RELEASE TOUR incl Exclusive Excerpt: Nine-Tenths by J.M. Frey
Length: 145,000 Words
Series: standalone
Genre: Contemporary Romantasy
Tropes: Meet Ugly, Coffee Shop Romance, Mutual Pining, Sunshine and Grumpy, The One Who Looks Like He Could Kill You Is a Cinnamon Roll, The One Who Looks Like a Cinnamon Roll Could Absolutely Kill You, and Will If You Hurt His Boyfriend, Friends to Lovers, Two Halves of a Whole Idiot, Miscommunication (but like, realistic), Secret Royalty, Accidental Marriage, Forced Proximity, Possessive Romance
Trigger/Content Warnings: Discussion of the past death of a parent / Grief, Anxiety, Panic Attacks, Kitchen Fire, Mild Fantasy Gore and Violence, Mildly Dubious Consent, Profanity, Sexual Content, Pseudo-Monsterfucking, Abuse of Perfectly Innocent Coffee Beans
Blurb:
Colin Levesque is at loose ends. He’s finished university, but has no career; he adores romance novels, but he’s crap at relationships; and his prickliness is a detriment at the café where he’s making ends meet. He also has a crush on his regular Dav, a homo draconis who comes in every morning to read his newspaper, sip his double-strong coffee, and stare longingly at Colin in return. So it figures that the day Colin gets up the courage to do something about the sexual tension simmering between them, he also learns that Dav has an embarrassing habit of hiccupping fire when he’s nervous. Which, in this case, destroys the fancy custom-made bean roaster. When Dav volunteers to take over the coffee roasting with his fire-breath, being squished together in the hot, cramped kitchen leads to even hotter kisses. Everything’s finally happening for Colin—until people start claiming the dragon-roasted coffee has cured their genetic ailments. As their budding relationship struggles under the scrutiny of scientists and media, the hype around the coffee leads the lovers to be inducted into a centuries-old conspiracy: dragon-roasted food has always healed humans. And the most powerful draconic nobles have been withholding this symbiotic advantage to keep themselves on top. Colin and Dav are determined to expose the truth, but if they’re not careful, their objections could goad power-mad monarchs into destroying everything they hold dear. Including each other.
“So what do I call you?” I ask when he gets back. I’m trying to offer an olive branch, or whatever it is when you’ve been an ass to the regular who has accompanied you to the hospital, even though he didn’t have to. Part of my question is because I don’t know his name. But part of it is me realizing he’s a dragon—I mean, I knew he was a dragon this whole time, the eyes give it away—which means he’s probably got a fancy title. Duke McSootyClaws or something. They’re always dukes in books. “Oh.” He freezes. “Dav, I suppose.” “You suppose?” I slouch, trying to find a position where my arm doesn’t throb. I’m not having any luck. “Alva-draig Tudor.” This is the first time I’ve heard him actually sound miffed. He looks out of sorts for the first time, too. His pants are creased and smeared with ash, and his waistcoat is hanging open like a regency rake. His hair, normally straight out of an Errol Flynn flick, with a severe 1940s part and careful swoops on top, is a sort of frizzy orange flop across his forehead. He pushes it back irritably. He’s rolled up the ragged ends of his sleeves so his shirt looks less like he stuck his hands in fire—which he absolutely did—and more like it’s a sartorial choice. And wow, forearms. Trim, and muscley, and flecked with more of those intriguing gold-dust freckles and spun-copper hair and, yes please and thank you. It makes something in my middle flippy. Or maybe that’s the pain meds? One or the other. I’m too hot, and too cold, and sticky with pain-sweat, and kind of nauseous, and I want to close my eyes and lean against his shoulder and sleeeep. Ugh. “Dav it is,” I concede. “Middle name for a middle name, then. Colin Fergus Levesque.” I squirm around until I can get my free hand aimed in his general direction and he shakes it awkwardly. I’m blinking dumbly, I know I am, my eyelids heavy in a way that sucks because there’s no way I a) could actually fall asleep here, and b) should fall asleep here, and c) will probably not be able to sleep later when the shock of being lightly-stabbed in the middle of my first (and hopefully last) industrial fire has worn off. “A pleasure,” Dav says as he sits. His whole face twists up when he realizes what he’s said. “Well, not the part where I hurt you—and set fire to the—it’s not actually been a pleasure—” “No, I get what you mean,” I say, cutting off his increasingly-desperate word-deluge. I shimmy, looking for some moment of relief because this is awful. I just want to cry and I’m not going to, I’m not. The fingers of my right hand have started to tingle. Maybe something’s wrong with my arm. I could be paralyzed, or disfigured for life. Shit. “Though, draig is not my middle name,” he adds softly. His voice sounds like it’s coming through a tunnel. “It simply means dragon. We often append that to our given names. Rather like saying, ah, Joe and Not-Human Joe.”
J.M. Frey is an author, voice actor, and lapsed academic. She writes queer speculative fiction and fantasy, both fabulist cozy romances and high fantasy epics. Her life’s ambition is to step foot on every continent – only three left! She lives in Toronto where she is surrounded by houseplants, because she is allergic to anything with fur. Like her main character, she is also allergic to chocolate. But not wine.
https://jmfrey.substack.com https://www.instagram.com/j.m.frey https://facebook.com/JMFrey.Fanpage https://www.threads.com/@j.m.frey
