Happy Pride!
This Pride, AAR wanted to share some of our favorite reads starring less-represented members of the Rainbow Family: the BTQ+ part of LGBTQ+! Read on for our favorite romances starring bisexual, nonbinary, genderqueer, genderfluid, transgender, and asexual protagonists,
Bisexual protagonists:
Tags: bisexual, bisexual hero, bisexual heroine
We have LOTS of DIKs of books featuring bisexual characters. Some of the most recent ones are:
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Nonbinary, genderqueer, and/or genderfluid protagonists:
Tag: nonbinary
These are all of our current DIKs of books featuring nonbinary, genderqueer, and/or genderfluid protagonists:
REVIEW HERE
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Transgender protagonists
Tag: transgender
These are all of our DIKs of books that have transgender protagonists
Asexual protagonists
Tag: asexual
We have one DIK of a romance starring an asexual protagonist:
And of course, you can always find male/male romance and f/f romance at those tags. Please note that we use male/male and f/f intentionally – it represents the pairing of the characters, not their sexuality. Male/male and f/f characters may be gay and lesbian, bisexual, asexual, etc.
My favorites have humor. I’ve listed a few of them here but not all are romance:
Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall
Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. The two leads were just cast for the movie!
The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue (might come out on HBO Max?)
Carry On by Rainbow Rowel. YA Wizard story is related to Fan Girl.
The Guncle by Steven Rowley, AAR gave it an A review, The novel has been optioned by Lionsgate. I think it will be a great movie!
Less by Andrew Sean Greer, novel won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018
David Sedaris writes humorous essays, I especially liked Calypso. He has a new book out, Happy-Go-Lucky, but I haven’t read it yet.
I am getting ready to read Renovated to Death, a Cozy Mystery by Frank Polito.
First of all, I think we are covering trad romance pretty thoroughly, although I can see why it might not seem that way–until five or ten years ago, most of our coverage was straight, white romance and we’ve definitely expanded what we review.
But your comment got me wondering if maybe what you are responding to–and you are not the first reader I’ve heard this from–is the sense that AAR reviewers are no longer excited about traditional–which typically means straight and white–romance. So I tallied up all the DIK reviews from 2022.
I divided the reviews into three general categories: straight, queer, and POC. Books could be in in just one category or two–there’s straight and queer POC/AOC books. Then I broke those categories down by genre.
Of the 67 books we’ve given A grades to this year, 45 have featured straight leads, 25 queer leads, and 13 POC leads. The genre breakdown is this:
Women’s Fiction: 4 straight, 1 POC
Historical Romance: 7 straight (one was an older book), 2 queer,1 POC
Contemporary Romance: 13 straight (three were older books), 10 queer, 1 POC
Historical Fiction: 5 straight, 1 POC
NA/YA: 3 straight, 1 queer, 1 POC
Romantic suspense: 3 straight, 1 queer
Fiction: 3 straight, 1 POC
Mystery: 4 straight
SFF: 2 straight, 1 queer
These numbers say to me that we are currently very enthusiastic about contemporary romance which is a shift from our coverage of years past when I think we were most excited about historical romance.
These again are just our DIK reviews, not numbers that reflect our overall coverage.
I haven’t gone back more than the past 20 reviews, but 6 of those were for books with LGBTQ characters, so 30%. I’d hardly say that is a majority. I’m pretty sure at least 30% of the readers here read LGBTQ books, so I don’t see how that’s unbalanced.
I’m not sure that mainstream romance readers read 30% queer romance which I think is BPB’s point. It is true our readers do in part because we do cover so much of it with such enthusiasm.
What I said was 30% of romance readers read queer romance, not that the 30% of the books mainstream romance readers read are LGBTQ. That’s a difference thing.
I got that. I don’t think the number is that high for romance readers.
It’s hard to give an answer to that… speaking for myself, I found the books I was reading – mostly historicals – were going downhill fast and even the big name authors were rarely delivering interesting stories that didn’t feel like they were about 21st century people in period dress. As is obvious, I’ve slowly switched to reviewing mostly m/m romances because I find that those are where the good stories and good writing are at. I can’t speak for my fellow reviewers, but I suspect that those of us who have been reading and reviewing for a long time find our tastes have changed over time and we gravitate to genres other than m/f contemporary and historical romance. That’s definitely been the case for me.
I agree that AAR could cover more mainstream romance. The issue is finding reviewers which has been difficult to do.
I would love some statistics on what percentage of current reviews are M/F, M/M, and F/F and then each of these broken down by historical vs contemporary. I have been reading romance for about 40 years and started with M/F historical > contemporary then shifted to M/F contemporary > historical. I started reading M/M romances about 2 years ago and it was like finding a treasure trove. I probably read 70% M/M now. I’m not sure if it was a dearth of good M/F historical romances or just that after so many years of M/F, I was ready for a change. I do look at reviews at other websites and I’m pretty happy with AAR’s coverage.
You can search for that in our new power search by using tags plus book type.
http://allaboutromance.com/power-search-v-2-beta/
It’s pretty similar for me. I never read much m/f Contemporary romance though – I read about 90% HR because m/f CR rarely worked for me. Now I read m/m almost exclusively and I read and review a lot more CR than I used to.
For me it was definitely the dearth of good HR that sent me looking for other types of books to fill the very big gap left when HR went so rapidly downhill.
Maybe you can use this as an opportunity to practice empathy for LGBTQ+ people, who have spent most of their lives experiencing underrepresentation of books which reflect their identities and preferences.
A gentle reminder: at AAR we ask that you refrain from criticizing others who post here. Thanks.
This is the first time I’ve asked Caroline to consider tempering her comment. I usually give people more than one chance before I pull a comment. I’m sorry if her comment made you feel uncomfortable.
Just as a point of curiosity, what authors would you like reviewed? I’m genuinely and sincerely interested. :-)
Not a reviewer here, but right there with you Caz.
Happy Pride, y’all!
An Unsuitable Heir by K.J. Charles has one of the best depictions of a nonbinary character I’ve read. It’s the third in an excellent series. Plus her excellent novella, The Rat Catcher’s daughter has trans and ace characters.
The love interest in Rachel Reid’s book, Tough Guy, is genderqueer. Genderqueer/genderfluid characters are relatively common in m/m.
I’ve found many more positive representations of bi, genderfluid, demi, trans, grey ace, pan, etc. in m/m romances than m/f. I haven’t read many f/f, so I can’t comment on them, but it seems likely they, too, will have greater representation of non-traditional queer characters.
I’ve also read several books depicting erectile (usually from medication or injury) issue in m/m (see above Tough Guy), something I’ve rarely read in m/f before.
Agreed. Annabeth Albert’s High Heat also looks at ED – this time relating to disability – I actually said something in the review about it being unusual to find a male lead who isn’t a stud who can go five times a night in a romance novel!
And just FYI, the books you mention are not on this list because they weren’t DIKs and they all came out more than a year ago.
I was thinking of Annabeth Albert when I wrote that post. I remember that book, plus she has several grey ace and demisexual characters.
I knew you weren’t shooting for an exhaustive list, but I couldn’t resist adding adding a couple of my favorites. :-)
Ainslie Paton’s Damaged Goods is an m/f romance with a hero with sexual issues. We gave that a DIK. http://allaboutromance.com/book-review/damaged-goods-by-ainslie-paton/
Thank you! That looks very promising.
When I wrote my comment originally, I said I’d come across an m/f story with a hero with ED, but I couldn’t remember the title so I deleted that bit! But that’s the book I was thinking of.
Sarina Bowen’s FALLING FROM THE SKY is also an m/f romance where the hero has ED—the result of a sports injury. (He’s also in a wheelchair.) The book does not shy away from how the “sex stuff” gets accomplished.
The two older books that deal with paraplegic MC’s are A MAN LIKE MAC by Fay Robinson (I read this a LONG time ago, don’t know how it holds up), and WINNING RUBY HART by Jennifer Lohmann. I remember enjoying both books. Interestingly, both deal with running coaches (the men in the wheelchairs) and runners trying to make comebacks.
In our new powersearch it looks like we’ve reviewed six books with guys in a wheelchair. Interestingly, four of them, the last being WRH, are published by Harlequin.
One of the MCs of E.M. Lindsey’s m/m, BLANK CANVAS, is paralyzed from the waist down. The book is quite detailed about how someone with physical challenges can have a full and satisfying intimate life with a partner. In fact, all of the books in the series (Iron & Works) feature MCs who have physical and/or mental health challenges.
I have to say I have zero interest in reading a book with a hero with ED. This may have something to do with being 61. I read romance to escape real life not to see it reflected back to me!
I loved THE IMPOSSIBLE BOY, but you do have to read the second book, THE LOST BOY, to get the MCs’ HEA. They’re both very good books, but the couple go through some rough times—together and apart.
I recently read Aleksandr Voinov’s BURN THIS CITY, an m/m mafia romance. The book is very violent and full of triggers, but I thought it was well-written with excellent ACE representation.
I liked, but did not love, FOR THE LOVE OF APRIL FRENCH. The heroine keeps a huge secret from the hero for months. The secret has has nothing to do with her gender identity (which the hero knows about from the first night they meet), and she has multiple opportunities to enlighten the hero, but chooses not to. That made it hard to sympathize with her.