Persephone's Playhouse
Officer Carlos Vela—a specialist with the United Advancement Coalition's missing persons division—is none too happy about being assigned a case when it interrupts his long awaited vacation. Two high-profile United Advancement University students seemingly vanished while filming a documentary in a defunct area of the galaxy, and he’s been handpicked to bring them home. The seemingly simple assignment reeks of a classic runaway scenario, and Carlos believes it will be a fairly open and shut case. With his boyfriend—a priest in training with a psychic sixth sense named Felix Gottlieb—along for the ride, the couple makes their way toward the coordinates the vics were last seen, a defunct brothel known as Persephone's Playhouse.
Upon their arrival, Carlos and Felix quickly discover that the abandoned space station isn't as empty as they'd initially believed, and the robotic employees are desperate for some company after countless years spent lingering in the darkness. When their presence is noticed by the still-functioning surveillance systems, emergency protocols kick in and shutter the station. Locked inside of the brothel with backup still hours out, Carlos and Felix must survive the horrors of the Playhouse and uncover its dark past before the lonely automatons tear them to pieces...
- Cover by A.L. Davidson
- Interior design by A.L. Davidson
- 2 out of 5 🌶️
- Body Rep: HoH, Degenerative Heart Disease, Amputee
- Queer Rep: Gay, Non-Binary, Sapphic
CWs: Intense and gory body horror, government-based horror, psychological horror, surgical horror, intense themes of a sexual nature, conversations and topics revolving round homophobia aimed at the main characters, and one brief scene of an intimate moment between consenting adults.
Please note: this book was written in the summer of 2022 and several of the themes and ideologies presented, sadly, mirror current real-world threats and happenings (specifically in the US), and may be uncomfortable for some readers. If this isn’t the time or you’re not in the headspace for it, please put it on your TBR and come back later! Though this is a book about a haunted sexbot brothel, the largest horror in this story is government-based, so please take care of yourself as you head into this twisted tale of corruption, mad science, and the power of queer love in the face of those who oppose it. Carlos and Felix’s fight for their love in a world rife with censorship, government control, and hatred was an important story for me to tell—especially with how real it feels in 2025, several years after writing it—and I hope that it inspires you to keep fighting even when things seem dire.
