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Getting My Goat: A Satyr/Human Middle Age Romance
Getting your goat can sometimes lead to love.
Maya Applebaum is doing okay. Now. She got laid off from her job teaching software design at a community college, but she managed to find a role designing educational games at a company where she gets to work from home. She’s living like a nun—kind of funny, since she’s Jewish—but she has her job and her friends and Nimoy, her former alley-cat-turned-cosseted-house-pet. Everything is okay.
Okay, that is, until she lands in bed with her neighbor and landlord, Leander Costas, who turns out to be not so human after all. Leander also turns out to be the most amazing cook, friend, and lover Maya’s ever known. When Maya is put in danger because of someone from his past, Leander faces down the threats to her life. But only she can face down the threat of a broken heart.
Maya Applebaum is doing okay. Now. She got laid off from her job teaching software design at a community college, but she managed to find a role designing educational games at a company where she gets to work from home. She’s living like a nun—kind of funny, since she’s Jewish—but she has her job and her friends and Nimoy, her former alley-cat-turned-cosseted-house-pet. Everything is okay.
Okay, that is, until she lands in bed with her neighbor and landlord, Leander Costas, who turns out to be not so human after all. Leander also turns out to be the most amazing cook, friend, and lover Maya’s ever known. When Maya is put in danger because of someone from his past, Leander faces down the threats to her life. But only she can face down the threat of a broken heart.
- GenresRomance
172 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 15, 2024
About the author
Jessica Olin
1 book4 followersJessica Olin grew up either thirty minutes or two hours north of Boston, depending on traffic. They spent a lot of their childhood dreaming up love stories both for themselves and others – including Real Person Fiction about their junior high celebrity crush, Simon Le Bon! They read their first romance novel as a teenager and immediately decided that they wanted to be a romance novelist when they grew up. Life and a strong drive to be practical took them away from that dream, through three different college degrees, four major career changes, and eight different states, until they realized they had the right idea at thirteen and started writing romance again. They currently live in a house that is constantly in need of repair with a criminal mastermind cat and a cat who has no thoughts in his head, only purrs. Jessica also has a grab bag of identities – Jewish, queer, fat, and neuro atypical – that are sorely underrepresented in romance, and they are determined to change that.
And if the name sounds familiar, yes, this is the same Jessica Olin who used to write Letters to a Young Librarian.
And if the name sounds familiar, yes, this is the same Jessica Olin who used to write Letters to a Young Librarian.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
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November 1, 2025The Smut Report team is participating in Wendy the Super Librarian's #TBRChallenge 2025. Our goal: to dust off our TBRs once a month and talk about the book we read.
Read our full TBR Challenge update at The Smut Report
This is a cute, gentle, slice-of-life type romance. You know, the kind that goes down easy and doesn’t stress you out but is also a little bit…flat. We get lots of details about day-to-day routines; the word “laundry” is used ten times. The MCs are gentle with each other and don’t have any big conflict or major miscommunications. There’s a minor suspense bit toward the end where the FMC gets kidnapped, but it’s resolved with a conversation and a big apology scene rather than a shoot out.
If that’s the vibe you like, then this one is pretty cute. Maya is in her 50s, never been married, happy with her job. Basically, she’s content with her life. Sometimes she low-key flirts with her landlord, but since he’s like, 30, she doesn’t take his overtures seriously. That is, until she has a wild and wildly fulfilling sex dream about him—or at least, a version of him that’s got goat legs. It doesn’t take long for her to discover that the dream was not actually a dream, and not too long after that for her to get explanations and start dating Leander (who, turns out, is 3,000, not 30…so much for the older woman age gap!). There could have been lots to mine for drama here, but it’s all pretty calm.
Most of the middle part of the story is Leander and Maya figuring out their relationship. Things like whether or not they’re serious (they are) and whether they’re down to get a little kinky (they are). We get some hanky spanky scenes in the bedroom and a teensy bit of angst, but again, we’re not mining any of this for drama.
I’ll be real here: this vibe doesn’t really work for me unless I’m having serious insomnia and need something calm to help me quiet my brain. So I didn’t love it. There wasn’t anything objectionable here—but nothing that got me really excited either.
Blog | Bluesky | Facebook | Instagram | Threads | Pinterest
Read our full TBR Challenge update at The Smut Report
This is a cute, gentle, slice-of-life type romance. You know, the kind that goes down easy and doesn’t stress you out but is also a little bit…flat. We get lots of details about day-to-day routines; the word “laundry” is used ten times. The MCs are gentle with each other and don’t have any big conflict or major miscommunications. There’s a minor suspense bit toward the end where the FMC gets kidnapped, but it’s resolved with a conversation and a big apology scene rather than a shoot out.
If that’s the vibe you like, then this one is pretty cute. Maya is in her 50s, never been married, happy with her job. Basically, she’s content with her life. Sometimes she low-key flirts with her landlord, but since he’s like, 30, she doesn’t take his overtures seriously. That is, until she has a wild and wildly fulfilling sex dream about him—or at least, a version of him that’s got goat legs. It doesn’t take long for her to discover that the dream was not actually a dream, and not too long after that for her to get explanations and start dating Leander (who, turns out, is 3,000, not 30…so much for the older woman age gap!). There could have been lots to mine for drama here, but it’s all pretty calm.
Most of the middle part of the story is Leander and Maya figuring out their relationship. Things like whether or not they’re serious (they are) and whether they’re down to get a little kinky (they are). We get some hanky spanky scenes in the bedroom and a teensy bit of angst, but again, we’re not mining any of this for drama.
I’ll be real here: this vibe doesn’t really work for me unless I’m having serious insomnia and need something calm to help me quiet my brain. So I didn’t love it. There wasn’t anything objectionable here—but nothing that got me really excited either.
Blog | Bluesky | Facebook | Instagram | Threads | Pinterest
November 28, 2024
This book is m/f bi4bi monsterfucking. Not my usual fare, I generally stick to f/f, but Jessica and I have been mutuals on a couple social media sites for a long time and I wanted to support them and their debut. Plus, they shared the scene where he shows Maya his garden, and it was very sweet, I was half in love with Leander from it.
I think there was room to take this from novella to novel length, but as it is, it's well written and fun, and has some very steamy scenes that don't neglect the emotions or inner monologue. The plot could stand some added complexity, and I'd have liked a slightly slower burn before the romance started, but that's just personal preference.
Jessica has several books written that haven't been published yet, and I look forward to seeing them in print
I think there was room to take this from novella to novel length, but as it is, it's well written and fun, and has some very steamy scenes that don't neglect the emotions or inner monologue. The plot could stand some added complexity, and I'd have liked a slightly slower burn before the romance started, but that's just personal preference.
Jessica has several books written that haven't been published yet, and I look forward to seeing them in print
December 2, 2024
Enjoyed this! I think the dialogue needed a bit of extra polish to differentiate/solidify the main characters more, and the plot rushed a little too fast through the conflicts, but still a solid short romance with likeable characters.
July 30, 2025
While I was not into what Maya and Leander were into I was warned on the contents warning page (always thankful for those) and found their relationship lovely. I’m intrigued by the Monstrous Rochester concept and will likely return to the series soon.
October 3, 2024
Of course I love this book, I wrote it! Spicy and sweet, cozy and exciting. They say if the book you want to read isn't out there, then write it. So I did!
January 13, 2025
As a lover of romance and fantasy, this is a fun combo of the two, with a bonus of representation you don't often see in either genre. Looking forward to more stories in this series!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews