The best gay romance novels

This book made me laugh out loud so many times—it's the funniest fantasy I have ever read. An oddball crew breaks into the protagonist’s prison cell to rescue a prince, so the protagonist claims to be the prince and is rescued along with his cellmate.

The journey back to the prince’s country is a road trip comedy with a wacky cast... but amid all the crude jokes are real emotional moments and characters being kind to each other. The protagonist can’t stop himself from falling for the prince and grows as a person in the process. Nothing about the story ever gets too serious, and the bad bits happen quickly and without prolonged trauma. I loved everything about it.

This Young Adult romance takes place over the course of a single weekend, and it captures the urgency of young love perfectly. Sure Olivia and Toni fall hard and fast, but it’s no wonder—a great music festival can pull you far enough from your day-to-day that you feel as though you’ve been there a lifetime, even as an adult. And this book captures that so clearly, bringing you right into both girls’ perspectives, letting you feel every triumph and every moment of despair as they chase their dreams, musical and otherwise, and figure out who they are.

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. 

Severn is a demon who has gained the trust, friendship, and love of the guardian angel Mikhail for the sole purpose of vengeance.

But after ten years of pretending to be someone he is not, he realizes he has turned into one of the angels and his arch-enemy became his greatest love.

Oh, boy, where do I start with this one? Primal Sin is one of the most dramatic M/M fantasies I’ve ever read.

From beginning to end, I was certain this pairing would never be allowed to be happy. Severn is a complicated, bordering on tragic, protagonist and Mikhail is someone you often want to punch, but eventually warm up to.

It’s impossible not to fall in love with them and the stellar world-building.

An absolute enemies-to-lovers roller coaster and I’m all for it.

This book has plenty of push and pull, and I couldn’t put it down.

I wanted the main guys to get together so badly, and loved watching them grow as young men, making important decisions for their respective countries while making peace with the social lens constantly being aimed their way. 

This book is an unconventional romance, but it is a sweeping one, with language that made me swoon and a love story that gave me reason to hope again. The main character, Vin, was a mystery I needed to solve. King Perry is the first in a book series that has opened my heart in ways I didn’t even know my heart needed opening. It’s a beautiful book (and series) that has the potential to change the way you look at life. Yes, it’s that good. 

Like so many marvelous novels, this one has traveled through the underground of the fiction world too little known, despite catching many awards and the intense praise of people such as Stephen Fry.

It is set in France during the final bloody months of World War I and features an unexpected love affair between two ordinary young soldiers, Australian and American. What is amazing is that the author is such a vivid, meticulous historian, such a fine military researcher, and yet can write so intimately.

I became so involved with Tommy and David. Will they survive the last months of the war and go on together hiding their relationship from condemning neighbors, or will the war cancel their great love? 

This is the story of two young men, one rich, one homeless but it’s not a simple rescue me type story. Laurie and Sasha reach out desperately to one another from their different worlds, and against all odds begin an affair, hidden in the attics of Laurie’s sumptuous home and on the bleak moorland of a Romani encampment. For Laurie, it’s a delicious sexual awakening, and Sasha returns his affections, opening up to him a whole new world of freedom. But Sasha has secrets, and a murky, violent past. 

I’ve reread this book countless times. Harper Fox’s writing is breathtaking and it’s so comforting to read characters you can’t help but adore falling in love and finding their way through conflict to a safe and happy ending.

Mouse is a master thief who is given a job to free Lord Garron, the son of a powerful duke, arrested on trumped-up charges in a rival duchy.

It’s nothing he hasn’t done before, but how would he know this mission would change his life? We follow Mouse’s mission and his escape with Garron along with their inevitable falling in love with each other.

Admittedly, it took some time for Lord Mouse to warm up to me, but once it did, I couldn’t let go of the book. It’s one of those books, you read in one go and can’t stop until you get your happy ending.

Mouse was a sweetheart and Garron was his perfect partner to compliment his flaws and virtues. Another captivating opposites-attract kind of couple, you’d love to follow from beginning to end.

Perhaps from the outside Detroit might look like a humorless place. A native of the city, Foley shows us just how untrue that is. Boys follows three Black gay millennial men looking for love, friendship, and professional success in the Motor City, with a narrative both hilarious and touching.

Published by Belt Publishing, a relatively new publisher focusing on the Rust Belt, Boys gives readers an inside view of the city and Black culture that can be radically different from the ones often portrayed in the media. This book can take you to a world much more beautiful and strange.

Gideon Holiday loves Christmas. He’s literally dripping with holiday cheer. Unfortunately, his grumpy next-door neighbor, Paul, the man Gideon is crushing on something fierce, hasn’t a drop of appreciation for the holiday or the accompanying festivities. That holds true until Paul finds out the younger brother he raised plans to visit for the holidays. Just like when they were kids, Paul seeks to give his brother a joyous holiday to make up for the tough times they had when his brother was a kid. But since he knows nothing about getting into the holiday spirit, he’ll need Gideon’s fabulous Christmas powers to make this the best holiday his younger brother has ever had.

This story is filled with humor and heat. While Gideon is teaching Paul how to loosen up and join in on the neighborhood holiday fun, Paul also teaches Gideon that he doesn’t have to be lonely. It’s… show more.

A blend of humor and Chinese fantasy, The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System was my first brush with the Chinese sub-genre of transmigration novels, similar but different from Western portal fantasy or Japanese isekai. The main character ends up in a world not his own, and in the process of trying to make it better, comes rather close to destroying it. That dissonance between intention and results is something I absolutely love in my heroes. Competence is boring. I want to see (and write) messiness and complacency and efforts made that perhaps weren’t thought out all the way. That, to me, is not only humor but true heroism.

This is a book I’m particularly excited to share because I was given the chance to read it in advance of its release. And I can say that it’s fabulous fun! A swords and sorcery tale brimming with assassins, magical music, battles for a throne, and dynamic lovers!

Balen is a gallant paladin who has made tough sacrifices to win his post as the king’s personal guard. One of the most painful of those sacrifices was leaving his witty and musically talented lover, Zavrius. So imagine his shock and chagrin after a series of mysterious assassinations leave Zaverius as the sole heir to the throne and Balen sworn to never leave his side! Awkward doesn’t even begin to describe it…but in the very best way — I promise!

The banter between the characters never failed to make me smile. And I adored that I could side with Zavrius for a… show more.

An M/M ("male and male") romance novella that upends traditional romance tropes. There are no aristocratic major characters, and no heroine. Instead two hero/es, Martin St. Vincent, a freed Caribbean ex-slave, and Theo Swann, a failed curate-to-be now running a "marriage mart" rag and as "Mrs. Swann," writing Gothic novels, play out the original Georgette Heyer trope of a Foolish Young Female character's thwarted elopement. Their literally bruising There and Back coach journey retrieves the female, but also develops their own attraction, and brings them through emotional or financial liberations to the threshold of a "new world." The diversity of race and sexuality is thoroughly modern, but content warning: as per usual for the sub-genre, there's plentiful sex.

There are times when books with asexual characters need some humor and lightheartedness for a wholesome mix. Not all ace books need to be sad or angsty. Not all ace books even need to be about sexuality itself. Asexual characters simply need to exist in more books with positive representation, and said books can help teach people that sexless romances are just as valid and meaningful.

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.

Johnathan Newman is a novice hunter who teams up with a five-hundred-year-old vampire named Vic on a dangerous mission.

The town is plagued by mythological creatures in need of saving and they work together to solve the mystery. However, Vic’s secrets bring trouble, and their mutual attraction doesn’t make things any easier.

A Bargain of Blood and Gold is one of the best-written books I’ve ever read. There hasn’t been a book where every word was chosen so perfectly to my liking. It has the exact amount of descriptions and dialogue. The style is simply perfect.

Additionally, the characters were so vivid and fun to read. John and Vic had such distinguished ways of expressing themselves that I knew every time who was talking without being told.

They are easily one of my favorite M/M couples.

The author, for whom Italy has always been a dream, sat down over a period of a few months and poured out this sensual, emotional novel about a love affair of two young men. He never intended to write such book, which proves my theory that we novelists are sometimes the bewildered recipients of the tales sent to us. 

Again, it is the pull between Oliver and Elio which fascinates me. When Elio thinks back on the relationship many years later, Aciman writes some of the most beautiful passages in literature. The page shimmers, the words rise, and the story is more than it was ever meant to be. Sadly, neither young man knew what they had together until it was over.

I love the start of this. An actor (again!) wakes to find himself naked and bound to a plank in the middle of the Texas range. Fortunately, along comes his saviour in the form of Duke, his knight in shining armour, or in this case, a cowboy. It’s a debut novel and it’s very good. Romantic and sweet with a bit of a mystery and I loved the touches of humour. Humour always brings a book alive for me. Sadly I think that’s the only book Thorny has written and it’s shame. 

Whenever I read a Cat Sebastian, I sigh in envy at how well she writes nuanced characters with nuanced emotions.

In Soldier’s Scoundrel, two heroes from very different backgrounds unite around a single goal.

From Jack’s perspective, we see the challenges of poverty and classism. From Oliver, we see a veteran trying to adjust to everyday life.

Together, they try to protect and defend women from physical, emotional, and economic abuse. Their love story is beautiful, requires them to pierce layers of their psyches to find vulnerability, and makes you feel all of the feels.

Even better, by the end of the novel, I had a new perspective on how the patriarchy works in societal systems. This is a read that made my empathy grow like the Grinch’s heart!