With older Laura emotionally guarded, and ever-experimenting Anne experiencing a lot of firsts, there is a very different dynamic between the two. She is into women and begins dating Laura, a concert-going lesbian who fangirlsįor the record, Anne and Laura’s relationship is not a copy-paste of Ally and Lisa’s. Sexual-experimentation-centred friendship develops, metalhead Anne has realised Although touched on in the first SunstoneĪrc, the reader gets to re-experience in-depth Alan and Ally’s initial meetingĪnd bonding over their secret interest in BDSM. Part 1 leaps back several years before the events of Sunstone to Alan and Anne’s That baggage is exactly what Mercy rummages through, and The thing is, by the time their paths cross properly, both Alan and Anne are romantically jaded, weighed down by a ton of emotional baggage from failed relationships. Rather, this particular story arc (which will reportedly unfold over a couple of volumes) explores exactly how Sunstone’s primary male character finally finds love with Anne, a bisexual tattoo artist and another key supporting player from the original series. The great news is that LGBT content isn’t neglected at all in Sunstone: Mercy. Mercy sounded like it would be a return to the representation norm, although with kinky flavour and appealing characters to keep the boredom at bay. As likeable as Alan is – he’s a hundred and fifty shades removed from Christian Grey – and as curious as I was for Šejić’s take on the far more common male dom-female sub dynamic, I was also disinterested in seeing a straight romance unfold on the page, screen etc. As far as I knew, the part spin-off, part-prequel, part-sequel would centre on Ally’s best friend Alan, a male dom with a disastrous romantic history that made him wary of ever trying to incorporate BDSM into his relationships again. 6), I wasn’t as enthusiastic as I was with the previous books.

Picking up Sunstone: Mercy (technically Sunstone Vol. With a happy ending *wink* secured for these friends-turned-lovers, how could Šejić possibly recapture the magic with any follow-up? Especially since the Croatian comics creator had promised future books in the series would shift the focus to other supporting members of the Sunstone cast. After all, in Volume 5, writer-artist Stjepan Šejić concluded the unconventional romance of computer programmer (and fledgling dominatrix) Ally and writer submissive Lisa.

I honestly didn’t expect to enjoy Mercy, the sixth volume of adults-only comic Sunstone, as much as I did.

Sunstone, Vol. 2 by Stjepan Šejić