Queer Windows: Volume 1 Spring

by Cay Fletcher

Love comes in all forms, from enduring friendships, the classic love at first sight, and misunderstandings that unfurl into blooming romance. Queer Windows gives a glance at four fantastical, queer love stories.

The Wizard’s Garden
Sil, a plant lover and head clerk of a plant shop finds himself slowly befriending a quirky wizard, while also falling in love with his garden.

Rosemary for Remembrance
Vivian has always dreamed of being swept away from her ordinary life. A chance meeting with a mysterious stranger may just grant her wish.

Kingdom Fall
Imre had carefully calculated his every move to best serve his kingdom. But he could not foresee the past catching up to him and the choices of others.

Lady of Spring
Vinq is preparing to transition from a child into an adult. While she knows she can’t avoid this right of passage, she also does not want to lose who she is.

Genres: LGBT

78 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 3, 2022

About the author

Cay Fletcher is a Queer author with a passion for fantasy and science fiction. Crafting rich landscapes and memorable characters in new and exciting worlds.

Living in the Portland metro area, Cay spends their free time in the garden, cooking, or making a mess, aka crafting. She spent over fifteen years volunteering at fan conventions across the US and still occasionally assists at events in the PNW. As a writer, Cay strives to create relatable queer characters, giving them the titles of hero and protagonist.

They also love to use their crafting and graphic design skills to make products such as patchwork book sleeves, TTRPG journals, stickers, bookmarks, and more. She lives with their wife Sam, their roommate, and their tuxedo cat Satsuki.

Cay uses She/They pronouns.

Reviews

[Rosh (on a medical break)]

A collection of four stories with certain themes in common – love, queer protagonists, fantasy, and spring. Let me tackle these one by one:

👉 Love: Mea culpa - I assumed “love” meant “romance”. But the book isn’t romance, at least not in the traditional sense of the genre. As the blurb itself says (which I simply forgot), “Love comes in all forms, from enduring friendships, the classic love at first sight, and misunderstandings that unfurl into blooming romance.” As per my current reading preferences, I don’t like traditional romances or love-at-first-sight, so this collection was good at least on that count.

👉 Queer protagonists: Well, yeah. All the stories have same-sex character interactions. A couple use the old trope of enemy-to-friend while another is about mysterious interactions with strangers. But something fell short in making the protagonists memorable. I am not sure what.

👉 Fantasy: Three of the stories have very strong elements of fantasy. The remaining tale felt more historical than fantastical.

👉 Spring: Ditto feedback as above. The author seems to have a fondness for gardens, plants and nature. The three stories that incorporate these ideas work far better than the one that doesn’t.

The book is about 120 pages long, and each story gets almost equal space. The writing is simple and sweet. The author shines in her descriptions of nature. The tales are somewhat slow, but two of them kept me interested from start to end.

THE FOUR STORIES:
🌺 The Wizard's Garden - Magical plants and a wizard and pipe dragons and a plant lover. Not romance. More like falling in friendship than falling in love. But that always works better for me. My favourite story of the book. Perfectly developed, intriguing characters, sweet ending.
🌟🌟🌟🌟💫

🌺 Rosemary for Remembrance – Again set around a garden. Started off wonderfully but soon the flow became jumpy. The ending felt incomplete. Would have loved it to have smoother continuity and a better ending.
🌟🌟🌟

🌺 Kingdom Fall – Didn’t like this at all. Lots of rambling, either through inner monologues or between the two protagonists. Seems more like a play than a story what with everything happening only in one extended scene. Was bored and had to force myself to complete it.
🌟

🌺 Lady of Spring – A coming of age story that was good but could have been far better. Too many characters for such a short story. Enjoyed the magical elements in this one.
🌟🌟🌟💫


3 stars based on the average of my ratings for the four stories.

Recommended to those who want to read an unusual #OwnVoices anthology with a touch of magic.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author through ‘Lucy Talks Books’ on Twitter, and these are my honest thoughts about it.


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[Ark]

I thought all of the 4 Stories were very sweet, their premises are very interesting, but it just felt like... they were a little too short? The endings are very sudden, and for all except the last one, it made them feel... unfinished. Even with that issue, the third one was my favorite, I guess I just like drama. I suppose it's also not a bad thing that I wanted more haha

[Naomi]

This bite-size book offered four delightful tales of queer love; not to be confused with queer romance!

These tales of love, community and companionship were sweet and made for quick reads on a plane ride home!

I look forward to more from Cay in the next volumes!

[Paul]

I quite loved this little book. All 4 stories were subtle and unassuming. These are not romance, they are just queer characters who have feelings of love for others, and those feelings are normalized. Looking forward to reading summer.

[anna b]

absolutely nothing happens in these stories but sometimes you just wanna vibe, you know?

[Barry]

What a lovely collection of short stories! All of them were very readable and I enjoyed getting to know the characters and world of each story in the small amount of pages they each got. I enjoyed all four stories but the first and last ones were my favorites, I'm very excited to read more from this author, especially the novel that continues on from the first story in this collection!

[Annie Kosar]

FIERCELY FABULOUS QUEER FAIRYTALES!!!

I cannot even say in mere words how much I ADORED this book!!!!:-). It was SOOO GORGEOUSLY written that it took my breath away many times in its’ sheer beauty!!!:-). Being a queer bisexual disabled cis woman myself….i could identify soooo much with this book and it resonated deeply with me!!! It will stay with you much longer than turning the final page!!:-). When I was very young….I realized that I was queer when they read the classic fairytales to me like Snow White & Sleeping Beauty because the prince was a different gender in my mind each time I heard the story:-). I knew instinctively that I couldn’t say that out loud because being queer was very different back when I grew up…. But if I had been able to read THIS book when I was young than my life would have been so much better so much sooner!!!:-). I ADORED this book and hope EVERYONE of EVERY age reads it!!!:-). I will be telling everyone I know about it!!!:-). I look forward to reading more by this incredibly talented author!!!:). LOVED IT!!:-)

[Nicole(thereadingrebel)]

Review to come.

[Jae]

This was a collection of 4 short stories centered around queer love.

The Wizard’s Garden 5/5
This one was my favorite of the four. I loved both the characters so much that I wish there was a book about them two!

Rosemary for Remembrance 3.5/5
This was a beautiful story although very slow. I enjoyed the way it wrapped up but reading this after The Wizard's Garden just showed how unsaturated it was.

Kingdom Fall 4/5
This was a very short friends-to-enemies-to-lovers story that is all set within the same scene. It sort of stands out against the others as its tone is very war-related but I enjoyed it (though perhaps it's because I went into the book expecting romance). Again with the desaturation.

Lady of Spring 3.75/5
This was a short and sweet coming-of-age novel. I think it brought color back to the book.

Overall, the writing was beautiful and truly helped to bring the world to life.

[Jessica]

3.5 stars. This was a cute little collection. I'm rarely a fan of short stories because I want more than the format allows, but I went in with appropriate expectations and I thought these made good use of the length. The nature of the "fantastical," the "queer," and the "love" varies greatly from story to story. I liked The Wizard's Garden best, and I had the most unanswered questions about Rosemary for Remembrance. Fletcher leans in heavily on the natural world in the "spring" theme of this volume; I'd argue the "love" in the last story is much more about love of nature than love of another person. The editing was pretty rough and had me itching for a red pen; I think I could have focused better on the stories if I hadn't been perpetually distracted by the misuse of punctuation. Despite the mismatch of season, this was a nice volume to read for something sweet and light over the holidays.

[Amethyst]

I would have loved this one if each short story had been extended into a full length novel. They felt like the beginning of an interesting story with a great setting and plot worth reading but then they ended abruptly just as things were about to get going. This left me very unsatisfied. Even the love stories promised in the title fell flat. There was no tension and no emotions between the characters, nothing that hinted at a developing relationship or even feelings.

The world building and the premise of each story were superb, though, and if each had been the beginning of a novel which continued in the set vein, I would have greatly enjoyed them.

[J. Moody]

This is a delightful collection of four speculative queer love stories. It's chock full of delicious descriptions of flowers and other plants, hence its Spring theme. While each story was well crafted and left me saying aaawwww, my personal favorites were Lady of Spring and Rosemary for Remembrance. I loved the time travel aspect of Rosemary and the coming of age theme in Lady of Spring. I recommend this to any nature lovers looking for a sweet romance to root for. I know I'm already making a mental list of friends who would enjoy this book for Christmas.

[Jackie Call]

This book is a great quick read. I absolutely fell in love with the first short story, The Wizard’s Garden. I can not stop thinking about that story and will be rereading it soon. I found myself wishing that I had a pipe dragon of my own or a garden half as intresting as the one the Wizard has. While all the stories are amazing The Wizard’s Garden was my personal favorite. The lady of Spring was a very cute coming of age story that was a close second that holds some meaningful lessons

[M.J.E.]

Queer Windows: vol. 1 is a glass of sunshine for readers to drink down and absolve the qualms and aches of the soul. This unique collection is a slim 4"x6" pocket book, perfect for on-the-go readers who like dipping into the warm, magical worlds of Cay Fletcher. Each story is a stand-alone tale from different worlds (1950s America, high fantasy realms, etc.) but the through-line of love guides the reader from world to world with ease. I can't wait to start Vol. 2!

[K.V. Wilson]

I really enjoyed this collection of four short stories. The characters were endearing and relatable, and the descriptions were vivid and beautiful. The stories had a Studio Ghibli-esque feel to them--characters living life in the garden and natural world, appreciating every moment. My favourites were The Wizard's Garden and Lady of Spring.

[Artemis Asbury]

So cute!!! I really wish the first story was expanded into a full book, I loved the descriptions of the magical plants. And obviously the dynamic between the two leads was 🔥🔥🔥. Would love to read more from this author.

[Jasmine Wilkes]

A tiny book that offers four unique tales. I did have a favourite in all of them and it was the first story, I found myself loving it and wanting more when it ended. I’m not the biggest fan of novellas for this reason as the stories are never enough to please me.

[Hannah]

3.75 i think! the stories are all very cute and easy to get into. some minor grammer things which isn't a huge deal. would've liked the stories to be just a tinyyyy bit longer as the endings of the first three felt rushed a little. all in all very cute and i'm glad i read it!

[Lindsay]

What a lovely sweet set of stories I adored each and every one

[Alison]

Cute read, perfect for winter when spring is around the corner.

[Kristina Mason]

I really liked 2/4 of the stories, but all of the stories in this anthology were good reads. Perfect if you like short stories and magic.

[Rebecca Saunders]

Absolutely charming collection of short stories. Would make a good gift or book to read on the plane / beach.

[Emily]

This was such a cozy collection of short stories! I just wish they had all been longer to spend more time in the worlds and with the characters

[Alex Vega]

I loved this little collection of stories, so cozy and fantastical 💕

[Colonel Jess O'Neill]

Absolutely lovely tidbits of sunshine and magic. I would read a full fledged book of any of these short stories!

[Olivia]

A very cute collection of stories!