Can a BDSM f/f romance, written and illustrated by a man be the sweetest, funniest, and most romantic thing you’ve read this year? The answer is a surprising but resounding yes. Lisa Williams has always had a bondage kink, but she’s limited herself to solo experimentation and writing erotic stories. Her online stories catch the…
John and Jackie first meet when they are twelve years old. Now, seventy-one years later, Jackie prepares to give his beloved husband the ultimate gift. In the story, set over the course of a single afternoon, they relive key moments from their lives together. This includes their first meeting and first kiss, through the violence…
In City of Flickering Light, readers are introduced to twenty-one-year-old Irene van Beck, a woman who has grown disenchanted with her life as a dancer in a bottom-tier Burlesque show. She knows there’s more to life than removing her clothing in front of a different group of men each night, and she’s determined to find…
When I heard of Shyam Selvadurai’s novel Funny Boy, it went to the top of my TBR pile. A boy who grows up during the ethnic unrest of the ‘80s in Sri Lanka, and gradually realizes he’s gay? Plus, he migrates to Canada? I’m straight and female, but otherwise, I could relate. Warning : spoilers…
The Other Five Percent is a contemporary romance involving Logan Vanderveer, who has gone into advertising after college, and is presented as the stereotypical, suit wearing nine-to-five worker with a cubicle office. The other protagonist is Ellis Floyd, an artist, who is well read and working multi-jobs he loves. He went to the same college…
Cora Benning’s hot online sex life collides with her shy and introverted real life as an IT consultant when she is nearly victimized as a result of a security breach in the game where she plays out her fantasies. When she takes her complaint to the company, she finds there’s much more than she expected…
In Soul Selecta by Gill McKnight, love needs a helping hand – in this case, the helping hand of the Soul Selector. She is the one who makes sure that soulmates (the ultimate source of power for the gods, Greek Pantheon style) get together and stay together. But unfortunately, the current set of soul mates isn’t…
One of my favourite contemporary queer novels, Into This River I Drown definitely covers the big subjects – life, the universe (literally), death, grief, redemption and love. One of the themes – the bond between a beloved father and his son – is presented as an exquisite and eternal one, however, Benji has to learn…
Burn Down the Night is the third book in author Molly O’Keefe’s suspenseful romance series Everything I Left Unsaid. The first two books, Everything I Left Unsaid and The Truth About Him were a duology featuring Annie and Dylan, with book one told from Annie’s point of view and book two, a continuation where book…
Thus far, Big Love is my favorite Rick R. Reed book. Why? Because Reed makes no false steps in this one. What he does is take a much-loved YA cliché and transform it into a thoughtful, moving three-story novel. He does it by adding two MORE romance clichés: the long-married, suppressed gay man and the…