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It’s pride month, and so I wanted to tell you a little bit about MALICE, which if you didn’t know, is my debut novel.
It’s coming out in 2021
And it’s super gay.
It’s coming out in 2021
And it’s super gay.
I was raised in the south, in a strict christian household. My parents are good people. They love me. They also probably think I’m going to Hell. Throughout my childhood I heard causal and not so casual derogatory comments about LGBTQ people—from my family and from my church.
According to them, being gay was a choice. A bad one. Like, the worst you could make. It was gross. And I prayed— a lot—that it wasn’t me.
At 32, I still don’t know exactly where I identify on the LGBTQ spectrum. And I certainly didn’t know at 10 years old, listening to entire sermons about how gay people were plotting to corrupt our world. About how they were others. Not like us. Undesirable.
What I did know was that the preacher was talking about me. Not because I thought I was gay at the time. But because I knew that I was different than everyone around me. Fundamentally. Bone deep
I wasn’t pretty enough. Liked enough. No boys wanted to date me. My clothes weren’t right. I talked about weird things. I was never, no matter how hard I tried—and I tried HARD—enough.
MALICE is about a young woman who feels like an outsider. Intrinsically, irrevocably different. It’s about what happens when those feelings sit and curdle inside you.
It’s about the need for acceptance. About finding love, and the lengths a person will go to in order to keep it.
It’s about the fallacy of good vs evil, and the baffling idea that villains are flat characters with superficial motives. That they just want to be the prettiest. The husband-winners. That they would KILL YOUR BABY because of an invitation oversight.
Most of all, it’s about being pushed too far and pushing right back.
I put a lot of myself in MALICE. A lot of the rage I felt, knowing I was different but not fully understanding why. The sadness at believing I was unfixable. And I hope the story resonates with you, too.
If you want to support LGBTQ representation in SFF—if you understand the feelings of otherness and anger at the core of this MC—make my villain heart happy and add it on GR.
Happy pride.
Gay evil fairy coming at you, spring 2021 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51530580-malice
Happy pride.
Gay evil fairy coming at you, spring 2021 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51530580-malice
