Hey everyone. I recently published The Awakening, the first book in my new series, Glitched Awakening, and someone who read the entire book suggested that I try my luck in a few other communities. This was one of the communities he personally recommended, so I thought I’d give it a try.
I want to be upfront that I’m not sure I would technically classify the book itself as LGBT fiction.
The protagonist, Nathan, is a man and remains comfortable being a man. The story isn't about him discovering that he was secretly meant to be a woman. His romantic relationships are also primarily M/F, and the series is eventually intended to develop into a harem/non-monogamous structure.
However, gender-bending and actually experiencing life in another sex are a very large part of the story, rather than something that happens briefly and gets forgotten afterward. Someone suggested that aspect might appeal to some readers here, so I figured there was no harm in being honest about what it is and seeing whether anyone is interested.
Synopsis
Nathan Gold thought Awakening late would be the best thing to happen to him that week.
Then he tried to use his new spatial ability.
Instead of taking a knife out of a mugger's hand, Nathan finds himself staring through the eyes of Evelyn Vale—eighteen-year-old heiress to one of Arc City's most powerful families—while Evelyn is left standing in his body.
Getting themselves back to normal should be the obvious priority.
Unfortunately, Evelyn has problems of her own. Someone powerful enough to bypass her security wants her dead, her family is tearing itself apart from within, and Nathan's supposedly spatial Awakening appears to have developed a glitch that neither of them understands.
Until they can control it, Nathan will have to learn what it means to live in someone else's body, wear someone else's identity, and occasionally discover that returning to normal is considerably more complicated than simply wanting his old life back.
Glitched Awakening is a body-swapping urban fantasy focused on the practical, personal, embarrassing, intimate, and occasionally absurd consequences of actually having to live as someone else—not simply switching bodies for a scene and forgetting about it afterward.
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One of the main reasons I wrote the series is that I've always liked body-swap and gender-bender stories, but I often had trouble finding exactly the kind I wanted to read.
Nathan remains Nathan mentally, but that doesn't magically make the body he's occupying male.
When a swap lasts for hours or days, he actually has to learn to function in a woman's body and increasingly becomes accustomed to doing so.
That means the story spends time on things body-swap fiction sometimes skips after the initial surprise: different senses, clothes, hygiene, physical reactions, appearance, attraction, embarrassment, social expectations, bodily functions, sexuality, relationships, and what happens when somebody who still thinks of himself as a man nevertheless has to genuinely live as a woman for a while.
As the story continues, Nathan becomes increasingly experienced with it. Being inside a female body stops being only a shocking transformation and becomes something he actually knows how to navigate.
The swaps also create a strange kind of intimacy between Nathan and the women involved, because both people experience each other's bodies and lives from the inside. That affects their relationships even after they eventually return to normal.
And since this is an adult series, the implications aren't limited to changing clothes and using a different bathroom. There is some explicit sexual content, and the story does eventually explore intimacy and sexuality while bodies and identities are swapped.
At the same time, it isn't written as erotica scene after erotica scene. There is also an urban fantasy story involving Awakenings, supernatural abilities, Gates, powerful families, conspiracies, and the mystery surrounding Nathan's malfunctioning ability.
As for the romance side, the series is intended to gradually become a harem series rather than a conventional monogamous romance. Book One establishes two principal heroines, and Book Two expands the main cast further. I wanted the individual relationships to develop before simply declaring that everyone is part of a harem.
Book One is complete at a little over 120,000 words and is currently available on Amazon for $6.99.
I'm also serializing it for free on Scribble Hub, so if you're curious about the gender-bending/body-swap premise but aren't sure whether it's for you, you can try it there first.
I completely understand if this doesn't fit what people here normally read. Someone who finished the novel specifically suggested that I try this community, and since gender and living in another sex are such substantial parts of the story, I thought it was worth seeing whether some of you might enjoy it.
If anyone does give it a try, I'd genuinely be interested in hearing what you think.