The Best Within Me is an emotional rollercoaster.

A woman running from her nature as a werewolf has to confront the fear she has of herself and choose whether to be with the human she has wanted to marry for several years or if she wants to throw that normal life away to be with the handsome hunk of a werewolf she meets while on the run.

I love this story because it isn't just a romance novel. There's blood and gore, murder and mayhem. It's an illustration of what women go through when the standards of society view them as pretty pictures rather than living, breathing flames that can and will burn you should you try to put her out.

Beautifully written words with a lyrical like feel are what I know I’ll always find within the pages of an A.M. Johnson book. The emotions she wrings from me every time are astonishing, and yet I never feel like I’ve been banged over the head with them like you sometimes get in some heartfelt stories. This is a male-male romance, and even if you don’t think this is your sort of thing, I still highly recommend it because it’s just gorgeous.

Written in the fifties, perhaps the author’s gender helped excuse her brave assumption that the intimate thoughts and feelings of a group of young gay men attempting to come to terms with their sexual identity was a valid topic. Renaud writes of stunted lives: the invented girlfriends, the cautious hints to probe another man’s preferences, the desperate need to belong, provoking the retreat into society’s stereotyping even amongst themselves. The novel is dated; one character has to explain to another what drag is! But it was one more step towards gay men’s forming their identity and self-acceptance. 

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.

I'm drawn to WWII stories, both historic and purely fictional, and Orringer's novel is the best of both. I learned a real-life story I did not know--about the great efforts of Varian Fry to extricate Jewish artists and intellectuals from Nazi Europe through southern France (among them, Hannah Arendt, Max Ernst, Marc Chagall, Marcel Duchamp, André Breton, and many more).

But I was also completely engrossed by the story of forbidden love at its core, between Fry, the married New Yorker who spearheads the effort against the Nazis and their Vichy henchmen, and his former secret lover, Elliott Grant, while they were students at Harvard. Grant, who disappeared one day at college, turns up just as unexpectedly, with the son of his Jewish mentor. Their love is rekindled in the midst of wartime drama; it is also impeded by Grant's secret, which drove him from Harvard and which Fry now… show more.

This was just such a fun read. It had me giggling. Well, at first, it had me rolling my eyes. This is probably one of my all-time favorites. Within a few chapters, I was swooning for both characters and trying to logic a reason why things would turn out well, even though it’s literally about an assassin whose target is a prince.

There was so much fun worldbuilding in the background of this adorable romance, and I’m a sucker for big magical worlds.

The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, Wilson’s debut work, is another wonder among wonders.

It feels like an epic fantasy, but instead of following more Viking-blonde heroes with their magical swords, we’re following hired mercenaries to escort a caravan through dangerous lands.

And instead of the usual fantasy worlds descended from the Western European Middle Ages, we’re in one influenced by re-colonial Africa.

There are magical jungles and magical tigers, and violence and death, and an LGBT love story between smart, dedicated men.

It’s a character study worthy of a literary novel, but the love of words, and the masterful inclusion of various dialects, particularly a kind of medieval hip-hop slang, makes this a truly fascinating read.

This rare Black queer romance novel is a heartfelt exploration of friendship and second chances.

It doesn’t shy away from the complexities of maintaining relationships in the midst of grief, addressing head on one of the most difficult and underexplored aspects of loss. It’s a reminder that our past shapes us, but our present can redefine us, through the refreshing lens of Black queer characters just trying to figure out their lives.

This novel was like gravity; I felt like the author dropped me into the 70-year storyline, and I was powerless to stop myself from falling through its many layers. Each character was so vivid and whole that I cared deeply for each of them.

The connections between the different generations of gay men made me feel like I—a queer author myself—was part of a spanning, meaningful history full of ache, loss, love, and humor. 

When I first entered the heady world of Regency romance in January 2021 (yes, Bridgerton was the spark but I read the books first!), Merry Farmer soon became an instant inspiration. She writes M/M, F/F, and F/M historical romances and is one of the very few people who manage to write all three and have a beloved following. So, of course, I wanted to become an ARC reviewer for her and managed to snag some of the books in her After the War series, which follows a group of gay men returning back to England for a house party reunion after, you guessed it, the Napoleonic Wars. 

This is not the first installment in the series, but it’s the sweetest. Merry Farmer has created a loveable, enchanting hero in Declan Shelton, the reticent, odd young gamekeeper who draws the attention of Lord Spencer Brightling, a gruff and stern man who… show more.