Red Sun - Ace Romance
Originally published during my Red Sun book tour.
One of my intentions or goals for this story was to feature an ace romance with little-to-no sexy times. For anyone familiar with my work, you know I love sexy times. This created an interesting challenge, to foster a growing romance between my leads with little to no sexual desire. That forced me to spend more time on their growing trust and friendship. While they were certainly attracted to the other, that came later, after a bond had formed.
Ahmes identifies as ace, and due to that, he has conflicts with his clowder (Ahmes is a cat shifter). His parents expect him to find a female mate, settle, and have children. That’s their goal for his life. And while he enjoys children and wouldn’t mind raising his own, sexy times aren’t on his to-do list. At all. He has little to no interest in getting physical with another person, and yet he is all for the romance aspect of a relationship. He wants a mate, he wants a family, and he knows it won’t be easy to find someone willing to be in a sexless union.
Raphael was a similar but different sort of challenge. He grew up isolated with only his father for company, after they both assumed he was possessed by a demon. He is sheltered and had little opportunity to express his sexuality or explore it. Then he is thrown into the world without a net, and he is vulnerable and terrified. Once again, sexual encounters are far from his mind. Only when he starts to form an emotional bond with Ahmes, does he start to wonder about romance and commitment.
Since asexuality is a spectrum, I wanted to show both Ahmes and Raphael falling somewhere along it. Ahmes is more on the extreme end of lacking any desire for sexual union, while Raphael is a bit more open to the idea. I consider them both demisexual. One of my main goals for this story was to show how deep bonds can form without sex in the mix. To show a romance where there is mutual respect, friendship, and trust that can weather any storm. I often feel that friendship or platonic love isn’t given the same importance and emphasis as relationship/sexy-times love. That’s rather sad in my opinion. Perhaps if we spent more time cultivating friendships and expressing love and respect that way, we’d be better as a society. But I digress….
When I first began to form and create The Shifter Chronicles, I went into it with several goals, and one of the most important was diversity. I wanted to show different sorts of shifters, (birds, wolves, bears, etc.) as well as folks from different backgrounds, ethnicities, etc. And that included sexual preferences.
And in my opinion, my choices for “Red Sun” made it one of the sweetest books I’ve ever written, and I have no regrets!
I hope you stay safe and healthy, and may dragons guard your dreams,
M.D. Grimm
