Val is a gender-fluid, assigned-female-at-birth, person living in 1800s America. In her time period, most people do not accept the idea of gender fluidity, so she must live her life as a woman, even on the days where she feels that “she” is actually a “he.” Val was born and raised to wealth, and though she thought she had found love early on, man she was engaged to marry committed suicide before their wedding day. Now, she is in her late 20s and has resigned herself to a pleasant-enough life as a spinster. Her father, however, has other plans. He has arranged for her to marry the son of an English Duke, and is not giving Val any choice in the matter. Upon overhearing her future husband talk about looking forward to “breaking her in” on their wedding night, Val flees the house. She finds herself in the middle of a Pagan festival, and makes the decision to choose the man she will lose her virginity with, never expecting to meet him again. Life, however, seems to have other plans.
I read a review copy of this book and I absolutely loved it. It gives the best and most easily understood description I have ever come across about gender fluidity. But I do need to warn readers that this book is not meant for younger readers as it is an erotic romance novel. It does contain graphic sex (both M/F and M/M), an attempted rape, murder, themes of gender dysphoria, suicide, abuse (both physical and emotional), domination, a forced arranged marriage, religious intolerance, magic, witches, paganism, and psychological torture/drug use. So be warned, there are more than a few trigger warnings associated with this novel.
That being said, I absolutely loved reading this book. The story was so engaging that I truly didn’t want to put it down. Given the large number of subgenres and themes in this tale, I didn’t expect it to work, and yet it did in a truly impressive way. The only issue I had with the book is that the main characters sometimes spoke in Spanish, which I do not know. And while I could make a reasonable guess as to what was meant, I still wished that a translation guide had been included for the foreign words and phrases. Despite that one extremely minor issue, I did love reading this book. The characters were very well written as were the descriptions of events.
The romance that develops between the two main characters was very tastefully done, and seeing Val find someone who can accept her as she was, on both her female days as well as his male days, was something that I felt was inspiring and something to be appreciated. In this world, there are many people who, like Val, still feel forced to hide who they are inside. Too often, people made to feel that “there is something wrong with them” will begin to believe that there is only one way to stop the pain they are experiencing. And that is something that I feel no one should have to experience, especially since it just isn't true.
In this story, the choice for Val, given the time period she lived in, was to be forced to remain in a society-defined feminine role or risk being confined to an insane asylum by her father, a man unable to accept Val as being sometimes his son rather than his daughter, I hope that those who read this book can see that people who are gender fluid or trans are not insane nor is there anything “wrong” with them.
This book is at times heartbreaking as well as heartwarming. And it is one that I would encourage anyone who is not a younger reader to read if you truly want to understand gender fluidity or have someone in your life who does not seem to fit into a society-defined specific gender role. I think that both you and they will appreciate it.
Amazon requires me to state that I have an Amazon Associates account that I use to generate the links to the books on their website. Purchasing something after following those links will earn a few pennies for me off the sale, though as of yet I have not earned anything from my Amazon Associate links.
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