Yay, Superpowered Love 4: Losing Better exists again! Check out its page to read some excerpts, go and have a listen to its soundtrack at my youtube page, or just snag yourself a copy at LT3's book market or these lovely retailers.
I'm not the first to say it and I probably won't be the last, but Losing Better is a weird romance novel. Okay, okay, all my books fall into that category, it's true. But this one is even weirder than most, because its protagonist and narrator, Gabriel, is... well, he's a dick.
But in a lawful good* paladin way.
For those of you not familiar with the fantasy archetype of a paladin, let's start this out with memes, because this is, after all, the 21st century.
or, maybe a little more to the point in re Gabriel:
Paladins are the dicks-for-good of the fantasy world. I mean, I've run into some paladins I didn't immediately want to choke with their own swords, but that's largely just because my current D&D campaign has one who serves a perpetually drunken god, which mellows him out sufficiently. Most of the time. He's still lawful good, though, which is... difficult.
Think Captain America (pre-Civil War if we're talking Marvel Cinematic Universe). Think Superman. Think Leslie Knope but without the compassion that women in our society are expected to have. These characters are awesome, but oh my fucking GOD are they difficult to be around on a day-to-day basis. And so long as it's legal and will bring "good" things to pass aka order and law? They pretty much have to do it.
This is Gabriel's problem. He's rigid. Inflexible. And worst of all, self-righteous, which is a huge failing of the paladin type. The self-righteous are blind, the lawful are unyeilding--it's not a good combination.
But he learns. He changes. He grows... or I tried to show him growing, anyhow.
So that's why in spite of the difficulty of the main character--hell, maybe because of it--this book has a really special place in my heart. That, and I kind of based his major principles off a really good friend of mine (who is not difficult to be around, for the record, because she has a sense of humor about her paladin-ness). He's so fun to write though, oh my god.
Gabriel will be back as a side character in Book 9, which I'm writing right now. He's different, but... still Gabriel. We'll see if he's any more likable now >.>
Anyhow, Andrew, his love interest/quarry is a really likable guy, if somewhat juvenile in some aspects... but he grows up a lot too, and I'm sure he's for the better when he appears in book 9. And I hope people can enjoy his story. He definitely deserves his happy ending.
*For clarification on the D&D alignment system, please see this.
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