100 Books Like Big Love

When my husband and I got together, everyone said it wouldn’t work.

He graduated from the University of Texas while I was from University of Nebraska. At the time the schools were rabid football rivals. Both of us were avid fans. And the year we got married, the two schools played each other for the championship.

Is it any wonder I wrote about a metro-male and a good-old-boy? Not only do I write about mismatched couples, I read about them too.

In Tigers and Devils, a top Australian football player and the head of an independent film festival are attracted to each other. You don’t have to know anything about Australian football to enjoy this book.

Kennedy’s sense of humor and the main character’s married couple friends will make you believe even if you don’t have my background and haven’t had decades with your spouse.

Without my glasses, I’m functionally blind. Without his hearing aids, my husband struggles to hear. We shouldn’t work as a couple. Or are our limitations our strengths?

In Kaye’s book, Patrick Stanford is considered by his rotating crew of housecleaners to be an unreasonable client. Until Jake Manning is hired, no one realizes that Patrick as a blind man needs his house to be kept in strict order or he harms himself just walking from room to room.

Although Patrick has a PhD while Jake has barely a high school diploma, what matters is how they understand each other’s needs and work to answer them.

(An aside: Besides, how could I pass up a book in which Pat (my name) and Jake (my husband’s name) fall in love? I couldn’t!)

My husband and I met in the newsroom at the Houston Post newspaper. On paper, I guess you could say we had the same job: writing for the newspaper.

But like Lawson Gale and Jack Brighton in this book, both of whom work to preserve the environment, our jobs weren’t the same at all. He was a political reporter while I was an arts reviewer. We have completely different passions.

When lepidopterist Lawson travels to Tasmania to find and protect an endangered butterfly, he’s escorted by Parks and Wildlife officer Jack and his Border collie. I’ll admit I wasn’t very excited to read this book, but did because a friend said it was “good”.

Since I have almost no interest in endangered butterflies and environmental problems, I was hoping for “goodish mediocre”. What I got was brilliance. The book is funny, suspenseful, playful, and romantic.

The bottom line is even… show more.

Okay, okay, shoot me. I’m kind of breaking the rules here. Other than the fact that this is one of my go-to books when I’m overwhelmed or too tired to sleep or, you know, needing relaxation and a laugh, this has nothing to do with my life with Jake.

In fact, the story is about two absolutely opposite men getting together, which at least meets the qualifications of this list. And it is, like the books above, one I’ve read over and over again. It also resonates through my life as a college-level English composition instructor.

Cambridge academic Larry Morton would be the last person you’d think would fall in love with big, burly former boxer Al Fletcher. Although Al has a flair for art, he’s uneducated as opposed to Larry’s degree.

The story, told from Al’s point of view, makes a case that education levels aren’t an unsurmountable barrier… show more.

Maybe Next Year, by Dave Hughes, a coming-of-age love story of two young men that touched my heart. It's all about Bryan and Chris, two high school guys that have been best friends for several years, and what happens when they discover their feelings for each other are more than friendship. They come from two very different family backgrounds and will have a lot to navigate.

In 1992, the legendary Leslea came to my college and spoke in a splendid historical chapel about her work. I’ve never belonged to a house of worship. I am a children’s book author who writes about Queer people, so I kinda think this makes Lesléa Newman my minister. In this wonderful book, Mama Rose makes the sign “Gay Mechanic Healing the Planet.” Mama Grace’s sign reads “Gay Nurse Healing the Earth” and she has a tambourine in her backpack. It makes perfect sense that Andrea the mail carrier, the music teacher with the mustache, and nurse Richard are all in attendance at Gay Pride. They chant “2-4-6-8. Being gay is really great” at the parade while all the sidewalk people cheer.

This is a book I’m particularly excited to share because I was given the chance to read it in advance of its release. And I can say that it’s fabulous fun! A swords and sorcery tale brimming with assassins, magical music, battles for a throne, and dynamic lovers!

Balen is a gallant paladin who has made tough sacrifices to win his post as the king’s personal guard. One of the most painful of those sacrifices was leaving his witty and musically talented lover, Zavrius. So imagine his shock and chagrin after a series of mysterious assassinations leave Zaverius as the sole heir to the throne and Balen sworn to never leave his side! Awkward doesn’t even begin to describe it…but in the very best way — I promise!

The banter between the characters never failed to make me smile. And I adored that I could side with Zavrius for a… show more.

The story sounds simple: two college-age boys – Ben, a football player and brainy Ronny, his tutor – gradually fall in love even though their relationship is sometimes stormy, and readers may wonder anxiously if it will endure. But true love has a stubborn way of enduring and perhaps it will in this case, too. So, a simple story? No, for it’s as complex as the human heart. What also sets this one apart is its gorgeous writing, which is an undivided pleasure to read and which brings Ben and Ronny to vivid, fully realized life. Readers won’t forget them nor will they forget this haunting novel.  

If I have to pick one of David’s books, it’s Arkansas - Three Novellas.

The first of them, Saturn Street, came out of the time he volunteered at Project Angel Food, a nonprofit where I worked as a chef. David described us chefs as “fussy” (we were) in his intimate account of a driver who delivers meals to a client homebound with AIDS, a man the driver falls in love with. David also alludes to one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek.  

In The Term-Paper Artist, we get an even more confessional novella in which a writer by the name of David Leavitt trades the writing of term papers for the sexual favors of attractive college boys. Whether a true story or a fictionalized one, it doesn’t get more emotionally honest than this and it’s a novella as funny as it is outrageous. 

This book affected me very deeply because it’s set in the 80s and 90s when I was in my twenties and thirties. It describes with astonishing accuracy the political cruelty that abounded at that time. For me, the real hero of the book is Leo. He’s not only gay but also Black which makes him a double target for the prejudice of the time. The way he tackles it head on in the book is breathtaking.