BESTSELLING “ROMANCE” NOVELIST HAS NEVER HAD SEX!
By Adelaide James
I n recent years, bestselling author Summer Taylor-Braddon has made quite the headlines. Her biggest publicity efforts of course have been the scripted disappearance of her husband Ruari Braddon on their honeymoon in Lombok. Taylor-Braddon alleges that her beloved went missing during the catastrophic tsunami that hit Indonesia’s islands in July 2017, but the wool isn’t as easy to pull over all our eyes.
Summer Taylor-Braddon has pulled off quite the remarkable feat. She has managed to stay out of prison, despite her criminal activities. She has even managed to write another shelf of bestsellers—all now firmly in the romance genre.
Reading The Saga of Me and Him —which, let’s face it, is an awful name—one might think that Taylor-Braddon herself must have had the best lived love story ever. Yet a source close to the author has just revealed exclusively to me that Summer Taylor-Braddon is asexual.
This, more than anything, proves that Taylor-Braddon is a fraud and a liar. Not just in terms of what really happened to Ruari Braddon, but in her whole career as a writer. How can someone as cold and unfeeling as Taylor-Braddon write romance? Yet she had us all hooked in by her books.
A startling discovery, many of you will agree—but it has made me think more critically about Ruari Braddon’s role in all of this. Previously, I wasn’t too sure whether Ruari was part of Taylor-Braddon’s plans willingly or not. Was he a cunning man willing to hide out for years or was he a victim, his body discarded in the ocean by Taylor-Braddon?
Now, however, I feel most sorry for Ruari Braddon, as I am sure many of you also will. With this revelation about Summer Taylor-Braddon’s sexuality, we now find that Ruari Braddon was definitely a victim. A poor man trapped in a sexless and loveless marriage, where even his most basic needs were not being met.
Yet it also brings a new angle to Taylor-Braddon’s story. This woman is clearly very unwell and needs psychiatric help. Not just with her compulsive lying and criminality, but she needs to see someone about her lack of sex drive. After all, that really can’t be healthy, can it? And maybe this lack of sex drive is the root of all her problems.
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S ummer Taylor-Braddon : That was the article that really hurt me the most. The blatant acephobia in it.
Adelaide James : As a journalist, I have a duty of care to the public. I have to expose the lies and corruption in society.
Summer Taylor-Braddon : You got hate mail, after publishing that article, if I understand it rightly?
Adelaide James : I did. Many LGBTQIA+ people and activists weren’t too happy with me.
Summer Taylor-Braddon : You know, that actually cheered me up a bit. Knowing that the queer community could see what a horrid person you were.
Adelaide James : I hold my hands up freely now, that publishing that article, in that way, was wrong. I admit my mistakes, unlike some people. But at the time, I did not understand asexuality. I thought it was an unnatural thing.
Summer Taylor-Braddon : And you thought I’d trapped Ruari in a sexless marriage.
Adelaide James : You had. I still stand by that now. I don’t believe any of what you’ve said about him being asexual as well.
Summer Taylor-Braddon : Why?
Adelaide James : It’s too convenient. Why not tell the world this several years ago, when your asexuality made headlines?
Summer Taylor-Braddon : Because unlike you, I have a problem with outing people. And that article you wrote, outing me, this was just a convenient way for you to try and stay relevant—attacking me and circulating a third theory about why I was the villain. Saying he’d staged his own disappearance to get away from me.
And, of course Mum found out I was ace because of you. She sat me down and asked if it was true. Her voice was so soft, and she seemed really worried.
I said, “It doesn’t matter.”
She said, “Did you not feel able to tell me?”
“I didn’t think it was a big deal,” I said, only that was a lie. All along, my asexuality had been my secret because it was a big deal. I was scared of ignorant and hateful reactions from people like you, Adelaide.
But Mum was supportive. She didn’t understand it, but she was supportive. There for me, like always.
Adelaide James : So, I understand you never dated anyone else during this time Ruari was... away?
Summer Taylor-Braddon : No, I didn’t.
A couple of times, over the next few years, Mum asked me if I wanted to talk to people online. I thought she meant more therapists, but turned out she meant dating sites.
Meet another man.
“No,” I said. “You didn’t. You never dated after Dad died.”
“I knew that he had passed away though,” she said. “It was different.”
“No—you had closure , and still you didn’t,” I pointed out.
She nodded and never mentioned it again, but it really got me thinking. What if I did try and date again—not now, of course. But in the future. Ten years’ time or something.
Then I felt angry, sad, guilty.
Nothing could compare to what me and Ruari had.
And Ruari, he was still out there.
[Silence for three seconds]
Summer Taylor-Braddon : I often wondered what I’d do if his body was found. It seemed unlikely now, all these years later, but I kept thinking about it, conjuring up the whole scene, scenario in my head. Coming up with dialogue and different reactions for me.
But I could never actually tell what would happen. Would I lose it completely?
Would I be compelled to drown myself?
Or would I move on with my life, having got the closure that everyone seemed to think I needed.
But the only closure I wanted was that he was still alive.
If he was dead, I knew I wouldn’t be able to cope, whether I was living or not.
And it was wrong of me to imagine a life where I might meet someone else—because they wouldn’t be Ruari. They wouldn’t be the love of my life. And I’d always be comparing this new person to him.
That wouldn’t be fair on either of us.
But then... Then we heard the news that I’d been living for, hoping for, dreaming for. I was actually recording an interview for a podcast. Just in Time had released the month before. I was chatting to a man called Brent, talking about Christmas cheer and trying to sound really happy, even though I had a killer headache and really bad period pains—the kind that just make it hard to sit up and think coherently. And then my phone started blowing up. So many calls—some from withheld numbers, but then after ten minutes—I was still chatting to Brent, trying to sound jolly—my mum was phoning me too.
It was 8 th October 2023. Ruari Braddon, my husband, had been found.
Ruari Braddon, my husband, was alive.