Cheeky Pride!

One of the things I adore about writing whatever has my muse’s attention is how I can end up with a completely unplaceable product. Wait. No, the opposite of that. I mean, I’m kidding, but also a little not, and case in point for this for me would be Rear Admiral. Rear Admiral started as an idea for a call for an erotica collection, but—and yes, I’m aware of the irony of this next phrase—it got too big. It ended up being a novelette. You know what’s basically impossible to place in magazines, anthologies, or pretty much anywhere? Novelettes.

Let alone funny queer erotica novelettes, which is what I wrote. I love the story, don’t get me wrong, but if I hadn’t self-published Rear Admiral, no one would have met Russ the nurse, watched him bump into a former porn star/current-crush, nor ever seen him try to explain the life-size model of said porn star’s uh… asset.

The thing about cheeky, queer, over-the-top—and also sexy—tales though? They’re freaking fun.

So let’s get cheeky…

Fun, Funny, Frolicky

Okay, first up I’m going to also point out that both of these titles also completely fit the bill of being mysteries, 100% within the conventions of the genre, but also get sexy. That’s a strength, by the way. A feature, as it were, not a bug.

And to start with, we even go a wee bit historical with James Lear’s The Back Passage. And, listen, that title alone is just air-kiss magic, no? The best books tell you what you’re in for using their covers, back cover text, and cover art and, well, just look.

I read this one years and years ago now—and followed it up with the rest of the series—and while I don’t believe in guilt when it comes to reading, nor the notion of “a guilty pleasure” when it comes to books, this one fits the bill entirely for those who do, if you get my meaning. It’s cheeky in all the best ways, the main character fumbles his way through a mystery (at roughly the same speed he’s not-so-fumbling his way into the trousers of the men around him) and it’s all just great fun.

Also, I love how it was marketed as a “hard-core mystery” because I truly hope people didn’t understand what exactly was meant by hard-core because I can be spiteful sometimes, too.

Agatha Christie, move over! Hard-core sex and scandal meet in this brilliantly funny whodunit. A seaside village, an English country house, a family of wealthy eccentrics and their equally peculiar servants, a determined detective — all the ingredients are here for a cozy Agatha Christie-style whodunit. But wait — Edward “Mitch” Mitchell is no Hercule Poirot, and The Back Passage is no Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

Mitch is a handsome, insatiable 22-year-old hunk who never lets a clue stand in the way of a steamy encounter, whether it’s with the local constabulary, the house secretary, or his school chum and fellow athlete Boy Morgan, who becomes his Watson when they’re not busy boffing each other. When Reg Walworth is found dead in a cabinet, Sir James Eagle has his servant Weeks immediately arrested as the killer. But Mitch’s observant eye pegs more plausible possibilities: polysexual chauffeur Hibbert, queenly pervert Leonard Eagle, missing scion Rex, sadistic copper Kennington, even Sir James Eagle himself. Blackmail, police corruption, a dizzying network of spyholes and secret passages, watersports, and a nonstop queer orgy backstairs and everyplace else mark this hilariously hard-core mystery by a major new talent.

Next up, let’s head to New Orleans for Greg Herren’s Bourbon Street Blues. This one is definitely more serious in that the mystery is far more central to the plot, but Herren delivers a completely out-and-proud, not-gay-as-in-happy-but-queer-as-in-fuck-you with Scotty Bradley (who maybe has a few other names, too) in this start to a queer mystery series that gets more tangled (and also more sexy) as it goes forward one gogo boy dance at a time.

Again, this one spawns a series I’ve read and loved, and again, this was a book I bumped into back in… I want to say 2003 or 2004? Right when I was looking for books that overflowed with in-your-face queer existence and unapologetic joy (even when bodies were hitting the floor), and Bourbon Street Blues delivered exactly that.

From the drug-fueled dance floors of New Orleans’s hottest bars, to the body-worship of its packed gyms and the slow, hungry crawl through streets where danger lurks behind every beautiful smile, “Bourbon Street blues” takes readers on a dizzying tour of gay life in the French Quarter and introduces an unlikely investigator whose ironic, lusty, tell-it-like-it-is take on things is as cool as the city he loves.

During New Orleans’ biggest gay celebration, personal trainer and exotic dancer Scotty finds his life taking a deadly turn when one of his best clients is murdered, an old friend returns with a desperate request, and a mysterious FBI agent shadows his every move.

There are so many more books out there I could talk about as well with this vibe, but if you’ve got a favourite, hit me with it!