I'm hosting my first ever exclusive cover reveal today. And I'm nervous and excited about it. Here goes nothing!

The upcoming release of the talented author of queer fiction Matthew J. Metzger, Waking On Water (Nine Star Press, Nov 13th), is a contemporary trans retelling of The Little Mermaid and I have honour and privilege to show you its fabulous cover first. In a bit. First off you can learn more about the book and how it got written from the following short but fun (I promise ;) interview with the author. 

1. So far you have written only contemporaries, YA and adult, but this is your first fantasy book, right? What inspired you to write it?
I've always enjoyed science fiction and fantasy, and I wrote a couple of old Nanowrimo projects in those genres, but this retelling was the first to truly seize hold of me as I wrote it. The others just fizzled out and died, so it's more coincidence than anything else. This one was just different somehow, maybe because it was a retelling of a story I already love, maybe because I'm a much better writer now than I was in my early 'Wrimo days. I still love it now, and usually by the time I get to publishing a book, I'm sick of the sight of it!

2. Why did you choose to do a trans retelling of a classic children’s story (The Little Mermaid)? 
I'm one of the team over at Trans Book Reviews and I read a lot of novels with transgender main characters, as well as write a fair few of my own. Retellings always interest me because I want to see what new things the author can bring to an old story, be that having a transgender Belle or a lesbian Snow White or—anything you want! The Little Mermaid is a favourite of mine, and I had a craving from my work at the review site for a transgender version. But when I asked my twitter librarians to recommend me one, they couldn't. And the overwhelming response was they pushed a pen and paper at me, virtually speaking, and told me to get on with it!

3. Do you have favourite retellings (queer and not) you would recommend everyone to read?

I haven't actually read that many. Unfortunately I only tried to find them when I got the craving for a trans retelling, and immediately found an F/F retelling that turned around and threw trans people under the bus by making the only non-cis character in the book the villain. So I've been very wary of book retellings and stuck to my (*whispers*) preferred film and TV. *ducks rotten fruit*

4. Do you have plans to write more fantasy/retellings? 

I've been planning a fantasy trilogy based on medieval Islamic Spain for a long time, but that probably won't happen for a while yet because of the amount of research I still need to do. As far as retellings go, I have an outline that is basically 'Rapunzel retelling meets geek romance.' I have a feeling if I admit that to my twitter followers, I'm going to get shouted at for not having done it yet!

5. What was the best and the most difficult thing about writing this story?
The same part! So one of my bugbears about the original story is the whole voice aspect. One, there's no way these two people speak the same language anyway so taking her voice so she can't tell him is nonsense, and two, I never liked the aspect about her singing being the most beautiful thing ever either. Like, maybe it is underwater but you ever tried to speak underwater? It's garbled nonsense. A mermaid is going to sound horrific on at least one side of the surface, right?

So I moved around it by putting a language barrier in place. The love interest, Prince Janez, is German. The whole human kingdom is German. So whenever our hero hears the humans talking, it's written in German so both he and most readers won't understand. I had two native German speakers helping me with the German, both culture and language, and it was one of the hardest but most fun undertakings in my career. German is similar enough to really play around with the language and as one of my helpers was a linguist, we had a blast with this! Held (our hero of the story) genuinely thinks Doktor is the name of one of the characters—he doesn't know that's just his title as the royal physician. He mistakes a captain in the guard saying 'my son' as the name of the child and thinks his son is actually called 'Meinsohn.'

As an example of really how to mould the language, there's a scene where Held learns what flowers are. Well, in German, a flower is blume. The plural is blumen. Held translates this as 'one bloom, two bloomings.' And it makes a strange sort of sense in English as well, which wouldn't be possible if the story had been set in, say, the Mediterranean.

It was fiendishly difficult and I think my poor editor was ready to kill me by the time the book was ready to be published, but it was so much fun. (And spoiler alert, I would totally do it again!) 

6. Finally, can you tell us more about the cover? (Who did the design? Did you have input in it? Is it what you had in mind initially?) 
The cover is by the wonderful Natasha Snow, and although I did have input, I am not artistic in the slightest so I'm always more than a little useless when it comes to book covers and never know what I want until I see it. I basically told her the themes and mood of the story, and she went away to come up with something. And I love Natasha's work, so even when the first draft wasn't quite hitting the mark for me, I was in a weirdly nice zone of 'I would totally be okay with it if the publisher decided to go ahead and use it like that anyway.' But we talked about it, we tweaked the things that were making me pause a little, and the result was this gem!

Now, ready or not, here is the that gorgeous cover Matthew spoke about! It's a thing of beauty isn't it?

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This week my guest in the New and Debut feature is the wonderful Austin Chant, author of Coffee Boy (trans mm romance) and the upcoming queer/trans retelling of Peter Pan (I can't tell how much I'm looking forward to this one). Read on to check his awesome interview and a short excerpt from Coffee Boy.

Meet Austin

1. Tell us about yourself and why did you decide to become a romance writer?

I've wanted to be a writer since I was about six years old, but I didn't get into romance for a long time because I had a lot of misconceptions about the genre (as we often do). One of my biggest misconceptions was that there was no such thing as queer romance, or trans romance, so I didn't think I'd ever see myself represented. Then, in 2013, a regional conference called Gay Romance Northwest blew my mind open, introducing me to a ton of amazing queer books and even more queer amazing authors. I immediately decided I needed to throw myself into romance, and I've been at it ever since!

I was born and raised in Washington in a small town that tends to wind up on lists of "cool places for hipsters to visit". I'm now at university near Seattle, writing as much as possible after work and school and slowly getting used to telling people I'm a romance novelist.  I'm a bisexual trans man, a gamer, a tea drinker, and a passionate cook. 

2. Can you share some of your favourite books and authors?

I'm a huge fan of KJ Charles, particularly her Society of Gentlemen series and The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal. They both have a perfect blend of lovable, compelling, funny characters and terrifyingly high stakes which, combined, makes me cry a lot. I also love Heidi Belleau and C.S. Pacat for the Rear Entrance Video series and Captive Prince, respectively. I'll read pretty much anything — characters and style matter more to me than genre.

3. Who/what do you consider your writing influence/inspiration?

My biggest single influence is Diana Wynne Jones, who was a wonderful British author of children's fiction. She wrote a lot of very genre-bending fantasy and sci-fi, including Howl's Moving Castle, which my parents read to me when I was a little kid. Fantasy is my favorite genre, but aside from that, my influences are all over the place — I love Jurassic Park, Jeeves & Wooster, Hemingway, Bradbury, fanfiction, etc. And I collect copies of The Picture of Dorian Gray because they all inspire me.

4. What kind of stories can the readers expect from you (contemporary/historical/sci-fi, adult/NA/YA, etc)?

I want to write a little bit of everything, but I have a special place in my heart for fantasy, so you'll definitely see more of that. I love contemporary queer romance that captures stories from my community, and I make occasional forays into historical fiction because I also love writing about queer folks throughout history. Honestly, the only common thread between everything I write is that it's all very queer and character-focused. The next couple books I expect to release are a) a queer/trans retelling of Peter Pan that probably counts as historical fantasy, b) fairly classic sword-and-sorcery M/M about dragonslayers who fall in love, and c) some snarky contemporary F/F about singers and figure skaters. All three have trans protagonists.

5. Please, introduce your latest release.

My latest book is Coffee Boy, which is a contemporary trans m/m novella about a gay trans man named Kieran who's starting a political campaign internship after graduating college. It's a snarky book about navigating the workplace as a trans person, and about struggling with the apathy and inertia that tends to hit when you can't imagine things getting better (for you or for the world). And, of course, it's a romance! Kieran's supervisor Seth is an older bi man who, despite having a stick up his ass, is unequivocally supportive of Kieran's right to be safe and respected at work. Over time, as Kieran learns more about Seth, their relationship deepens from uneasy allyship to friendship and, you know. You'll have to read the book.

Austin Chant is a bitter millennial, passable chef, and a queer, trans writer of romance, erotica, and fantasy. His fiction centers on trans characters who always, always get the love they deserve. Austin cohosts the Hopeless Romantic, a podcast dedicated to exploring LGBTQIA+ love stories and the art of writing romance. He currently lives in Seattle, in a household of wildly creative freelancers who all spend too much time playing video games.

Excerpt

Blurb

Ed Masiello has been on testosterone for a year, is working his dream job as a reporter, and is finally passing as a man (so long as you don’t ask his abuela). But the investigation of a murder case is starting to take over his life. Afraid he’s becoming obsessed, he goes to the local club to relax, and meets the flighty, whimsical Alisha.

Alisha is a free spirit who’s tossed aside ambition for travel and adventure. Her approach to life is a far cry from Ed’s, and while Ed has always assumed that meeting his goals would make him happy, Alisha is much more content than him—despite all the plans she can’t yet fulfill.

As their relationship heats up, so does the murder case. Alisha thinks Ed needs a break, but someone’s got to find this killer, and he wants to be there when it all goes down. Besides, taking off into the great unknown with Alisha is crazy. But opting for what’s safe is just another way of living in fear, and Ed vowed to stop living like that a long time ago.

Review

This is my favourite book in the Queers of La Vista series far. It continues the suspense/crime plot line from the previous two books, so you should definitely read them before this one. It will make your appreciation of Ed and Alisha's story even better.

I absolutely loved Ed. And I loved that his character was not only about being trans but also about being a young man in general - professional ups and downs, relationship wins and losses that have nothing to do with his gender/sexual identity. 

We see his struggles with being trans too - lack of acceptance/support from his family, his fear of not always passing, of not being male enough, the doubts and insecurities of being liked/loved for who he was not and just for the sake of being an adventure or a thrilling experience to be cross off someone's bucket list.

We see him dedicated to his work, trying hard to rise and develop professionally to the extend of putting everything else in his life on hold. He became sort of obsessed with his work when it got tangled up in uncovering the murder mystery threatening his community.

Alisha was Ed's are perfect opposites in many ways. I found it a bit more difficult to relate to her even though I did like her a lot too. She was different, craving adventure and fun, seemingly flighty and irresponsible in comparison to Ed who came off as too serious, to the point of boring at times.

I loved them as a couple, though, and think they suited each other well. Still, I felt that her attraction to him was not as well explicitly shown in the text as his to her. Her motifs for liking him and wanting to be with him remained a bit unclear to me. What I really loved though was the way she treated Ed - she loved the man he was and was supporting and understanding of his fears and desires. I felt their relationship created a true sense of intimacy where one can be open about one's feelings free of judgement or ridicule.

There is an easy flow to this story, very much like in the previous two stories in the series. Once again we get the sort of effortless, easy going and simple, yet engaging and real writing of Kris Ripper. Ze manages to create a great sense of community by adding all these details about the characters in each story in the series.

I'm really excited for the next books as this is shaping to be a really unique, all-encompassing, fun and enjoyable series of diverse romance.

Title: Documenting Light
Author: EE Ottoman
Date of publication: 31 Aug 2016
Genre / Themes: Contemporary romance / Trans characters

Author's links: Website / Twitter / Facebook / Goodreads
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My rating: 4.5 Stars

Blurb

If you look for yourself in the past and see nothing, how do you know who you are? How do you know that you’re supposed to be here?

When Wyatt brings an unidentified photograph to the local historical society, he hopes staff historian Grayson will tell him more about the people in the picture. The subjects in the mysterious photograph sit side by side, their hands close but not touching. One is dark, the other fair. Both wear men’s suits.

Were they friends? Lovers? Business partners? Curiosity drives Grayson and Wyatt to dig deep for information, and the more they learn, the more they begin to wonder — about the photograph, and about themselves.

Grayson has lost his way. He misses the family and friends who anchored him before his transition and the confidence that drove him as a high-achieving graduate student. Wyatt lives in a similar limbo, caring for an ill mother, worrying about money, unsure how and when he might be able to express his nonbinary gender publicly. The growing attraction between Wyatt and Grayson is terrifying — and incredibly exciting.

As Grayson and Wyatt discover the power of love to provide them with safety and comfort in the present, they find new ways to write the unwritten history of their own lives and the lives of people like them. With sympathy and cutting insight, Ottoman offers a tour de force exploration of contemporary trans identity.

Oh, that was such a sweet and tender and heart-warming story! Everybody needs love and affection and a place in the world and they have the right to it, they deserve it and when get the chance to have it, it can be beautiful!

This book is an example of why I love reading in general and reading romance in particular, stories like this one are magical and they help us see and relate to each other as human beings regardless of the differences between us. 

The romance between Grayson and Wyatt is slow going, unassuming, it takes time to develop, all this making it real. There is a strong attraction but both of them are shy, a bit insecure, coming to terms with their own selves and being with another person did not come easily to either of them. Add to this some serious real-life family/professional issues they were dealing with and connecting with another person the way they did was both soothing and taxing on them. 

The need for human connection, for acceptance especially for marginalized people, though I really feel most people have this need and most of us feel marginalised in one way or another. I loved how understated this story was, just ordinary, yet special people, struggling to find their place in life. That desire not to be alone and to have someone by your side, someone you can share yourself with, it spoke to me so much. 

My only minor quibble is that at times the messages of the story came off as too strong to the point of being didactic. I liked the easy flow of the writing, though occasionally the unfolding of the story seemed too slow, falling too much into scientific discussion of historical research rather than following the characters on their journey towards happiness/fulfillment. 

I very much liked focus the author put on the everyday aspects of life - two people meet, fall in love and slowly mesh their lives together. There are awkward moments, and setbacks and both welcome and hurtful intrusions of family but ultimately it's a story of two people dealing with being trans who find the way to be a couple, to love themselves and each other. 

Purchase links: Amazon / Publisher / Kobo / B&N

Blurb

Recently divorced Tina Durham is trying to be self-sufficient, but her personal-training career is floundering, her closest friends are swept up in new relationships, and her washing machine has just flooded her kitchen. It’s enough to make a girl cry.

Instead, she calls a plumbing service, and Joanne “Joe Mama” Delario comes to the rescue. Joe is sweet, funny, and good at fixing things. She also sees something special in Tina and invites her to try out for the roller derby team she coaches.

Derby offers Tina an outlet for her frustrations, a chance to excel, and the female friendships she’s never had before. And as Tina starts to thrive at derby, the tension between her and Joe cranks up. Despite their player/coach relationship, they give in to their mutual attraction. Sex in secret is hot, but Tina can’t help but want more.

With work still on the rocks and her relationship in the closet, Tina is forced to reevaluate her life. Can she be content with a secret lover? Or with being dependent on someone else again? It’s time for Tina to tackle her fears, both on and off the track.

This is my first f/f romance, rather trans f/f romance and I liked  a lot of things about this story but there were also some elements that did not work very well for me. 

I generally enjoy Ms North's writing, the way she builds this ordinary, often sweet, life for her characters is a bright light in the midst of many romances where the characters are often victims of abuse, violence and their happy ending is a hard won one and bittersweet. I found these elements made a very pleasant and entertaining mix in Blueberry Boys (review) which is my favourite book by Ms North. We have these elements here too but here they seemed overabundant and the sweetness was borderline cheesy at times.

I was excited to try f/f romance for the first time and I did enjoy the way the relationship between Tina and Joe developed. It read as real and believable and I was glad that things between them worked out without any major/over-the-top drama. At the same time I have to admit that Joe's resistance to having a relationship with Tina because they were both in the same roller derby team (Actually, Joe was the coach and she invited Tina to join which didn't happen until later in the story, mind you) was too much, it felt like a convenient excuse and not a real obstacle.

While I enjoyed reading about Tina forging a new life on her own after her divorce, I would have liked to see more of her past, her transition, everything that happened to her to bring her to place where she was at the moment. It felt like an important element of her character was missing from the story.

I didn't get really involved in the roller derby as a sport/hobby but this didn't bother me too much. It ave me enough sense of the community and camaraderie among the different women in story, and it was nice seeing women supporting each other for a change. At the same time, there were subplots and elements related to team's dynamics which I was interested in but there were just glossed over and not explored in the depth they deserved.

While I very much like and appreciate the inclusion of characters with different sexuality, at times it read as preachy and the message for celebration of diversity seemed superimposed on the story/characters and not an intrinsic element of it.

Having said that, I still think it's a nice, sweet f/f romance. It's well-written, engaging and positive, if a bit too sweet for my taste. I think it touches upon important issues of sexuality and identity and building relationships and I wish they were explored in more depth and detail.