Genre: Science Fiction, Romance, M/M, LGBT+
Pages: 196
Series: Calluvia’s Royalty #1 (works as a standalone)
Release Date: May 30, 2017
Publisher: Self-published, I think
I’m not sure if anyone remembers, but a few months ago, I went on a kind of reading spree/binge/whatever-you-wanna-call-me-reading-eight-books-in-48-hours. I basically read everything the author had written (which was the Straight Guys series) minus a novella that I read a few days later. But somehow, I missed this book! How?! Actually wait, I think the sleep deprivation may have had something to do with it.
I came across this one yesterday while I was looking up when her next book was coming out, read it in one sitting and here we are. I do wish I’d waited a few more months because the wait for the sequel is going to kill me, but more on that later.
The main characters in this book is an alien. Yup, the book’s name is totally a pun, and that cover is so simple and so cute. The book is not cute. It’s probably the saddest book the author’s written. It’s starts off with Harry, his alien name is very long, on earth. He was sent there a couple of months ago to teach him a lesson about the value of family. By earth standards, he’s quite strange despite the efforts to fit in. He works at a coffee shop and is unusually happy and nice to everyone. That’s where he meets Adam.
Adam’s human and is immediately charmed by Harry. I don’t blame him. Harry is just so fucking cute and innocent. Adam is also very much attracted to him. But Harry’s straight and engaged so initially, there’s nothing to be done. Adam just gets to be miserable because he’s hopelessly in love with a straight guy.
And that’s just the start of his misery. The moment one issue gets resolved, another one pops up. It makes you think that maybe the book is specifically designed to torture Adam. Things weren’t much easier for Harry but Adam definitely had it worse. First because of his unrequited feelings, then because Harry couldn’t actually stay with him. There are a lot of laws regarding what you can’t and can’t do with the less developed civilizations (like earth). It was very interesting, the restrictions, the type of aliens, the intergalactic government, the alien planet we got to visit. There wasn’t much about it (don’t want to make the book info-dumpy, I guess) but there was enough. I’m really looking forward learning more though.
The romance was… very Alessandra Hazard. In the author’s own words, “I love romance with an edge: a bit twisted, a bit unhealthy and messed up“. It was definitely a little messed up, what with the neediness and the urge both Harry and Adam had to somehow climb into each other and stay there. These kind of relationship are not something I usually read but Alessandra Hazard won me over a long time ago.
The thing I like most about her stories is that while the relationship aren’t… conventional, they’re always about two people who want to be together, who are happy together. They defy social norms and the great thing about that is that they urge you to reconsider why we condemn certain things. Society can be so limited in its thinking. So much that it often makes people miserable for not fitting in. These book show relationships that many wouldn’t accept but ones that are okay because the people involved in them are more than so. This book took it a little too far at one point for my personal comfort, but there was a biological explanation for it so I’m not sure what to think.
But yeah, I like Alessandra Hazard’s brand of unusual, I like her characters and I like her side-characters. Mainly Harry’s best friend Seyn, who’s very smart and very bold, and his brother Ksar, who is a cold-hearted bastard most of the time but has a soft side, which we will hopefully see more of in the sequel, which comes out on July 20th.
Ksar and Seyn are the protagonist and you have no idea how hard it was to not mention how freaking excited I am to read that book. I was to read it so badly because from what I’ve seen of Seyn and Ksar, it’s going to be amazing and I’m dying over here. How am I supposed to wait that long? The only consolation is that it’s a much longer book’s than the author’s usual, and that waiting is acceptable if the book is awesome. Which it will be. In the meantime, go read this one. It’s really good.