Ending my TDD series with an exclamation point !!

Happy Valentine’s Day!



I’m celebrating with a little retrospective on the officially completed Tall, Dark & Dangerous series about Navy SEAL Team Ten.

I’ve been thinking about the many, many years that have passed since 1995, when Prince Joe (TDD # 1) first came out. The world’s changed—a lot. In the early TDD books, my SEALs don’t have cell phones. They all carry pagers and use pay phones and, yeah. The world is very different now.

Back in 1995, the policy known as “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” had just gone into effect. LGBTQ people existed in our armed forces—and throughout our whole wide world—but we had to all agree to pretend that, as far as the U.S. Military went, they were invisible. Erased. Unmentionable.

I still can't imagine how hard that must've been--for everyone!

Back in 1995, when I wrote Prince Joe, I was still a newbie romance author. Yeah, sure, I was published, but Prince Joe was only the third book I'd written for that particular publisher, my sixth novel in total.

My first book (Future Perfect) came out in 1993, and you’ve probably heard the story of my first-sale phone call, because it was a doozy. I was told that an important revision I had to make (HAD! TO!) was to de-gay the rather minor but beloved (by me!) secondary character of the small town sheriff.

I spoke at length about that phone call and my personal experience of publishing gatekeepers erasing the gay characters from my first book in the speech I gave for the RWA lifetime achievement award I received back in 2018. (You can read the speech here: https://www.tinyletter.com/SuzanneBro... or watch it here: https://youtu.be/T1fO_1rLDsA?t=3378 or here, if you want to see my famous filmmaker son Jason’s intro to my speech: https://youtu.be/T1fO_1rLDsA?t=2787)

In a nutshell, my first romance novel was a story set in a small town. I'd created the character of a kickass sheriff who happened to be gay and was loved and accepted by everyone in his community. It didn’t seem that farfetched to me. But during that first-sale phone call, when I should’ve been doing silent but joyful highkicks around the room, I stood stock still instead, my heart sinking. Because I realized that if I wanted to sell this book, I had to do as the publisher asked and turn my gay sheriff straight. I was told quite plainly that a gay person could not appear in a romance novel. Readers would be offended.

What bizzarro world was this, this world of genre romance in which gay people were intentionally excluded? I vowed in that moment that I would help make change happen, because this could not stand.

Fast forward a few years back to 1995. I had just written Prince Joe, this first installment in an open-ended, planned-to-be-long-running series called “Tall, Dark & Dangerous,” (Hey, heads up, Prince Joe is currently $1.99 in the US: https://suzannebrockmann.com/books/ta... )

I’d sold the book on proposal, and the publisher loved the title—that was great, because my plan with this series was to include the heroes’ names in each of the titles. (Forever Blue; Frisco’s Kid; Everyday, Average Jones; Harvard’s Education...)

And then I handed in my first draft. In that draft, the heroine, Veronica, has a gay brother. Unlike the sheriff in Future Perfect, this character (named Jules, yup, you read that right. Jules!!) doesn’t appear as a character in the story. He's merely mentioned in passing—a gay brother whom Ronnie loves and accepts. He gets none of his gay onto the page the way the sheriff did, but he exists. Please let him exist. Does THAT work, publishing gatekeepers?

#Nope.

This was my third book for Silhouette. I was working with a different editor than Future Perfect, plus a few years had passed and the world was becoming more progressive, surely... But no. My revision notes included, sure enough, erasure of my gay character, again with the note that “readers will be offended.” Simply from this character’s mention.

I pressed and pushed to keep Veronica’s brother in the book as he was originally written, but I didn’t have any power, and I couldn’t afford to walk away.

Still, I was determined to be that change that I wanted to see, and in the next book in my TDD series, Forever Blue, I gave the heroine a gay friend. Killed him off in advance of the story—he was already dead when the book started, but Lucy ***loved*** him and missed him badly, is THAT okay, publishing gatekeepers, if he's gay but dead...?!?

Yup, it was. (sigh)

The character stayed in, and as infuriating as it was, it WAS a small victory. (And... Forever Blue is also $1.99 in the US: https://suzannebrockmann.com/books/ta... . Just FYI, in case you want the ebook for that awesome price!)

Throughout my entire career, book after book, I kept pushing to make my fictional world more accurately reflect the richly diverse world that I was living in, in my urban town in Massachusetts.

In 1999, after writing 29 category romances and 2 mainstream books in just a few short years, I decided to create a second team of Navy SEALs, but this time set the series in a far more realistic world. I started my new Troubleshooters series with The Unsung Hero. (PRH has permanently priced TUH at $2.99 in the US: https://suzannebrockmann.com/books/tr... )

And in 2000, when openly gay FBI agent Jules Cassidy walked onto the pages of The Defiant Hero (TS # 2), for the first time, no one pushed back. No one blinked.

Jules was allowed to exist.

I cannot tell you how happy that made me! But best yet, was this: Readers. Loved. Jules. (Thank you, thank you, thank you, dear readers! You brought me such joy and hope!!)

Jules played a major secondary role in most of the books in my TS series as I hammered my message home: Jules was gay, he was awesome, he was kickass, and he always saved the day, i.e. he was a hero. (Did I need a deus ex machina to swoop in during the Big Action Sequence at the end of the book? That would be Jules.) And oh yeah, I also pushed this message: Jules, just like all romance novel heroes, deserved his own HEA.

Somewhere around TS book # 5 (Into the Night), I started to hit the New York Times bestseller lists with my genre romance novels that included LGBTQ people. So clearly, readers weren’t TOO offended. (I am STILL salty about that!!) And my publisher started releasing the TS series in hardcover with giant print runs.

But in 2004’s Hot Target (TS # 8), I gave Jules his own romantic subplot. My publisher warned me that some romance review sites had a “no gay books” policy in place. (I know that sounds insane to some of you younger people, but it's true! This was an Actual Thing in Romancelandia, announced without shame or apology.) I was told that it was entirely possible that some reviewers might not consider reviewing Hot Target—we truly had no idea what would happen with this book. But the publisher and my incredible editor never, not even for a second, backed down from supporting this book, 100%!

And Hot Target got glowing reviews, even from the “no gay books” sites. No one’s face melted off from the visible, in-the-sunlight gayness as in this book Jules Cassidy met the man who would become, later in the series, the love of his life. I’d like to think that Hot Target helped some of those sites get their heads out of their asses as they realized their discriminatory “no gay books” rule was bullshit. Hot Target hit the Times hardcover list and went on to become Border’s bestselling hardcover romance of the year, bitches! (Hot Target is probably one of my personal fav books, and even though it’s nearly 20 years old, it really does hold up.)

More time passed, more books got written, Jules won his HEA and GOT MARRIED!! In a genre romance novel!!

LGBTQ characters were unquestionably welcomed, to live and love in the romance genre, with more and more established authors included LGBTQ characters in their books, with zero face-melting from “offended” readers. The romance publishing world slowly but surely recognized that many readers were the exact opposite of offended. Many MANY readers loved LGBTQ characters and LGBTQ love stories. So the romance genre got bigger and better, with opportunities for new LGBTQ authors to write their #OwnVoices romance novels, which has made Romancelandia a far, far better place.

Which brings me to today, well, earlier this month to be precise, when I released BLAME IT ON RIO, the 14th and final installment in that Tall, Dark & Dangerous series I started back in 1995 with Prince Joe and Veronica’s pathetically no-longer-gay brother.

I stayed away from my TDD series for about fifteen years because I need to let some time pass for a number of reasons. And as time passed, Don't Ask Don't Tell was repealed. Not-So-Fun fact: DADT ran from February 28, 1994 through September 20, 2011. (I wrote a Troubleshooters series short story called When Tony Met Adam to celebrate the repeal of DADT because it was a BFD that it ended and our courageous servicepeople could now live their lives authentically.)

This meant that, in 2018, when I finally returned to Tall, Dark & Dangerous-land to give closure to the series that I loved, I could finally include an out, gay SEAL in my fictional Team Ten.

So in SEAL Camp (TDD #12, 2018), I created Dave. He’s gay, he's a SEAL, and no one is offended. His teammates like him. In fact, he’s so damn good at being a SEAL, everyone wants him on their squad. (Take THAT, publisher of Prince Joe!)

2020’s King’s Ransom (TDD # 13) was supposed to put a final period at the end of the series. It's Thomas and Tasha's book—readers had been requesting their story for years, ever since T&T first appeared as kids in the aptly named Frisco's Kid (TDD # 3). In King's Ransom, in a subplot, Dave and a longer-recurring character named Rio Rosetti are given a cross-country assignment, and they become even closer friends. (Dave has a bad breakup, and Rio’s on hand to witness his pain.)

I realized as I was writing K’sR that writing from Rio’s point of view was kinda fun. Rio’s a good ally—a straight, cis man who really cares about his gay teammate and friend. And when my husband pointed out that the title for his book (in this series that I’d just ended, gah!!) could/should be BLAME IT ON RIO, I could not disagree.

Rio’s story clearly had to be a romcom (with suspense elements, because the OG TDD books are all rom-suspense), which really fit with everything I knew about this cheerful, upbeat Navy SEAL. When the plot came to me, it was irresistible—it was “fake boyfriend” with a twist. See, Dave’s gotta go to a wedding that Jon, his ex, will be attending. Rio goes with, pretending to be Dave’s boyfriend—and ends up falling for Jon’s sister. Shenanigans and high jinks abound. And some suspense, too, because Jon is a dumpster fire, and his unsavory past puts his sister in danger.

I could not have written Rio’s book back in 1995—no category romance publisher would have considered it, which is still a crying shame. And in 1995, and in 2003 and even early 2011, DADT was still going strong. A smart man like Dave probably wouldn’t have joined the military and become a SEAL. I mean, why would he? Hiding, being closeted that way, is brutal. And even if Dave were a SEAL, he couldn’t have told Rio about Jon. Ugh. It's overwhelming to think about all of the grief LGBTQ servicemembers endured for all those difficult years.

But here in 2023, at least for right now, the US Military, like Romancelandia, is far more open, affirming, and welcoming. I’m incredibly glad about that—glad, too, that I went with my gut and wrote one more TDD book, ending this series with the upbeat, funny, hopeful, inclusive BLAME IT ON RIO.

Because it feels much better to end Tall, Dark & Dangerous—a series that I deeply love despite its early limitations and challenges—with an exclamation point. (And maybe a little bit of jazz hands, too!)