#polyam romance

So, please say hello to Twice Bitten, a romantasy/urban fantasy about two vampire brothers and the not-quite-human lounge singer that's gotten all tangled up in their world of politics, curses, and forgotten humanity.

It's very A Discovery of Witches meets Crescent City (at least, as much as I remember about those two series).

It's slow burn, polyam, urban mystery with a touch of noir (vibes).

I've no clue if I'm doing this right, but I'm enjoying it immensely haha

I'll be gushing about it here periodically, so if it gets annoying, just block the tag 'Twice Bitten'

Link in first reblog to website where you can read it for free as a downloadable PDF or in browser

cover by laika wallace

She had never known a love like this...

After Morgan, Laurie, and Cherry make the brave-- and maybe a little crazy-- jump to move out of their family homes as teenagers, they are quickly faced with the struggles of living together for the first time. In this heartwarming novella, picking up where the story left off at the end of Whisper in the Woods, the three girls come into their own while navigating each other's family dynamics and learning how to be young adults. Away from the abuse in their pasts, they find support and care in each other, forge new relationships, build themselves a true family, discover their new world, and finally know the depths of love.

Trigger warnings for this story include: abusive families, dysphoria, financial hardships, divorce, homophobia, alcohol, underage drinking.

It is now available on the Internet Archive for FREE!

It is also available for $1.99 on many ebook stores like Apple, Kobo, and Smashwords.

M/M/M dark vampire romance with every gothic fixing

happy book day @ghostpoetics

Title: Arise (a Triumvirate of Monterey novel)

Genre: Urban Fantasy 

Summary:

Shayne Morgan has had plenty of difficult cases during his time as a Monterey police detective, but the string of killings he's currently investigating might just be the worst. Not only were the deaths unusually gruesome, but every clue seems to lead to a dead end. 

Faced with mounting pressure from his superiors to wrap the case up quickly before it can impact the city’s tourism industry, he finds himself reluctantly partnering with the eccentric proprietors of Arcane Investigations, Maya Agrawal and her husband Alexander Drake. 

Little does he know, this choice will bring him crashing into a world of magic, monsters, and mayhem.

But Shayne is determined to get justice for the murder victims, and he's not going to let anything deter him from that goal; not trolls or curses or even the unexpected attraction that's steadily growing between himself, Alex, and Maya.

Brief summary of main characters: 

Mayawati “Maya” Agrawal: a Gujarati witch who specializes in elemental magic and divination. Owner/operator of Arcane Investigations, a small shop that specializes in the arcane. Married to Alex Drake. 

Alexander “Alex” Drake: Maya’s husband, a Greek private investigator/mercenary who works with her at Arcane Investigations. Very handy with bladed weapons. 

Shayne Morgan: a detective with the Monterey Police Department. First meets Maya and Alex while investigating a recent string of brutal murders.

Status:

Okay, I need to get something off my chest. I... am kinda annoyed with how media - and that includes fanfiction - often shows polyamory. Because most of the time it is depicted as "monogamy, but with more people".

It is kinda how a lot of queer representation in media is often "straight relationships with two people of the same gender" (as in, still kinda forcing people into the traditional roles within a relationship, with one partner taking off the "female" and one the "male" part - often with the characters then getting shown with more stereotypical female or male traits). I mean, for the longest time it was, what kept me from Slash stuff: That it so often casted one character as the "woman" of the relationship, before going ahead and just... do the same sexist tropes, you will usually see in straight romances.

But I digress.

The thing with polyamory is, that it often gets depicted as a closed relationship that involves most of the time three people. Rarely more than three, which is problematic for a reason I am getting at in just a moment. First of all...

Yeah, sure, there are absolutely closed polyamorous relationships. Meaning, relationships that have a fixed number of people, with a strong understanding that there is nobody getting into that relationship later on.

But... A lot of polyamorous relationships do not work that way. While not all go directly into relationship anarchism, there generally is an understanding that at least with some communication a partner would be allowed to date someone else as well. Because a lot of the polyamorous experience is about learning Compersion (feeling happy for someone to find love).

Which brings me also to the problem with OT3s. I have tried to explain this before, but it seems people are struggling with it. See, the problem with Triads is, that they rarely last, as long as they remain a triad. Does not mean that no triad ever lasts - but most don't. Why? Well, because there is one problem. If there is an argument in a triad-relationship (and yes, even polyamorous people argue) it will often end up as a 2 vs 1. And usually what happens is, that in the end it will end up as often the same two people against the same one person. Which will lead to the one person to feel isolated and end the relationship.

Which brings me to Relationship Anarchy. Relationship Anarchy is basically a relationship philosophy that is anti-normative. Which is against heteronormativity, allonormativity, mononormativity and so on. It is very much based around the ideas that:

Love is not a limited research. A single person can give a lot of love. (After all: Even a person in a monogamous relationship will still love their family and friends.)

All Love is equal. So basically there is no overidealisation of romantic love - which also means that queerplatonic relationships are seen as as serious of an involvement as alloromantic relationships.

I just want to ask everyone who is writing anything that involves polyamory - no matter if it is a book, a comic, a tv show or a fanfic - to understand this.

A poem/love letter written by me.