#the butterfly assassin

[finnlongman]

Introducing: Moth to a Flame, the final book in my trilogy about a traumatised teenage assassin trying (and mostly failing) to live a normal life in a fictional closed city in Yorkshire. And also in Leeds, as this graphic suggests 😆 Sorry, that's sort of a spoiler for THK...

I figured I'd give you all three of these graphics so you can get a sense of the overall vibes of the trilogy. And so you know why I'm still using this overly cutesy font, because 2022!me made this decision and I guess I'm sticking with it. I know most people use these graphics to label tropes you'll find in the book, but aside from "found family", I'm not sure any of these really count as tropes. (New trope: Yorkshire?) You can also tell I've been getting steadily worse at marketing since 2022. Or maybe better. Who's to say, really.

(Yes, it does annoy me that the arrows for book one go in the opposite direction. No, not enough to re-make the whole thing.)

And if you're wondering what constitutes "considerably less murder"... I tried to track the body count of THK, and lost count at around 50. MTAF, by contrast, has, like ... 3 murders? Very different vibe. THK was when I broke everything and MTAF is where I slowly start putting it back together. This is the Bucky Barnes Recovery Fic of the series. We're talking grief, grappling with trauma, learning to be a person again, finding solidarity with others who've been messed up by the military and the arms industry, possibly joining a support group full of gay communists, and ultimately, realising that sometimes it's not enough to escape, because the whole system needs to be dismantled to stop it from hurting anyone else. I'm terrified no one will like it because they're here for the violence, but it was important to me to write it this way.

It's coming in May! You can preorder it now! And if you haven't read the first two books, you've got a perfect amount of time to buy and read those ahead of book 3's release to minimise cliffhanger agony.

Also: it still contains Esperanto, street art, no romance, an aroace protagonist, and bad life choices. I just figured those were a given at this point and didn't put them on the graphic.

[aroaessidhe]

aro & ace Books: Assassins

The Perfect Assassin - ace mlm MC

The Butterfly Assassin - aroace MC, aspec side characters, canon in book 2.

Assassins: Discord: ace side character, grey-ace MC in book 2

Foul Lady Fortune: demisexual MC, aroace side character

City of Strife: one of the MCs is a demiromantic assassin (various other aspec characters)

Mask of Shadows: aro side character (mentioned in book 2)

#aspec books / aspec database / tumblr masterpost

[lgbtqreads]

Happy Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week 2023!

Happy Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week! Running from February 19-25, 2023, this week we’re celebrating aromantic rep, so check out these titles! (Representation is included/highlighted with each title, where I know it.) As usual, all links are affiliate and earn a percentage of income for the site, so please use them if you can! Please note this roundup only features titles that were not…

[aspeccharactersoftheday]

Isabel Ryans from The Butterfly Assassin is aromantic asexual!

[overclockedroulette]

if you're reading this READ THE BUTTERFLY ASSASSIN literally one of the best books i've read in recent memory not an exaggeration

[innocentlymacabre]

big up to @finnlongman for portraying the universal love we all share for librarians Grace is an icon

[noveltyreads]

The Butterfly Assassin (The Butterfly Assassin #1) by Finn Longman Book Review

ARC kindly provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

To be honest, I enjoyed this book way more than I thought I would. I'm not a huge thriller fan. I don't usually seek the genre out but for some reason, I was drawn to this book and decided to give it a go. I'm so glad I did because this book was just the dark and gritty YA book I was looking for. 

The book follows Isabel Ryans, a minor who wants nothing more than to escape the secret assassin program she was born into and live a normal life. Traumatised by her parents, one a high-ranking chemical weapons specialist and the other a renowned assassin, Isabel flees and adopts a new name. However, Comma is far from letting her go and we see Isabel's struggle with accepting and letting go of her dark past. She questions if she can exist outside of her previous life and be normal or if assassin was all that she could be.

This book is very much underrated. I really enjoyed myself even though it took me a while to get used to the writing style. Isabel was quite reserved and introverted however you could tell that she dreamed of living the typical teenage existence of making friends, going to school and planning out a future. I felt like the author portrayed this yearning for more really well and also showcased trauma and mental health in a way that felt realistic and authentic. I enjoyed Isabel's character a lot and think she deserves all the hugs in the world. 

It wasn't just Isabel's character I loved, it was all the side characters too. Emma was absolutely gorgeous and I wanted her and Isabel to explore their connection a little more. Is it bad for me to say I was absolutely shipping the two together? When that ending came it honestly shattered me. No spoilers but Emma 100% deserved better. I also felt like Nick deserved better. He just wanted to be there for Isabel and then... well... I won't spoil that one. 

I am so excited to read the second book. While I was reading the first, I actually requested book two from the library. I hope Isabel can escape her parents and live the life she always dreamed of. This is a book and a series I would strongly recommend for those looking for asexual rep and a really solid YA thriller. 

ACTUAL RATING: 4.1 STARS

[songedunenuitdete]

The Butterfly Assassin de Finn Longman

☃️ J'ai lu The Butterfly Assassin de @FinnLongman / @BragelonneFR 🍂La plume de l’auteur.ice est géniale, prenante ! Très imagée aussi. L’action est présente et plus on avance et plus la tension devient insoutenable, et ce, jusqu’à la toute fin.

Mon avis : Waouh ! J’ai vraiment kiffé ce roman ! Pour dire, c’est presque un coup de cœur ! Alors peut-être que j’ai trouvé le début un peu longuet, le temps que l’intrigue se mette en place et que nous comprenions mieux les ambitions de l’héroïne, Isabel, mais la suite… Waouh ! C’est bien simple, j’ai eu du mal à lâcher le roman avant sa toute fin ! C’est super prenant et bien ficelé et…

[ciipher-arts]

Working on more stuff for my college's Artist Alley! This time, it's various stickers of characters I like!!! YAY!!!

Life's been kinda hectic for me in a lot of ways lately, so I haven't been as active on here as I'd like to be. Hopefully, I can get back to posting a bit more frequently once my schedule and especially my mental health lets up again.

Also!! Hopefully, if all goes according to plan, these stickers will be available for YOU to buy starting sometime in either April or during summer! (If I can have a better production schedule this time...)

More info at a later date :P

[a-vivid-dreamer]

Butterfly Effect AU

(I keep…thinking of…aus focused on them *drowns in more wips*)

[anime-insect-of-the-day]

Today’s anime insects of the day is: This assortment from Assassination Classroom

Order: Lepidoptera (butterfly) and Coleoptera (beetles) Lucanidae (middle beetle)

Family: Nymphalidae (butterfly) and Scarabaeidae (beetles)

[finnlongman]

You gotta admit, they look pretty good together.

This is my YA trilogy about a traumatised teenage assassin trying and failing to live a normal life in a fictional closed city in Yorkshire. If you've been looking for YA with no romance, morally ambiguous (or outright terrible) characters, tons of murder, revolutionary librarians, poison, Esperanto, loving descriptions of street art, and varying degrees of critique of the military and the arms industry (from subtle to overt as the trilogy continues), then this might be the series for you. The Butterfly Assassin and The Hummingbird Killer are out now; Moth to a Flame will be released on 23rd May. Full details of all of them are on my website.

[aroaessidhe]

Some more aromantic YA books

THE GRIMROSE GIRLS / boarding school/fairytale fantasy / one of the 4 MCs is aroace

FUNERAL GIRL / paranormal contemporary / aro-coded ace MC

FIRE BECOMES HER / historical fantasy / demi-demi MC 

THIS GOLDEN FLAME /  ancient greek insp high fantasy / aroace MC

ELATSOE / contemporary fantasy/paranormal / aro-coded ace MC

THE BUTTERFLY ASSASSIN / contemporary dystopian thriller / aroace MC (canon in 2nd book)

NOT YOUR BACKUP (sidekick squad #3) / contemporary superhero sci-fi / aroace-spec questioning MC 

NOT EVEN BONES / contemporary paranormal thriller / both MCs are probably aroace-spec, have qpr-like relationship (by book 3)

DEATHLESS DIVIDE / historical zombie fantasy / aroace MC (dual pov, she’s a side character in book 1)

*as a note, some of these only briefly explore aromanticism, and/or explore the ace part of the aroace character more. If you want more details on how much things are explored, see my database!    

[inafieldofdaisies]

Assassin’s Creed: Mirage (2023) | Scenery appreciation (vol. 26-?)

[dysaniadisorder]

ok it's not femslash but its important to me bcuz guess who hit one year clean today :). so here's some girls who i have alotta feelings about

[ID: 1. a drawing of Sara Chidouin, wearing an alternative toher uniform. She has a short sleeved button up and pink flower shorts; and she's wearing a knee brace and bracelets. They're holding their hands out and smiling nervously. There are scars on her wrists and her thighs. 2. a drawing of Himiko Yumeno. She's wearing a sleeveless suit jacket over a button up with only the collar visible, a dark red skirt and a big witch hat. He's looking dead-eyes to the side, hands in his skirt pockets, and around his wrists is a large green jacket with a flower pattern fallen of his shoulders. There are scars under her shoulders. 3. a drawing of Kirara Hazama. She's wearing a button up under a purple cardigan, a black skirt, a choker, a belt and a nonbinary pin. There's pens in her pocket. They're hooking one finger around the other and smiling tiredly and sheepishly. There are scars over the backs of their hands and wrists. 4. a drawing of Akarsha from Butterfly Soup. They're wearing a bisexual flag hoodie, black shorts, a bandaid on their knee and teal and pink cat ear headphones. They're sitting down, holding their headphones to their head and smiling to themself. Next to them is a dinosaur stuffed animal. end ID]

[innocentlymacabre]

Holy fuck @finnlongman I'm on page 8 of The Butterfly Assassin and already love it