Books like Easter — picked by fans

Catherine Fox is intimately familiar with the nuances of the Church of England. She writes about them with wit and affection, and she’s dependably funny in this tale of a married bishop who doesn’t want to look too closely at why he’s quite so patient with his disaster of a chauffeur. The Lindchester series is ongoing, and I’m one of many followers who read along to share the joys and sorrows of the diverse, expanding, and delightful cast of characters. This is the place to start, though.

If ever there was a book that felt like it had been written just for me, this is it. Set in a fictional European country in the early nineteenth century, it has swashbuckling, nights at the opera, complicated family history, politics, magic, and lesbians. The way that Christianity is integrated into the fantastic element won’t be for everybody, but I was won over by Margerit’s earnest insistence on claiming her identity as a queer woman of faith and power. I’d wholeheartedly recommend the rest of the series, too.

A Beauty and the Beast retelling, set amid the upheaval of the Second World War, in which the Beast is a dragon and the protagonist is a person who doesn’t see why his daughter should take the rap for her father’s misdemeanour. Humane and compassionate, this story isn’t afraid of exploring the theology of sexuality, but it never gets bogged down in details, and it maintains its fairy-tale atmosphere while remaining grounded in time and place. I loved it.

I’ve never read a book quite like this, and yet it felt hauntingly familiar. The population of Earth is rescued en masse from a destructive solar event and has to start again from scratch on an unknown planet. But of course humanity has taken the problems of its own nature with it, and the encounter with its new hosts only raises further questions – around sex, gender, love, and nature. It’s brave and beautiful, hopeful and sad and dynamic all at once, and it kept me reading and guessing all the way to the end. 

I love any work that can draw me in by being uncanny while still being emotional. This book is such a work. It's the story of a gay bar that houses a community of cross-generational queer people who become close-knit while the world outside becomes more and more hostile to them.

Though he tells the story with distance and coldness, Neil Bartlett made me feel like I belonged in that bar, in that community. Reading how the characters clutch at meaning and love, how they embrace who they are, and how they support one another had me rooting for them (and for myself) louder every time I turned a page.

I became obsessed with the writing in this book when it was first published in 1991, and I was far from the only one. News of his death, one year after the publication of this book, triggered a spontaneous march of angry mourners through his NYC neighborhood.

He wrote with the urgency of an artist running out of time. David captured the anger of the first generation of gay men to confront AIDS like no one else. Other writers expressed the grief, the despair, and the moral dilemmas. David had fire breathing out of his pen. I am proud to have one of my favorite of his paintings on the cover of my new book.

The first time Rowan and the Huntress kissed, I half expected Rowan’s lips to stick to the Huntress’ face like a tongue on a light pole in winter.

Luckily, Rowan—the Belle in this Beauty and the Beast retelling—is a thawing influence, and the kiss progresses as kisses should. And thank goodness, as the Huntress desperately needs to be kissed. Isolated, cursed, and haunted by her own callousness, the lonely Huntress is separated from the world by her own past and a literal mile of frozen water.

But in the Huntress’ fortress of ice, love grows like the petals of a winter rose, and little kisses, like hope, spring eternal.

I opened this book and immediately felt comfortable with the narrative style: dual POV, third person, with a hint of humor right on the first page. It’s a cute little Christmassy novella. One character is a lesfic author and the other is a huge fan of hers (but doesn’t know it’s her) – I enjoyed the “mystery” of Ivy trying to piece together Kit’s pen name. Kit’s young niece was also very cute. Overall, this story just felt like a safe space. I was able to curl up and know that everything was going to be okay.

Holiday Fauxmance—i.e., fake dating for the holidays—is a peppermint-scented novella catnip for me. Sasha’s family can be a bit much over her being single, which she knows comes from a good place but is relentless, so she makes up a girlfriend, which works until her eldest sister tries to call her bluff and dares her to bring her “girlfriend” home for the holidays.

Enter neighbor Kennedy, who is beautiful, available, and—bonus—she’s also an actress and in need of a gig. This book is sweet and cute and the couple drew me in from the start, and I can’t express how much I loved the low-angst content. Their connections came from genuine emotions coming out of the pretending and the scene where they eventually come clean about the deception. I could not stop laughing.

This book has so many tropes that I despise, such as miscommunication, deceit/manipulation, and third-act breakups. Yet somehow, Bryn managed to execute them all with such finesse that I fell in love.

Both main characters are adorable in completely different ways. Wes is such a confident goof, while Vincent is so sad and adorable that I just want to hug him. The romance is cute but fades to black. However, there are apparently some spicy short stories that follow up with the lives of Wes and Vincent. I need to get my next dose of these cute boys.