Thought I would write up some small reviews of Roo’s books since I keep drawing fanart for them but haven’t really ever written about the books themselves:
Please note that all of these books are for adult audiences! Please heed the warnings on each product listing!!! But if you’re like me and don’t have many squicks, then you might enjoy some of Roo’s books too.
KNIVES IN YOUR EYES: “A trio of people trying to find a slowly rotting god. The boy doesn’t know how to die, the man wishes he were dead, and the hunter is slowly turning into prey.”
You’ve all seen me fall head first into KNIVES haha. I am obsessed! I’ve been calling it ‘the eroguro bug book of my dreams’. To me, it’s the story of a group of lonely beings who find something in each other that they weren’t actively searching for. There’s an undercurrent of 'places that shape you, and places that you have helped shape’, and the idea that the self is constantly shifting and the joy is in the discovery. Val is an intense little weirdo, and I am not immune to his charm, and seeing him slowly chip away at Hunter’s walls makes me grin like a doofus on every reread haha. The monster hunter falls in love with the monster! I do recommend buying the version of the book that comes with extras, because the main story (the freebie version) ends quite abruptly, and you’ll feel a little unfulfilled without the extras.
VELVET: “Is the rot that grows in the foundations of a beautiful house. It is a boy desperate to be a man. It is a man unwilling to admit he is alive. It is a sweet memory that draws blood on its thorns.”
VELVET is about two men coping with the aftermath of abuse at the hands of the Lagos family. They are trapped together in a house that has more secrets than they know, and the mystery is slowly being unraveled as Kolt and Xavier untangle their complicated shared history. It’s a very heavy story, and while none of the abuse is explicitly described, it is there between every line, and you can see it between every crack. There’s magic, there’s robots, there’s a very large and very haunted house with a body buried under its foundations, and somehow they are all connected. I’ve been really enjoying following along on the updates on this one on Roo’s substar!
NIGHT PRINCE & ROSE FINCH: “Retelling of an old myth about the mysterious fallen angel who unknowingly rescued the Pale Prince of Night, eldest Prince of the Underworld, with only his trembling bronze hands.”
This story is a cheeky romp! It’s very reminiscent of goofy 90’s-00’s yaoi, but there’s also the underlying mystery of why the rose finch was cursed and why the night prince couldn’t return to the underworld until summoned that keeps you hooked. Overall, it’s cheeky and it’s fun and Roo is currently investigating doing a print run for Vol 1, which I’m very excited about.