The best books on queer historical romance

If Were Villains is an extraordinarily rare novel that I adore. Once I picked it up I couldn’t put it down. It follows seven students attending their senior year at Dellecher Classical Conservatory. Oliver Marks essentially lives in a bubble where he lives, breathes, eats, and sleeps nothing but Shakespeare. He and his friends dance a fine line between fiction and reality, often getting lost in the characters they play. As they get wrapped up in the world of Julius Caesar, bloody and mired in betrayal, fiction becomes reality when one of the seven dies. Oliver is left to defend his friends and is forced to confront what he’d do for the one he loves. This book is dark and twisted, a murder mystery that packs a punch.       

This book heavily inspired me to write my own novel. The Song of Achilles is a queer retelling of the story of Achilles and Patroclus from The Illiad. I am a fan of The Iliad and The Odyssey, but this book blew me out of the water. It took a classic story and flipped it on its head. The love that Achilles and Patroclus shared touched my heart, and I was left thinking about this book for months after I finished it. Patroclus makes for an interesting narrator, giving us a glimpse of the war on Troy from a new angle. I laughed, I cried, and wondered where this book had been my whole life. It is beautifully written, heartbreaking and absolutely stunning. I can’t recommend it enough.     

When I first picked up this book I was not expecting to be so deeply affected by it. Set in Paris in the 1950s, Giovanni’s Room follows David as he struggles with his own inner torments. He is caught between duty and desire when he meets Giovanni at a bar. With a fiancée in Spain and a father waiting back home in the States, David is forced to choose. Hella with her bold confidence and promise of normal, public life, or Giovanni and his many mysteries, passions, and suffocating love. My heart ached for David and Giovanni alike, their story doomed to walk a dark path. Another heart-wrenching story, but one that should not be missed.    

This book, along with its recently published sequel, are beautifully crafted stories. Ari first meets Dante in the summer. Dante offers to teach Ari how to swim and from there an unlikely friendship blooms. Ari with his quiet moods and his desire to remain invisible, and Dante, quick to love with his large personality and confidence. Their bond runs deeper over the summer and they are both faced with what they truly want, and how to live in a world that won’t accept them. I love both of these books, how Ari and Dante lift the other up, and how unafraid they are to face the world if they have each other. Their growth and struggles feel so real, making these incredibly powerful books.       

I actually found this series through Tiktok and immediately fell in love with it. Slippery Creatures is the first in the series and it sets up the tenuous relationship between Wil Darling and Kim Secretan. After the Great War, Will inherits his uncle’s bookshop, and the attention of a criminal gang and the War Office. Both demand information Will has never heard of before. Will then meets Kim, who seems sociable and helpful, but there is more to Secretan than meets the eye. As the series continues the relationship between Will and Kim grows as they battle gangs and Kim’s own family. This series is quirky and fun and I just adore it. Will and Kim’s character arcs are beautifully paced and satisfying. I highly recommend this series.