His Secret Illuminations by Scarlett Gale

Lucían is honored and awestruck and intimidated all at once and he wants to always feel this way, never wants to stop. Look at this man! He embodies scared and aroused. It jolts straight to his groin and he freezes, heart skittering in his chest.' 'I am, after all, still the She-Wolf.' Her bared teeth snap next to his ear, and she rumbles a growl that he feels through his entire body. She leans in close to his face, her eyes boring into his. This soft uwu boi blushes at almost everything the She-wolf does due to his sheltered monk life. Lucían is the cinnamon roll to rule all cinnamon rolls. Share! Hers! She meant the horse! Lucían blushes furiously, hoping it's not too visible between his darker skin tone and already being red from the cold. When did you last see a heroine carrying her man? When?! Then the She-Wolf just leans down, grabs him under the armpits and hefts him up onto the saddle like he weighs absolutely nothing Have you been looking for a woman who knows how to handle a sword? Here.

Have you been looking for romance with a woman taller than the man? Here it is! Have you been looking for big, strong women? Well, here she is. His head barely comes up to the level of her armpit and he swears his waist is about the same size as either of her muscular thighs So I am here to aggressively try and get my GR friends to read it.

This book has too few ratings on the GR page. Lucían is clearly kinky but has no frame of reference for it and that's what the couple will undoubtedly be discovering / working through in the next book, aside from the adventure they'll be on. I'm hoping it gets more into Glory's head and fleshes out her character, because as other reviewers have noted she's a bit too perfect in this book - but I attribute much of that to Lucían's intense and inexperienced adoration.

The first book ends in an HFN, though, so no cliffhanger worries. I'm looking forward to the sequel to this duology. I felt like all of that was handled with the gravity it merited. There's a lot in here about conservative Christianity's sexuality shaming, because of Lucían's upbringing in an abusive conservative monastery.

(Not lying.) I didn't realize when I picked it up that the She-Wolf, whose real name is Glory, is what I would describe as pan from how she talks about herself. It's all from Lucían's POV and his character voice is so fantastic that I had to put it down for a few days because I was jealous. Queer F/M fantasy romance that pairs a shy, slight archivist monk named Lucían with a tall, strapping warrior woman called the She-Wolf in an alternate historical fantasy Europe with different names for countries and cultures, and also with magic and unicorns.

His Secret Illuminations by Scarlett Gale