ARC signups now open through June 21! ARC releases June 14; those signing up June 14-21 will receive theirs within 48 hours of signup.
Join the Monster Brides Virtual Con (June 7, 2025) and receive an early e-book sample of the first 12 chapters!
Lovers Until the Rains End…
Poppy’s life is a hot mess, with her car out of commission, her career in shambles, and a grieving mother to support—and to make it worse, now she’s been stranded by an unexpected storm. But at least she’s stranded with Rai, a Brazilian toilet paper salesman with a smile like sunshine, a voice like sin, and a body that begs to be painted. Especially soaking wet. (Or naked. Naked is good, too.) Not to mention, she could really use some free samples…
All Rai has ever cared about is finding the next storm to ride. But when the water fae toys with Poppy on a whim, their encounter leads him to crave more. He knows nothing of humans, but he desires her as his lover, and soon he’s got Google and an endless supply of motivational quotes to help him in his quest. But as things steam up, his fragile masquerade is threatened by his lies, damn lies, and semantics—not to mention his wings. Maybe he should have told her about the wings.
And their tempestuous affair has a deadline. When the monsoon rains end, Rai must leave the brutally dry Tucson desert…or die. That’s what he’s been told, by fae much wiser than he.
Too bad he never does what he’s told.
Volume 1 in the Elements of Faerie series. This series explores the fae of the five elements (gogyo) – fire, water, wood, metal, and earth.
The first half of Monsoon was originally published episodically on Kindle Vella. It has since been completed and revised for ebook & print.
Cover
Tropes
Rai Moodboard
Poppy Moodboard
Content Warnings & Additional Information
This book is intended for adult readers. It contains explicit MF sexual content, profanity, characters with diagnosed OCD and PTSD, grief, discussion of past abuse, and discussion of the COVID-19 pandemic, among other things that an individual reader might find troubling.
Detailed Content Warnings
Here there be:
Explicit MF sexual content, and lots of it
Profanity (includes F-word, C-word, B-word, others)
Common ableist vernacular (D-word, ST-word)
Mental Illness: OCD, PTSD, other
Discussion of the (past) COVID-19 pandemic
Discussion of (past) COVID loss
COVID precautions and tests
Grief
Mention of (past) STDs
Discussion of (past) emotional abuse
Mention of (past) infidelity, not committed by MCs
Self-esteem issues
Internalized body-image issues
2023, with all its attendant sins, traumas, and glories
Discussion of generative AI and its effect upon creative and editorial professions
Alcohol mention & consumption
Physical injury
Heat-related illness
Dehydration
Tropes and Other Features
HEA because this is a big-R Romance
3rd person dual POV
Pathetic romantic moping, and lots of it
Sarcasm, and lots of it
Literalism, and lots of it
Modern Tucson culture, downtown Tucson places and events
The Internet causes insecurities
Overuse of run-on sentences
3rd-act breakup
Trope: Caught In the Rain
Trope: Born Sexy Yesterday
Trope: Fish Out of Water
Tropes taken to ridiculous literal lengths
Himbo Representation
Overuse of Google as a plot device
Lies
Damn Lies
Semantics
Shamelessness (both authorial and MC behavior)
Drama
Extra Drama because MMC is a drama king
Internet Drama
Wings
Overuse of motivational quotes
Capitalism
Instagram
Pedantry
Excessive Logistics
Casual blasphemy
Fae but No Seelie/Unseelie Courts (Sorry)
One Harry Potter Reference
This Author Is Not A Future-Nobel-Prize-Winning Literary Genius (Sorry)
Purple prose
Purple people (well, person)
Worldbuilding that exists entirely to support smut
Worldbuilding that you think exists entirely to support smut but actually has a Higher Purpose
Worldbuilding that is really just in-jokes that three people in the entire world might get
Worldbuilding that isn’t even important for this book but six books from now will make sense
Ten thousand words of setup for one bad throwaway joke
The same bad throwaway joke used ten thousand times
Media References Used to Excess
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Casablanca
Firefly
Glengarry Glen Ross
9 to 5
Monty Python’s Flying Circus
punk music especially the Ramones
Big Trouble in Little China
Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy books
various rom-com movies
Gone With the Wind
Spongebob Squarepants
The Princess Bride
Playlist
Devo, “Working in the Coal Mine”
The Weather Girls, “It’s Raining Men”
The Ramones, discography
Simon & Garfunkel, “Cecilia”
Tom “T-Bone” Stankus, “Existential Blues” (not directly referred to but it was in my head the whole time I was writing because Poppies! Poppies! Poppies! dedicated to Scott)
Sheb Wooley, “The Purple People Eater” (also not directly referred to but again, in my head)