Love Languages
by James Albon
TopShelfComix/IDW
May 2025
Publisher’s Summary:
Sarah Huxley has moved from London to Paris, only to find a lonely life of corporate drudgery and disappointment—a far cry from her romantic expectations of the city. She collides with Ping Loh, a young woman working as an au pair to a wealthy family of Hong Kong expats, and the two bond over their shared struggle with the French tongue.
In museums and markets, over text messages and translation apps, Ping and Sarah slowly begin to learn each other’s languages, communicating in a rich and ever-shifting blend of English, French, and Cantonese. As their friendship blooms, so does their private dialect—a personal linguistic patchwork, a shared secret just for them. But when their feelings for each other start to deepen, they discover that the simplest words to translate can be the hardest words to say.
In these sumptuously painted pages, award-winning graphic novelist James Albon (The Delicacy) presents a dazzling love story about cross-cultural connection, the bewildering sensation of feeling one’s brain rewrite itself, and the intoxicating rush of the foreign becoming familiar. — a 176-page, full-color, softcover graphic novel w/3″ French flaps (8″x 10″, Portrait).
Review:
It’s been quite some time since I’ve read a story that surprised and included romance. James Albon used vibrantly, loosely colored scenes filled with details about Sarah’s ex-pat British life in France when she meets Ping, a Hong Kong au pair.
It takes them 3 languages to meet, become friends, and fall in love. Albon draws the pretentious men with ugly features and shows Sarah’s expressions of how sexist and distasteful they are in the work place and out socializing. Besides constant misogyny at work, where she’s a manager, Sarah evolves to see the truth of what business and legal public relations are: words that mean nothing. Those empty words are contrary to the jumbled, unknown words Sarah is learning from Ping’s Cantonese which open a world inside her that she never explored before.
The colors play a key role and this would not be the same without them. Bold sunny yellow, fire engine red, and hues of blues and greens stand out. When Sarah is depressed, those primary bold colors are gone.
If you’ve ever been a situation surrounded by people speaking languages you don’t know, you will connect to that aspect as a reader. The growth of meeting someone new, nice, and different from those you’re normally around in a life-sucking job will connect to readers who love friends-to-romance. In this case, it happens to be queer romance which shouldn’t repel anyone. It doesn’t contain adult imagery. It’s suitable for readers interested in how language and art brings people together.
Rating: 5 stars
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of AmberUnmasked.com and Vodka O'Clock Podcast. Author of The Farrah Wethers Mysteries, comic book short stories, prose, and non-fiction. Cosplayer and figure model.