On the asexuality content scale (1 = ‘By the way, I’m asexual’ and asexuality is never mentioned again, 10 = a story all about asexuality and little else) I would rate this story as a 4. The rest of the story is all right, I just don’t have much to say about it. What really got my attention in this story was the asexuality part of it. Obviously, the religion of the ‘faith full’ is fictional. In order to avoid spoilers, I have to be vague, so I will just say that there is a significant amount of violence in the story. There are awkward discussions of sex (the faith full are uncomfortable about talking about sex directly) but otherwise no sexual content. What Sexual and/or Violent Content Does This Story Have, If Any? Meanwhile, the god is waking up, and that is far more important than any frivolous concerns Ennaline may have about personal relationships. She is willing to do it to serve the god, but she fears, do to her coldness, she will not be a good wife. She knows that she will most likely be engaged to marry one (or both) of the Piedmont twins, who all the other girls wish they could marry. She knows that, unlike other girls her age, she is ‘cold’ – she has no interest in kissing or marrying boys. Somewhere in the middle of the United States (possibly the Midwest or Oklahoma or Texas), Ennaline, who is fourteen years old, has spent her whole life among the faith full and has dedicated her life to the god.

This is part of my series of reviews of fiction published by Harmony Ink Press featuring asexual characters.

Cold Ennaline by R.J. Astruc