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Why have a midlife crisis on Earth when you can have one among the stars?
After her third post-release layoff from a major gaming studio, Coriolis Washington is ready to try something new. Like, going-to-another-world new. And whatever her friend's lurid romance novels might say, Cori knows perfectly well that the alien world Fali-tan needs programmers to write code – not sexy women to fill out harems.
Despite being far more technologically advanced than Earth in most respects, Fali-tan’s computers were no better than punch-card-driven mainframes, and had not improved in generations until the discovery of their long-lost cousins on Earth. Now, Fali-tan's population is eager to achieve their own Information Age, and technology companies bend over backwards to hire skilled Earth developers. Even some of Fali-tan's peacelords, leaders of their nations, will go to great lengths to attract people like Coriolis to their country.
… and the shocking, overwhelming physical attractiveness of humans is the least of Coriolis's charms to rival peacelords and ex-lovers Dhavoran and Tyvalon.
A polyamorous science fiction romance
Three Gamers, Two Ex-Lovers, One Comedy of Errors
When Griffin met a gorgeous young woman in a Guardians t-shirt, he shouldn't've led her to believe he was an expert at the Guardians MMO -- which he hasn't played in years. Now he's desperate to make up for lost time and level up before Kalisha returns from her vacation and expects to play it with him.
After Rachel stumbled into a group in Guardians with her ex, she should've told him who she was. But it's wonderful to game with Griffin again, especially since the two of them found the perfect sorceress to complete their tank-healer pair. How can she tell him now, and ruin the trio’s synergy?
When Kalisha decided to play Guardians on her vacation, she didn't want her friends to tease her about it. But using an unknown alt to group with her housemate wasn't the most ethical plan. Especially not given that Kalisha already has a crush on her. Rachel is bound to find out eventually, and it's only getting more awkward the longer Kalisha waits.
Meanwhile, the three players grow increasingly close as their characters level together ...
A polyamorous gamelit romance
A standalone polyamorous fantasy romance, set in a mortal realm through which the fey lands pass.
After Mereni is conquered by a vicious dragon, Mereni's king-in-exile is willing to do anything to save his kingdom. Including promising half of it and the hand of his daughter, Princess Cherish, to whomsoever stops the cruel beast. With luck, he reasons, one or more of the neighboring kingdoms will come to their aid, and some eligible prince will claim his daughter as bride. Perhaps even some palatable individual, like the handsome Prince Eclipse, who is already on friendly terms with Cherish.
It does not occur to Cherish's father that she might have her own ideas about whom she should marry --
-- Or that the best individual to stop a dragon is, of course, another dragon.
A 15,000 word standalone novelette with no cliffhangers, but which will be more interesting to those who have read The Princess, Her Dragon, and Their Prince.
It would take a miracle for Eclipse to accept the role his parents believe he was born to take: that of a princess.
But the fey lands are strange and perilous, and the fey have their own ideas about what kind of miracle Eclipse needs.
Or, if you prefer, buy The Mortal Prince and the Moon Etherium
A standalone queer polyamorous fantasy romance
After his first romance ended in bitterness and anger, and his disastrous first marriage ended in the death of his wife, Lord Jaguar of Honor has no interest in a third attempt at love. But he is the sole surviving member of his House. It is his duty to wed, and he is not a man to shirk from an obligation, no matter how unpleasant.
The daughter of a disgraced traitor, saved from ruin only by the grace of their highnesses, Lady Raindrop of Endurance has no romantic expectations of marriage. Her qualifications for a husband: suitable age and wealth, of a House that will make a good ally for Endurance.
"You know, I am far more than fortunate! I am the sister of a Great Lord who loves me, my House is sound, I am sought after by an attractive, wealthy lord who is not much older than I am, and -- let us not forget -- I have Cantara's Very Best Puppy!” Raindrop said. “Do you have any idea how good all of this looks to my twelve-year-old self who was engaged to a man forty years her senior and watching her world tilt towards treachery and rebellion?"
But a monster hunts in the forests of Honor, and rumors swirl around the death of the Brooding Lord’s first wife. Did Lord Jaguar murder his own wife for her failure to provide him with the requisite heir? Or did his former lover kill her, in a jealous rage?
“Is there any evidence of this?” Raindrop asked. “These are the lowest quality rumors. It’s as if they put no thought into them at all.”
Or was there some other sinister force at work --
-- one which might threaten Raindrop herself?
Frost, master sorcerer, wanted an apprentice: someone who would perform the tedious parts of sorcery, while Frost enjoyed the more sophisticated and varied aspects. Sorcery-bound individuals are vanishingly rare, so when he stumbled upon one who'd been overlooked by testers, he counted himself lucky indeed. No matter if the boy was old to begin an apprenticeship; he would learn.
After growing up a bastard and a whipping boy, the promise of a future as a rare powerful sorcerer seemed impossible to Thistle. He braced himself for failure and disappointment.
But nothing could prepare him for his growing attraction to his master. And it turns out there is one thing worse than an unrequited infatuation with one's mentor:
Having it reciprocated.
Six years ago, Spark's lover Komyau volunteered for an experimental process that gave him sorcerous powers -- a process the Convocation of Sorcerers was certain was safe, and went on to use on thousands more individuals in the intervening years. When Komyau becomes gravely ill, Spark contacts Thistle, the individual who invented that process, to save his life.
Spark never expected her lover to fall for Thistle, or that Thistle and his husband, Frost, might be open to a polyamorous relationship. For his part, Frost never realized that his best friend already was polyamorous. But that should not matter: Spark is a centaur and not attracted to elfs like Frost. Right?
But if sorcerers can be mistaken about simple matters like attraction, they can make mistakes with far graver consequences -- and perhaps that experimental process is not so safe as everyone thought ...
This novel is a standalone polyamorous fantasy romance.
In the fight against the demons of the skylands, Sunrise has one of the rarest powers: that of a lure. Where demons normally feed by tormenting their victims, Sunrise draws them with her happiness.
She doesn't want to hunt demons, but when a hunter team arrives at her village to ask for her help, she agrees. It should be easy: they just need her as bait for a pain demon that is too fast for them to capture otherwise. And a typical pain demon is no match for an experienced team of demon hunters.
But this is no typical demon. And it has its own plans. It has no intention of being trapped, and is not worried about the hunter team. No, its main concern is: what does a demon who's spent millennia torturing and tormenting humans know about making one happy?
Demon hunters trap demons. They do not help them avoid capture, and they do not help them reform. Everyone knows that demons are innately evil and cannot change.
But what if everyone is wrong?
After a demon took Sunrise prisoner half a season ago, it pledged to her that it would reform. That after millennia of feeding on the suffering of others, it would stop. In exchange, she promised to do her best to provide it with her happiness to feed upon instead. Her life, and the life of everyone she loves, depends upon this pledge. In some ways, it is the life Sunrise has always wanted: traveling the skylands with a swift, powerful protector, visiting strange places, learning a new language, and seeing things she'd not even imagined existed back in Oak-by-the-Water.
But the demon is lying to her, and if she finds out the truth ...
... how can she be happy then?
Who wants a demon for an ally?
Throughout recorded history, the Anesh Archipelago has been plagued by demons: beings of pure evil, without conscience, irredeemable. That was the unquestioned truth -- until the angels granted a demon hunter's sigil to a demon: Bright. But when Guild White accepted Bright as a hunter-in-training, that didn't settle the question.
Instead, it opened a rift that sets hunter against hunter. At the center of the conflict is not just Bright, but those closest to it: Sunrise, who never wanted to be a hunter but has come to appreciate the demon she tamed. Raven, the seeker who identified Bright's sigil and whom some blame for its acceptance at Guild White. And Mercy, Raven's teammate, who has to choose between turning her back on her friends, or on everything she's been taught about demons.
The division leads to violence, spreading far beyond the halls of Guild White, threatening to destroy the guild system itself. That outcome would benefit no one: not Bright, nor its allies, nor the demon hunters who oppose it –
– no one, that is, except for every other demon in Anesh.
The Demon's Series: Book 4
If Bright had known how good it was to be a reformed demon, it would have reformed thousands of years ago.
Not that reform has been trouble-free for it, granted. Its presence in the demon hunters’ guild had been so divisive that Bright had to leave. Now Bright and its friends — Sunrise, Raven, and Mercy — hunt demons as an independent team in a foreign nation. When they stumble upon a strange new kind of demon, asking the guild for assistance means risking another backlash.
On a more personal level, Bright knows its three teammates would like to forge a romantic relationship with one another. Even its teammates know that they want a romantic triad. But for some reason, they can’t just do that. Humans are incomprehensible.
But the most worrisome issue is that Bright knows that some of the demons of Anesh have been working together to stop Bright. They’ve attacked Sunrise once, and Bright expects them to try again. Or to attack one of its other allies.
Its concerns are justified—
—but their plan is more ambitious — and far more deadly — than anything Bright imagined.
He's had his whole life to save himself from damnation -- and now he's almost out of time.
The fate of Sir Damon Kildare's soul rests on finding the silver scales of a living dragon, a quest the woman who damned him wants him to fail. Kildare expects to fail, too: the last dragon was slain eighteen years ago by humans intent on genocide. And the scales are only one part of the infernal challenge: there are two more he hasn't even identified, much less obtained.
But the daughter of the last surviving dragonslayer, Zenobia Gardsmark, is determined to save his soul. She has aid from unlikely corners: from Madden, Kildare's magical hare companion, to indomitable ogres and determined schoolgirls. She'll need whatever help she can get, because all the forces of Hell are against them, and time is running out...
They saved his soul ... now it's time to save her world!
When Bia is forced to flee the Mark Isles, Sir Kildare brings her to his native Dumagh to seek asylum. Bia knows Kildare feels indebted to her for her part in his salvation. But she loves him too much to want him bound to her by gratitude.
Since they banished Fiona Gascoigne's demon, they assume she no longer poses a threat. But there is a reason Gascoigne has never feared damnation, and her ambition and capacity for evil extends far beyond anything Bia or her son could imagine...
A prince of the Sun Etherium, Mirohirokon has everything: immortality, invulnerability, and the aetheric power to be anything he desires, to satisfy almost any desire. But the one thing aether cannot give him is his father's freedom. For a chance to win that, he will risk everything.
Sick of the petty, twisted politics of the Moon Etherium, Ardent quit it for a simpler life. Yet when Miro seeks her aid to rescue his father, she realizes that far more is at stake than one man's life. Duty-bound, she returns.
But to save their world, must they sacrifice their love?
A romance of genderfluid shapeshifters, set in a post-scarcity world of magic and intrigue.
Fey immortal Jinokimijin never expected ruling the Sun Etherium to be all fun and games -- but as it turns out, organizing fun and games is his first challenge. Firing the chair of the Founder's Festival for praising slavery is easy: ensuring the Founder's Festival succeeds afterwards is considerably harder. Jino needs a distraction from the temptation to micromanage. Luckily there's an anonymous club just waiting for a new member eager to set his trials briefly aside....
Jino's not the only one trying to escape his troubles: Kireki, once prince-consort, lost his position along with the abusive wife Jino deposed. Can the relationship spawned by two masked fey survive the revelation of their true selves? And will the Founder's Festival be the first of Jino's successes as ruler of the Sun Etherium... or the towering failure that undermines his throne?
Note: this book follows after the events of The Moon Etherium, but both works stand alone.
A polyamorous fantasy romance
Since the harrowing adventures of two and half years ago, Mirohirokon has married his love, Ardent Sojourner, and settled into a quiet life on her farm in Try Again.
That peace is interrupted by the arrival of Ardent's ex-wife, Whispers Rain. With her comes disturbing news: Stalks Hunter, a sadistic, violent fey, has evaded the surveillance of the Moon Etherium justiciary, and left the fey shard with the intent to conquer and enslave a mortal kingdom. Only Ardent -- entrusted with Sun King's arcane tools -- has the power to stop him.
Thus begins their journey into the foreign and unpredictable world of mortal people. To save these mortals, the fey must risk being stranded in this harsh land. It is a risk Miro is prepared to take, as long as he is at his wife's side.
But is he prepared for Ardent's unabated love for her former wife?
Or his own growing attraction to Whispers Rain?
The Twilight Etherium is best read after The Moon Etherium, although both books resolve complete stories and neither one has a cliffhanger.
"But these are vital aspects of marriage. If one cannot discuss them, what's the use in meeting at all? It's like trying to decide what you'll have for dinner without mentioning food."
Wisteria Vasilver does wish to marry. Truly. But though she lives in Paradise, arranging a match is full of traps and pitfalls for the unwary ... or perhaps just for her.
Nikola Striker, Lord of Fireholt, expects he'll wed -- someday. But not now, and never to a rich icicle of a woman like Miss Vasilver. No matter how much his parents might want the match, or his house might need her dowry. Besides, he has his own problems -- most of them people who need his help as a mind-healer.
Lord Justin Comfrey, Viscount of Comfrey, would be more than happy to help Striker with his financial troubles, and not just to ensure that Miss Vasilver's dowry doesn't tempt Striker into marriage. If only he could find some way to make his proud, stubborn friend accept the money!
Can three people of such different temperaments ever find their way to a more perfect Paradise?
A Rational Arrangement appears as a serial on rowyn.livejournal.com, starting with this entry. It ran from May 2015 through March 2016. It's also available in serial form at rationalarrangement.com.
A Prequel, a Sequel, and a Parallel:
Three novellas set in the world of A Rational Arrangement
"His Angel": Lord Justin Comfrey is not in the habit of molesting the help. But when his host assigns an angelic young man to attend to Comfrey's every need, that resolve is sorely tested.
"Inconceivable": When Wisteria has trouble conceiving a child with her husband, Nikola Striker, it only makes sense to them to ask their secret husband for help. But to Justin, the question is not so simple.
"A Regular Hero": Callie strikes sparks with the handsome warcat Anthser, but she's a competitive racer and he serves the Blessed Lord Nikola. She wants more from her life than to be the second most important person in his. Must one of them give up their life's dream to be the other's mate?