Connor Wright

This is a fascinating, touching and very interesting book that takes a look at us humans from a bird shifter’s view. The sometimes naïve questions Chris has made not only Jesse, the human man he has picked as his partner, think, but me as well. There is a lot of wisdom in these pages, as well as fun and a romance that goes beyond the physical.

Chris is a bird shifter, or a bird who becomes human, who has fallen in love with a human man and manages to overcome the obstacle of having been show more born in a bird’s body by changing into a human. That has, as expected, a lot of consequences. I loved reading about the surprises Chris encounters as he tries to get used to his new life. His naïve way of looking at things, his innocence where human relationships are concerned and his curiosity about everything that is new to him were totally credible and amazingly well described.

Jesse is a very loving, open-minded and wonderful young man. His life may not be perfect, but he manages to be happy and is happy to have Chris as a friend – and the more. His developing feelings are easier to understand, but that only makes Chris’s somewhat more hesitant feelings even more convincing. Jesse know better what it might feel like to fall in love – knows what to expect - but Chris has an equally deep capacity to love, he is just less able to express it in words. How he feels nevertheless jumped off the page for me.

First Flight contains some amazing world building, but not in the physical sense of showing us alien planets. What Connor Wright has achieved here is even more amazing: he has built a complete inner world, a different perspective and a non-human psychology that is close enough for us to understand, yet foreign enough to be utterly fascinating. If you like stories that amaze you, stretch your imagination and make you feel deeply, you will love this book as much as I did.



NOTE: This book was provided by Torquere Press for the purpose of a review on Queer Magazine Online show less

4.2 stars

What could be better than baseball and romance? The two combined! This was a nice collection of stories with the proceeds going toward a worthy charity project. Most of the authors are new to me but I enjoyed the majority of them. There was something for every taste in the collection.

I don't want to be unfair or turn anyone off, but this simply was not for me. It was well-written, but it just wasn't my thing.

I like a bit more plot and this was just a rich guy playing with his Rosie the Robot (Jetson's reference, totally.) Plus the dom/sub angle didn't seem fair because the robot was programmed to do whatever he wanted. There was no sense of power and control, or the thrill of someone losing control because the one character simple could not say no because he was a toy.

This collection has a little bit of everything in. All though there did seem to be a high proportion of first love, newly out, friends to lover plot lines. I think the only thing I will different when reading through the rest of these volumes is to break it up with other books. This is a great volume with tons of stories and at least in Nook pages over 600 of them. I think breaking it up would take away some of that oh here's the same kind of story feel. The concept was wonderful and how show more wonderful to be able to enjoy these great stories for free. show less