(You can also read this post on Buttondown.)
Rowan di Pietro was never quite like the other girls. Boisterous, charismatic, and assigned female at birth, he spent his childhood enthusiastically playing the role of a tomboy, leading a gang of girls who pursued their own imaginative games with absolutely no boys allowed. But at puberty, when his friends turned their interests to makeup, shopping, and heterosexual crushes, Rowan found to his own chagrin that he couldn’t follow them there – and that, maybe, “no boys allowed” had never been the whole story about him.
Suddenly the odd one out and no longer the leader of anything, Rowan found solace in his friendship with Kelli Reynolds, who wasn’t exactly a straight girl either. The two of them shared a secret queer world of pretend that eventually blossomed into a romance. But then tragedy struck. While Kelli’s fear and guilt drove her back into the closet, Rowan vowed never to abandon his identity – even if that meant he had to go it alone.
After dropping out of high school, Rowan found what he was looking for: a crime group called the Brimstone Syndicate who were happy to take him under their wing, treat him like a man, lease him a spaceship of his own, and even pay for his medical transition – as long as he did them some favors in return. Under the syndicate’s supervision, Rowan became a media smuggler, a job that he mostly enjoyed: sneaking data chips full of illegal, human-created media to the humans who needed it most, like the books that had helped him and Kelli make sense of their own feelings when they were younger. But the debt that he owes to the syndicate, and the secrets the syndicate knows about him, have kept piling up since then – and when the syndicate asks him to do things that go against his conscience, he knows he doesn’t have another choice.
It’s on one of these guilty, not-quite-voluntary missions that Rowan encounters Kelli again. She has a respectable job now, but the syndicate wants something from her – and they want Rowan to be the one to get it for them. That means not quite telling Kelli the whole story about why he’s here, or how badly he’s about to mess up her neat and tidy corporate life. But hey – at least he has this cool spaceship now, and all the sweet and enticing queer media that her younger self once longed for…
Rowan has dated many other girls, but he never really got over Kelli – or over the trauma that tore them apart. He doesn’t know if Kelli will ever accept the kind of life he has now. But if they’re going to escape the Brimstone Syndicate’s web, then they have to find some way of working together – and facing the truth of their past together, once and for all.
If you ever wished Han Solo was trans, you might be about to love Rowan.
Meanwhile, here’s some other book news!
First, the launch is in May – just under one month from today – this week I’m doing a little flurry of pre-launch appearances. First, here’s one that I’m doing at my dayjob place of employment:
True story: I asked my manager at work very hesitantly if it would be ok for me to book a room for an event. She got so excited that, next thing I knew, my department’s entire Social Committee was on the job. We’re doing it in April instead of waiting for May so that we can get it in before everyone scatters for the summer – but this is going to be enormous fun. Anyone in the Kingston area who wants in is invited, even if you have no affiliation with Queen’s. And a little birdie tells me that, due to the extremely quick work of the campus bookstore, there might be some secret early print copies for sale…
I’ll also appear at Virtual Can*Con this weekend, moderating a panel called “Revolution is Not For the Sane.” More on that later this week, once the Queen’s event is done and dusted.
Also I made this cute summary image of all of my blurbs.
According to the royalty statement I just received, the audiobook edition of THE OUTSIDE has earned out its advance. I’m so grateful to all of my audio listeners and to Nancy Wu, my amazing narrator! If you like audiobooks and haven’t checked out THE OUTSIDE yet, why not give it a listen? Every new audio sale, from this point on, puts royalty money directly into my pocket.
And speaking of Nancy, if you like her narration, you’ll see her again soon…
I hope you all are having a beautiful April!