Summertime is vacation time, and for me that usually means reading. This year that has a new twist thanks to Covad.
During our 15 month quarantine, Jason and I did a daily Facebook livestream. Each day we’d go through our various sources for LGBT news and try and bring new items to our audience. It was there that I discovered a new kind of book that changed my reading habits.
Up until then my choices were simple. Books about history or a biography, with a strong interest in LGBT history and people. But then I came across a news item about how gay men in Briton were up in arms about a new genre of books. It seems for some reason numerous heterosexual women began to write what might be called gay Harlequin romance novels. The genre became so popular that it has its own link on Amazon.
Do you want to read the story of a gay pirate falling in love with a stowaway? How about “A Forbidden Rumspringa,” about gay Amish love? How about gay aliens in love, gay farmhands, bodyguards, private detectives, and your never ending Royal romance? Who doesn’t want their own prince? Literally it’s the Hallmark channel but all the romance movies are gay characters. For almost any romance plot or character you can think of, there’s a book for you.
And from the initial protest of straight women writing gay romances, the industry has become very popular. It’s become so popular there are hundreds of titles.
If you’re looking for hard core smut, look elsewhere. What these books do is accentuate romance, and each promises to be a happy ending, just like a hallmark movie. A similarly themed book, “Red, White and Royal Blue,” written by queer author Casey McQuiston, has even been picked up to become a movie. The story follows the son of the U.S. President who falls in love with a British prince.
So if you’re looking for some fun and romantic reading that you can relate to this summer, just go on Bookshop or Amazon and type in mm romance, and you’ll be amazed at what you find. And if you’ll excuse me, I’m in the middle of the chapter of a book where the doctor is about to meet a patient that I just know he’ll fall in love with. And yes, it will be a happy ending.