page count, publication date, and community-created content warnings.

Exodus 20:3 is a standalone love story centered around Diego, a Mexican-American trans man, and the relationship he forges with a Brazilian angel named Ariel as they refurbish an abandoned church in New Mexico together. It’s a beautiful blend of queerness and religious eroticism that comes in at around 100 pages on my Kindle edition, and has been recently updated with a new cover (see above) that is absolutely gorgeous. There is prayer, body worship, divinity kink where the divinity is no fantasy, hemipenes, and more eyes and teeth and wings than humans are used to experiencing in their love affairs. I absolutely loved it.

A note about body terminology for trans readers: Diego’s genitalia (he has had top surgery but not bottom surgery) is referred to using feminine terms such as “cunt” and “clit.” Some trans readers might find this dysphoria-inducing or otherwise upsetting.

Diego is what many people would call “troubled.” He does camming out of desperation for money, has recently quit using opiates illegally, and is struggling to deal with his mother’s disappointment once she found out about the latter through Diego crashing a car and getting sent to jail once the cops found said opiates inside the car. Basically, he’s not having a fun time as the family disappointment, so he reluctantly agrees to his mother’s plan for him to earn enough to pay her back for his bail money via refurbishing the church in New Mexico.

Ariel is the church’s caretaker. Diego is attracted to him from the jump, but that attraction is tempered with the wariness of a prey animal who has been hunted down and abused one too many times. Diego isn’t used to tenderness or genuine love from his sexual partners, and he isn’t interested in getting mixed up with someone and used in ways that don’t make him happy in the long term. I really loved how complicated Diego is—he’s tough as nails because the world hasn’t treated him gently, but also desperate for real affection because of how love-starved he’s become over the years. 

Ariel isn’t smothering when offering that affection, nor parental in caring for his new laborer. Initially, he comes across as enigmatic and perfunctory, reclusive and emotionally distant. But as he insists on digging into Diego’s past, so too does Diego start putting the pieces together and realizing that Ariel isn’t quite the man he seems. During their first sexual encounter with each other, consent is kind of iffy, but it gets talked about later between the characters. The sex scenes are lavish and drawn out, abstracted by Freydís’ beautiful prose into things elegantly rendered yet primal in their intensity.

The writing in this novelette is exquisite, by the way. Freydís has a command of language that I’m nakedly envious of, and there were multiple points where I stopped to re-read certain passages just to savor the taste of them, as well as the beautiful wordplay and turns of phrase. I keep a list on my phone of 1-2 sentence snippets I read in various places that are too good not to write down, and that list gained several entries from this book.

Finally, I really liked Exodus 20:3’s frank discussions of trauma and oppressive systems. As a Mexican-American, Diego is no stranger to the violence constantly forced upon brown bodies by the United States government, and as a trans man he’s equally familiar with transphobic violence from cis people. Although Freydís makes absolutely zero attempts to gloss over or divert attention from real-world issues inherent to their characters’ identities, nothing ever felt hopeless. Diego is initially very cynical, but as his relationship with Ariel evolves so too does he undergo a change of heart toward the nature of faith. You can get a side of religious philosophy with your steamy monster fucking in this book, if you choose to accept it. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and cannot recommend it enough to anyone who’s in the mood for queer Latino romance stories. I can say with confidence that nobody who chooses to pray at Freydís’ altar will be left unsatisfied.

find this book on Amazon Kindle (US)

[djrusso-romance]

It's finally here! It's ZOEBUB'S STUFF YOUR EREADER DAY!

My free offering? Stroopwafels & Starlight!

Come get your free books!

It runs until the 22nd so better hurry!

[orriculum]

i'm so excited for yall to meet gwen and vladyr, the book comes out october 1st, and right now the gargoyle from general management is up for pre-order!

[monsterromance]

Lyonne Riley ( @lyonneriley ) keeps coming with great examples of well-written compact stories. Loving this for the monster romance genre.

More Short Winners from Lyonne Riley, Y'all

If only I had a bit of this author's productivity

[lyonneriley]

Want a free book?

It's here! My super steamy novella, Healing the Orc's Heart, is now free at every major ebook retailer. If you've been thinking about picking up one of my books, now is a great time!

Amazon - Kobo - Apple Books - Barnes & Noble

[bookish-monster]

BOOK REC

Healing the Orc's Heart

by Lyonne Riley - find her on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok as well

The storygraph link for this book will provide information such as page count, publication date, and community-created content warnings.

Healing the Orc’s Heart is the second installment of the Trollkin Lovers series. This book was my introduction to Lyonne Riley’s monster romance universe, and I found it very fun! Even though it’s the second book in the series, it was very easy to slip into and I didn’t find anything confusing—the protagonists of the previous book, Stealing the Troll’s Heart, are secondary characters here, but you don’t need to know their story well in order to follow Blizzek’s and Nera’s journey together and apart.

This is a short and sweet little book, coming in at just under 150 pages on Kindle. I really loved the initial language barrier between Nera and Blizzek—caught on opposite sides of a war, the two have never really had a chance to mingle with those outside of their own respective cultures, let alone learn each other’s languages. Nevertheless, with a bit of tutelage Nera picks up Trollkin (Blizzek’s language) very quickly, and this turns into an advantage for her further along in the plot. 

Nera was a great protagonist; I loved how she insisted on caring for every wounded person she comes across, even if she meets resistance or her rendering aid ends up getting her own self in trouble further down the line. Although very good-hearted, Nera never strikes me as silly or naïve—instead, she just comes across as a person who is determined to do what’s right. The medical assistance she renders is very abstract (Nera mostly fetches a plant or two, makes a potion, and then the patient gets better after it’s administered) and isn’t gruesome or graphic at all. Dark themes like war and slavery, though present in the setting, are touched with a very light hand and never cloud the horizon too ominously.

Blizzek was equally wonderful. His internal conflict of fearing that his presence in Nera’s life would hurt her since there is a stigma against interspecies relationships in this universe, in spite of their blooming life-mate bond, was conveyed with a lot of feeling. It was very funny seeing Raz’jin (the troll protagonist from the first book of the series) knock some sense into Blizzek and make him realize that he could have a life with Nera. The sex scenes were deliciously steamy, and I loved how tender and gentle yet still incredibly masculine Blizzek was with Nera in the bedroom.

The HEA was cavity-inducing in the intensity of its sweetness, but it felt very much earned. Nera and Blizzek went through a great deal of strife and heartache to find each other after their initial separation. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and am excited to start reading the others in the Trollkin Lovers series!

Find this book on Amazon Kindle (US)

[bookish-monster]

RECOMMENDATION

How to Get a Girlfriend (When You're a Terrifying Monster)

by Marie Cardno - find her on Twitter and Instagram

the storygraph link will provide information such as page count, publication date, and community-created content warnings.

How to Get a Girlfriend (When You’re a Terrifying Monster) by Marie Cardno advertises itself as a cozy fantasy romance between a scientist-witch and an eldritch horror (both of whom use she/her pronouns). It’s also the first installment of a duology!

Our story opens with Trillin, the eldritch horror, gaining consciousness as she finds herself separated from the predatory Cthulhian entity known as the Endless in the dimension where they live. She is now capable of having an individual personality as well as wants and desires, and one of the first things she sees upon awakening is Sian, the scientist-witch who has entered the Endless’ dimension to study its inhabitants. (Trillin figures out her individual wants and desires pretty quickly after Sian shows up). 

It’s adorably weird—Cardno doesn’t shy away from the body horror and describes more ever-multiplying teeth and eyeballs than any human is normally comfortable with, but Trillin is, if you will believe this, shy. She has very little life experience that is 100% hers (although she possesses hazy memories of everything the Endless has experienced, since she broke off from it) and when she meets Sian for the first time she freezes up and afterwards feels incredibly embarrassed. Imagine a teenage girl trying to talk to her crush, except the teenage girl in question has over a dozen eyeballs and lots of tentacles and cilia and is generally terrifying to look at.

Cardno is a master of the “creepy cute” school of creature design. Trillin is horrifying to behold, but she’s also adorable and sweet. Likewise, Sian rescues a cat-rabbit-bug-thing that is described as follows: “Trillin stared at the [creature]. It was tiny, and fluffy, and had made itself six tentative legs and two furry antennae on top of its head. It had one eye, then three, and settled on six.” Don’t you just wanna go “awwww” and pet it?

This is a weird book, but it’s also sweet enough to induce dental problems. In some ways the prose reminds me of Terry Pratchett’s writing style for the Discworld series, but with a bouncier and more happy-go-lucky edge; as a cozy fantasy romance, the reader and author both know that the stakes are lower here. Cardno maintains wit and humor throughout her novella—this really is a good book to curl up with when you want something safe, warm, weird, and funny all at once.

Sian herself is a great character as well. She’s big and buff but also unashamedly nerdy, and very tenacious, optimistic, and caring. It takes a very special kind of person to say “nice tentacles” to an eldritch horror as soon as you hop through a portal into a dimension that no other human researcher has ever returned alive from, but Sian makes it work. She’s hysterically funny and quite probably insane, and her growing feelings for Trillin are so cute.

This novella comes in at just over a hundred pages and is a treat all around. Trillin, Sian, and their new pet get into some amazing hijinks to stay alive as the Endless tries to hunt them down and absorb them into its mass, and I devoured the story in just about a single sitting. Overall, I would definitely recommend this to anyone in the mood for some tentacle-y sapphic sweetness.

Find this book on Amazon Kindle (US)

[bookish-monster]

RECOMMENDATION

Providence Girls

by Morgan Dante - find them on Twitter and Instagram as well

The StoryGraph link contains information such as publication date, page count, and community-created content warnings

Providence Girls by Morgan Dante is a standalone sapphic novella set in H. P. Lovecraft’s cosmic horror universe in the 1930s and 40s. The story is a slow burn buildup of the romantic relationship between Lavinia “Vin” Whateley, an SA and incest survivor who fled from Dunwich, Massachusetts to East Providence in Rhode Island, and Asenath “Azzie” Waite who abandoned her hometown of Innsmouth for East Providence in an attempt to escape the slow transformation of her body and mind into an eldritch being of the sea.

I really loved this book! The prose is luscious but curt, using a lot of short, sharp sentences full of vivid description. The opening scene of Vin fleeing her murderous father (who intended to sacrifice her to a Great Old One after she bore its hybrid children at his… behest) and getting lost and delirious in the wilderness of New England is beautiful but unforgiving. Everything is described, from the bird calls and inquisitive wet nose of a bear cub to the infected cut on Vin’s foot that oozes pus and blood.

The chapters bounce between the first-person POVs of Vin and Azzie, who are both writing down their thoughts of each other. They often address each other in their respective sections, reflecting on their relationship with one another and how it developed over the course of less than a year. The story is very slow in the beginning and middle, focusing on the humdrum daily affairs of Vin learning to be her own person outside of her abusive father’s shadow and Azzie slowly opening her heart to her new housemate as her transformation progresses. The tension between Azzie and Vin grows stronger with every page, and feels realistic for two women who have been deeply wounded but nonetheless crave intimacy and trust. 

A lot of this book concerns itself with the misogynistic violence that was present in the earlier half of the 20th century in America, as well as with the misogyny that is present in Lovecraft’s writing and universe. Both Vin and Azzie rail against it in their own ways, but are constrained by their gender and society. A quote: “[The doctor] was only here to ensure you weren’t dead. Women disappeared sometimes, and their fathers and husbands were never questioned because what they did with their women was their business.” Azzie is mentioned as being the only woman to have graduated from Miskatonic University.

The entire book feels less like a love letter to Lovecraft’s work and more of a critique of it, an exploration of the women who so often fall through the cracks in these narratives. We see this in Azzie’s unnamed mother, a Deep One who forsook the sea and the eldritch glory of the ocean floor in order to be exiled to the attic of her human husband’s home—all for the sake of watching her daughter grow up on land.

Overall, I absolutely adored this book. The romance between Vin and Azzie is beautiful and heart-wrenching at the same time, as Azzie’s transformation drives her to the edge of death on land—and yet she, like her mother, does her best to ignore the sea for the sake of a loved one. There is definitely sapphic monster fucking here, as well as discussions of what it means to be a monster in someone’s eyes. Providence Girls is a delicious, slow burn meditation on the Cthulhian mythos and sapphic romance within it, and I greedily devoured every word.

Find this book on Amazon Kindle (US)

[sagemonsters]

RECOMMENDATION

All I Wanted Was Sushi But I Got Abducted By Aliens Instead

by Petra Palerno - you can also find her on TikTok

The storygraph link for this book contains info such as publication date, number of pages, and community-created content warnings.

All I Wanted Was Sushi But I Got Abducted By Aliens Instead is about… exactly what the title says! It’s also the first book in the Bubble Babes duology of erotic alien romance novellas. 

Palerno provides content warnings within the book itself, but not on her website, so I’m listing them here: abduction, death, hostages, human trafficking, kidnapping, needles, murder, grief, blood, gore, pregnancy, sexual content, and drugging. In spite of all of this, the book manages to remain incredibly lighthearted. Yes, the first scene features Opal, our cis female protagonist, being drugged with “horny juice” after being freshly abducted by aliens and sent off to be an erotic dancer against her will. Nonetheless, I think one of several things that Palerno does well is keeping the tone fun and silly while still treating these dark topics with a measure of the gravitas that they deserve. Opal develops a fear of needles and refuses to be injected ever again after this incident, and once she is rescued from being a dancer by her cis male love interest, Ke’ain, her wishes are respected. 

The plot of this not quite 200-page book is a rollercoaster from start to finish. We begin with a traffic jam on an alien planet, and end with a definite HEA featuring the abrupt ending of the galaxy-wide trafficking of human women by the alien Deenz. Some things I loved were that Opal is a plus-size babe, and her curviness and softness are seen as a definite plus by her lover. The book is very body positive, and has a scene where Opal decides not to shave (in the words of her new alien friends) her “crotch mane,” to the approval of those around her. Likewise, she remains feisty, spunky, and full of heart without any disparaging remarks about her weight. 

This book is also chock-full of spicy scenes. Like, a lot of spicy scenes. So many. I lost count of the number of orgasms Opal experienced at the hands, penis, tongue, and clitoral stimulation sucker (yes, really) of her aquatic alien lover, Ke’ain. Ke’ain also happens to be the prince of this planet, so Opal is falling in love with not just a person but the whole race of aliens she will help rule once the Deenz are taken care of.

The Fi’len (Ke’ain’s species) experience a “mating bond” where they find what are essentially soulmates, but—very interestingly—this is completely one-sided in an interspecies relationship; humans of course don’t experience soulmate bonds, which can cause problems… problems that are explored further in the second book of the duology, All I Wanted Was To Become A Scientist But Now I’ve Got An Alien Boyfriend, which is about Jessy, a veteran human dancer who has been recently rescued and is now trying to piece the semblance of a normal-ish life back together. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this book! It was exactly the type of lighthearted, fun romp through space that I needed as the stress of my uni semester started to really ramp up, and I’m eager to pick up the sequel and learn about Jessy’s messy relationship with Gra’eth, another Fi’len man of the planet’s royal court.

You can find this ebook on Amazon Kindle (US).

You can also get a signed paperback copy of this book from the author's Etsy.

[bookish-monster]

RECOMMENDATION

Love, Laugh, Lich

by Kate Prior - find her on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok as well

The storygraph link contains info such as publication date, number of pages, community-created content warnings, and more.

Love, Laugh, Lich is the first installment of the Claws and Cubicles series, and it completely stole my reliquary—I mean, heart. First of all, the situation is absolutely hilarious: a lich takes over the realm, instituting an Evil Dominion o’er all, and yet… people still go to work! There are office jobs! Lily, the human protagonist and the lich’s personal assistant, complains about a lack of PTO and shitty severance packages alongside the virgin sacrifices that the Lich Lord demands! It’s wild and utterly ridiculous and I truly enjoyed every moment of the sheer incongruity of it all. Look at this quote:

[The lich is] pacing the lower inner level of the Sanctum, the ritual floor. It’s drawn up in runes and incantation circles, with all his most-used ingredients lined up near the edges, and an altar for sacrifices in the center. "And there’s the initiative to bring more women in the STEM fields. That’s Sneakiness, Traumatization, Evil Studies, and Misfortune," I trail off...

It’s so corny and silly that I can’t help but love it. It feels like corporate D&D with the absurdity of the setting, almost, but with an office romance twist. This is one of those books where I learned almost nothing about the FMC outside of her interactions with the love interest, but I was weirdly okay with it because the setup was so outlandish and fun. Anyway, I truly did enjoy Lily as a protagonist. Usually I don’t jive much with first person POV, but I liked Lily’s. She is, of course, rather disconnected from reality and potentially crazy—it’s not wanting to jump a lich’s bones (ha) that makes me say so, but the fact that she has a continent-sized crush on her boss and agrees to sleep with him for work. FOR WORK! Girl…

Janice, Lily’s best friend and the company’s HR manager, is the voice of reason here (and potentially the FMC of the next installment of this series) but she is sadly—or perhaps happily?—ignored by Lily in favor of Soven (the lich) and his trifecta of cocks. You heard me right: trifecta. Soven has three dicks (one of them dedicated to clitoral stimulation) and he isn’t afraid to use them. Lily is a big fan, as am I. Soven is also a bit of a dork, which is super endearing given that he has enough undead magical power to (probably) level a city block without breaking a sweat.

I actually liked the conflict in this little novella. You can read the entire story in a few hours, but it feels appropriately sized—not too grand, but also not cramped. The story was (to quote Goldilocks) just right for what it was trying to do. The fact that sleeping with one’s boss is generally considered a bad idea all around, even in the real world, was acknowledged heartily—Lily agonizes over her feelings and Soven’s feelings and what the boundary is between “work” and “a relationship” and honestly it’s a whole mess of emotions that ordinarily I would find tedious… but because the novella is so short, the miscommunication and pining and angst didn’t get drawn out even close to the border of my patience, and I had a great time. 

The ending is very cute and a definite HEA that I found very sweet without being cavity-inducing in its intensity. The sex scenes were fun and varied, and as someone who prefers more lavish, drawn-out sex scenes I was reasonably satiated with these. Overall, Love, Laugh, Lich was a great, funny rom-com, and I’m looking forward to picking up the next book in the series as soon as my next paycheck comes in.

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[bookish-monster]

RECOMMENDATION

Found by the Lake Monster: A Love Bathhouse Monster Romance

by Lillian Lark

The storygraph link contains info such as publication date, number of pages, community-created content warnings, and more.

This recommendation has also been featured in the July 2023 edition of the wonderful @monstermag - which you should definitely check out if you enjoy monster romance; download past editions here.

Found by the Lake Monster is a short and sweet contemporary romance novella coming in at just over 100 pages on my Kindle. However, Adrian himself, the titular lake monster, is anything but short – which I think his human partner, Amy, really appreciates! This novella is primarily an erotic piece focused on Amy getting lost in the woods at night, meeting Adrian by accident, and agreeing to carry an oviparous pregnancy to term as his mate. In other words, this book includes oviposition, although the laying of the egg is not shown. It also features dual POVs – swapping between Amy and Adrian, of course – that are both told in the first person.

I really enjoyed the good communication that Adrian and Amy used with each other. The start of their sexual relationship is very emotionally intense and employs miscommunication – Amy impersonates Adrian’s blind date to get in his pants – but there are realistic consequences for this breach of Adrian’s trust, and also a show of how Amy regains that trust over the course of the novella. They go on an actual date with each other where they talk, eat, laugh, and use their words as well as their sex toys.

I found it a refreshing change of pace that Amy took the lead in their shared sexual acts and told Adrian what she wanted – and then received it in spades. The “magic cum as lubricant and aphrodisiac” trope was played really well with just the right amount of seriousness. Amy herself is a monster romance connoisseur with a collection of monster dildos, so she knows her tropes. She never quite breaks the fourth wall, but it’s clear she’s both amused and aroused by everything that happens to her.

Overall, this was an incredibly cute and sweet novella. I really like Lillian Lark’s prose style; it’s funny, earnest, and very approachable, with a plethora of pop culture references that manage to remain endearing rather than verging into the territory of being a nuisance. I would highly recommend Found by the Lake Monster to anyone in the mood for a big helping of fluff with their steam.

buy this ebook on Amazon Kindle (US)