Holley Trent

Two disclosures before I start this review:

1) I'm not sure I'm able to be objective about it since my response is so strongly emotional

2) There's a bit of a spoiler in the second paragraph but not really a spoiler? You'll see.


Writing Her In is a polyamorous romance with a married couple and a woman they both fall in love with. It is not a menage in a physical sense, but it absolutely is in a romantic sense. Adrien and Dara have been in love since high school. In her words, Dara's family is show more essentially a cult without the followers - her father is a religious tyrant and her family disowns her for being with Adrien. (This is the history of trauma referred to in the tags above. It's not depicted on page, but his emotional abuse is referred to several times.)

Here's the wee spoiler...

As you can tell from the blurb, Stacia is a writer and Adrien is the model on a few of her book covers. What you can't quite tell until the morning after Adrien and Stacia sleep together (with all three parties consenting) is that Dara isn't asexual. I worried for a bit at the beginning that the book would be a bit ace-phobic, but as far as I (an allosexual) can tell, the ways Dara's sexuality is described aren't harmful to people who are ace. Dara and Adrien tried to have sex a couple of times and it just never really worked for Dara. She doesn't know why, but Adrien isn't an a-hole about it. They have a deep and true love, and Dara encourages Adrien to sleep with Stacia.

So what happens the next morning? When Adrien has left for work and Stacia is doing the awkward morning-after shuffle... Dara finds herself sexually attracted to Stacia. What follows is two complicated character arcs for the women and a more straightforward arc for Adrien. I don't want to spoil anything else for you, but let's just say Dara figures some things out that her restrictive religious upbringing didn't teach her, Stacia learns to receive love, and Adrien continues being a sexy marshmallow.

Now for the part where I blubber my feelings onto a digital page. Writing Her In is one of those very niche books that appealed to me for about a million reasons, but mostly because of the way Trent writes Stacia and Dara together. Adrien is lovely, yes, but he's just sort of there. He's not the star of the show and WOW am I tired of f/f/m that's really f/m/f. This book puts the women and their needs front and center, rather than the 1,000,000 porn and erotica plots that are not-even-thinly-veiled male power fantasies. Dara is biromantic and homosexual (and possibly also demisexual, she doesn't use the words) and she's allowed to be herself. Adrien just rolls with it. There's no "big scary reveal" scene, and the conflict mainly comes from Stacia worrying that she's extraneous to their relationship - that she'll be left behind.

So why was I crying while reading both the digital copy (provided by Carina Press) and the audiobook (thank you, public library/Hoopla)? Because Holley Trent wrote a triad that managed to not be fetishistic or queerphobic or unnecessarily harmful in any way.

None of this is to say that I loved this book simply because it didn't do bad things. It does a lot of wonderful things and they made my queer-but-not-visibly-so heart very, very happy. Stacia and Dara (and Adrien, fine) are complicated characters who start out in a good place and end in a better place. (There's also some very excellent f/f sex.) I could see myself in all three characters, and not even just the pieces I don't like. It was like a very sexy hug of a book, and I'm possibly going to go read it a third time now.



Content Warnings: terrible parents/history of emotional abuse, history of being used for career gains, intrusive media, borderline agoraphobia



Suzanne received a copy of this book from the publisher for review via NetGalley. show less

This is an inventive, near-confounding triad polyamory love story, such that at the pivot point I may have whisper-shouted "YISSS!" and read the last few chapters in one go. I marvel at the lovely turn when it seemed hopeless, and how beautifully mental health is portrayed, and how kindly the victims of parental pressures and abuses are portrayed as well. I've read as many polyam romances as I can find, being polyamorous myself, and this one's one of the best. Loved it.

First review of the year, woohoo! And it's a positive one, so here's to hoping that it's a good omen!

Remember when, in the last book, I had mentioned how much I loved the angle with the angels? Well, Tamatsu's story did NOT disappoint me! It was all I hoped for and sooo much more! Here we have a classic example of a past romance gone wrong, but with a tremendous twist: Tamatsu and Noelle, the mute fallen angel and his elf ex-lover who is responsible for his current... speechless state, do show more not, under any circumstances, want to get back together. Yet, they both have something each other wants, so they're wiling, for a little while at least, to call it a truce, get what they're wishing for, and then go their separate ways. Only, life doesn't always happen the way we expect it to...

This wasn't your usual ex-lover-themed story. Unlike Tito and December, Tamatsu and Noelle knew they were bad for each other. They didn't dance around the subject, they didn't deny their sexual attraction still being there, but they had other priorities and they both admitted to still being bitter about their break-up, no matter how long ago it happened. It was both satisfying and hilarious seeing them try to resist each other once they realized they were being sucked back into being totally smitten with each other.

The whole tragedy of Tamatsu doing something that angered Noelle enough to curse him was what kept the story so high in suspense. At first, I couldn't help but be on her side given what she was saying about the way she found him with... Well, spoilers! No more words! But let's just say, I completely supported her decision. Then, I heard Tamatsu's side of the story, and I was like "OK, no girl, you should have checked first!" - though I was still a bit suspicious about it all because it didn't add up, and if it was, one of them was lying, and I couldn't figure out who. And when the final curtain was lifted, and they both sat down to talk it out, and the truth was revealed... I was laughing. Hysterically. Like a maniac! Because the whole thing was just soooo extraordinarily simple, and they had both suffered for decades on end, just because they had both jumped to assumptions. It felt so humane and realistic, I couldn't blame either of them, and it only served in making me love them more.

The love scenes were... INTENSE! Tito the demigod WHO?! Pssst, get out of the way, dude, Tamatsu has the stage covered, thank you very much! Oh, boy, I kept fanning myself because the guy was smoldering hot without even trying, and when he did decide to try, it nearly scorched the panties clean off of me! Not to mention, Noelle was on a whole different level than December! Now THAT is a heroine I can side and relate with!

The ending was also unexpected, and yet very much welcome. I preferred it to the usual solution most writers have in such cases with curses and stuff, because it showed that, despite their relationship not being perfect, those two were willing to try and work things out together, as a team, this time around. It made them that much more depended on each other, and, given the lengths in which Noelle was willing to go to pay for her mistake and redeem herself in Tamatsu's eyes, that sheer amount of self-sacrifice to give him his voice back, it was really beautiful - and Tamatsu's response was even more touching!

I'm off to read the next book in the series - but I'm serious here, can't we please have that goddess-angel ship we've been dreaming about, Ms. Trent?! Pretty pleaaaaase?!?!?!

***I was given an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The opinion stated in this review is solely mine, and no compensation was given or taken to alter it.*** show less

Initially, I thought I'd be into this book because of Bruce, called #messbae by author Holley Trent, so it was a wonderful surprise that I loved all three characters equally.
Raleigh is buttoned up and cautious (until he's not), Bruce is so full of love and just needs people to love him back (also he's super hot) and Everley is the round, ambitious but stuck woman of their (my) dreams. I loved how the two men treated her body and how they worked out their trust issues as a group. My only wish show more is that we'd had more time with them after they figured out their relationship. When the MCs come together at 93%, it's hard to get a feel for how they'll work together, even if there's an epilogue. I need the feels!

Content Warnings: manipulative parents (all of them!), past: mistreatment of MC due to neurodivergence show less