Yours Celestially by Al Hess
After divorce, death, and having his reformatted soul uploaded into a new body, Sasha expected resurrection to be a fresh start. His time spent in digital Limbo with the program's cheeky AI guardian angel, Metatron, was cathartic, but what good is a second life when he only sees his daughter on the weekends, he has all the same problems he had before he died, and he can't seem to shake the ache for the married life he lost?
If that weren't frustrating enough, a glitch in the program has given Sasha the ability to sense Metatron even outside of Limbo. And Metatron is in love. The angel's sickly-sweet yearning for one of the souls still in Limbo has turned Sasha's stomach into caramelized lead. It's hard enough to move on without someone else's feelings making the emptiness in his own life even more acute. He didn't have playing wingman to an actual winged being on his bingo card, but he's determined to help Metatron make a move on their crush so he can get love off of his mind.
Sasha takes a job with the resurrection company in order to covertly contact Metatron. Except Sasha's new coworker, Mr. C, keeps showing up at the worst moments. The man is annoying, he's pushy... and he's incredibly hot. Sasha can't decide whether Mr. C wants to blackmail him or be his new BFF, but he seems to know things about Metatron and the resurrection program that Sasha doesn't. Getting close to him might be the key to solving Sasha's problem, but if he isn't careful, he's going to end up catching feelings of his own.
PUBLISHER: Kraken Collective
YEAR: 2023
LENGTH: 280 pages
AGE: Adult
GENRE: Science Fiction, Romance
RECOMMENDED: Highly
Queer Rep Summary: Gay/Achillean Secondary Character(s) , Genderqueer/Nonbinary Main Character(s), Ace/Aro Main Character(s).
YOURS CELESTIALLY is a character-focused and extremely thoughtful story from the perspective of a guy on his second life and the angel-based artificial intelligence, Metatron, who watches over all the consciousnesses in Limbo. Limbo itself is in limbo due to a lawsuit from a transphobic family who were upset that when resurrected their child came back in a body which suited her, rather than the ill-fitting body she was born with. The lawsuit and its status is in the background are much on the characters minds, but, as far as I could tell none of the people directly involved with the lawsuit, actually show up as characters. Complicating things for the main character is that Metaton's thoughts and feelings are bleeding over into the minds of some of the people who are on their second life. Metatron is falling in love with an autistic man in Limbo, and as Metatron's feelings become more pronounced and chaotic as his mood changes based on how long he has to wait to see the man again, the Resurrected on the outside (who only have those feelings to go on) are talking to each other and can tell something is happening with Metatron.
It's been a long time since I read such a calm and soothing book that dealt with such difficult topics. YOURS CELESTIALLY doesn't shy away from them, but keeps the deeply traumatic moments in the past, focusing now on the characters as they deal with them. There was a car accident that is deeply important to where things are now, but no descriptions of current carnage or brutality. The closest it comes is when one of the characters in Limbo processes what happened by trying to shock Metatron with virtual blood, gore, and violence. The main character's drug addiction is related to a kind of substance and delivery method which exists only in this book and doesn't have the kind of details which would teach someone how to actually do drugs. It fits the shape of real addictions and struggles with drug abuse, but is removed from reality in a way that keeps it from being how-to manual.
This is a really well told story with great characters, I highly recommend it for anyone who is interested in stories dealing with what happens when the worst is over and you have to keep on living.
If you like this you may like:
- World Running Down by Al Hess
- Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell
Moderate CW for transphobia, religious bigotry, alcohol, drug abuse, drug use, emotional abuse, blood, gore, violence, car accident, injury detail, murder, death.
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