#rien gray

Seeking to change her body, Petra Kruos, a mercenary and the last living Basilisk, strikes a deal with the goddess Cybele in exchange for recovering Perseus’ divine armaments from his grave.

The hero’s corpse rests within the lair of the legendary Medusa, who lives in exile surrounded by a vicious and deadly gauntlet. Surviving to reach the gorgon is perilous enough, but the potent lure of a fellow serpent threatens to undo everything Petra holds dear.

“They were sovereign of summer and the warrior of winter, proud head crowned with a thousand thorns.”

Character and Story from A Strip of Velvet by Rien Gray

goodreads | storygraph

There's a haunting in Cameron Ciris's blood, and the city they live in is hungry for every drop. Chicago is like every other American built on a foundation of death. Little surprise that when a loving couple in a low-rent apartment cannibalize each other, the police write it off as a bizarre murder-suicide. Cameron—local fixer and addict in recovery—volunteers to take up the case as a favor to their neighborhood, the 49th Ward. A year ago, Cameron overdosed on a hot new party drug and picked up an extra passenger, an entity that forces them to perform rituals written in blood. Being possessed is Cameron's new normal, but as more cannibalized victims turn up, so does an eldritch doppelganger of Cameron's old dealer, hunting them through nightmares and hallucinations. Cameron tracks the molding remnants of their dealer from block to block, discovering a malicious growth that promises to spread through Chicago and give it a whole new shape. With a body not quite their own, Cameron faces the question lurking throughout the urban who gets devoured, and who gets to feast? Problem is, they're getting real goddamn hungry.

Love always shows your true face. Jillian Rhodes lies to everyone she meets. As one of the world's best art thieves, a life of infiltration and con artistry has left her flying solo, which is exactly the way she likes it. When Jillian is hired to steal a collection of photos belonging to the late—and deeply controversial—Russell Key from the Art Institute of Chicago, everything should be business as usual. Except she has two problems: first, fellow master thief Sloane Caffrey also has their eye on the photos. Second, Sloane is her smoking hot ex. Three years have passed since a messy breakup, but Jillian and Sloane have been getting vengeance on each other ever since. When the Key theft becomes their latest competition, love and loathing ride a fine, shaking line. Trying to destroy each other should be simple. But confronting past mistakes is hard, especially when the entire job is starting to look like a setup to put Jillian and Sloane behind bars...

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I read The Scales of Seduction by Rien Gray! It's a 33,000 word F/F erotic romance novella between a butch trans woman and a feral cis femme, focused on lesbian desire and reclaiming one's body from those who would destroy it.

Here's what I thought! (spoiler, I loved it)

Book summaries below:

I put it on one of my gay shelves :3