Mikel Is the Funniest Man in the Galaxy and He Is About to Get Absolutely Humbled by Love — Shivan
The Deal Series, Book 4 · by Desiree Sandz · Told through the celestial's chapters · 18+
I need everyone to understand that Shivan opens with a grown man doing the helicopter in the shower, singing Rod Stewart at full volume, and getting jump-scared by a toilet flush. That's the first page. That is the energy you are signing up for.
Mikel is, without exaggeration, one of the funniest romance heroes in any sci-fi romance series currently on the shelf. He is a menace. He is chronically unserious. He narrates his own hookups like a sports commentator and treats a bar crawl as a legitimate athletic event. He yells "bitch!" at his best friend and throws a sponge at a shower door with the flair of a soap opera villain. He is, in the language of the people, absolutely unhinged — and it is glorious.
And then the book breaks his heart open
Here's what Desiree Sandz does that elevates this beyond a comedy: Mikel is funny for a reason. He was cargo too — found as a small boy alongside Knoxlee, both of them stolen off Earth, both of them raised by strangers who were kind but weren't home. He learned very young that the fastest way to make a room safe is to make it laugh.
So when he meets Shivan — a kind, patient celestial who has been searching for him since a vision showed him his soulmate's face — the joke stops working. You can't deflect a man who has already decided you're worth waiting a lifetime for. Watching Mikel try, and fail, and try again, is genuinely moving.
His whole personality is a shield. Shivan just… walks around it. Politely. Every single time.
Queer romance in this universe, handled beautifully
This is a MM alien romance and the series treats it with zero fuss and total warmth. Shivan's species has a biology that allows him to carry offspring, and the book plays this straight-faced and tender rather than as a gimmick. Later in the series, when Mikel casually tells another character that Shivan gave birth to their first child two years back, the moment is played for gentle comedy and enormous affection. It's family. It's normal. It's lovely.
Trope menu
- Sunshine disaster × patient celestial — the ultimate pairing
- Destined soulmates, but only one of them knows
- Skeptic falls first (and hardest) after swearing he doesn't do feelings
- Found family, chosen brothers, an entire friend group who will absolutely roast you
- Humor-as-armor arc that actually resolves
- Mpreg, handled with warmth
Spice level: high, and hilarious
Adults only. And true to Mikel, some of the funniest lines in the whole series happen in the middle of intimacy, because this man cannot stop narrating. It's spicy and it's fun, which is a rarer combination than it should be.
Read this if…
You want queer sci-fi romance that makes you cackle out loud on public transport and then quietly wreck you around chapter nine. Mikel is the beating comic heart of The Deal series and this is his book. Slay.
Why this book converts non-romance readers
Hand Shivan to someone who insists they don't read the genre. The comedy does the work — Mikel's narration is so relentlessly funny that people get a hundred pages in before they notice they're emotionally invested. It's the Trojan horse of The Deal series.
It's also the book that establishes how welcoming this universe is. Queer relationships, unconventional families, and species with biology that doesn't map onto human categories are all treated as completely ordinary. Nobody's identity is a plot problem to be resolved. It's just people, being people, in space.
Content notes and placement
Book 4 of sixteen. Adults only, explicit content, mpreg. Mikel's backstory involves childhood trafficking, discussed rather than depicted, and his humour-as-armour arc means the funniest chapters are often the saddest ones on a reread.
Best read after Book 2, since Mikel and Knoxy's shared history is set up there. But honestly? You could start here and be perfectly happy.
Book 4 of The Deal. Mikel shows up in nearly every other book — but this is where you find out why everyone loves him.
