Not Kidding: There's A Book About a Woman Falling in Love With the Coronavirus
So we’re at that stage of the pandemic where we’re seeing art created during the lockdown period. Musicians are composing music, painters are painting, and writers are well, you get the idea. Whether or not they’re any good is often debatable, but what’s certain is that all of these artists are flexing their creative muscles while a deadly pandemic is wreaking havoc acros the planet.
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We’re all for creative freedom, but there’s at least one person who’s taking it a bit too far. A writer named MJ Edwards has actually authored what may very well be the first mainstream romance novel involving the coronavirus.
And when we say it involves the coronavirus, we mean exactly that.
“Dr. Alexa Ashingtonford is a part of a crack team of scientists tasked with finding the cure to the devastating Coronavirus,” the Goodreads synopsis says. “Little did she know she would end up falling in love with it, in this steamy viral-erotica.”
Yes, ladies and gentleman, this isn’t your run-of-the-mill romance novel that just happens to be set during this age of quarantines and constant hand-washing; it’s not one where the heroine must battle all odds to be with the man she loves. No sir. This novel has Dr. Alexa falling for—yes indeed—the virus itself.
How is that even possible, one might ask. Well, if you’re planning to get the book and don’t mind a little spoiler, it seems ‘rona got, erm, him(?)self injected into an actual human being—another scientist by the name of Dr. Gurtlychund—and proceeds to consume his host and becomes him.
In short, Dr. Gurtlychund dies and in his place is a living, breathing manifestation of COVID-19.
Some brave reviewers on Goodreads even let us in on a few priceless excerpts.
On the transformation: “In fact, all of him was… green. And he was covered in small, green bumps, which sciencey people like Alexa called spike proteins."
On Dr. Alexa’s first touch with…that thing: "The virus opened his hand and Alexa nestled her cheek into it. It was like laying on a warm, welcoming pillow. Soft and strong. Dreamy and happy. Some other nice things she couldn’t even describe. ?‘I’m sorry, Dr Gurtlychund,’ she whispered.
?‘He’s gone,’ said the virus. ‘I’m here now.’
‘What’s your name?’ she asked.
‘Call me Covid,’ he said."
On the, erm, sex: “And he spun her over, clamping his hands down on her ass, spreading her cheeks wide so he could thrust his warbling member deep into her pocket of ecstasy.”
Many of the other excerpts on review sites are way too racy for us here at Esquire, so the book is definitely not for the faint of heart (nor for the weak of spirit). In fact, the author, MJ Edwards, is the alter ego of a guy named Robert Winter, who says he primarily writes “gay contemporary fiction.”
“M.J. is the alter ego under which I get to explore a more erotic side of romance, with combinations of characters along the LGBTQ spectrum,” he says in his Goodreads profile. “The stories are light on angst, heavy on sex, and a happy ending for all is my goal.”
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This may be a case of “so bad it’s good,” but we’re not ready to make that call until we read it ourselves. (Don’t hold your breath though). But hey, in case you get yourself a copy (it’s available on Amazon), let us know what you think.
