I Can’t Wait For…Nine-Tenths by J.M. Frey

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted over at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about but haven’t yet read. Most of the time they’re books that have yet to be released, but not always. It’s based on the Waiting on Wednesday meme, which was originally hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. 

You can find the releases I’m most anticipating this year over on my Unmissable list, but I use Can’t-Wait Wednesday to feature books I’m hopeful about but aren’t as sure of.

This week my Can’t-Wait-For Book is Nine-Tenths by J.M. Frey!

Nine-Tenths by J.M. Frey
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Published on: 30th June 2025
Goodreads

Colin Levesque is at loose ends. He's finished university, but has no career; he adores romance novels, but he's crap at relationships; and his prickliness is a detriment at the café where he's making ends meet. He also has a crush on his regular Dav, a homo draconis who comes in every morning to read his newspaper, sip his double-strong coffee, and stare longingly at Colin in return.

So it figures that the day Colin gets up the courage to do something about the sexual tension simmering between them, he also learns that Dav has an embarrassing habit of hiccupping fire when he's nervous. Which, in this case, destroys the fancy custom-made bean roaster. When Dav volunteers to take over the coffee roasting with his fire-breath, being squished together in the hot, cramped kitchen leads to even hotter kisses.

Everything's finally happening for Colin—until people start claiming the dragon-roasted coffee has cured their genetic ailments. As their budding relationship struggles under the scrutiny of scientists and media, the hype around the coffee leads the lovers to be inducted into a centuries-old conspiracy: dragon-roasted food has always healed humans. And the most powerful draconic nobles have been withholding this symbiotic advantage to keep themselves on top. Colin and Dav are determined to expose the truth, but if they're not careful, their objections could goad power-mad monarchs into destroying everything they hold dear.
Including each other.

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I have loyally followed Frey from book to book (and genre to genre) since I first read Triptych back as a teenager, and I was GLEEFUL when I learned she was releasing Nine-Tenths! She always writes such interestingly odd stuff – she’s mentioned that trad publishers loved Nine-Tenths but had no idea how to sell it, and a) cowards but b) fair, I guess.

Because this – let’s see – is a Coffee Shop (not-)AU, in a contemporary fantasy setting, with (humanoid? shifter?) dragons, is definitely a (queer) romance, but has a magical mystery which is also a capitalist conspiracy, the resolution of which is probably going to be world-changing within its setting.

HAVE I MISSED ANYTHING?

I MEAN, PROBABLY, FREY ALWAYS HAS TWISTS UP HER SLEEVE, BUT I THINK THAT’S EVERYTHING IN THE BLURB AT LEAST.

So I can see why it’d be difficult to shelve this one! (Even if I still think the answer is to trust readers can handle a book being multiple things at once, publishers, TRY IT SOMETIME.)

Nine-Tenths is out for kindles at the end of next month; paperback and other ebook retailers in September.

You can read the first five chapters here!

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