Bones of Green and Hearts of Gold

Cover image for Bones of Green and Hearts of Gold: Non-Asexual Aro Stories by K. A. Cook. Cover features a tree landscape background with a grassy foreground, tinted to resemble the greens descending into golds hues of the allo-aro flag. A sun sits in the top right corner and a green banner, bearing text reading the author's name, sits at the bottom of the cover, surrounded by ivy leaves and trailing vines. The cover title is written in black handdrawn script with the words green and gold in their respective colours. A cross-hatching frame in the colours of the allo-aro flag surrounds the cover.A princess flees her betrothed in search of a witch willing to entrap her within a tower. Rowan yearns to be out and proud as an aromantic, but other people’s misapprehensions—and his own anxiety—hamper his quest. A woman expresses her wish for unfettered sexual intimacy, despite her mother’s desperate romantic expectations. For another pansexual, the route to freedom from amatonormativity lies in accepting monstrosity’s fur and fangs. Suki finds aromantic freedom inside the priesthood’s cloisters, but even a rebellious life leaves her at a loss when ministering to her own. And the words “allosexual aromantic” offer a struggling magician hope of a new road—but one not without its dangers.

Bones of Green and Hearts of Gold collects twenty fantasy and contemporary stories celebrating the many ways aromanticism need not always pair with asexuality.

Contains: Allosexual aros; aros without reference to sexual attraction identities; transgender and non-binary aros; queer aros; autistic aros; neurodiverse aros; loveless aros; aro magicians; and an aro great-aunt who won’t let death stop her from dispensing needed advice.

Links: PDF (read in browser) | Patreon

PDF, EPUB and MOBI editions are available for download from Patreon.

Length: 86, 000+ words / 280 PDF pages.

This free story collection encompasses much of the last three years of my participating in and writing for the aromantic community. While I have included a couple of stories with narrating protagonists who don’t specify their attraction identities as anything but “aromantic”, the majority of stories focus on allosexual aromantic protagonists, characters and experiences. Most stories will not be suitable for readers repulsed by casual/non-explicit sex references, depictions of sexual attraction or descriptions of physical intimacy.

Stories include:

For a complete listing of individual blurbs, story lengths, alternate publication links and individual content advisories, please see the Bones of Green and Hearts of Gold master page on Aro Worlds.