Celebrate Pride Month with 12 Great LGBTQ+ Romances

The descriptions for Slippery Creatures and Two Rogues Make a Right 👀👀 YESSSSS gimme

Any Alexis Hall or KJ Charles Book is a Win Win ❤️💜😃

Hi All,

I am an as-yet-underdiscovered author of M/M romances and a Goodreads member. The selections listed above are all worthy; my only regret is that my new novel (with all feedback being positive) had not been anticipated or known enough to be included in the list. The title is Two For Tennis (it's a sequel), and it's not your typical HEA romance. Then again, I'm not your typical author... :-)

For me (Although they aren't light romances):

The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue
We Are the Ants

Yesss. Give me all the queer romance.
One bed trope, enemies to lovers? I'll take that.

This is a fascinating article about some creep who gives LGBTQ+ 1 star reviews without reading them... and how goodreads doesn't have a policy to stop it. https://bookriot.com/2020/06/16/goodr...

As an author of both, a queer (trans woman/ciswoman) romance and crime thriller and a transwoman myself I would have liked to see my two new books here, too.


I have already read two of the lesbian romances here mentioned and am looking forward to reading "Mrs. Martins Incomparable Adventure"

An interesting article. Yes, it is a problem. The same would be potential with other 'topics'. E.g. racism, hating some nation, hating some authors (for whatever reason).

In my opinion, one shouldn't rate a book before reading (or at least without trying) but because there is no way to check it - there is no sense for such rule.

I have no idea how to solve the issue without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Mela wrote: "I have no idea how to solve the issue without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. ." My idea would be for goodreads to have a policy against 1 star reviews for homophobic, racist etc. reasons. The policy would have to be carefully worded and there would still be the review process but something where the outcome would be someone from goodreads contacts this Charles guy, maybe temporarily suspends the account while it's under review, and they figure out what's going on with that guy and if it's what it looks like, some homophobe trashing queer books, then the profile and all its reviews would be removed. That's what I'd like to see.

Benjamin wrote: "Mela wrote: "I have no idea how to solve the issue without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. ." My idea would be for goodreads to have a policy against 1 star reviews for homophobic, racist..."

I could not agree more! There needs to be a show of interest from Goodreads in complaints like that. I now understand, why Amazon requires a certain number of purchases, before you are allowed to review/rate a book.

Mela wrote: "An interesting article. Yes, it is a problem. The same would be potential with other 'topics'. E.g. racism, hating some nation, hating some authors (for whatever reason).

In my opinion, one shoul..."

Couldn't agree more! Unfortunately, such a rule would be very difficult to implement. It's not just this one guy. Rating books without reading them is very prevalent. I'm a super obscure indie author that probably 5 people have heard about, and even my books are getting random ratings long before I've even written them, let alone shared them with anyone. And popular books have hundreds of ratings before any advanced copies are available.

But there is no easy way to stop that. Even if Goodreads bans ratings before publication (which wouldn't be ideal since some readers get ARCs), people can still put random ratings without reading the book once it's published. Maybe there could be a requirement to write a review with every rating (I think Amazon does something like that), but that would significantly decrease engagement as most readers wouldn't want to spend the time. And users could still rate the book without reading it and put some generic review.

Not all such ratings are malicious; some are high ratings to show excitement for an upcoming book. And others are neutral; some readers seem to be using the star system instead of shelves to classify books, e.g. 1-star = "want to read", 5-star = "read" etc. But in any case, they all distort the rating and become a real problem especially if someone is maliciously targeting LGBTQ+ books or anything else they decide to dislike on principle.

m/m romance authors I've been reading and adoring: Lucy Lennox and Ella Frank; definitely a good start in the genre! ;)
Also a few personal favorites:
Bad Habit
Halo
Felix and the Prince
Without Reservations

Time Was by Ian McDonald

❤️

Slippery Creatures was an awesome historical book. Loved it <3

Any books with trans characters on this list? Would love to read a romance with a trans protagonist.

Where is the T? Am I missing something or did Goodreads make a list of "LGBT romances" without any transgender characters?

William wrote: "Any books with trans characters on this list? Would love to read a romance with a trans protagonist."

Not on the list, but see my comment above. My last two books have a trans MC each.

Beth wrote: "Where is the T? Am I missing something or did Goodreads make a list of "LGBT romances" without any transgender characters?"

See my other comments.

such an amazing books i can't wait to finish them

Beth wrote: "Where is the T? Am I missing something or did Goodreads make a list of "LGBT romances" without any transgender characters?"

There probably weren't any with the required number of high ratings :(

Mela wrote: "For me (Although they aren't light romances):

The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue
We Are the Ants"

I am glad you included Gentleman's Guide because I don't understand why it's not on this list!! I love that book soooo so much!

Monique wrote: "There probably weren't any with the required number of high..."

That's the problem with looking only at the number of ratings. Less mainstream genres stand no change. It would be nice to have a bit of a human touch to these lists instead of just using an algorithm, to ensure all interests are covered. But that's what the comment sections are for :)

Once again, "I Have No Life Other Than Trolling On Goodreads" Ryan sticks their nose in and no one cares. At this point, one begins to think they were being paid to do so.

Anyway, yes. Let's not have the LGBTQ/queer title turn into little more than an LG festival.

I also recommend:
Autoboyography
(for those who like: angst, fluff, will they/won't they vibe, sexuality vs. religion conflict where there are no right or wrong answers)

The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy
(for those who like: asexuality, women being awesome in the world of men, adventure, many wonderful quotes about what it means to be a woman)

Alex in Wonderland
(for those who like: awkward flirting, cute teenage romance, Scooby Doo-style mystery, gay disasters)

Monique wrote: "Beth wrote: "Where is the T? Am I missing something or did Goodreads make a list of "LGBT romances" without any transgender characters?"

There probably weren't any with the required number of high..."
:( Well it doesn't help to exclude them from this list...so often people say LGBT and then really only have LGB, or just LG. I agree with Elena that a list like this should be curated by a person, specifically someone invested in highlighting LGBT+ romances.

Glad to see my criticisms reflected in other comments though, and also people adding their own recommendations.

I would recommend

looking forward to all the lady lovin romances here!!!!

Where are all the gay male authors? I see only one! Why not promote actual LGBT writers for Pride Month.

A list of LGBTQ+ titles, where the majority of them were written by heterosexual cisgender authors. That pretty much sums up what Pride month has become; a celebration by corporations and heterosexual people, who have never actually experienced the oppression and discrimination of being LGBTQ+, yet they continue to profit off our struggles and silence us when we try to tell our stories.

Goodreads, if you're going to feature a list like this on your homepage, at least have the courtesy to research books written by LGBTQ+ authors. We deserve to have honest, authentic representation in a month that is mean to celebrate the freedoms we have fought for and continue to fight for.

Elena wrote: "Monique wrote: "There probably weren't any with the required number of high..."

That's the problem with looking only at the number of ratings. Less mainstream genres stand no change. It would be n..."

That is today's general problem, people on IT forget the most basic law of using computers: "shit in =shit out". Corporations try to train their human employees to work like machines, while others try to create machines that actually "think like humans" instead of just calcuating. Can the world get more absurd?

Ryan wrote: "Samuel wrote: "Where are all the gay male authors? I see only one! Why not promote actual LGBT writers for Pride Month."

Because putting male authors would go against females? Honestly I don't kno..."
You may not have read how the list was established. It was a rating based algorithm. A "stupid" computer cannot distinguish between names and a person's sexual orientation other than by hash tags and, quite honestly, I have not come across a hash tag: gay male author or any other GLBTQA+ label anywhere yet.
The only conclusion that can sensibly be drawn from the list is, that whatever composed it had no idea of the concept.

I wish "The Prom" was on this list.

Ryan wrote: "Samuel wrote: "Where are all the gay male authors? I see only one! Why not promote actual LGBT writers for Pride Month."

Because putting male authors would go against females? Honestly I don't kno..."

Dude, seriously?? wtf

I thought it was Wrath month this year. last year was pride month. Come on ITS 2020! get with the times!

Ryan wrote: "just a fellow lesbo [[ HAPPY PRIDE MONTH FELLOW QUEERS ]] wrote: "Ryan wrote: "Samuel wrote: "Where are all the gay male authors? I see only one! Why not promote actual LGBT writers for Pride Month..."

wait nvm I thought that you were saying "Oh just because females wanna be 'more empowered' and that BS" or something idk

While I'm glad there are LGBT+ romance recs for Pride, I do wish they put more effort into it than an algorithm. It's not like hetero romance where there are tons and tons and you can just skim for that top percentage.

Ryan wrote: "just a fellow lesbo [[ HAPPY PRIDE MONTH FELLOW QUEERS ]] wrote: "Ryan wrote: "just a fellow lesbo [[ HAPPY PRIDE MONTH FELLOW QUEERS ]] wrote: "Ryan wrote: "Samuel wrote: "Where are all the gay ma..."

Yep fellow gays stan together

(assuming ur a fellow gay)

good

A great read is “Athena’s Quest”. - A Lesbian Quest for Normality! True story about her life of ups and down in her quest to be normal.

Athena’s Quest, is a short book but captivates your attention from beginning to end. A worth read. I loved it, as soon as I got it from Amazon, I began to read it and didn’t put it down until finished. I just thought I was going to pick it up read the introduction but it was so interesting I couldn’t put in down. It is less than a 100 pages but a great book for the unknowledgeable and knowledgeable about the LGBT Community.

Benjamin wrote: "This is a fascinating article about some creep who gives LGBTQ+ 1 star reviews without reading them... and how goodreads doesn't have a policy to stop it. https://bookriot.com/2020/06/16/goodr...-..."
That article made me think quite a bit about how reliant I am on ratings, and its indeed horrible to realize how some skewer the purpose of the rating system- by rating a book badly before even reading it...

Monique wrote: "A "stupid" computer cannot distinguish between names and a person's sexual orientation other than by hash tags and, quite honestly, I have not come across a hash tag: gay male author or any other GLBTQA+ label anywhere yet."

The algorithm could have been improved to be more inclusive if they had tried harder. There seems to be a "gay authors" shelf here: https://www.goodreads.com/genres/gay-... I'm sure there must be more shelves for all relevant groups.

Of course, relying on shelves is not ideal as these are user-based, and it's possible a less popular work never gets tagged correctly. Nothing can replace a human looking through the whole thing, but still, the algorithm could have been done better; there are enough tags and data for it.

Samuel wrote: "Where are all the gay male authors? I see only one! Why not promote actual LGBT writers for Pride Month."

Aren't Hall & Klune gay men & Wilsner & Lydon lesbians? Don't know about others.

Anna wrote: "Aren't Hall & Klune gay men & Wilsner & Lydon lesbians? Don't know about ot..."

Good point! I think some readers have problems with seeing how the most promoted gay men romances are written by women, targeting a female audience. I kind of get it, it could be interpreted as the reverse version of men watching lesbian porn. Though I don't think it gets to the same level of objectification, it's easy to understand why gay men would want to see stories written with them in mind. Great that you spotted these examples.

And we still have the issue a few people raised that the T part of LGBTQ+ seems to be missing from the list. Thankfully, many users have been very proactive with recommendations.

Elena wrote: "Monique wrote: "A "stupid" computer cannot distinguish between names and a person's sexual orientation other than by hash tags and, quite honestly, I have not come across a hash tag: gay male autho..."

As I said, Elena, the basic law: "shit in = shit out" the human who does the using of the machine makes for the quality of the results. People should stop thinking they can simply let insufficiently programmed machines do their job.

Anna wrote: "Samuel wrote: "Where are all the gay male authors? I see only one! Why not promote actual LGBT writers for Pride Month."

Aren't Hall & Klune gay men & Wilsner & Lydon lesbians? Don't know about ot..."

Well, Clare Lydon certainly doesn't make a secret out of her being lesbian and "Before you say I do" actually is a really good read. :)

Samuel wrote: "Where are all the gay male authors? I see only one! Why not promote actual LGBT writers for Pride Month."

Hi Samuel,

I am an actual Goodreads author who is an actual male and an LGBT one moreover. I have just released my new novel, Two For Tennis, on the 1st of this Pride month. Yes, you are correct in observing how many hetero and/or female authors there are within the genre (much to my surprise), but there are male authors. I am one, lol. Perhaps I am in the minority, but that would make my perspective all the more valuable, if not rare. I've tried to portray male/male dating and relationships from a realistic standpoint.

Michael wrote: "Samuel wrote: "Where are all the gay male authors? I see only one! Why not promote actual LGBT writers for Pride Month."

Hi Samuel,

I am an actual Goodreads author who is an actual male and an LG..."

Hi Michael,

nice to know you are here. I am wondering about these cis-gender writers writing LGBTQ+ books, especially romance stuff.

A Transwoman myself I cannot even imagine, how a Transman might feel, as I could not wait to shed my physically male form. So I seriously doubt cis people can properly understand Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans or otherwise Queer people, unless they are highly qualified psychologists with a lot of experience on the subject. For that reason I only read lesbian romance or crime stories by lesbian authors, being a trans-lesbian myself.

Michael wrote: "Samuel wrote: "Where are all the gay male authors? I see only one! Why not promote actual LGBT writers for Pride Month."

Hi Samuel,

I am an actual Goodreads author who is an actual male and an LG..."

It's always makes me happy to see more LGBT writers. I like reading gay literature because I'm gay myself. I very familiar actual LGBT writers are out there and I always try to encourage people to read those books instead. For example, My Brother's Husband by Gengoroh Tagame is one I tell people about because not only is it about gay themes it's extremely rare to see out gay men writing manga.