I'm Here. I'm Queer. Buy My Books.

Do you know how many books I've written over the past ten years? Yeah, me neither. But a lot. Definitely a lot--and when I say "books" I mean everything from erotic shorts to anthologies to novels to novellas.

I'm queer. I tend to write fiction from that perspective and on that topic, though I have written books about straight people too.

If you were to ask me, "Hey, Giselle, what do you write?" I would say, "I write queer fiction and erotica."

A lot of my books have been shoved into "romance" categories over the years, but I'm telling you straight-up: if you're into that whole romance scene with the happily-ever-after and no cheating I would just avoid my catalogue completely. I never set out to write romance. I set out to write queer fiction and literary erotica (and, more recently, pure SMUT!).

A lot of my books involve adultery because I spent 10 years of my life as mistress to a married man... which makes me kind of an expert, not to brag or anything. I know adultery intimately. That's why it sneaks its way into my work. Just like queerness. Just like gender non-conformity. It's part of me. It's part of my work.

The Other Side of Ruth is such a great example of what my work is and what it isn't. That book's about Ruth, a middle-aged married woman, who has an affair with Agnes, her twenty-something neighbour. Boom! Cheating. Right there. Boom! Lesbian erotica. Bring it. But this book's also a classic example of what I do because SPOILER it doesn't not end in typical romance fashion. That's because it's not a romance!

I come from the school of literary fiction where misery reigns. To me, The Other Side of Ruth is about all the ways in which Agnes is failed by society. She's failed by the people in her life, by systems, but the medical establishment. She's even failed by the book itself, because she doesn't get to tell her own story. We hear it from Ruth's point of view.

When I think of the most romantic book I've written, the one that pops into my head is Friday Night Lipstick--a friends-to-lovers novella about two older trans women. This book legit makes me cry every time I read the final chapter (which SPOILER does contain a typical happy ending), but it fails to meet the romance standard in other ways. First up, one of the characters is married throughout most of the book (albeit to an abusive partner), and the other has sex with two people right in front of her.

So this is me telling you where I'm coming from in hopes of finding more readers who are looking for the kind of fiction I write: readers who are looking for fiction from a non-binary queer, readers who appreciate literary erotica and/or smut, readers who aren't necessarily fans of the cookie-cutter approach to fiction (not that there's anything wrong with that!), readers who want something a little... different.

Because that's me. I'm a little different. And if you are too, or you just want to see what my world looks like, buy my books. Or see if your library carries them. If they don't, ask them to buy a copy of something that interests you. Or search my name at Smashwords or Kobo or Barnes and Noble or Apple and see what I'm offering for free this month. There's always something.

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I'm here. I'm queer. Nice to meet you.