It’s release day for my post-apocalyptic hurt/comfort slow burn erotic romance novella, The Summer After!
“Post-apocalyptic hurt/comfort slow burn erotic romance novella” is kind of a mouthful, but what can I say, there’s a lot going on here.
Some other ways I’ve considered describing The Summer After:
- Sweet wounded cinnamon roll MMC x bisexual FMC who knows how to please herself, but is lonelier than she can admit
- By “slow burn,” I mean I once had trouble finding a home for this story because 8,600 words of emotional buildup and sexual tension before the first sex scene was a hard sell for conventional erotica markets. I was thrilled to find a home for it with the 2018 Seattle Erotic Art Festival’s Literary Art Anthology! This first-ever ebook version has been revised and expanded (including an additional sex scene) to 20,000 words.
- I had to update the ‘sharing an iPod’ scenes to reflect how between the 2018 publication and the 2026 version, Apple discontinued iPods.
- That slow buildup lets my heroine explore some of her feelings about sensuality in celibacy (or at least solitary/self-contained sexuality).
- But once the sex starts, there is plenty of it, with a mood so tender and vulnerable it becomes intense. While it’s not specifically kinky, the healing sex might feel kinky.
- The apocalypse is deliberately nonspecific and might even be a bit “cozy.” But there are plenty of tragic implications. Grief is a theme, of course (this is a story from me, after all).
- Also the practicalities of needing glasses after the end of the world, and whether to bother with shaving.
- Alongside the angst and tenderness, there are also lighthearted moments, though I probably wouldn’t call this a romcom. See, for instance, the first excerpt on this page.
- Lots of nonverbal communication – including but not limited to the Oh, is that what we’re calling it now? 😉 sense
- A shout out to Frankenstein, a book you may have heard of from the pioneer of post-apocalyptic fiction, author of The Last Man, Mary Shelley
- A subtle…maybe it’s not even a shout-out, but I’ll say this a post-apocalyptic story written by someone whose worldview was changed forever after reading Rebecca Solnit’s A Paradise Built in Hell.
It was great fun to write and I’m excited to share it now!
Availability and publishing plans: The Summer After is available in paperback, as a Kindle ebook, and through Kindle Unlimited for the next 90 days. In June, I’ll look at distributing the ebook more widely, but that will require removing it from the Kindle Unlimited library. The paperback, meanwhile, should be broadly distributed much sooner, within the next few weeks. I’ll update this post with a Bookshop.org link as soon as it becomes available.
Here’s The Summer After on Goodreads, where you can add it to your to-read list or write a review.
