The A in LGBTQIA+ Stands for Asexual
June is Pride Month!
Read queer all year, but it’s also our month of celebrating queer joy—a pivotal piece in all of my book series. When you open up one of my books, you’ll find a queer-normative world with (main) characters who never judge or react poorly to sexual preferences or desires.
But today I’m celebrating my asexual main characters and their love (or friendship) in my series.
Aspen
Series: Faeted Hearts
Book: Guard & Guise
Identifies as: Demisexual
Aspen’s experience is a bit unique, not just because they don’t have “terms” like we do for their preferences, but because she also confuses a lot of her disability to her not feeling attraction as quickly (or at all) to other fae. It’s something she develops and learns, with the help of Malachi who is more in tune with his sexuality, but Aspen’s journey of discovery is really beautiful.
Rosalind
Series: Falling for Demons
Book: How Not to Pursue Your Human Perfectionist
Identifies as: Demisexual, Sapiosexual
“Stop having your characters converse about their sexuality. It’s not realistic.”
Well, it is in my world. Communication is healthy, and one thing my characters will always feel safe to discuss is their sexuality. Similarly to Aspen, Rosalind doesn’t have a term for what she feels, but she’s much more familiar with knowing how she develops relationships is unique to her. Rosalind would identify as both demisexual and sapiosexual, because she needs both an emotional and intellectual connection with someone before feeling attraction.
Good thing she gets both in Laz and Dav for their spicy one-night-stand-turned-courting romance!
Boelyn
Series: Smoke and Shadow
Book: The Curse of Broken Shadows (and subsequent books)
Identifies as: Asexual, Aromantic
Boelyn gave our characters some friction in Curse, mostly because Brela antagonized it out of him. I’d always intended him to be asexual and aromantic, but our bestie and mentor to Cason and Serill ended up needing a different kind of love and took on his own character arc. That comes from a friendship developing in book 2 and much needed in book 3. It’s not quite a spoiler, but I’ll refrain from any hints by saying… it was a friendship they both needed at the right time, and it’s one of my favorites in all of the series.
These three aren’t my only asexual characters (it does help that I have art of them). I have a couple I’m already planning to write and I have several side characters in my series that you can meet. And of course, all my series include queer main characters as well as many lovable side characters. I hope you enjoy reading them.
