#Alison Cochrun

[lgbtqreads]

Exclusive Cover Reveal: Learning Curves by Alison Cochrun

Today on the site I’m delighted to welcome Alison Cochrun, author ofsome of my personal favorite queer Romances, to reveal the cover of Learning Curves , her next f/f Romance, which releases September 2, 2025 from Atria Books! Here’s the story: Thirty-five-year-old Seattleite Sadie Wells needs an escape. She’s desperate to escape her monotonous routines, the family business that has consumed her…

[almosteverythingnerd]

the most unrealistic part of The Charm Offensive is when charlie said he read star trek fanfiction and in the next sentence he said he realised he hadnt read any stories about men falling in love

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Fiction Free-for-All Book Bracket Tournament: Round 1A

Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:

The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun

Dev Deshpande has always believed in fairy tales. So it’s no wonder then that he’s spent his career crafting them on the long-running reality dating show Ever After. As the most successful producer in the franchise’s history, Dev always scripts the perfect love story for his contestants, even as his own love life crashes and burns. But then the show casts disgraced tech wunderkind Charlie Winshaw as its star.

Charlie is far from the romantic Prince Charming Ever After expects. He doesn’t believe in true love, and only agreed to the show as a last-ditch effort to rehabilitate his image. In front of the cameras, he’s a stiff, anxious mess with no idea how to date twenty women on national television. Behind the scenes, he’s cold, awkward, and emotionally closed-off.

As Dev fights to get Charlie to connect with the contestants on a whirlwind, worldwide tour, they begin to open up to each other, and Charlie realizes he has better chemistry with Dev than with any of his female co-stars. But even reality TV has a script, and in order to find to happily ever after, they’ll have to reconsider whose love story gets told.

Romance, contemporary, adult

Unnatural Magic by C.M. Waggoner

Endorsement from submitter: "two of the best fantasy novels [Unnatural Magic and The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry] I've read in a long time. Unnatural Magic follows a young woman who sets out to get an apprenticeship from the country's head wizard himself after being denied entry to the all boys magic school near her village. Meanwhile, a solitary troll and a deserting soldier develop a relationship that goes against the standards of both their societies and turn gender roles on their head (an m/f relationship that had me saying "oh my god this is gay"). The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry follows a poor fire witch, stigmatized for her innate magic, as she gets a job guarding a noblewoman on a cross-country trip… and attempting to win the affections of another guardswoman as they avoid assassination attempts. They're set in the same universe and the characters from Unnatural Magic are minor characters in Ruthless. Both are part murder mystery, part Victorian-inspired fantasy, part queer romance, and they deserve more love!"

Onna can write the parameters of a spell faster than any of the young men in her village school. But despite her incredible abilities, she’s denied a place at the nation’s premier arcane academy. Undaunted, she sails to the bustling city-state of Hexos, hoping to find a place at a university where they don’t think there’s anything untoward about providing a woman with a magical education. But as soon as Onna arrives, she’s drawn into the mysterious murder of four trolls.

Tsira is a troll who never quite fit into her clan, despite being the leader’s daughter. She decides to strike out on her own and look for work in a human city, but on her way she stumbles upon the body of a half-dead human soldier in the snow. As she slowly nurses him back to health, an unlikely bond forms between them, one that is tested when an unknown mage makes an attempt on Tsira’s life. Soon, unbeknownst to each other, Onna and Tsira both begin devoting their considerable talents to finding out who is targeting trolls, before their homeland is torn apart…

Fantasy, murder mystery, romance, secondary world, adult

[godlyheathens]

fav books i read in 2025: here we go again — alison cochrun;

this is love. love is seeing perfection in every flaw. seeing every flaw as a miracle because it belongs to the person you care about the most. love is saying, yes, still. even after all these years.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Here We Go Again

adult f/f romance

follows two childhood friends who’ve hated each other since their middle school crush-based falling out, who are now both back teaching in their small town high school

when the english teacher who was like a father figure to both of them asks them both to drive him across the country as his dying wish, they give in and spend a summer on a wild road trip across the country that forces them to confront each other and maybe grow back together

two lesbian MCs with ADHD, one is likely aroacespec

[queermccoy]

once again, the version of this square from my phone doesn’t really do the colors justice but! here’s the square for here we go again, which i finished this morning bawling like a baby. great book! highly recommend! it’s a sapphic road trip romcom about death!

[justapayneaway]

This week I'm reviewing Here We Go Again by Alison Cochrun 🚐

Follow me on IG at @ritasbookclub for more content!

[bookshelvesandtealeaves]

✨ BOOK REVIEW ✨

Here We Go Again by Alison Cochrun

⭐️⭐️⭐️

[instagram]

Conflicted is kinda an understatement for this one.

I love the entire concept. Death road trip, saying goodbye to life in such a spectacular fashion with the people you love, is really just beautiful. This would make a genuinely great film.

The ups and downs and the beauty and sorrow of the whole road trip really tugged at my heart, filled me with wanderlust, made me laugh and cry in equal measure.

But my god, the characters. I just did not like Rosemary or Logan AT all. I’m all for flaws, for unresolved trauma, for crappy decisions and childhood heartache and messy lesbians. But these characters felt like caricatures of the most extreme opposites. And their second chance romance just did not feel earned for me.

[ombwarrior47]

The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun

Title: The Charm Offensive Author: Alison Cochrun Series: N/A Number of Pages: 358 Pages Genre:  LGBTQ Romance Publisher:  Atria Books Date of Original Publication: September 7, 2021 ISBN:  978-1982170714

The Charm Offensive was recommended to me in Amazon’s book recommendations based off of other LGBT books I had read. I was a little disappointed that this one wasn’t a series and doesn’t appear to have a sequel.

The story is based off of a producer of a reality romance show who is stuck guiding the new season’s “prince charming”. However both of them have their faults and insecurities and they learn to work around them to keep the show going. The characters face every day struggles of anxiety, depression, and OCD and other common issues.

There were times where the character’s negative attributes were a little over drawn and became annoying, however the ending was positive. I would recommend.

★★★★

~

Up Next:  

-Maybe This Time by Cara Bastone

-The Running Grave (Cormoran Strike #7) by Robert Galbraith

Yearly Goal Markers:

Book Goal: 62/75  = 82%

Page Goal:  22/15k = 147% (2024 goal achieved 7/5/24!)

Follow me on LibraryThing, Goodreads, and Amazon. Same handle: OMBWarrior47

[stardustandrockets]

Happy International Asexuality Day! 🖤🩶🤍💜

Much like last year, here's a recommendation list of aspec books I've read and a few on my tbr. I've also added some aspec authors, too. It's obviously not an exhaustive list, but it'll get you started.

I'm spending this rainy day celebrating (i.e. reading) instead of educating. I've got some posts already on my page with my experience being ace. I'm tired of constantly educating and defending my sexuality to people. Google is a good starting point. Search out ace bookstagrammers and content creators. We aren't a monolith and all of our experiences are different.

I hope you enjoy the recs! Have you read any of these or have any favorites I should put on my radar?

[queer-book-character-tournament]

Characters, book, and author names under the cut

Dev Deshpande/Charlie Winshaw - The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun

Kadou of House Mahisti/Evemer Hoşkadem - A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland

Ambrose Cusk/Kodiac Celius - The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer

Mitch Greyson/Alex Dean - On the Ice by Amy Aislin

[lgbtqreads]

Fave Five: Fiction with MCs of Greek Descent

The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta (YA) We Could Be Something by Will Kostakis (YA) The Dangerous Art of Blending In by Angelo Surmelis (YA) Here We Go Again by Alison Cochrun Fire on the Island by Timothy Jay Smith

[niamhs-reading-adventures]

TRCC Readathon Days 5 & 6

Saturday saw me finish off Daydream by Hannah Grace (started at 28%.

Sunday was a little less focused, with three different books read in part:

Fake Dates and Mooncakes: start 20%, end 34%

Gwen and Art are Not in Love: start page 138, end page 180

Here we go again: start 0%, end 25%

Let's see how much I can read around work tomorrow. Happy final day(s) of the Readathon!

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Fiction Free-for-All Book Bracket Tournament: Round 1C

Book summaries below:

Kiss Her Once for Me by Alison Cochrun

One year ago, recent Portland transplant Ellie Oliver had her dream job in animation and a Christmas Eve meet-cute with a woman at a bookstore that led her to fall in love over the course of a single night. But after a betrayal the next morning and the loss of her job soon after, she finds herself adrift, alone, and desperate for money.

Finding work at a local coffee shop, she’s just getting through the days—until Andrew, the shop’s landlord, proposes a shocking, drunken plan: a marriage of convenience that will give him his recent inheritance and alleviate Ellie’s financial woes and isolation. They make a plan to spend the holidays together at his family cabin to keep up the ruse. But when Andrew introduces his new fiancée to his sister, Ellie is shocked to discover it’s Jack—the mysterious woman she fell for over the course of one magical Christmas Eve the year before. Now, Ellie must choose between the safety of a fake relationship and the risk of something real.

Romance, romantic comedy, contemporary, holiday, second chance romance, adult

Notes of a Crocodile by Qiu Miaojin

Set in the post-martial-law era of late 1980s Taipei, Notes of a Crocodile depicts the coming-of-age of a group of queer misfits discovering love, friendship, and artistic affinity while hardly studying at Taiwan's most prestigious university. Told through the eyes of an anonymous lesbian narrator nicknamed Lazi, Qiu Miaojin's cult classic novel is a postmodern pastiche of diaries, vignettes, mash notes, aphorisms, exegesis, and satire by an incisive prose stylist and countercultural icon.

Afflicted by her fatalistic attraction to Shui Ling, an older woman, Lazi turns for support to a circle of friends that includes a rich kid turned criminal and his troubled, self-destructive gay lover, as well as a bored, mischievous overachiever and her alluring slacker artist girlfriend.

Illustrating a process of liberation from the strictures of gender through radical self-inquiry, Notes of a Crocodile is a poignant masterpiece of social defiance by a singular voice in contemporary Chinese literature.

Literary fiction, experimental, coming of age, 1980s

[hewashome]

“i can’t imagine ever not loving you. and it’s okay if you don’t love me back yet. i can love enough for both of us. just please stop pulling away.”

— the charm offensive, alison cochrun

[pridepages]

Jack: We are two queer women, and we're going to use this drive back to the cabin to do what queer women do. Ellie: And...what's that? Jack: We're going to talk about our feelings. Ellie: Do we have to? Jack: Yes. It seems like we've had some kind of miscommunication about what happened last year. Miscommunications are for the straights. We are going to talk this out.