In the middle of my week full of thank yous about my new book, Kotov Syndrome, I wanted to take a bit of time to convince everyone to read my book — but also to convince everyone that you shouldn’t read my book.
Sound confusing? Good. Let me explain.
I really want as many people as I can to read Kotov Syndrome. While it’s not the only reason I wrote this book, it is A reason I wrote the book. I feel like Kotov Syndrome, as well as the series that’s going to come out of it, will tell a great story. It might not be a perfect story — after all, I’m still improving as a writer — but it is a good story and one I’m quite proud to tell. On Thursday, I’m going to spend an entire post talking about exactly why you should read my book.
That said, I don’t want to talk about that today. I want to tell you why if you buy and/or read my book, there are also some other books you should read too. In order to do that, I need to give some EXTREMELY MINOR spoilers for Kotov Syndrome. Granted, said spoilers are all things I’ve posted publicly on Twitter several times since announcing the book. However, since people freak out about that —
SPOILERS BEGIN HERE
In Kotov Syndrome, the main character of the book is Erika Edens. Erika is a lesbian. A part of Erika’s story focuses on her past with and the eventual reintegration of her ex-girlfriend, Abby Lin, into her life.
SPOILERS END HERE
In light of that, I need to say something that’s critical for me to say as the author of this book. As most of you reading this post are likely aware, I am a heterosexual, white male. As my main character, Erika, is a lesbian female, I recognize that my life experience is not, in any way, representative of the one she would live.
Though I don’t believe that my identity excludes me from being able to write a lesbian character into my story — after all, my work may be a gateway for someone who refuses to read own voices works to learn to be more accepting of LGBTQIA+ characters and people — it is also my responsibility to use my platform and my voice to lift up the voices of writers whose works are representative of this life experience.
As I was leading up to the launch of Kotov Syndrome, I asked my Twitter followers to help me compile a list of books, short stories, and other fiction works by LGBTQIA+ authors. The list you’ll find below is a combination of their feedback, as well as my own list curation. My request to you is this: if bought my book, are reading it from the library, or have otherwise come across my work in some way, please also buy/read/share one or more of the books and stories below.
- Alice Sullivan – End of Days, Return, Symbiosis, Unraveled
- Alice Walker – The Color Purple
- Britney Jackson – Creatures of Darkness series
- Brittany M. Willows – The Calypsis Project series, Bloody Spade1Comes out later this year. You should pre-order it.
- Camille Perri – When Katie Met Cassidy
- Jacob Crawford – The Shadows, The Assassin2This book releases the same day as mine! You should buy it.
- Langston Hughes – The Big Sea
- Maggie Derrick – The Star and the Ocean
- Maurice Sendak – Where the Wild Things Are
- Meredith Talusan – Fairest
- Mira Grant – Alien: Echo
- SJ Whitby – Cute Mutants series
- Tennessee Williams – A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie
- Thomas Mann – Death in Venice
You can pre-order Kotov Syndrome from any of the links below. For a full list of where to buy, go to the Kotov Syndrome page on this blog.
Amazon | Apple Books | Barnes & Noble | Half Price Books | Indiebound | Kobo | Smashwords
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