What a delightful dive into how to fall in love while navigating intergalactic empires is LOKI OF MIDGARD: How to get lost and found in one week, a love story by Sare Liz Anuszkiewicz. The Loki of the title is similar to the cunning Norse trickster god of mythology who 21-year-old college-student Abby Lanfier meets when 1,246 year-old Loki runs away from his home world of Asgard–he is beautiful and a little bit broken. In other words, he has issues. But since Abby has a few issues of her own, she doesn’t mind, and their immediate attraction gives a whole new meaning to the idea of May-September romance. The erotic scenes in this hefty novel are highly descriptive and energetically charged, while also often filled with touching compassion as these two spunky, somewhat wounded individuals from entirely different backgrounds learn to love one another.

Since Loki easily reads unshielded minds, readers are often treated to the hilarious thoughts going through Abby’s brain from Loki’s point of view. Such scenes can be particularly funny when, for instance, Abby has strong opinions about men who are unwilling to wear protective condoms, as Loki has no idea what the strange little wrapped package is or what it might be used for. The speech patterns and personal concerns deftly portray the vastly dissimilar life experiences of these two characters, while uniting them in obvious care for each other as Loki and Abby plot a course towards marrying quickly before any of a number of factions are able to thwart them being together. The dialog of ancient beings from Asgard effectively sounds quite different from what a 21-year-old Earth being is speaking/thinking. Of extra fascination are Clear Sky covert intelligence agency men lurking about, listening in on private conversations, which of course is no secret to telepathic Loki. So many parties seem to have agendas that are not particularly prioritizing he and Abby getting to just savor their love. But Loki may have a few tricks up his sleeve as well, because Abby is the one for him, and she is going to become Princess Abigail if he has anything to say about it.

He’s an ancient off-world god who used to look for love in all the wrong places, she’s an Earthly college student more familiar with the joys of a vibrator than being in romantic relationships, yet in the funny and quirky LOKI OF MIDGARD, Abby and Loki manage to find each other and connect, defying all odds.

~C.S. Holmes for IndieReader