With everything that has been happening in the last couple of weeks it was hard to put words to all the feelings. My team and I decided that we should voice what we have been thinking and experiencing, so this was drawn up:

As we once again find our beloved genre abused by bullies and shredded by lies, we here at Love Bytes wish to extend a hand to our authors – these authors who pen the stories that feed our book loving souls. Some of our authors have been intimidated, some have been deceived, some have been financially exploited, and some have been marginalized by a genre that is suppose to know better.

With our other hand we reach for the readers – the readers who have found their way to the genre and have found a home. Some of these readers have been victimized, some have been lied to, some have supported fabricated friends, and some have been treated as second-class citizens because of race, orientation or gender.

So now we’re all holding hands let’s raise our voices and sing fucking Kumbaya because we’re stronger than any storm that batters us.

The people in this community have the biggest hearts, the most accepting souls and the most tenacious goddamn spirits of anyone I have ever met. We have been targeted before and, I dare say, we will be again because it’s not in us to turn away those who come seeking friendship. We always give others the benefit of the doubt and occasionally find ourselves ill-treated in response. But if you don’t blame the rape victim for wearing tight clothes, why should we blame ourselves for trusting?

This genre is here for everyone. Male, female, cis, trans, NB, fluid, gay, bi, straight, queer…we’re here for the whole damn rainbow and the pot of gold at the end. Black, yellow, brown, red, white – we already proudly wave one rainbow flag, so why not this one too? What is one more set of colours in a community that should know what it means to be marginalized?

I am blessed to have a review staff that represents all the colors of the Rainbow and more, and I am proud to be part of that amazing team of people.

After giving it some thought, because I was considering not doing this, my team convinced me that 5 years is a reason to celebrate so we will.

Love Bytes proudly celebrates their 5th year of existence 🙂

Check in over the course of the month of April to find special posts and giveaways and help us celebrate.

Hugs Dani