Gael Romer Posts

Well, it happened. Handsome Devil has cropped up on pirating websites.

It isn’t surprising. Most people who release an ebook—or any creative work—on the internet can expect it to be stolen eventually. But it’s that “eventually” that sticks in my craw. After all, if someone cares enough to steal it, that means I’ve made it, right?

But I know my own numbers, and that just isn’t the case. The flip side is that if people aren’t really searching for it, anyone hosting illegal copies is doing so on their own dime with little to no gain. That’s my little consolation prize.

It’s funny—compared to some other creators, I have a pretty lenient attitude toward piracy. I understand that money can be tight and entertainment is often one of the first luxuries to go. But art and entertainment are essential for staying sane. Living under capitalism is tough enough without losing these small comforts.

However, creators face these same financial pressures. We need money to survive and to justify continued creation. While some authors may be big enough not to notice sales lost to piracy, most indies aren’t. So I guess I’m okay with piracy the same way I’m fine with shoplifting from Loblaws—but don’t pull that shit at a locally owned corner store.

Lastly, for the love of god, don’t donate to piracy websites. If you can afford to donate to them, you can afford to support the authors whose stolen works they’re profiting from.

At the end of the day, please don’t download stolen books. And if you’re here because you read and enjoyed a pirated version of Handsome Devil, please at least leave a review and sign up for the newsletter.

Until next time, travelers. Gael

P.S. The extra insult is that the listing doesn’t even have it categorized under the right genres. If you’re going to peddle my stolen wares, at least get the audience right.

Sometimes you get the darnedest compliments.

It was a few weeks ago when someone in my life reported in that they had finished reading Handsome Devil and expressed how impressed they were with my writing style and the story (although they weren’t big on the intimate scenes). They even cited a specific passage to illustrate why they felt compelled to give the praise.

But then she said something funny.

“I just feel like you’re too good to be writing romance.”

It gave me pause. After all, what does one mean by that? While there are certainly a lot of romances that can be generously described as ‘stinkers’, that’s true for any category of book. And many romance authors truly shake my soul with what a beautiful picture they can paint with just 26 characters and a little punctuation.

My first thought is that it comes down to the age-old disparagement of genre fiction. As a former bookseller and sci-fi enthusiast, I can attest that it is alive and well (although certainly softened in recent years). It was always discouraging to try recommending a title to someone on the basis of its intense emotional impact only to see their eyes glaze as soon as they realized the aisle we were walking down. “Do You Dream of Terra Two?” by Temi Oh is one of my all-time favourite books and will leave you as a quivering, sobbing mess, but fuck me if I could get people to give it a chance.

Of course, we all know it isn’t that simple.

Genre fiction as a whole is undermined, but romance, as the genre that is aimed specifically at women, has to fight twice as hard and show up twice as well to be taken seriously. Certainly, one of the more irksome requests that I got in my bookstore days was from a young man who specifically wanted the worst, cheesiest romance to give as a gag gift to one of his friends. Because romance is a thing to be mocked. Because things that cater to women are inherently jokes.

If you have been this person before, I intend no shade and at the end of the day, I did sell him some fine cheesecake. I just think it’s interesting that I never encountered women looking for the stupidest, most misogynistic dad-on-the-toilet spy thriller to be a gag gift. I’ve certainly encountered more of the latter.

At the end of the day, romance has quality authors. Romance deserves quality authors. Romance is something special that deserves to be cherished and respected.

The TL;DR?

Until next time, travelers,

Gael Romer

Something that I always enjoy in romance series is when each book is a self-contained couple, and then subsequent books follow previously introduced characters as they find their own HEAs. When I decided I wanted Quantrin Nights to be such a series, there was something I didn’t anticipate.

Proll Delnul: my little problem child.

When Handsome Devil came back from the first round of beta readers, it was universally agreed that for the next book, they wanted to see Proll’s story. And why not? He’s a perfectly nice and normal dude who seems to have just enough emotional vulnerability to be interesting, but not so much as to be an unstable mess.

But as my fellow writers will know, sometimes you have to go where the story and characters are already speaking. This time, it was not with Proll—it was with his brother, Rakir.

But that’s fine, I said! At the time, I just had no idea what I wanted to do with Proll whereas I had a pretty defined story in my mind for Rakir. It meant that while Handsome Devil was with beta readers, I was able to finish an outline for Rotten Devil and then adjust my rewrites accordingly. If I had settled on Proll without any idea of direction for his book, I wouldn’t have been able to rewrite to steer the ship, so to speak.

Certainly, Proll will be next, I thought. Afterall, if I go through writing a whole book for his twin brother, surely by the end I will have a better feel for Proll’s character and the direction that his character arc will need to take.

Well, here I am. Nearly done the first draft of Rotten Devil and I still have no idea what to do with our dear, sweet boy. The worst part is that I do have an idea for a third book. About Vrix.

You remember him, right? Had like 4 lines in Handsome Devil and no real characterization set up at all? It’s the sort of thing that even has me going “. . . him?”

I feel like part of the problem as well is who to assign as Proll’s love interest. I’ve always imagined Proll as being pansexual and it feels like a cop-out to give him a female LI—always putting our queers in hetero relationships is how the straights win, after all. However, I am a cis woman and I feel . . . weird about writing MM romances, to say the least. Not the romance specifically—one of my pet project screenplays centres on an MM couple. But notably, it’s a screenplay and, as such, is closed door. Quantrin Nights is an open-door series and reading/writing MM love scenes makes me feel a little icky and voyeuristic, especially with the understanding that the vast majority of the romance reading audience is other cis women.

This is not to cast any shade at women who do read/write these kinds of romances. There are lots of reasons why women might feel more comfortable reading romance that doesn’t heavily feature women characters. This is a ‘me personally’ thing.

Or is this all just a spot of internalized biphobia popping out to say hello? Do other romance authors really lose sleep about having too many hetero pairings in their series? Even if a male LI is the best choice to serve the character, will it just be unpleasant to read something written by someone who was feeling a little skeevy the whole time?

How do you solve a problem like Proll Delnul?

At current estimate, I’m imagining I’ll be finished this draft by mid-late November, so I have until then to get my shit together and figure out this infuriating lad.

Until next time, travelers,

Gael Romer

Which is what brought me to the bookstore and its romance section.

Recently, I’ve been trying to get back into the habit of reading physical books. In general, I have a preference for ebooks—partially since I don’t have room in my home to horde a bunch of mid books, but also because it’s easier for my ADHD brain to focus on reading when I have full control over font style and size. As a full-time parent, though, there is no functional difference between my child seeing me read on my Kindle app or doomscrolling on TikTok. If I want him to read, I gotta be role-modeling for the medium.

I haven’t spent much time in the bookstore since I had to go on maternity leave in early 2023 and since then, there have been significant changes in the reading landscape. It was starting at the end of my tenure but has really taken off since I’ve left. So many sprayed edges. So much romantasy. So many TikTok bestsellers.

I was optimistic that maybe the romance section had changed into something that would finally feel welcoming to my preferences. Because, perhaps surprisingly for a romance author, I have often felt alienated by the romance genre. There are a multitude of reasons I could point to for this, but the main point is that I never really felt like it was a space for me until I got into sci-fi romances. If I’m reading for escapism, I just have a hard time with that unless we are REALLY escaping.

Alas, no. “But Gael,” you say, “you just said that romantasy is huge! Could that not also fulfill the escapism of sci-fi?”

It’s a fair point. I don’t know why outer space scratches my brain, but swords-and-sorcery makes me fall asleep. And I tried ACOTAR. I really did. But I was raised too superstitious to really buy into fae romance and brother, they are legion.

Maybe one day, sci-fi romance will get its day in the sun. Until then, maybe I just need to replace my busted ass Kindle and stop reading on my phone.

Until next time, travelers, Gael Romer

P.S. If Becky Chambers decided to start writing romance, I think I would go broke immediately.

It’s the bundle of your (and my) dreams! I was hoping to have it available for ordering in August, but sometimes the finest things in life are the ones we wait for. This limited run bundle includes a signed hardcover of Handsome Devil as well as a 12 x 24” poster of the full cover art signed by Nyco Rudolph! There are only 10 available so be sure to order while you can! Ordering opens on Sept 15 at gaelromer.com (here!).

In other news, I’m about halfway through the first draft of Rotten Devil and with a spot of luck (and a bit of depression abatement), it should be finished by the end of October! Then it’s onto the fun part—ripping it to pieces and taping it all back together again.

The other day when leaving my apartment, I saw a rock. Not just any old rock. A nice rock—like smooth. Right now some of you are nodding along and others are suspecting neurodivergence. However, I resisted the urge to pick it up. After all, I can’t pick up a big, dirty alley rock that’s probably covered in engine grease and worse. So I left it, feeling very proud of myself for my excellent impulse control.

So much so that several days later, I was feeling like I deserved a little treat. Leaving the apartment again, I was privy to the horrifying experience of getting an old cigarette butt in my sandal. Now I really deserved a little treat.

Anyways, that’s the story of why I’m definitely neurotypical and also how I got this really good rock.

P.S. Don’t worry, I scrubbed the unholy shit out of it. I know you were wondering.

Those of you who have read the acknowledgements section of Handsome Devil will be aware that my partner and I became parents relatively recently—our toddler just turned 1 this past June. There are certain aspects of parenthood that you know intellectually going in, but don’t really understand emotionally until you’re thrown into the experience. One of those things is how much of your pre-parenthood self has to be set aside.

This was especially concrete for me. Before becoming a nursery, our second bedroom was my office/library/sanctuary. I’m a very introverted person and after coming home from a day of working with the public, it was my safety space. Bringing a new person into the world was already overwhelming and on top of it, I had to dismantle the one room that was always my port in a storm. 

But we did. My six bookcases were whittled to just the two that I could fit in our bedroom. The big green desk that I adored had to be replaced with a compact one that is overwhelmed with my tendency towards clutter. And the Star Wars figures that were displayed had to go into storage.

It’s weird to assign that sort of emotional weight to little lumps of plastic. But they are objects that were brought into my life for no greater purpose than enjoyment. Specifically, the enjoyment of the person I was pre-parenthood. We’ve made it through our first year. I’ve published my first book. And I finally felt the motivation to put up the first shelves to display these little guys again.

It isn’t much. They aren’t particularly well posed or grouped, and I haven’t quite found the motivation to match them all with their accessories. But it still feels good to reclaim this small part of myself. It’s a start. 

Until next time, travelers,

Gael

P.S. Do not at me about how I have a shelf devoted to shirtless zabraks. You don’t need to tell me about my problems. 

It’s officially been 1 week since the release of Handsome Devil and it’s still hard to believe that we got there in time. I think it’ll finally sink in once I actually get the physical proofs of the book—hopefully there are no glaring whoopsies in the copies that have already shipped. We like to live life dangerously. But seeing people around the world ordering has been the most gratifying feeling of all. I see you, single copy sold to someone in Germany.

Being able to jump back into writing again feels like coming home after spending the last couple months focusing on the logistics of a book launch. I had already been working on the next book in Quantrin Nights, Rotten Devil, which will follow Rakir Delnul navigating the aftermath of . . . well, no spoilers. Apologies to my beta readers who were all aboard the Proll train, it just isn’t his time . . . yet.

Also looking to start a separate serial set on Quantrin, but outside the main Quantrin Nights storyline. Is it too stupid to structure a romance around hiring a P.I. to get your pet lizard back from your M.I.A. ex? If yes, do you think that would stop me?

Until next time, travelers,

Gael

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