Here are 100 books that Puppet Boy fans have personally recommended if you like
Puppet Boy.
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I usually write queer fiction with an urban fantasy or magic realism bent, although I’ve dabbled in dystopian novels and a couple of romance novellas. I have an interest in bringing to light modern queer works that aren’t rooted in erotica or romance because I know firsthand the misconceptions that are placed on writers of gay fiction. And too often I’ve had to find tactful ways to explain what I write when people assume I’m limited by genre.
This novel weaves three unique stories told by three very distinctive gay men who live in London at completely different periods of time. What unites them? Internalised homophobia, something as a gay person I remember from a long time ago. Each character yearns for someone. Each in a distinct way. Rent boy, Jack, longs for his regular client, Oscar Wilde. Lonely artist Colin desires the model he paints while staying closeted in the 1950s. And David’s desire lands him in prison in the 1980s.
Each story travels at the same pace with each character reflecting similar highs and lows. And you don’t have to be gay to identify with this well-written novel.
"London itself is as powerful a presence here as the three gay men whose lives it absorbs." —The Times Literary Supplement
"Vivid and visceral, London Triptych cuts deep to reveal the hidden layers of a secret history." —Jake Arnott, author of The Long Firm
Rent boys, aristocrats, artists, and criminals populate this sweeping novel in which author Jonathan Kemp skillfully interweaves the lives and loves of three very different men in gay London across the decades.
In the 1890s, a young man named Jack apprentices as a rent boy and discovers a life of pleasure and excess that leads to…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I usually write queer fiction with an urban fantasy or magic realism bent, although I’ve dabbled in dystopian novels and a couple of romance novellas. I have an interest in bringing to light modern queer works that aren’t rooted in erotica or romance because I know firsthand the misconceptions that are placed on writers of gay fiction. And too often I’ve had to find tactful ways to explain what I write when people assume I’m limited by genre.
This is the first of a trilogy of which any book in the series is worth reading. In this farce written long before marriage equality, a gay man hatches an outlandish scheme to throw a wedding, just for the expensive gifts. What follows is a comedy that incorporates blackmail and the mafia. You read this novel for pure pleasure, enjoying the clever one-liners while the plot spirals out of control. Flamboyant, camp, and ridiculously funny.
Set in contemporary New York, this book revolves around four characters, all either unemployed or barely employed. The calamities begin when Gilbert, who is gay, and Moira, an arch bitch, devise a seemingly brilliant plan to swindle their respective monied families - by getting married.
I usually write queer fiction with an urban fantasy or magic realism bent, although I’ve dabbled in dystopian novels and a couple of romance novellas. I have an interest in bringing to light modern queer works that aren’t rooted in erotica or romance because I know firsthand the misconceptions that are placed on writers of gay fiction. And too often I’ve had to find tactful ways to explain what I write when people assume I’m limited by genre.
To be fair, there is a love story featured in this novel, but it’s not at the heart of this tale. This is a historical piece full of captivating characterisation. Robin is a burly man who’s clumsy and unpopular in the small coastal town he lives in. But a horrendous storm is brewing, and Robin takes it upon himself to gather the townsfolk and get them to shelter at The Moth and Moon, the local pub. The world building is excellent. All characters are well realised. Most are eccentric. None are forgettable. And these elements make this tale truly charming.
In the summer of 1780, on the tiny island of Merryapple, burly fisherman Robin Shipp lives a simple, quiet life in a bustling harbour town where most of the residents dislike him due to the actions of his father. With a hurricane approaching, he nonetheless convinces the villagers to take shelter in the one place big enough to hold them all—the ancient, labyrinthine tavern named the Moth & Moon.While trapped with his neighbours during the raging storm, Robin inadvertently confronts more than the weather, and the results could change everything.
The Year Mrs. Cooper Got Out More
by
Meredith Marple,
The coastal tourist town of Great Wharf, Maine, boasts a crime rate so low you might suspect someone’s lying.
Nevertheless, jobless empty nester Mallory Cooper has become increasingly reclusive and fearful. Careful to keep the red wine handy and loath to leave the house, Mallory misses her happier self—and so…
I usually write queer fiction with an urban fantasy or magic realism bent, although I’ve dabbled in dystopian novels and a couple of romance novellas. I have an interest in bringing to light modern queer works that aren’t rooted in erotica or romance because I know firsthand the misconceptions that are placed on writers of gay fiction. And too often I’ve had to find tactful ways to explain what I write when people assume I’m limited by genre.
Charlie is homeless and lives in an abandoned carnival, just one of the places full of wonder and mystery in this novel. He is sometimes fed by a mature-aged gay couple and has an unrequited love. But he dies and we continue reading his story in a surreal version of the world he inhabited while alive. Yes, Charlie is a ghost. The carnival he still lives in has a life of its own, and he needs to protect the living who showed him kindness. A truly beautiful tale.
My name’s Charlie. I’m many things, though none of them having to do with any real talent. I’m a runaway, a hustler when I need to be, a ghost when I have to scare hoodlums away from my home, and a loner who maybe reads too much. But most of all, I’m the keeper of the carnival. That’s how I see myself. I look after the place ’cause even dying things need to be cared for. Maybe it’s illegal. Maybe that rusty metal fence around the carnival is supposed to keep me out too. Or maybe me and this place…
As a writer of gay mystery, I try to read as widely as I can—both to learn from writers who have gone before me and for the pleasure of the books themselves. I’m always thrilled when I find writers like the ones I’ve shared in this list: people who think deeply and carefully about the complexities (and, occasionally, the agonies) of being a gay man, while, at the same time, weaving in the suspense and puzzles inherent in mysteries.
The first book in Nava’s best-known series, Lay Your Sleeping Head introduces defense attorney Henry Rios. Rios is struggling with addiction and an existential crisis; when he is drawn into investigating the murder of a young man he loved, he finds he is the only one willing to dig for the truth. Nava’s books are lyrical, intricate, and intensely thoughtful about what it means to be a gay man.
Set in the summer of 1981, in a university town 30 miles south of San Francisco. Henry Rios, a gifted and humane lawyer driven to drink to by personal and professional demons, meets Hugh Paris, a charming junkie struggling to stay clean. Hugh tells Rios an improbable tale of long-ago murders in his wealthy family. Rios disbelieves him but the erotic spark between the two men ignites an obsessive affair that ends only when Hugh is discovered with a needle in his arm on the campus of the great university founded by his ancestor. Rios refused to believe Hugh’s death…
I’ve been a full-time writer since 1994 and have so far published twenty-seven books, three of them with gay themes: My Father’s Scar, a gay coming-of-age novel and two about LGBTQ+ issues: Top 250 LGTBQ Books for Teens and The Heart Has Its Reasons, a history of queer literature. I’ve been interested in this literature since I was a gay teen myself, because there were no YA books with queer characters then. I missed seeing my face in the pages of a good book and so I promised myself that when I became an adult. I would make sure there was an ample assortment for today’s queer kids. And, guess what? I’ve kept my promise!
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.
At the University of North Carolina, Ronny's made some friends, kept his secrets, survived dorm life, and protected his heart.
Until he can't. Ben is in some ways Ronny's opposite; he's big and solid where Ronny is small and slight. Ben's at UNC on a football scholarship. Confident, with that easy jock swagger, and an explosive temper always simmering. He has a steady stream of girlfriends. Ben's aware of the overwhelming effect he has on Ronny. It's like a sensation of power. So easy to tease Ronny, throw playful insults, but it all feels somehow...loaded.
Don’t mess with the hothead—or he might just mess with you. Slater Ibáñez is only interested in two kinds of guys: the ones he wants to punch, and the ones he sleeps with. Things get interesting when they start to overlap. A freelance investigator, Slater trolls the dark side of…
I grew up attending Catholic school in conservative Indiana. Sex—especially if it was of the homosexual variety—was the ultimate taboo. I can’t overstate how damaging it is to believe that one of your natural urges is proof of your depravity. Books that depict queer sexual relations, be they fleeting or romantic, gave me my first glimpse of a wider world where my sexual identity could be expressed. These books liberated me. Even now, I find that sexy and subversive novels help me understand parts of myself that can still be difficult to discuss in polite company. We all need our boundaries pushed.
I’m a gay Black man, and I’ve worked as a television writer (The Chi, Bel-Air) for more than a decade, so I know from experience the burdens of representation. There is tremendous pressure to make sure we craft Black and/or gay characters that remain relatable or sympathetic. Otherwise, we risk losing the general audience.
That’s why it brought revolutionary joy to my heart when I read 100 Boyfriends in 2021. With this story collection, Brontez Purnell lays our collective burdens down and gives us Black queer men with messy lives. The result is characters that can be infuriating, endearing, disturbing, and hilarious. The book challenges readers to recognize the facets of humanity—commendable, questionable, and despicable—in Black queer men. It feels like the dawn of a new age.
Winner of the 2022 Lambda Literary Award in Gay Fiction. A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. Longlisted for the 2022 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award and the 2021 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize. One of Buzzfeed's Best LGBTQ+ Books of 2021, NBC's 10 Most Notable LGBTQ Books of 2021, and Pink News' Best LGBTQ Books of 2021.
"This hurricane of delirious, lonely, lewd tales is a taxonomy and grand unified theory of the boyfriend, in every tense." —Parul Sehgal, The New York Times
"I loved this book—raunchy, irreverent, deliberate, sexy, angry, and tender, in its own…
As a writer of gay mystery, I try to read as widely as I can—both to learn from writers who have gone before me and for the pleasure of the books themselves. I’m always thrilled when I find writers like the ones I’ve shared in this list: people who think deeply and carefully about the complexities (and, occasionally, the agonies) of being a gay man, while, at the same time, weaving in the suspense and puzzles inherent in mysteries.
Thornton, one of the most frequent winners of the Lambda Literary Award, kicks off his Nick Nowak series with a collection of novella-length stories. Nick is a former police officer turned private investigator. Set in the 80s, the series follows Nick through the AIDS crisis against the backdrop of heart-pounding (and heartbreaking) mysteries.
Finalist for the Lambda Award in Gay Mystery, Boystown: Three Nick Nowak Mysteries takes place in Chicago during the early 1980s. Haunted by his abrupt departure from the Chicago Police Department and the end of his relationship with librarian Daniel Laverty, Nick Nowak is a beat cop-turned-dogged private investigator. In this first book of the series, Nick works through three cases: a seemingly simple missing persons search, an arson investigation, and a suicide that turns out to be anything but. While working the cases, Nick moves through a series of casual relationships until he meets homicide detective Bert Harker and…
As a writer of gay mystery, I try to read as widely as I can—both to learn from writers who have gone before me and for the pleasure of the books themselves. I’m always thrilled when I find writers like the ones I’ve shared in this list: people who think deeply and carefully about the complexities (and, occasionally, the agonies) of being a gay man, while, at the same time, weaving in the suspense and puzzles inherent in mysteries.
Benjamin Justice is a broken man—a former prize-winning journalist whose career (and life) has been shattered by the death of his lover and a scandal surrounding his best-known writing. Recruited by his former boss to assist an up-and-coming journalist, Ben finds himself investigating a murder that occurred outside a gay bar. The series is tightly written and casts a dark glamor across gay life in ’90s California.
It’s 1994, an election year when violent crime is rampant, voters want action, and politicians smell blood. When a Latino teenager confesses to the murder of a pretty-boy cokehead outside a gay bar in L.A., the cops consider the case closed. But Benjamin Justice, a disgraced former reporter for the Los Angeles Times, sees something in the jailed boy others don’t. His former editor, Harry Brofsky, now toiling at the rival Los Angeles Sun, pries Justice from his alcoholic seclusion to help neophyte reporter Alexandra Templeton dig deeper into the story. But why would a seemingly decent kid confess to…
As a gay writer who has navigated some difficult life changes of my own, including cancer, a gay bashing, and the death of an early love, I always enjoy finding writers whose gay characters must deal with their own challenging life issues. Whether it's a coming-of-age tale, a puzzling mystery, or a suspenseful fantasy, each character comes to terms with accepting who he is in an often hostile world.
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.
Bryan and Chris are high school juniors who have been inseparable best friends for three years. Now, they are discovering that their feelings for each other run much deeper than mere friendship.
Chris, whose open-minded family is completely supportive, is ready and able to live his life out and proud. For Bryan, whose father is the pastor of a very conservative mega-church in a Kansas City suburb, being gay simply isn’t an option. Bryan hopes that maybe next year when they leave Kansas to go to college together, he will be able to live more openly. In the meantime, they…
