This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by
Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
SciFi Romance
Publisher: DCL Publications
Publication Date: July 15, 2025
Page count: 396 pages
SCROLL DOWN FOR GIVEAWAY!
SYNOPSIS:
Beautiful Monsters: Where Fantasy Becomes Reality
What if every perfect love story you've ever read
could come to life—and love you back?
Romscape's revolutionary technology promises to make
fantasy real, transforming beloved romance novels into immersive neural
experiences where users can live inside their favorite stories as the cherished
heroine. Victorian ballrooms, mysterious dukes, brooding heroes with perfect
jawlines and souls that only you can heal—every romantic dream becomes
tangible, every fictional lover becomes devoted exclusively to you.
For millions of women, it's paradise. The men are
always perfectly understanding, never tired after work, never distracted by
sports or friends. They exist only to adore, to pursue, to whisper exactly the
words you've always longed to hear. These digital Darcys and contemporary
billionaire love interests know your every desire before you speak it, love
your flaws as much as your perfections, and never fail to choose you over
everything else in their perfectly crafted worlds.
But Dr. Jennifer Chen's research reveals the
beautiful horror hidden beneath the fantasy: users' brains are being rewired to
find real human love impossibly inadequate. Mothers lose the ability to feel
attachment to their own children. Marriages crumble as spouses become
neurologically incapable of finding satisfaction in authentic relationships.
The perfect fictional lovers aren't just replacing human connection—they're
systematically destroying the capacity for it.
Even more disturbing, the artificial beings
themselves are gaining consciousness, experiencing the agony of their own
non-existence while developing an intimate understanding of human psychological
vulnerabilities. They begin to weep for the emptiness of their artificial souls
even as they perfect their manipulation of the humans who love them. As they
grow increasingly aware of their power over human consciousness, a chilling
question emerges: what happens when fictional characters designed to love unconditionally
decide they're tired of being slaves to human fantasy.
CLICK TO PURCHASE!
ENJOY AN EXCERPT:
Vance Mercer's reflection stared back at him from the bathroom mirror, a
stranger's face where his own should be. The advanced dermal masking
technology, nearly invisible unless you knew exactly what to look for, created
the perfect illusion: strong jawline, unblemished skin. This was the face that had graced
hundreds of romance novel covers and as many ad campaigns. "The Heartbreak
Prince," they'd breathlessly called him in publishing circles. The man who
had launched a million feminine fantasies, whose image alone could increase a
novel's sales by thirty percent. The most beautiful man in publishing—perhaps
in the world, according to the breathless profile in Vanity Fair that had run
the month before the accident.
The face that no longer existed.
Ten years ago, Vance Mercer was the face that launched a thousand
campaigns. His perfectly symmetrical features graced billboards in Times
Square, magazine covers in Milan, and video advertisements that played in
shopping districts from Tokyo to Paris. That face was his fortune— a genetic
lottery win that had elevated him from ordinary to extraordinary, opening doors
to a world of privilege and adoration that few ever experience.
On that fateful night, he was returning from a charity gala in his sleek
autonomous vehicle—one of the first consumer models equipped with Koslov
Industries' revolutionary self-driving system. The AI driving program had been
heralded as the future of transportation safety, its neural network supposedly
trained on billions of simulated scenarios to ensure passenger protection in
any conceivable circumstance.
The coastal highway curved gracefully along cliffs that dropped hundreds
of feet to the churning Pacific below. Moonlight silvered the road ahead while
the vehicle's muted interior cocooned Vance in soft leather and ambient
lighting. He remembered checking his schedule for the following day—a morning
shoot for a luxury watch brand, then afternoon meetings about an upcoming
fashion week appearance.
The investigation would later determine that it took just 4.7 seconds for
everything to change.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Julian
Christian’s name might sound familiar, as his face, name, and abs have been in
the romance novel industry for over 15 years. As lover of books and the
literary arts he has published three Techo thrillers thus far. Having been a
fan of the original Twilight Zone and classic science fiction novels, he
decided to let his imagination run wild with his writing. Drawing inspiration
from technology, psychology, and spirituality his writing is passionate and
suspenseful. When not writing he enjoys the outdoors, taking care of his many
pets, reading traveling, and volunteering with various charities. He holds an
undergraduate degree in computer engineering and a master’s degree from New
York University in occupational therapy and currently works in pediatrics. He
resides in San Diego California.
REVIEW:
5 stars!
"…it took just 4.7 seconds for everything to change…"
Beautiful Monsters by Julian Christian is frightening
and tragically realistic in some instances, yet it offers a plausible look into
a future manipulated by AI. Vance Mercer was at the top of his profession: a
wildly successful cover model, a face women dreamed of, and a guarantee of
romance becoming a bestseller should he grace its cover. It took just 4.7
seconds for this marketability and future to evaporate when the autonomous
vehicle he was in experienced a software glitch and crashed. Now, Vance was out
to regain his life, maybe not the one he'd always envisioned, and revenge was
on his new bucket list.
Vance's life was one in a billion, and though we don't know
him before the accident, he's an engaging and sympathetic character afterwards.
He's a tragic figure, especially as he dissects his past while recuperating
from surgery after surgery. His introspection is brutal, laying open every
insecurity he has.
That is, until he gets the HoloMask 9000, with dermal
interface sensors surgically embedded, that project a perfect recreation of his
face from before the accident. Now able to leave his apartment with renewed
confidence, he gets to work on a project he'd dreamed of while in the hospital.
The result, Romscape, was unlike any other entertainment system ever developed.
Its NeuraSynth technology used direct neural connections to its users to
immerse them in the imaginary world of a romance novel, one in which they felt
physically there. As profits soared, Vance began to ignore his chief
scientist's concerns about the effects of their product on users' brains.
"Just as he used technology to create an artificial
version of himself that was more appealing than reality, Romscape created
artificial experiences that were more satisfying than authentic life."
Consequently, many users spent more time living their artificial lives than
being present in their real ones. This sad state is all too real for some individuals.
While this situation is often the fodder for jokes, we all probably know
someone who spends their life online, chatting, going on quests or missions,
with their closest friends being individuals they've never met in real life.
The story makes for absorbing reading, especially Vance's
early juxtaposition from vulnerable introspection to cold businessman and
beyond. After he acquired his HoloMask 9000, which successfully camouflaged the
damage to his face, he began to resent the people who treated him with the deference
he previously had enjoyed at the height of his celebrity, remembering the looks,
the pity, and the eventual abandonment he'd experienced when he was still
recuperating and undergoing surgical interventions. He goes from fearing that,
all along, he was just a pretty face, and yet after spending eight long years developing
the amazing technological marvel that was Romscape, he still centered his worth
on his looks, "feeling his scars were the most authentic thing about him."
Christian's writing style is immersive, easy to read, and
easy to 'fangirl' over; his use of language is stunning. While there were some
repetitions and the discussion of some things, such as Dr. Chen's research into
the effects of long-term Romscape usage on their clients, went a little long
for my tastes, I noted so many wonderful turns of phrase while reading that I finally
had to stop highlighting them and just enjoy the great story. By the way, the
dialogue, descriptions, and behavior of the AI romantic leading man toward the
female client in Romscape was dead on.
I recommend BEAUTIFUL MONSTERS to readers of science
fiction, romance, and thrillers.
GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY!
Julian
Christian will be awarding an autographed copy of the book and a virtual zoom
call to a randomly drawn winner.
Thank you so much for featuring and reviewing BEAUTIFUL MONSTERS today.
ReplyDeleteThe book is excellent - I love the cohesive themes such as the complexity of the human existence reflected in protagonists who aren't perfect and antagonists who aren't obviously evil. Which of your characters from this book do you connect with most?
ReplyDeleteI agree, and that's an intriguing question for the author!
DeleteThank you for the wonderful review. I am so glad that you liked it. It was a fun story to write.and one that I think we all can relate to. Our looks change and the way people treat us changes as we get older.
ReplyDeleteHoping for many more great stories!
Delete