Meet Andora

A drawing representing Andy, done by artist Sleepy

Hi! I’m Andora and my pronouns are ze/they/she. Feel free to call me Andy!

I’m a writer, a winter person, and a mostly harmless panromantic asexual from Washington state.

When I’m not writing own-voices queer polyamorous romantasy, you can likely find me watching the Seattle Kraken or an obscure low budget movie with a crochet hook in hand, out on the mountain with skis on my feet, or hanging out in my community with a smile on my face as I try to spread good throughout the world.

I can’t tell you what color my hair is likely to be as that changes too frequently. But my skin is pale and my eyes are olive green.

Line of small snowflakes

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Link: https://writing.exchange/@andyb
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Bluesky
link: https://bsky.app/profile/andybwriting.bsky.social
Bluesky
Email Me!
andora@andorabrokaw.com
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Never wonder whatAndy’s critters are up to, whether there’s snow on the mountain, or when Andy’s next book will be out.

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  • Eighth Month Updates and Trying Not to Cry

    Rather than putting hours of work into my newsletter and having it only be seen by a handful of people and not archieved anywhere, I’m going to start posting most of it here. But to get the super cute animal photos or occassional discount codes and excerpts, you’re going to have to sign up for the full version of Ethernotes. (Just click the envelope!)

    Logo for Ethernotes from Andora Brokaw

    Dear Etherfriends,

    Seventh Month dragged painfully along for me, but we are finally entering Eighth Month! As we do so, The Harmony of Falling Snow has been available in digital form for two months and in print for one.

    I’m stuggling to get reviews though. And it’s hard to sell books without reviews, both because store algorythms bury unreviewed books and because potential readers like to see what other people thought before making purchase decicions. So if you’ve read the book, I’d really appreciate it if you wrote a few sentences about it anywhere you’re willing to do so.

    Publishing Notes

    1. The Harmony of Falling Snow is available in both print and digital forms from a variety of retailers.
      1. Get $2 off epubs at Ko-fi or Itch.io, and $2 off print copies at Ingram-Spark
        1. The discounts reflect the percentage of sales the vendors share with me. I actually still make more per sale at those three places than anywhere else.
        2. If you’re curious, Amazon makes me the least amount of money.
        3. Yes, I have considered selling directly. But that involves a higher monthly cost than would be worth it for my current level of sales.
      2. Or buy it from a variety of other retailers, including Amazon, Barnes and Nobel, and Smashwords.
    2. There’s a lot of disruption and discontent surrounding Itch.io involving overreach from credit card handlers in response to a campaign from a hate group in Australia.
      1. It’s complicated.
      2. I’m still on there for now, but that might change.
    3. I realized two nights ago that Harmony’s metadata didn’t include important categories it should have been listed under, such as Romance > Polyamorous. I’m hoping that having fixed that will increase visibility some.

    Life Notes

    1. My summer depression is still getting worse.
      1. So this is going to be a short newsletter.
      2. But it’s important to note I’ve so far avoided suicidal ideations and have a support network should that change.

    Progress Notes

    A picture by Kate Allan featuring a colorful ferret and the words, "You've been doing a great job considering all you've been up against."

    Image by Kate Allan
    (Check her out if you’re unfamiliar with her. Her art is 100% love.)

    1. I failed every goal I set for myself this month.
      1. And it’s hard to focus on what I DID accomplish. Because depression…
    2. I actually came remarkably close on some of the goals.
      1. 54,751 words written in The Melody of Shining Stars was under the 60k I was aiming at, but would have ‘won’ NaNo WriMo in the day.
        1. I’m more upset that I didn’t finish the draft.
        2. And even more frustrated I don’t have a clear outline for the rest, which makes it really hard to fight the negative voices telling me to just give up writing anything ever again because clearly I’m trash at this and no one cares anyway.
      2. It’s harder to justify being 7 hours under my 100 hr work goal since I’d already lowered that from 120 in light of having house guests.
        1. Although one or two fewer bad days would have made up the extra, so isn’t really all that awful.
    3. My only excuse for not updating the blog more that is overcoming the “What’s the point?” sensation is just too much for when I’m already struggling.
      1. I did write reviews for a cute polyamorous manga and a book about polyamorous fantasty-world seafarers though. They’re here.
    4. And the list didn’t take into account the perfectly predictably burst of depression, so was pretty dang ableist really.

    Planning Notes

    Goals for The Harmony of Falling Snow

    1. Do more promotion?
    2. Figure out how to get reviews.
    3. Don’t fall into a well of dispair over sales or lack thereof.

    Goals for A Melody of Shining Stars

    1. Finish v2.
    2. Start revising.
      1. The draft is at 145k and at LEAST 20k shy of The End. It’s going to need serious cuts.
      2. I actually think I know where a lot of them will be already. So that’s good.

    Goals for the blog

    1. Post at least twice, not including the Highlights from Ethernotes post.
      1. About ANYTHING.
      2. Just POST.

    Goals for Life

    1. Try to keep the depression in check.
    2. Be kind to myself.
    3. Ask for help when I need it.

    In Closing

    I apologize for this month’s letter being more of a downer than usual. I’m trying to keep myself from falling deeper into the pit of depression trying to drown me and hope to be more cheerful next month.

    I love you all and am unspeakably touched by every single person who reads my words.

    Categories:

    Tags:

    a line of purple snowflakes
  • An Easy Introduction to Love Triangles (To Pass the Exam!) by Canno

    In this short and sweet manga series, middle schooler Mayuki struggles with exams but desperately wants to get into an academically challenging high school to reunite with her long-time secret love, Akira. But things get complicated when the girl Mayuki’s mom hires to tutor her winds up being Akira’s secret love. As feelings begin to develop between Mayuki and her tutor, someone who has never been able to choose just one person to love and who’s lost people she cares about over it, we have a perfect equation for an introductory love triangle!

    Read this book if you…

    1. Enjoy manga.
    2. Like manga that is complete, with a satisfying ending.
    3. Appreciate the idea of a polyamorous yuri.
    4. Can either read Japanese or don’t mind using a free site such as Manga Dex.

    How Does This Book Approach Polyamory?

    At the start of the story, only tutor Rin appears to be aware that it’s even possible to be in love with more than one person. And we meet her as she’s being slapped for not being able to commit to caring for one person more than for everyone else. Poor Rin has gotten to the point where she pretends never to have crushes at all lest it come out that she has them on multiple people at once.

    Since no one talks about this for a while, there’s some of the standard romantic V tropes for a bit, but the series is short enough they never grated on me. In fact, if I were to criticize, the arcs about accepting a triad romance even being a possibility were somewhat rushed. The series is only two volumes and spends most of its time establishing the three individual relationships inside the triad than in establishing the triad itself, per se. That isn’t really a complaint, but it could be part of why so many reviews of the material include people expressing, “It’s cute, but I don’t really get their relationship.” For a polyamorous reader, it makes perfect sense. But for someone who needs more guidance in regards to why/how people can be happy in polyamorous relationships, perhaps a little more clarity on why they all decided to be cool with it was needed.

    It IS Really Cute

    Both the art and the characters are cute, if somewhat standard for manga. We have the ‘poor student’ who studies hard to go from the bottom of her class to the top of it. We have basketball! We have the girl who can’t play sports to save her life. We have a slight age gap, with Rin and Akira being the year ahead of Mayuki. None of that is groundbreaking. But sympathetic and healthy polyamory aren’t things I’ve seen in other manga. (If anyone can point towards more of it, please do!)

    Content Summaries

    Cozy/Intense Scale: (5 is OMG! INTENSE! And 1 is So Cozy You Can Fall Asleep To It) 2-3

    Spice Level: (0-5) 1-2 (heavy, fully illustrated kissing; no sex)

    Representation: This book features polyamorous leads and girls who like girls. (I’m not sure how any of them would actually identify and am aware there’s cultural context I don’t fully understand.) And it’s Japanese. 🙂

    Advisories: Some polyamorous readers may find Rin’s backstory triggering. There is also depression and a suggestion of a possible suicide that doesn’t occur.

    Sold? Find it here!

    I completely failed at locating an English version of this that I could pay for, although a few free sites featuring fan translations have it. I read it on Manga Dex.

    The author does have other material officially available in English, which I will likely get around to purchasing at some point even though I don’t believe any of it is polyamorous.

    SIDENOTE: My character Yuri has no relation to the yuri genre. But he did live on Earth long enough to be aware it shares his name. And to know about Yuri on Ice. He is amused by both of these things.

    a line of purple snowflakes
  • Tempest, Take Me Home by Charlie Knight

    Winning a race to find a long-lost collection of legendary relics would earn the crew of Tempest both fame and fortune, and possibly make them legends themselves.

    But will they find the price too high to pay?

    Read this book if you…

    1. Like seafaring adventures
    2. Enjoy treasure hunting
    3. Think the problem with most ship crews is they aren’t queer enough
    4. Enjoy positive disability-rep
    5. Like seeing examples of healthy polyamory
    6. Wish to support independent LGBTQ+ fiction

    Life, Love, and Adventure on the High Seas

    Eli is a treasure hunter (Not a pirate! Stop calling them that!) and they rock a killer beard while looking fantastic in a miniskirt. Their longtime partner Max has magic that lets him make maps for his beloved to use in finding their treasures. For as long as Eli has captained Tempest, they’ve been leaving Max safely at home, but that changes when they find themselves racing to collect a group of legendary relics.

    Max joins the crew so he can draw maps as they go rather than making the ship return to homeport between finds. The crew accepts him with a lot of enthusiasm, more than happy to quickly refit the ship to accommodate Max’s wheelchair. Especially thrilled to have Max aboard is Eli’s orcish boyfriend, Tevin, who’s been increasing his flirtatiousness with Max on recent visits and who is very much not alone in his interest in taking that further.

    At first, the collecting goes great. But soon an obnoxious rival treasure hunter realizes Max is the key to Eli’s success, putting not only Max but Max and Eli’s relationship in peril.

    Surprise! They’re polyamorous!

    While what I wrote above probably clued you in that this book contains healthy polyamory, nothing in the actual cover copy so much as implies it. The author posted on BlueSky using #PolyamoryDoneRight or this novel might never have made it on my radar despite my obsessive searching for examples of polyamorous romantasy that isn’t actually mislabeled (at least in my opinion) harem paranormal romance.

    #PolyamoryDoneRight is an accurate hashtag. While Max and Eli don’t have a perfect relationship, their approach to polyamory is well done. They both have other lovers, but never question their mutual devotion, and if they treat their other lovers poorly, there’s no evidence of it. Between them they only have one other serious relationship, but Max’s narration mentions he does date and have an active sex life apart from Eli.

    Although Max and Eli are soulmate-level connected, they both clearly care for Tevin, who seems to find their relationship a thing to love about both of them. And it’s very clear he isn’t a unicorn. Tevin has a multiyear history in a loving relationship with Eli before he and Max cross from metamors to lovers, and he’s consistently treated with the respect he deserves. Also worth noting, although Eli is ecstatic to see Max and Tevin escalating their relationship and greatly enjoys being with both of them at once, they’ve never pushed the metamors to hook up.

    Overall

    The characters are what make this book shine, but the plot works as well. It starts a tad slow, which is odd to say as it leads with Eli stealing something from a griffin. But I didn’t know who Eli was yet, so it was a bit “Standard Indiana Jones Opening” for me and that lacked urgency. But the next sequence of scenes introduced the POV characters and I soon had a strong motive to read more. Namely, the narrators were both Very Interesting People. By the midway point, I felt invested enough when the plot pace picked up to be sucked into marathon reading mode.

    If there’s an area to cite for improvement, it would be the worldbuilding. The world was a little too generic D&D for my tastes. At one point, I remember reading something like ‘the city Max lived in’ and wasn’t sure if it had ever actually been named. Its sole character trait appeared to be that Eli thought it was safer than the unnamed hinkier ports we also see. The setting felt irrelevant, and not much like a real place. And that’s disappointing when the characters are as vibrant as they are, because I suspect Knight has the skill to write a location I would have felt like I’d visited. Also, it’s a little bit odd that a book staring a cartographer had so little regard for the actual world it was in.

    Content Summaries

    Cozy/Intense Scale: 3-4/5
    A medium paced read with some high anxiety sections later in the narrative.

    Spice Level: 4/5?
    Four chapters of thirty-six are comprised mostly of explicit sex. I’m not allosexual enough to tell you if the descriptions therein are ‘good’ or not. Sorry… Since once the chapter became clearly sex that lasted until the end of the chapter, those who would prefer to avoid or merely skim these scenes easily can.

    Representation:
    This book features a nonbinary narrator with ADHD and an anxiety disorder, a trans-masc narrator who is physically disabled and in a wheelchair in most scenes, several polyamorous characters, and several characters who experience same-sex attraction. There are enough explicitly queer characters here for it to feel like a safe assumption the characters we don’t know for sure are LGBTQ+ probably are.

    Advisories:
    Explicit consensual sex, moderate violence, panic attacks, ableism, kidnapping, involuntary confinement, abuse of a disabled character, child neglect in a backstory, transphobia, dysphoria, alcohol use

    Sold? Find it here!

    Here’s a handy page of links to places you can buy your very own digital or physical copy as well as check out other people’s reviews if you want to see some other opinions before deciding.

    a line of purple snowflakes
  • The Thread That Binds by Cedar McCloud

    Three young people learn to overcome their pasts, be their best selves, and create magic in an enchanted library on a fantasy-tech world.

    Read This Book If…

    1. Love books!
    2. Always thought libraries are literally magic and wished more people knew it.
    3. Enjoy found family narratives.
    4. Recognize that fantasy can involve good fighting evil without anyone dying.
    5. Want to explore a vision of what an agender society might look like.
    6. Appreciate seeing healthy polyamory normalized.
    7. Wish to support independent LGBTQ+ fiction.

    The books are restless.

    The Eternal Library is a magical place. And not in the way all libraries are magic. The Eternal Library is filled with literal magic, occupied by books with souls, and run by mages. But something is off, even before the Head Librarian’s death.

    Tabby, Amane, and Rhiannon are a new generation of library staff. Can they grow their skills fast enough to influence the Library’s future? And will they know which side to join when the role of new Head Librarian is contested? 

    What is Gender?

    The majority of the characters in this book use e/em/eir pronouns and the local language lacks a lot of gender expression.

    Early on, two characters meet. Upon introduction, one requests she/her pronouns. The other obliges without argument, but reflects that e really wishes someone could explain gender to em in a way that made even the slightest amount of sense.

    In some cases, it’s easy to determine which gender our society would likely have tacked to a character at birth. With other characters, it’s impossible. I found the agender default to be rather refreshing.

    Normalized Polyamory!

    This book is much more fantasy drama than romantasy, but it does show several romantic relationships, including one that forms over the course of the plot. There are people married to only one partner, but I remained hazy throughout the book on whether the other people in their lives were close friends or lovers. One of our characters has four parents. And two of our leads start in a queerplatonic partnership, but one of them experiences a romantic arc with the third while the other becomes close friends with her. To the best of my recollection, neither the word ‘polyamory’ nor the word ‘monogamy’ appears, but society appears to accept people forming whatever relationships work for the people in them. 

    Multi-Generational Found Family

    In a lot of found family stories, people form deep bonds with friends from their generation or maybe a decade or so older. I’ve seldom seen it done with as large a generational divide as in this story with older adults serving as solid parental stand-ins.

    The plot gives heavy importance to workplace apprenticeships in the Library. One lead has very dysfunctional parents while another has moved to a different country from hers. They find extra parental figures with the older library staff helping them learn the deep magic involved in bookmaking. The story presents these parent figures as very real people I found myself caring a lot about. If I’m being completely honest, I found them more engaging than the leads themselves, although that could be due to relating more to them. While they’re in their sixties and I’m still shy of fifty, I’m very clearly closer to a mentor archetype than an apprentice these days.

    The love and support of their mentors is important to our leads, but the reverse is also true. The younger folks wind up being instrumental in leading the group to victory, even though the elders are the ones fighting to be Head Librarian.

    Destiny is Following the Author’s Plot

    I feel a need to draw attention to the main religion followed in the Library’s culture because I think a lot of bookish types will enjoy it. The core belief of this religion is that the universe is an unfolding story. Most modern people consider this a nice metaphor but not something to interpret literally. But, of course, every religion has followers who would reject that idea, doesn’t it?

    The Authorists believe we, as characters, must not deviate from the plot the Author has written for us. This branch of the religion was founded by someone who proclaimed emself to be the Author’s self-insert. We see enough of em for me to be fairly certain e wasn’t, unless the Author hated emself very much.

    Readerists meanwhile seem less intense while granting people more agency. They believe that as readers, we all shape the book’s story.

    The two factions aren’t just flavor for the worldbuilding stew, but are vital in the fight for control of the Library, with one candidate for Head Librarian being a highly ranked clergy member for the Authorists. The groups do serve up interesting commentary on real world literature though.

    First in a Series, But Stands Alone

    You may have noticed that the cover bills this as the first book in The Eternal Library Series. It is, but it stands alone with a solid ending. And the next two books in the quintet are prequels, going back to when the older generation were the young. Which if you read above where I said the mentors stood out more to me than the narrators, you’ll know pleases me.

    There are several books in my reading queue that will come before the second book and the third isn’t expected out until December. But I have already purchased the second book and joined the crowd funding pre-order for the third.

    Details and Warnings

    Spice Level: 1 (brief light kissing, some cuddles, no sex references)

    Cozy/Intense Scale: 2 (almost entirely cozy, but with some tense moments)

    Representation: aro-ace MC, gray-ace MC, pansexual MC, polyamorous MCs

    Content Warnings:
    – emotional abuse, manipulation, and gaslighting by parents to an adult child, and by a mentor/boss to an employee
    – discussion of past emotional child abuse and its effects
    – descriptions of anxiety, panic attack, and PTSD symptoms, especially dissociation

    Sold?

    Find it here!
    OR support the BackerKit presale for the third book in the series and select one of the options that will get you the first three books of the quintet at a discount!

    a line of purple snowflakes
  • 6/1/25 Harmony is ALIVE!

    The Harmony of Falling Snow: ANDY! ANDY! AAAAANDYYYYYYYY!

    Me: Yes?

    Harmony: I’m published!

    Me: I know! You’re out in digital now! Anyone can go to Ko-fi, itch.io, or a bunch of bookstores like Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords to get a lovely epub and/or mobi file containing you! And it will only cost them $4.99 if they do it during Pride! You are, after all, a story about two pansexuals and a demisexual in a society where being picky about the gender of your partners is considered a little quirky and where the idea of labeling a child with a gender is gross, so everyone grows up agender until they declare otherwise.

    Harmony: That is so cool! When can readers get me in dead-tree?

    Me: Soon? The hope is June 21st.

    Harmony: Will those be signed?

    Me: Maybe. I am planning to offer online ordering of signed copies for a short window. I’ll be announcing how I’m doing that in the next few days. If people are interested, they should comment here or send me an email to help me determine how many books I’ll need to order.

    Harmony: You should do a signing in a bookstore!

    Me: Uh… Yeah. So, arranging that is more than my anxiety will let me do right now. Publishing at all has been a serious fight.

    Harmony: Right. You have as much of a problem with anxiety as my character Maggie does, don’t you?

    Me: Which is why I’m confident in my descriptions of her experiences with it. I also have bipolar disorder, like Yuri.

    Harmony: Related to that, I see you added some content advisories to my listings.

    This book contains depictions of:
    * Deportation/government violence
    * Mental health conditions including anxiety, bipolar disorder, and PTSD
    * Toxic family relationships
    * Fantasy world racism
    * Voluntary drug and alcohol use
    * Involuntary drug use

    Me: Yeah. I think they make you sound more depressing than you are, but I don’t want anyone to be triggered by something they weren’t expecting. That’s happened to me with books describing anxiety and/or depression without their summaries making it clear they were going to go there. Most of the time I can handle seeing my conditions reflected in writing, but there are times when it’s just not healthy.

    Harmony: I don’t think I actually depict Maggie’s violent government abduction… I start after that.

    Me: You do. However, as the source of Maggie’s PTSD, it’s referenced enough I’d hate for someone who can’t handle the element to stumble over it without warning. Although your blurb mentions that your trigger incident is a deportation, it doesn’t get into how awful the events leading to it were.

    Harmony: Now I’m feeling bummed out… Tell me something happy?

    Me: Despite all the negative, possibly triggering elements you contain, you’re a book about hope, recovery, and love. Your story is, overall, a happy one.

    Harmony: Okay. But one more thing about my content… I notice there’s nothing there about sex.

    Me: You don’t depict sex. That’s what the ‘sweet’ in your description indicates. Your characters aren’t celibate, but you never show anything more physically intimate than kissing and cuddles. I don’t think people need warning that you are a kissing book.

    Harmony: But I read somewhere that adult romance ALWAYS has on-page sex.

    Me: I’ve seen people claim that too. It’s false. A lot of romance readers do like seeing on-page sex, but since I’m not one of them, I saw no reason to force myself to write those scenes. I can’t imagine I’d do a very good job of it regardless.

    A Melody of Shining Stars: Sorry to interrupt, but I was under the impression you’d be working on me today.

    Me: Yes! I need to make some tea, then I will do that! I’ll just be going over scenes you already have today, but I’ll be adding new ones by the end of the week.

    Harmony: Don’t forget to keep telling people about me, though!

    Me: I won’t. In fact, I’ll post this conversation to the blog while the tea steeps! I think I’ll even share it to the mailing list!

    Harmony: Huzzah!

    a line of purple snowflakes