A warm welcome to author Michelle Osgood joining us today to talk about new release Moon Illusion.
welcome Michelle 🙂
HERO AS MONSTER
By Michelle Osgood
In MOON ILLUSION, Cole is a monster. He can transform from a normal looking human to a beast with claws and fangs and fur at will. He has superhuman strength, enhanced senses, and inhuman healing. On paper, Cole is terrifying, and his very existence an implied threat to humanity—which is why the werewolves in my series, THE BETTER TO KISS YOU WITH, work so hard to keep their existence a secret.
Cole, his sister Kiara, his cousin Jamie, and their packmate Ryn can pass as regular humans, and for most of their day-to-day life, they do. They hold down normal jobs—Kiara is an engineer, Jamie is completing her masters, Ryn works as a hair stylist, and Cole is a paramedic. They have human friends, partners, and coworkers.
They move through our world like one of us, and, for the most part, they are.
In MOON ILLUSION, Nathan is queer and polyamorous. He has consensual, non-monogamous relationships with more than one person at the same time. While meeting and falling for Cole, he maintains an ongoing relationship with a married couple.
Much like my fictional werewolves, many queer and polyamorous folks have grown up hearing that we are monstrous. That our identities are terrifying, and our existence an implied threat to humanity. We are told our “lifestyles” are adult, are inappropriate, and are to be kept from the children at all cost. We exist on society’s fringes, and in order to pass as “normal” we hold huge parts of our identities secret.
With MOON ILLUSION I wanted to depict the realities of life as a “monster”. I wanted to open up this world that is seen as such a threat to humanity, and demonstrate that the truth of these monstrous lives is often ordinary, even domestic. So much of how queerness and polyamory are perceived has to do with the imagined sex acts that go along with these identities. And while yes, sex can and is often part of it, much of my life as a queer, polyamorous person is no more extraordinary than that of someone who is heterosexual and monogamous.
We fight and make up, we sleep over and eat pancakes, we flirt and laugh and cry and argue. We pick up groceries. We take out the recycling.
We take care of each other.
MOON ILLUSION is a story about monsters, and it’s also a story about the mundane. It’s about how often what we’re told is mundane is the true threat, and how what’s monstrous might just be the thing that saves us.
MOON ILLUSION by Michelle Osgood
The Better to Kiss You With 3
Publisher: Interlude Press
Release Date (Print & Ebook): March 22, 2018
Length (Print & Ebook): 210 pages / 61,000 words
Subgenre: Contemporary Romance: Paranormal, LGBT/Urban Fantasy
Author’s content warnings:
Moon Illusion by Michelle Osgood
- Chapter 5: Graphic violence and an animal death during a dream sequence
- Chapters 7-8: Gore
- Chapter 16: Animal death
- Chapters 18-20: Graphic violence during a dream sequence
- Chapters 33-44: Domestic abuse, graphic violence, stalking
Additional Themes
- Insomnia, paranoia, alcohol and marijuana use
Book blurb:
Nathan Roberts was just your average polyamorous librarian living in Vancouver until his best friend, Deanna started dating a werewolf. While hosting the small pack in his apartment while they hid from the underground network of Huntsmen, Nathan enjoyed a casual fling with Cole, the pack leader’s brother. But now, he may just be falling for him.
When his neighbor is murdered, Nathan is convinced the death is linked to the supernatural, but Cole and their friends deny any paranormal connection. This leads to a fracture of trust in their relationship, and Cole’s pack is left to deal with an unknown killer on the loose. As Nathan pursues answers on his own, he must come to terms with the truth, and his feelings for Cole.
Buy links:
About Michelle Osgood:
Michelle Osgood writes queer, feminist romance from her tiny apartment in Vancouver, BC. She loves stories in all media, especially those created by Shonda Rhimes, and dreams of one day owning a wine cellar to rival Olivia Pope’s. She is active in Vancouver’s poly and LGBTQ communities, never turns down a debate about pop culture, and is trying to learn how to cook. Her novels The Better to Kiss You With (2016) and Huntsmen (2017) were published by Interlude Press.
Connect with Michelle: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Goodreads
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