Love You However: The Hard Sell.

See also: 'I worked too hard on this book to let it slip under the radar'.

It’s no secret that I, Katherine Blakeman, am still pretty unknown in this community. I only have three Sapphic fiction books out, and aside from a handful of digital events (mostly on this blog of mine), I haven’t really managed to get myself noticed. That’s not entirely my fault – getting noticed as a self-published author is no walk in the park, as I documented a couple of years ago in one of my first blog posts – and it can be disheartening when attempts fail. But that isn’t going to stop me trying. So, I thought I’d give good old shameless self-promotion a shot. Because why not?

My second book, Love You However, was released a year ago today, and is set in sunny Cornwall. It shares its location with the other two books in the Bound By The Rainbow universe: The Summer We’ve Had, which came before, and A Different Kind Of Pride, which came after. These two books have been far better sellers – A Different Kind Of Pride eclipsed Love You However in just a few short months! – so here is the first reason you should read Love You However: it links to them both! Those of you who fell in love with Heather – and Daniella, and Coral, and Autumn, and Kylie, and of course their significant other Cass – will 100% want to pick this one up, if you haven’t already. You can see the progress they’ve made in the four years since we left them in The Summer We’ve Had, and find out a little about how the pandemic treated them. Writing them into this book was like catching up with two old friends – it’s why they found their way into so many chapters – and so I can only imagine that it's the same for those of you who who love them. And as for A Different Kind Of Pride – timeline-wise, it runs parallel to Love You However. You essentially see two sides of the same situation. So if you wanted to know how exactly Miss Berry’s school got on in her absence… this is the way to find out!

Much like the other two books, Love You However also tackles a topic not often approached in Sapphic fiction, or indeed the media in general. In The Summer We’ve Had, we follow Cass and Felicia as they navigate a relationship around Cass’s depression and Felicia’s Dissociative Identity Disorder. In A Different Kind Of Pride, Anastasia and Victoria find love throughout a harrowing medical ordeal. And in Love You However, we follow Jean and Petra, who have been married for nearly seven years, as they navigate their relationship through troubled waters. Petra is suddenly forced to take on a whole new – and much more challenging – role at work (thanks to Victoria’s aforementioned harrowing medical ordeal), and Jean finds themself mired in a gender identity crisis. A perfect storm, and the book is about how they find their way through it. It is certainly something unlike anything you will have ever read before – that’s my speciality, at this point, since The Summer We’ve Had boasts the same accolade – and that on its own is a reason to read it, no?

As well as this, it’s pretty educational! And not just in the context of Petra being a teacher. Several of my advance reviewers told me that they’d learnt something new from this book, so it’s good to know that my mounds of research did some good. Because, y’know, I wanted to make sure I was representing gender-diverse people and their journeys accurately! I am not gender-diverse myself, so I wanted to make sure I wrote it well. I have my wonderful sensitivity team to thank for reassuring me on that score. I learnt so much about the gender spectrum when I was writing this book – I only hope it is similarly educational for any readers who are not familiar! I have had multiple readers contact me to thank me for sharing the story, and a couple have even revealed that it helped them on their own journey to gender-based self-discovery. However many people read it, however much my books end up taking off, the knowledge that I have helped people in that way means everything to me.

And aside from the topics altogether… it’s a good story, I like to believe! You don’t see that many Sapphic books with already-established couples around, which automatically sets it apart. One main character is Scottish, the other from a Greek family. Music lovers will enjoy this one too – both Jean and Petra are musicians, running a village choir and connecting with music on a deeper, almost spiritual level. Food lovers will also enjoy the descriptions of the various dishes they eat, from fondue to orzotto to caponata. And if you’re searching for an excuse to cry… well, I’m saying nothing. (Just prep the tissues about three-quarters of the way through.)

It's a terrible shame that this book has gone under the radar, but that is what I’m seeking to change now. Today marks one whole year since Petra and Jean emerged into the world, and what better way to mark that than by singing its praises? I am aware that this sounds horribly arrogant and like I think far too much of my own writing, but we indie authors have to do whatever we can now. What with the Amazon boycott, and the gradual censorship of LGBTQ+ media in the US, and the dominance of traditionally-published books… honestly, I will try anything at this point. So if you’d like to check out some more criminally underrated Sapphic books, check out this list here – and if you’d like to check out Love You However (I should hope so, after reading a thousand words all about it)… you can find it here.