I love just about everything this author creates but THIS. This book hit me hard and right to the heart.

It's beautiful and it's painful. It's smart and creative. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time and I cried often. I feel so much of myself in Alex and Olive. Parts of myself I've hated and parts of myself I need to love more. This is the kinda book that reminds me why I love books and why I love to write. A sci-fi adventure turned stark reality. You've never read a book quiet like this before.

Constelis Voss Vol. 1 — eBook Direct

An artist creates because they want to say something. The Constelis Voss series and all of its ensuing books, Empty of Nothing, Indigo Voss, and now Pink Olive, are about many things - queerness, pain, joy, family, nostalgia - but at their core they are about the author Kira Leigh. They are about his journey and the parts of himself and his friends he imbued into our beloved gang of superpowered misfits particularly ex-mobster assassin Alex Voss and the cute but secretly brilliant Olivia "Olive" Lawrence.

Indigo Voss served as a way to map out Alex Voss's trauma and create a way for him to avoid his inevitable fate in the Constelis Voss books because time travel shenanigans.

Pink Olive takes that trauma and becomes a reckoning of that trauma. Framed by Olive's power of time manipulation, the story skips around to different parts of the past, even touching the future. It starts as a story about saving the world and saving Alex. But it changes and morphs alongside Olive's perception of time.

Pink Olive becomes about how Alex and Olive save and forgive each other. It becomes how the author saves and forgives himself.

We see two parallel journeys that started on a space station in a far future but soon it becomes clear that they are the same journey and they end at the same destination.

It is a meditation about recognizing your trauma, seeing the fallout of your trauma responses, and forgiving yourself.

These books have always been about getting through to the other side with trauma, to survive it and live with it.

This one in particular features a profound breakthrough of the author finding his way to the other side of his pain. It becomes a joyful exaltation that you, the reader, will survive it too. You may have been broken but you can be fixed again. You can fly again. You will be okay.

The whole series from Constelis Voss: Color Theory to here should be read so people who need this message can absorb it. Not enough people who suffer trauma know that they can survive it, but Kira Leigh proudly proclaims with Daft Punk and Kate Bush somehow blasting in the background that you can. You can do it. Please read this book!

There’s an odd sense of finality to this book, to where we’re along for the ride with familiar characters through familiar settings from the Constelis Voss series, although through a different, pink-tinged perspective.

Alex got a sense of closure in INDIGO VOSS, but this book is different, and Olive is a character we needed to inhabit to get this different perspective. There are scenes that are downright difficult, like ones from her childhood, or trying to balance a relationship with the invincible Alex skipping rocks at the end of the world when Olive just doesn’t want to let go. Not yet.

There’s a power to how this book takes trauma, utilizes the superhero tropes and idea of time traveling as an attempt to reconcile with said trauma and try to forge ahead into a better future. I’m not going to lie and say this is a fun, easy read, because it’s not. That isn’t to say it’s not entertaining, because it is, but know it feels like Olive is, at times, grabbing you by the ears and clacking some gum while she stares into your eyes and unloads, all while telling you that you aren’t alone.

I can’t recommend this enough.

I can't describe how much I loved this book and the other books by Kira as well. Her raw vulnerability throughout Pink Olive sculpted this book into one of the most important pieces of writing to ever grace my eyes. I love that the characters are wild and silly, yet completely relatable at the same time. The metaphors, the parallels, the craftsmanship of the prose are a true testament to Kira's innate storytelling ability, and I am HERE for it. Her exploration of sexuality, vulnerability, morality, and the dark recesses of the human mind leave me hanging on her every word. Pink Olive and Kira's other books would make a fantastic addition to anyone's bookshelf, seriously. I highly look forward to future releases.

Pink Olive was a gift; I found it an incredibly therapeutic read. It spoke to the despairing little girl in me who felt irreparably broken, incompatible with the world, and doomed by her past.

I'm going to miss Alex and Olivia, but the beauty of this conclusion brought me to tears. They helped reformat my brain a bit, and they'll always be my superheroes, fighting brainworms day to day.

I dove headfirst into this fast-paced fantasy by starting with Constelis Voss Vol 2. I wanted to see how it all started, so I hurried to buy Vol 1. Not that this story doesn't transport you to earlier eras, but it was so intriguing that I was curious to learn more. Did I find this book enjoyable? Indeed! Although it was out of the ordinary for me, I'm glad I took the chance. You will undoubtedly enjoy the ride, so come on and board the crazy and wild train!

Loved it… the story, the colour and rhythm of the language, fantastic … definitely going in for Vol 2

As vivid and breathtaking as the first volume, I was once again completely taken into the world of Constellis Voss. With a focus on characters histories, and relationships I've found my self deeply I love with more then one character. And topped off with jaw dropping twists THAT ARE MAKING ME LOSE MY MIND IN THE BEST WAY!!!!!!

It's kind of ironic that alot of scifi glosses over the human aspect of the dystopian vison the author puts forth. That is not the case with Indigo Voss. It's right in your face and you have to deal with it.

Where do I start? This book moved me to tears! The cast is as dynamic as ever and never strayed from their own stances on social issues. Kira did an excellent job with this book! I like how it ended realistically and all of the cast are able to live their own lives and be happy. I hope to see more of this universe that I’ve come to love. I recommend this book to anyone who’s a sci-fi lover.

This book is incredibly intense at all times and that is very much modern queerness.

I'm not going to talk about the plot because where this book shines is the consistent tone of the narrator.

It's this "been there done that" voice that describes sex, the transition of gender, alternate realities, and everything.

It's exceptional in that way to start. Imagine if the coolest person you ever knew told you the coolest story you every heard.

And you are also very queer. Hearing the queer version of Luke Skywalker tell you not only are you not alone but you aren't crazy.

Indigo Voss is about the gun-toting, knife-waving, throat-tearing, a-moral moments of violence and betrayal in the curated memories of Alex Voss in pursuit of a life worth living.
It is also about the spaces between despair, where we can find things worth living for; sometimes another person, sometimes a moment of passion, and sometimes a particularly colorful sky.

This story is as heavy with metaphorical rebirth as it is with literal death,
Rebirth is something I feel is pivotal to the queer experience and central to the immigrant and diaspora experience, aspects I felt I could relate to (myself being those things).
Killing yourself in all the ways just shy of in the literal sense to learn who (and what) you are.
Returning yourself from the fringes and dark spaces you were forced in to, realized and unashamed.

Indigo Voss goes hard from the start and the underlying feeling is told in a way that speaks loudly from a familiarity with the subject; something I think many authors try for but don’t have the experience to draw on (or the self awareness to recognize stories they have no business telling). In this case I felt the story brought a secluding and visceral reminder to the reader of where they’ve been (or are); and simultaneously an endearing (and I pray with every piece of myself, achievable) promise that things could be better.

I heartily recommend Indigo Voss and look forward to the prospect of seeing future works by K. Leigh.

This book meant a lot to me. Its themes of feeling disconnected from society, of identity and being lost, of being transactional because that’s what was tortured into you resonated strongly with me. I also absolutely should mention how important it is to the story that Alex is trans.
I just can't see myself in the innocent farmer's son who goes with the bearded wise man to find a sword and become king. Honestly, I don't trust them, I don’t like them, and I was never, ever innocent enough to do either. But a first-person narrator who constantly tells me how much they hate being manipulative, while being manipulative toward me; who tells me how vile they are while also being kind of proud of it; who so desperately wants me to love or at least understand them while also not giving a fuck? I’ll happily let them live rent-free in my head forever. That’s what Indigo Voss delivers, and then some.
I have a comparison for you, not about the kind of book this is (or reminds me of), but about the style it is written in. It's been a while since I watched Angel Heart, and my long-term memory is one of the victims of too many depression-related ECTs. But I do remember the impression the movie made in my brain. The feelings of a feverish, manic, fractured narrative that was less told and more inserted - under great pressure - into my skull. That’s how Indigo Voss read to me.
While reading Indigo Voss, it sometimes felt like a different kind of performance I invented in my head. An actor, standing alone on a small stage, in a small club, screaming, crying, laughing, winking the whole text as a monologue directly at me.

Indigo Voss asks the question: who is Alex Voss?
If you read the author's preceding books the Constellis Voss trilogy, you probably have a good idea. But for newcomers, he is complete mystery.

In this novel, Kira Leigh takes us through a hellish beginning where a genre is battled and the embers of hope are crushed beneath the foot of a persistent pervading threat.
The second act introduces (technically reintroduces) Alex's chosen family of flawed misfits and how they band together with a touch of manipulation in 1990s New York City.
And finally, the third act bends and distorts everything with an ending that struggles against the predestination chosen for the protagonist.

This is about the life of Alex Voss, but it is also about his death. The specter of his death looms over the whole story. And yet the protagonist resists fate. The chosen family resists fate.
It is a struggle that yields immeasurable hope in a world of obscene darkness.

This story lacks the trappings of a scifi world centuries beyond our world, but it does not need it. The author presents a dogged determination to break the pattern to create a second chance. Indeed, it shows how "something awesome" can change everything.
It's very much the same message as Constellis Voss with a different package and wrapping, but it's the same message which cannot be said enough: If we band together, we can overcome those who exploit the exploitable and seize happiness from those who hoard it.

Both Indigo Voss and Constellis Voss go together like peanut butter and chocolate - they complement each other profoundly and yet can exist apart as equally delicious pieces of art.
I greatly recommend you read both to really get the optimum experience from this world, this character, and this pathos and ethos presented by the author.

The content itself can be harsh and unflinching so it is very much not for everyone. Depictions of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse run throughout the story - but for a very good purpose. This is not a pulp novel but a real shot at creating art that represents a tortured individual in a bittersweet world. But, again, not for everyone so just be careful if it's not to your taste. (not everyone likes peanut butter and chocolate, but that's okay!)