“You are rude,” the woman said in Flowers of Luna, turning back to me, “and slow.” She put her hand on the hilt of her katana. “I wonder if such a slow, rude person has any friends?”

Growing up on a mining ship in deep space was lonely, but now Ran Gray has come to the moon to make a name for herself in fashion. When a chance encounter on Valentina bridge leads to cross words and crossed swords, Ran wonders… will she ever escape her family’s reputation? Did her opponent really just ask her out on a date? And if she did, what will Ran wear?

Flowers of Luna is forty-three kilowords of sapphic romance in a hard science fiction setting.

I received an eARC from the author, Jennifer Linsky, in exchange for an honest review.

Flowers of Luna, as advertised is all about a romance between two women – on the moon, with a lot of Japanese influence. What about that wouldn’t I want?

I really enjoyed this book from a character and plot perspective. Ran was nice, though she needed to learn to stick up for herself some more. George was endearingly strange. These characters all had way more sex than I thought was realistic, given they barely knew each other, but I’m asexual so my opinion is a little skewed.

I loved the way Linsky changed the terminology straight/bi/gay to polar/parallel/mirror-biased. It was a really interesting way to put it, and it fit the hard scientific setting that she was going for. I also loved that no bones were made about the characters genders or sexuality – this book even uses xe/xir pronouns for an androgynous character, with no weird comments. It was really refreshing.

From a world building perspective, I loved what we got to see of the world, but I wanted so much more of it. I loved that they discussed different gravities and how that would affect it, but I wanted more information about the history. What was the upheaval that they kept talking about? It was clearly some apocalyptic event, but it was never explained well. What happened? How did people end up living on the moon? How were people living for more than a century? How did the fabricators work? The world building in Flowers of Luna really just left me with tons of questions about how it worked, which I guess means I’ll need to read the next book!

All that being said, I didn’t love the romance. Hana was super shady, and Ran was too scared to truly communicate with her about anything. I was honestly a little upset with the ending, even though everyone was at least honest with each other at that point. I’ll be interested to see what happens next.

This was a three star read for me, for those reasons. It kept me interested, but didn’t answer nearly enough questions for me to be fully satisfied with it. However, this might be exactly the book you’re looking for. You can pick it up on Amazon on Feb. 3! 

~ Jennifer Linsky was born in Japan, but quickly whisked away to Southern Arizona. She grew up among saguaro cactus and jumping cholla, and ran away to sea at the age of nineteen.

In the years since, she attended Northern Arizona University’s School of Nursing, which led, bizarrely enough, to becoming a nurse. Now medically retired, Jenny lives in the American South with her mother, two gray cats, and a Seldom Mentioned Younger Brother.

Jenny writes when she must, reads when she can, and watches entirely too much Anime.