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Angels
Powder and Feathers
Aimé Deverell, a depressed and lonely artist finishing up his degree in Dublin, watches the world go by, and paints it as it goes. Life is short, he thinks - and thank God!
He’s tired of living it.
That philosophy shatters like glass when his life is threatened by the beautiful Jean-Pierre, a Fallen angel.
---
Powder and Feathers is a dark romance featuring a complex relationship between an immortal several centuries the senior of his new boyfriend. Note warnings for manipulation, non-consensual body modification, twisted power dynamics, gaslighting, infidelity, consent issues, and BDSM vibes somewhat removed from the realms of SSC. There are multiple explicit sex scenes, many of them kinky.
The MC of this story is not explicitly labelled as such within the narrative, but I normally label him as in line with borderline personality he experiences delusions, severe mood swings, emotional dysregulation, and other painful episodes.
There are other potentially triggering topics throughout. Please use your best judgement and remember to take a step back from the work, temporarily or permanently, if you find any themes are too much for you to read about at this time.
He’s tired of living it.
That philosophy shatters like glass when his life is threatened by the beautiful Jean-Pierre, a Fallen angel.
---
Powder and Feathers is a dark romance featuring a complex relationship between an immortal several centuries the senior of his new boyfriend. Note warnings for manipulation, non-consensual body modification, twisted power dynamics, gaslighting, infidelity, consent issues, and BDSM vibes somewhat removed from the realms of SSC. There are multiple explicit sex scenes, many of them kinky.
The MC of this story is not explicitly labelled as such within the narrative, but I normally label him as in line with borderline personality he experiences delusions, severe mood swings, emotional dysregulation, and other painful episodes.
There are other potentially triggering topics throughout. Please use your best judgement and remember to take a step back from the work, temporarily or permanently, if you find any themes are too much for you to read about at this time.
- GenresFantasy
1051 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 18, 2024
10 people are currently reading
114 people want to read
About the author
Johannes T. Evans
67 books281 followersJohannes T. Evans is a gay trans man from the South of Wales, now living in Yorkshire, and predominantly crafts fantasy, romance, and erotic works featuring complex and layered characters, especially those who are queer and trans, and he has a particular affection for writing disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent characters like himself.
When not writing, he spends his time absorbing queer period works & history, petting cats, taking photographs of native insects, or lusting over fictional pirates and non-fictional bearish men.
He began the transition to publishing original work officially with the publication of his first novel, Heart of Stone in July of 2020.
When not writing, he spends his time absorbing queer period works & history, petting cats, taking photographs of native insects, or lusting over fictional pirates and non-fictional bearish men.
He began the transition to publishing original work officially with the publication of his first novel, Heart of Stone in July of 2020.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 30, 2025
This story, which at time feels as much a vignette as it does a traditional narrative, is brilliant. I’ve enjoyed Johannes’ work before, but his style, which involves slow, often more idle vignettes around the lives of characters as things slowly shift in ways that are often more everyday than setpiece, has never suited a text more than it has here. With a broader suite of characters than Heart of Stone, Evans is able to fully realise the benefits of what he brings to his stories, which is the almost billiard-ball ways in which his characters are changed by their interactions with those around them.
It certainly isn’t traditionally structured, but there is still a firm sense of narrative momentum. There is almost a dreamlike quality to this exploration of a burgeoning love between a world-weary Dublin artist Aimé and an ethereal, fascinating angel named Jean-Pierre as they orbit each other and eventually hook up. The story, engagingly, is barely getting its boots on by the stage that they’re an item; it is much more concerned with the substance of what their being together means to each of them, and how it impacts them.
Johannes is the master of the little, quiet scenes of busywork and chatter that should be filler but because of the focus aren’t, and this is why this format suits his style perfectly. This story is in no rush; we’re just seeing these people be ordinary, and there is an endlessly original flow of mundane interactions which to me never feel repetitive because they’re always building on a new idea or adding a new wrinkle, or revealing a new detail that has been earned through characters growing more familiar. It’s a delicate latticework structure that you can only appreciate from afar when you appreciate how all those scenes add up.
The characters are the stars of the show, of course, and I think here they are more intricate and precisely wound than in any book I’ve read in a while. The precise details of Jean-Pierre’s (my favourite character’s) sense of self and how it is informed by his particular experiences is furnished at a fair pace and at points that make the whole journey feel like a natural progression in itself. The exploration of the whys and wherefores of his traumas is so fascinating to unravel, and seeing him connect with Aimé in increased levels of understanding is very rewarding. However, we also see how other characters like Colm view what he terms as Jean-Pierre’s attention seeking, and see how Jean-Pierre in turn sees Colm’s reaction, their relationship as brothers is so heart-tuggingly evocative. It’s the sort of thing which in traditional publishing might be set aside as tangential to the core of the story, but here it *is* the core and it makes this story such a joy to look at as almost a tragedy of the problem of other minds (thankfully bridged.)
Speaking of the problem of other minds, a detail I loved was how Evans got across the internal narrative sense of angels (particularly where angels are the perspective characters) as distinctly unhuman in minor but specific ways. It presents unfamiliar moralities and worldviews with an unflinching and unapologetic clarity, and captures well (particularly with George) what it must be like to have truly been dropped into the world with no frame of reference. It is hard often to fully portray the inner life of someone with a frame of understanding so thoroughly alien to your own, and yet here it feels almost as natural as anything to read sections and understand the feeling of a loss of oneness with the Host, of unfamiliarity and discomfort with the concept of “I” after having fallen from an undifferentiated “We”, this sort of thing is very authentic.
God, so much else to talk about. It’s very long, two volumes in print, and even if it takes its time especially in the second half, there’s so much here that works. Aimé’s parents were excellently done, and I didn’t expect to feel the way I did about the mother especially at the end after feeling so furious at them all book long. The storyline in Germany with Colm’s child was well paid off, and was a well placed chance to reflect on ideas of imperfect victims, which the whole book had teed up throughout. I love how the city of Dublin with its particular sense of location and culture is almost a whole character in itself within this story. Honestly there is so much more to say but before I go on gushing, I’ll just say that if you’ve not read Johannes’ work before and want a reflective collection of little setpiece slices about the life of an artist meeting a queer angel and discovering what it means to be loved and to love and to want to be alive over the course of a somewhat casual and candidly sexual vignette, then there’s not a book I recommend more.
It certainly isn’t traditionally structured, but there is still a firm sense of narrative momentum. There is almost a dreamlike quality to this exploration of a burgeoning love between a world-weary Dublin artist Aimé and an ethereal, fascinating angel named Jean-Pierre as they orbit each other and eventually hook up. The story, engagingly, is barely getting its boots on by the stage that they’re an item; it is much more concerned with the substance of what their being together means to each of them, and how it impacts them.
Johannes is the master of the little, quiet scenes of busywork and chatter that should be filler but because of the focus aren’t, and this is why this format suits his style perfectly. This story is in no rush; we’re just seeing these people be ordinary, and there is an endlessly original flow of mundane interactions which to me never feel repetitive because they’re always building on a new idea or adding a new wrinkle, or revealing a new detail that has been earned through characters growing more familiar. It’s a delicate latticework structure that you can only appreciate from afar when you appreciate how all those scenes add up.
The characters are the stars of the show, of course, and I think here they are more intricate and precisely wound than in any book I’ve read in a while. The precise details of Jean-Pierre’s (my favourite character’s) sense of self and how it is informed by his particular experiences is furnished at a fair pace and at points that make the whole journey feel like a natural progression in itself. The exploration of the whys and wherefores of his traumas is so fascinating to unravel, and seeing him connect with Aimé in increased levels of understanding is very rewarding. However, we also see how other characters like Colm view what he terms as Jean-Pierre’s attention seeking, and see how Jean-Pierre in turn sees Colm’s reaction, their relationship as brothers is so heart-tuggingly evocative. It’s the sort of thing which in traditional publishing might be set aside as tangential to the core of the story, but here it *is* the core and it makes this story such a joy to look at as almost a tragedy of the problem of other minds (thankfully bridged.)
Speaking of the problem of other minds, a detail I loved was how Evans got across the internal narrative sense of angels (particularly where angels are the perspective characters) as distinctly unhuman in minor but specific ways. It presents unfamiliar moralities and worldviews with an unflinching and unapologetic clarity, and captures well (particularly with George) what it must be like to have truly been dropped into the world with no frame of reference. It is hard often to fully portray the inner life of someone with a frame of understanding so thoroughly alien to your own, and yet here it feels almost as natural as anything to read sections and understand the feeling of a loss of oneness with the Host, of unfamiliarity and discomfort with the concept of “I” after having fallen from an undifferentiated “We”, this sort of thing is very authentic.
God, so much else to talk about. It’s very long, two volumes in print, and even if it takes its time especially in the second half, there’s so much here that works. Aimé’s parents were excellently done, and I didn’t expect to feel the way I did about the mother especially at the end after feeling so furious at them all book long. The storyline in Germany with Colm’s child was well paid off, and was a well placed chance to reflect on ideas of imperfect victims, which the whole book had teed up throughout. I love how the city of Dublin with its particular sense of location and culture is almost a whole character in itself within this story. Honestly there is so much more to say but before I go on gushing, I’ll just say that if you’ve not read Johannes’ work before and want a reflective collection of little setpiece slices about the life of an artist meeting a queer angel and discovering what it means to be loved and to love and to want to be alive over the course of a somewhat casual and candidly sexual vignette, then there’s not a book I recommend more.
July 7, 2024
Fucking brilliant
December 15, 2024
Powder and Feathers is one of those books for which self-publishing exists – no trad-publisher would be willing to print a book so long (the paperback edition had to be split into two volumes because it’s over 1000 pages), nor be willing to engage with a book that doesn’t have a conventional plot.
So I’m very, very glad self-publishing is an option, because missing out on this book would have sucked.
Powder and Feathers is a little reminiscent of a certain kind of fanfiction, in that it’s long, sprawling, and more slice-of-life-y than plot-driven. I LOVE this kind of thing and would happily read another thousand pages of these deeply messed-up characters just living their best lives; but this is definitely not for everyone, both because of the low-stakes (well, relatively low, for the Fantasy genre) and the, um, let’s call them challenging themes.
In the most superficial terms, this book is about a fallen angel named Jean-Pierre picking out a depressed artist to manipulate into falling in love with him – and said artist, Aimé, gaining a pretty epic found-family in the process, growing into a much happier, healthier person.
It’s complicated.
Look, another reason it’s great that self-publishing exists is because there’s much more leeway to push boundaries in self-pub. In fact, there are no boundaries at all, which allows storytellers to dive into and explore messed-up stuff trad-pub would flinch at. (Cowards.) Evans is one of those authors, and I think he does a fucking fantastic job of it; Powder and Feathers is packed full of characters you’d cross the street to avoid, manipulative and amoral, toxic and co-dependent, vicious and, by a lot of standards, villainous. Jean-Pierre, one of the two main PoVs, works as a kind of assassin when he’s not being a doctor, has an explosive temper, and plays everyone but his family like toys – at one point, he spells his boyfriend to be violently ill whenever he smokes in an effort to get said boyfriend to quit smoking. Because he hates the smell of cigarette smoke, and that trumps bodily autonomy and consent, obviously. He’s coded as having borderline personality disorder, and there is so much gaslighting, so much not-safe-sane-consensual sex-and-violence, so much that is just. Objectively awful about him!
But he’s also the one to tailor and enchant a bunch of clothes so a disabled friend can wear normal clothes that look good on him, instead of the ugly, self-conscious-making stuff that can accommodate his disability. (And yes, that scene will make you cry ugly tears.)
One of the things I loved about Powder and Feathers was that Evans doesn’t moralise at the reader for a minute. He’s not trying to convince you that Jean-Pierre is good underneath it all, actually; nor does he make a big deal of not condoning Jean-Pierre’s (or anyone else’s) behaviour. This is a book that trusts the reader to Get It, to not need spoon-feeding, to be able to wrap our minds around the idea that things can be fucked-up and complicated in fiction and we’re allowed to just enjoy that. Or be morbidly fascinated by it, whichever’s your wheelhouse, you do you. If you don’t like it, put the book down and walk away, no harm no foul, we’re all grown-ups here. Yes?
I hope I’m making some kind of sense here.
Alongside the Actually Dark romance (no, I don’t have a pet peeve about the kind of crap trad-pub labels as dark romance, why would you think that???) this book also acts as a thoughtful exploration of Evans’ worldbuilding. I think quite a lot of his works are set in the same world – which is ours plus magic – but we often don’t see a whole lot of it. Here we learn a fair bit more about it, especially the community/society of fallen angels and how they interact with the rest of the world. Said fallen angels have a loosely Judaic explanation/backstory, though none of them can remember the realm they came from, opening up a lot of very interesting potential in how they respond to human religion; Jean-Pierre and his brother Colm are very Catholic, but their third brother Asmodeus refuses even to sing Christmas carols because of the religion in them. Outside of the angels, we also have Greek gods running around, with fae and vampires and various other magicals further in the background, and even a sort of King Arthur and Merlin. (Fuck Merlin.) In the hands of a lesser writer it might feel like ‘everything but the kitchen sink’, but I really enjoyed it, and wanted even more of it!
This is a book about trauma and kink and found-family, about people with broken edges fitting together like puzzle pieces. It is not for everyone; I dare say it’s not for most people. But I loved it, and I hope we get more novels about these characters (although the author already has a few short stories and things set before and after the events of Powder and Feathers).
So I’m very, very glad self-publishing is an option, because missing out on this book would have sucked.
Powder and Feathers is a little reminiscent of a certain kind of fanfiction, in that it’s long, sprawling, and more slice-of-life-y than plot-driven. I LOVE this kind of thing and would happily read another thousand pages of these deeply messed-up characters just living their best lives; but this is definitely not for everyone, both because of the low-stakes (well, relatively low, for the Fantasy genre) and the, um, let’s call them challenging themes.
In the most superficial terms, this book is about a fallen angel named Jean-Pierre picking out a depressed artist to manipulate into falling in love with him – and said artist, Aimé, gaining a pretty epic found-family in the process, growing into a much happier, healthier person.
It’s complicated.
Look, another reason it’s great that self-publishing exists is because there’s much more leeway to push boundaries in self-pub. In fact, there are no boundaries at all, which allows storytellers to dive into and explore messed-up stuff trad-pub would flinch at. (Cowards.) Evans is one of those authors, and I think he does a fucking fantastic job of it; Powder and Feathers is packed full of characters you’d cross the street to avoid, manipulative and amoral, toxic and co-dependent, vicious and, by a lot of standards, villainous. Jean-Pierre, one of the two main PoVs, works as a kind of assassin when he’s not being a doctor, has an explosive temper, and plays everyone but his family like toys – at one point, he spells his boyfriend to be violently ill whenever he smokes in an effort to get said boyfriend to quit smoking. Because he hates the smell of cigarette smoke, and that trumps bodily autonomy and consent, obviously. He’s coded as having borderline personality disorder, and there is so much gaslighting, so much not-safe-sane-consensual sex-and-violence, so much that is just. Objectively awful about him!
But he’s also the one to tailor and enchant a bunch of clothes so a disabled friend can wear normal clothes that look good on him, instead of the ugly, self-conscious-making stuff that can accommodate his disability. (And yes, that scene will make you cry ugly tears.)
One of the things I loved about Powder and Feathers was that Evans doesn’t moralise at the reader for a minute. He’s not trying to convince you that Jean-Pierre is good underneath it all, actually; nor does he make a big deal of not condoning Jean-Pierre’s (or anyone else’s) behaviour. This is a book that trusts the reader to Get It, to not need spoon-feeding, to be able to wrap our minds around the idea that things can be fucked-up and complicated in fiction and we’re allowed to just enjoy that. Or be morbidly fascinated by it, whichever’s your wheelhouse, you do you. If you don’t like it, put the book down and walk away, no harm no foul, we’re all grown-ups here. Yes?
I hope I’m making some kind of sense here.
Alongside the Actually Dark romance (no, I don’t have a pet peeve about the kind of crap trad-pub labels as dark romance, why would you think that???) this book also acts as a thoughtful exploration of Evans’ worldbuilding. I think quite a lot of his works are set in the same world – which is ours plus magic – but we often don’t see a whole lot of it. Here we learn a fair bit more about it, especially the community/society of fallen angels and how they interact with the rest of the world. Said fallen angels have a loosely Judaic explanation/backstory, though none of them can remember the realm they came from, opening up a lot of very interesting potential in how they respond to human religion; Jean-Pierre and his brother Colm are very Catholic, but their third brother Asmodeus refuses even to sing Christmas carols because of the religion in them. Outside of the angels, we also have Greek gods running around, with fae and vampires and various other magicals further in the background, and even a sort of King Arthur and Merlin. (Fuck Merlin.) In the hands of a lesser writer it might feel like ‘everything but the kitchen sink’, but I really enjoyed it, and wanted even more of it!
This is a book about trauma and kink and found-family, about people with broken edges fitting together like puzzle pieces. It is not for everyone; I dare say it’s not for most people. But I loved it, and I hope we get more novels about these characters (although the author already has a few short stories and things set before and after the events of Powder and Feathers).
November 2, 2024
I don't know if I can put into words how in awe I am of JTE and this book. It was ten years in the making and I get it! The men and women and non-gendered characters in here are so real, so fascinating that I hung on every word till the end of the 19 hours my Kindle said it would take to read this. I loved every one(well not loved EVERY one,) but saw their parts clearly in the story. What a world JTE constructed and I am so glad I was able to read about it.
September 5, 2024
I recently dove into this novel and hardly took breaks while reading it - it is so special, the way I can just fall into the worlds Mr. Evans writes. The textures and moods of these settings and characters are so vivid and visceral. Mr. Evans writes a flawed character so beautifully and realistically that some of the characters in this novel felt very representative of people I've met and even myself. If new readers who haven't read this care about tropes, the "found family" in this was so well written and meaningful to me. To be clear, when I say "flawed character", that is not a criticism of the characters or the author - it is instead a praise. I personally feel that Mr. Evans writes some of the most fascinating and three-dimensional characters I've ever encountered. I'm not great at writing reviews but I urge readers to check this novel out and fall in love just as I did!
dnf
September 21, 2024DNF 26%
made it almost to page 300 and so far there’s really no plot, just a bunch of guys doing stuff. this is a little overly self-indulgent, VERY slow (considering there does not appear to be a plot), and if it’s supposed to be a romance, I’m not sure why we have a third POV that’s not involved in the romance
made it almost to page 300 and so far there’s really no plot, just a bunch of guys doing stuff. this is a little overly self-indulgent, VERY slow (considering there does not appear to be a plot), and if it’s supposed to be a romance, I’m not sure why we have a third POV that’s not involved in the romance
December 18, 2025
Only six reviews!? SIX!? This is one of the best books I've read. If you like flawed characters and deep introspection with a lot of character development, then you'll love this. It's a bit darker and features a more complicated relationship than Evans' other works. I'm always more interested in an emotional character arc than any sort of plot, and this delivers. I'm just waiting until enough time has passed so I can read it again. Give it a shot if the real reason you read romance is to get a hit of emotional depth that you'll never experience in real life.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews