Texture Like Sun by Ils Greyhart

TEXTURE
Texture Like Sun by Ils Greyhart
Publisher: Less Than Three Press
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Historical
Length: Short Story (55 pages)
Heat Level: Sweet
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Liang is a painter. While there’s nothing else he’d rather do, he’s ready to be finished with his current commission; he’s been in one place far too long and it’s starting to wear. His only relief is in the lucid dreams he’s been having. They feature the same strange man, and though he seems to find Liang incredibly frustrating, he keeps returning to Liang’s dreams. The conversations are often odd, but the company is welcome.

Xerxes is an incubus. When he’s drawn to the dream of an attractive foreigner, he’s expecting a fun night and a tasty meal. He is certainly not expecting to be given a sweater. All his seduction attempts fail spectacularly, leaving him annoyed and confused.

But more than anything, he’s curious—curious enough to visit Liang in the waking world. Unfortunately, the waking world also holds danger for Liang, in the form of the man who commissioned him. A man who has decided that no one else should be permitted to enjoy Liang’s skills.

Dreams don’t usually have any affect at all on what happens to people during the day when they’re awake. Sometimes, though, this rule gets broken.

I liked seeing how slowly the relationship between the two main characters developed. It felt completely natural to me because of how much time the author gave Xerxes and Liang to get to know each other. They worked well together as friends, and that’s something I really enjoy finding in romantic stories. If I can see two people being best friends, it makes it incredibly easy for me to imagine them as something more than that.

There were pacing issues. The beginning and ending were both exciting and well paced, but I did notice a slowdown in the middle. While part of this was due to the main character need to figure out what was going on with all of the weird dreams he’d been having, it was distracting for me as a reader to move from something so quickly paced to a storyline that was suddenly much slower. Either pacing style would have worked, but switching between both of them was confusing.

This was one of the funniest stories I’ve read in a long time. Liang’s personality was so innocent that the idea of him meeting an incubus made me giggle. These definitely weren’t two characters that I’d ever think to put into the same plot. It was hilarious to see them attempt to understand each other, especially later on once Xerxes realized why Liang wasn’t responding to his advances.

Texture Like Sun should be read by anyone who is in the mood for something unique and creative.

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