Book Spotlight on Woman as a Foreign Language by Katherine Wyvern @katherinewyvern #lgbtq #genderqueer,

Dear Elyzabeth,

Thank you so much for having me on your blog today to talk about my latest release, Woman as a Foreign Language. WaaFL came out last September, and has had some really wonderful reviews since then.

This is the story of Julian, a cross-dresser with a heartbreaking past of rejection and discrimination and the girl who finally heals his heart by falling in love with both sides of him, Julia and Julian.

I have always been fascinated by gender fluid characters, in part because I can somewhat relate to their experience, in part because they seem to be more “complete” (and courageous) human beings than most. There was a premonition of Julia/n already in Black Carnival, my debut novel, but that was a much more fetish-y story altogether.

WaaFL is a much more intimate book, with a very minimal setting. Although I think of it as set in the UK I didn’t assert it, not did I pick a town. I wanted the readers to think of these two people as closed in their own universe, as they truly are, in many ways. Nina is an autobiographical character, but with all the focus being on the characters it became a challenge to write Julia/n at such close range. I had an idea of what I wanted him to be from the start, but it took a lot of research to flesh him out. This is Romance and it does not need to be a documentary, but at the same time I didn’t want it to be totally unrealistic. I spent about three months reading tons of articles, blogs and forum posts by both cross-dressers and transwomen to learn as much as I could about their experience, from tucking to dressing to dating. I met some amazingly generous people who shared the most intimate (really intimate!) information with incredible verve. I hope I have done them justice. I certainly wrote Julia/n with immense love and respect, and I hope you feel like meeting him/her in my book!

I was so attached to these characters, that once I was done with the boo I realized I still had a lot to say on the topic. All this spill-over turned into Spice and Vanilla, WaaFL darker, naughtier, whip-and-leather sister, which will be published in May. It’s not WaaFL’s sequel, but it treats similar themes, and Julia/n and Nina both make a brief appearance. Stay tuned!

Woman as a Foreign Language was Runner-Up for Best Contemporary story in the Evernight Readers’ Choice Awards, and is available on the Evernight site at a 25% discount with the coupon code WINNER2017

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“…I absolutely loved this book. The writing is beautiful, the language perfectly suited to each point-of-view, and the characters wonderfully damaged. At its core, Wyvern twists the usual gender/genre expectations…”

“…Nina is a young woman whose abusive childhood has made her afraid to fully own her femininity. And Julia and Julian are two souls in one body—or perhaps they are the same soul, just reflected in different ways. At first Nina’s attraction to Julia—Julian dressed en femme—seems like a adolescent girl-crush. But then it deepens into love, with some of the most gracefully written and heartfelt erotic scenes I have ever read.”

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Blurb:

What do you do when the woman you want to be … is a man?

Nina’s abusive childhood left her feeling so vulnerable when wearing anything flimsier than combat boots that she has spent her whole adult life dressed like a gang boy. But when she meets the tall, glamourous, charismatic Julia (actually her cross-dressing neighbor, Julian, going out en femme), Nina is seized by an overwhelming and terrifying urge to finally express her own femininity.

Julia/n has not only a slightly split personality but also a thoroughly broken heart. What s/he wants most is a partner who will love both Julia and Julian. While Nina learns from Julia how to be a woman, Julian discovers that they might well be made for each other, but it will take a struggle against prejudice and a whole conservative mind-set before they can follow their hearts, and express their true, unique, and beautiful selves.

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Buy links, excerpts and samples:

Woman as a Foreign Language at Evernight (with excerpt):

http://www.evernightpublishing.com/woman-as-a-foreign-language-by-katherin-wyvern/

Woman as a Foreign Language on Amazon.com (download free sample):

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075RR8K1S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1505902876&sr=8-1&keywords=woman+as+a+foreign+language

See what Katherine is up to on:

 Katherine’s Blog: https://katherinewyvern.blogspot.fr/

Katherine’s Website: http://meetingivory.wixsite.com/katherinewyvern

Katherine’s Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/Katherine-Wyvern-Author-122569301260917/

Or follow her on Instagram @katherinewyvern

You can also find an exclusive excerpt on my website, here:

http://meetingivory.wixsite.com/katherinewyvern/copy-of-woman-as-a-foreign-language

Tags, labels:

transgender, crossdresser, lgbtq, genderqueer, queerfiction, queerromance

Book Spotlight on Woman as a Foreign Language by Katherine Wyvern #lgbtq #transgender #genderqueer #romance @evernightpub

Dear Elyzabeth,

Thank you for having me on your blog today with my new release, Woman as a Foreign Language.

This is a quaint love story, tender and edgy-hot, between two gender queer characters, a girl who has trouble expressing her feminine side and a man who is very very good at it.

While Julia/n is an authentically gender-fluid character, capable of being both comfortable and convincing both as a man and a woman, Nina’s gender-queerness is more or less accidental and somewhat more painful. Much of her difficulties in living her femininity are due to years of bullying and abuse, which left her both vulnerable and truly clueless at how to “be a girl”. All the things that most women learn almost from childhood and take for granted, makeup, clothes, heels, nail-polish, wear long hair, flaunt your hips, sit pretty, are as mysterious to Nina as a foreign language. It seems almost too late for her to get the hang of it, when she inherits a whole wardrobe of beautiful women clothes that she never dares to wear … until she meets Julia/n, who has the rare gift of seeing “woman” from the outside, and being able to break its grammar down  into bits that Nina can learn.

Nina is very much an autobiographic character and I am very protective of her! It was painful sometimes to write her, but it was beautiful to see her blossoming into the beautiful person she was always meant to be!

Blurb:

What do you do when the woman you want to be … is a man?

Nina’s abusive childhood left her feeling so vulnerable when wearing anything flimsier than combat boots that she has spent her whole adult life dressed like a gang boy. But when she meets the tall, glamourous, charismatic Julia (actually her cross-dressing neighbor, Julian, going out en femme), Nina is seized by an overwhelming and terrifying urge to finally express her own femininity.

Julia/n has not only a slightly split personality but also a thoroughly broken heart. What s/he wants most is a partner who will love both Julia and Julian. While Nina learns from Julia how to be a woman, Julian discovers that they might well be made for each other, but it will take a struggle against prejudice and a whole conservative mind-set before they can follow their hearts, and express their true, unique, and beautiful selves.

Excerpt:

“Well, are we going out this evening or what?” asked Julia, seeing Nina sitting down still naked on the bed.

“Oh, it will take me two minutes to get ready,” said Nina, smiling up at her. “I am not such a woman as you,” she added, grinning impishly.

“Oh, indeed?” said Julia, and pinched her nose in passing, then went to the wardrobe to fish out some stockings, a pocket bra and breast forms. Boobs were invariably the first thing. She liked her body well enough, as a man or a woman, except for that flat chest. A girl should have tits, and a boy should have some muscle at least, but somehow, she had failed to achieve either. The sweet, soft, bouncy weight of the breast forms immediately made her feel better about herself. Stockings were always the next thing. Her legs were as smooth as silk in any case, but the sleek feel of stockings on them was almost an aphrodisiac. Time was, long ago, when she was much, much younger, when just wearing a pair of stockings would give her a hard-on. She was not such a green horn anymore, luckily, because the last thing she needed right now was an erection.

She stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror, and pulled on her gaff half the way. She gently maneuvered her testicles back up to where they were before they dropped (if only they had stayed there, she thought despondently, and not for the first time), then gave her empty scrotum a slight twist and pushed it down and back towards her buttocks. She was on the point of tucking her penis down and under the same way (if she laid them side by side, they looked every bit like labia through her gaff … et voilà, instant pussy… more or less), when she caught sight of Nina’s eyes. Nina was still sitting on the bed, still naked, and gazing at her with those gorgeous gipsy eyes, studying everything Julia did and every inch of her body. Julia threw a look at her own lean, white figure in the mirror. She was standing with a hand between her legs and her gaff askew, half way between her knees and her hips, which felt somewhat less than graceful and dignified, and she wondered what Nina was seeing that was so entrancing.

“What?” she asked, smiling.

“Nothing. I did wonder where they went, when … you know.”

Julia grinned. “They don’t go very far, worry not.”

Nina stretched herself long, like a happy cat, still gazing hungrily at her, eating her with her eyes.

And suddenly Julia stiffened. “Oh dear,” she said.

“What?” asked Nina, in a somewhat comical echo of what Julia had said less than a minute earlier.

“Er … ahem. Stop looking at me. Just don’t. I can’t tuck it with a hard-on!”

Nina covered her face with her hands, vainly trying to suppress a fit of laughter. “I didn’t do anything. I didn’t!”

Julia was laughing too by now. It was hopeless. She let the whole lot hang out again and took two short steps to the bed (the gaff half-way up made it impossible to step out properly). She kneeled on the bed and started tickling Nina’s feet, the back of her knees and her sides.

“I didn’t do anything, I didn’t,” Nina repeated, between peals of laughter.

“Ah, but you were thinking, don’t deny that you were thinking.”

“Ok, ok, maybe I was, a little bit, please stop, stop, please!” Nina turned on her side, and curled up in a tight ball, still shaking with laughter. Julia stopped tickling her and pushed her on her belly, wiggled out of the gaff, then straddled Nina’s small buttocks and leaned down to nuzzle her neck and the back of her head.

“What were you thinking, you imp? Mh? What were you thinking?”

She bit gently into Nina’s earlobe and kissed her cheek. Nina smiled beatifically.

“That you are an elf, an angel, a goddess.”

“A female-female she-goddess? Really, with all this embarrassment hanging out all over the place like this?”

She let her cock and her smooth, smooth balls brush Nina’s buttocks, smiled and kissed her again.

“Always. You will always be a goddess to me,” murmured Nina, drinking in the kisses, her eyes closed. Her hand searched for Julia’s hand, their fingers wove together of their own accord, and Nina drew the hand closer to kiss Julia’s fingertips one by one, adoringly. Julia smiled and pressed her breasts down on Nina’s back, rubbing them gently on her shoulder blades.

She kissed Nina again and again, on her temple, cheek, eyelid, nose, the corner of her mouth. She was so precious. Sleek, small-boned, but fierce and sharp, like a bird of prey, hooded and caged, but never quite tamed. And I have set you free, and you chose to fly to me.

“I love you. Darling,” she whispered in her ear, in her huskiest, deepest voice, and Nina shuddered all over while her spine gave a twist, as Julia knew it would. Nina turned under her, to hug her and draw her body down. Julia moved her knees within Nina’s legs, and just like that, without any difficulty, her untimely erection found a place to go.

So wet. How can you become so wet just by looking at me? What do you see that nobody else ever saw? What do you see that even I don’t see? Julia sank her face in Nina’s neck, to kiss her, bite her, whisper in her ear, yes, oh yes, whisper and murmur and cajole, until my voice will make you melt, my love, my love, my love.

You can also find an exclusive excerpt on my website, here:

http://meetingivory.wixsite.com/katherinewyvern/copy-of-woman-as-a-foreign-language

And of course you can download the beginning of the story for free from Amazon!

Buy links, excerpts and samples:

Woman as a Foreign Language at Evernight:

http://www.evernightpublishing.com/woman-as-a-foreign-language-by-katherin-wyvern/

Woman as a Foreign Language on Amazon.com:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075RR8K1S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1505902876&sr=8-1&keywords=woman+as+a+foreign+language

See what Katherine is up to on:

Katherine’s Blog: https://katherinewyvern.blogspot.fr/

Katherine’s Website: http://meetingivory.wixsite.com/katherinewyvern

Katherine’s Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/Katherine-Wyvern-Author-122569301260917/