Gay Fiction Books
Gay fiction books are no longer as out of reach as they seemed to be in the pre-internet and pre-surge of LGBTQIA+ media around twenty years ago.
Established and new writers of gay fiction bring us beautifully written love stories, thrillers and comedies, and some novels are being turned into blockbuster Gay Movies such as Call Me By Your Name as well as inspiring Gay TV Shows.
With the rise of independent internet Gay Web Series and self published writers, gay fiction stories seem to be never ending.
We looked across the globe for the best Gay Fiction novels out there and we’ve listed 72 of them right here:
The Line of Succession by Harry F. Rey
Families are built on secrets, but when it’s the royal family, the stakes-and the secrets-can be deadly. Fifteen years ago, Prince James’s father, Prince Richard, was killed in a mysterious helicopter crash, along with his secret Irish lover. The young James became heir to the British throne over his twin sister, Princess Alexandra. With Queen Victoria II turning ninety, James’s personal life, now that he’s thirty, has come more into the public spotlight as he’s expected to marry and produce an heir.
Known for his playboy lifestyle, he’d gladly accept that reputation to hide the truth that he’s gay and in a secret long-term relationship with his best friend and press secretary, Andrew. His twin sister knows his secret and plans to use it to create a scandal that will help her take the crown for herself, but her plans rely on trust, and she will soon learn her allies are not as trustworthy as she thought. Will James win his throne, while keeping the love of his life? Or will the monarchy topple in the face of naked ambition and public scandal? The Line of Succession is a 38,000-word erotic romantic drama. If you love TV’s The Crown or The Royals, then you’ll love this deliciously sly royal drama filled with sex, secrets, and lies. Buy The Line of Succession now and dive into a royal family of secret gay lovers, ambitious lusts for power, passions for revenge, and hidden secrets that will shake the monarchy to its very core. This isn’t your real-life fairy-tale wedding; this is a royal family at war.
Buy ‘The Line of Succession’ on Amazon
Speak No Evil by Uzodinma Iweala
A revelation shared between two privileged teenagers from very different backgrounds sets off a chain of events with devastating consequences.
On the surface, Niru leads a charmed life. Raised by two attentive parents in Washington, D.C., he’s a top student and a track star at his prestigious private high school. Bound for Harvard in the fall, his prospects are bright. But Niru has a painful secret: he is queer—an abominable sin to his conservative Nigerian parents. No one knows except Meredith, his best friend, the daughter of prominent Washington insiders—and the one person who seems not to judge him.
When his father accidentally discovers Niru is gay, the fallout is brutal and swift. Coping with troubles of her own, however, Meredith finds that she has little left emotionally to offer him. As the two friends struggle to reconcile their desires against the expectations and institutions that seek to define them, they find themselves speeding toward a future more violent and senseless than they can imagine. Neither will escape unscathed.
Last Place in the Chalet by Sue Brown
Noel Garrett leaves for his Christmas vacation with an engagement ring in his pocket. But he boards the plane alone and with a broken heart when his boyfriend dumps him in the airport.
His seatmate, Angel Marinelli, takes care of him with gentle determination… whether Noel wants it or not, and Noel doesn’t expect to see Angel again. But when an overbooking leaves Angel without a room and Noel is asked to host him, one night turns into the whole vacation and they settle into the chalet and mix with an eclectic group of guests, including the Wise Guys and a pregnant woman. As they ski and spend every moment together, Noel finds himself falling for Angel, and though his feelings are returned, Noel worries it’s just a rebound romance. It’ll mean taking a leap of faith, but Noel has to make a decision before he hurts Angel, and Christmas is fast approaching.
Buy ‘Last Place in the Chalet’ on Amazon
Into? by North Morgan
In Into? North Morgan shines a coolly mesmerizing light on the modern generation of gay men that are living firmly outside the closet, elevated by popular culture, but plagued by a new set of problems, insecurities, and self-destruction. As the men of Into? swipe right from bed to bed, North Morgan spins a darkly hilarious, and shockingly perceptive story of excess and love that’s like nothing you’ve ever read.
You know Konrad from your various social feeds – sun-kissed, gym ripped, and always having a better time than you. Or is he?
Konrad Platt needed to get out of town. Heartbroken after his boyfriend left him for another man, Konrad abandoned his life in London for the warm sun and blue surf of LA. Here he attends parties in the Hollywood Hills filled with handsome men and beautiful women, snorts mountains of Adderall, and dances the weekends away at Coachella with each move endlessly documented on social media. He mends his broken heart through dating apps, constantly scrolling through profiles and chatting with a seemingly endless supply of men, each one more handsome than the last. But when one captures his heart, a twisted modern romance takes root that’s thrilling, confusing, and devastating – revealing that underneath this perfectly curated profile is a man desperate for real connection.
We Are The Ants by Sean David Hutchinson
From the “author to watch” (Kirkus Reviews) of The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley comes an “equal parts sarcastic and profound” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) novel about a teenage boy who must decide whether or not the world is worth saving.
Henry Denton has spent years being periodically abducted by aliens. Then the aliens give him an ultimatum: The world will end in 144 days, and all Henry has to do to stop it is to push a big red button.
Only he isn’t sure he wants to.
After all, life hasn’t been great for Henry. His mom is a struggling waitress held together by a thin layer of cigarette smoke. His brother is a jobless dropout who just knocked someone up. His grandmother is slowly losing herself to Alzheimer’s. And Henry is still dealing with the grief of his boyfriend’s suicide last year.
Wiping the slate clean sounds like a pretty good choice to him.
But Henry is a scientist first, and facing the question thoroughly and logically, he begins to look for pros and cons: in the bully who is his perpetual one-night stand, in the best friend who betrayed him, in the brilliant and mysterious boy who walked into the wrong class. Weighing the pain and the joy that surrounds him, Henry is left with the ultimate choice: push the button and save the planet and everyone on it…or let the world—and his pain—be destroyed forever.
Buy ‘We Are The Ants’ on Amazon
On the Same Page (Secrets Book 4) by K.C. Wells and Parker Williams
When a Dom invites a shy bookstore owner to live out his fantasies, more than one life will be transformed.
Words are Heath Snow’s life. He can’t remember a time when he didn’t have his nose buried in a book. He couldn’t make a living as a writer, so he did the next best thing—he bought a bookstore. But when he’s not selling books, he’s living vicariously through the characters he encounters. Real men can’t hold a candle to the hot men in his favorite genre.
The Pride display in the bookstore window may be what captured Xavier James’s attention, but the man enthusing about books interests him more. The BDSM book lying next to the cash register is a pleasant surprise, and when he draws attention to it, Heath’s flushed cheeks and bright eyes pique Xavier’s curiosity even further.
Xavier is about to learn that some things are more important than work, and Heath is about to step out of his comfort zone, into a place where fantasy and real-life coexist.
Buy ‘On the Same Page’ on Amazon
The Front Runner by Patricia Neil Warren
The Front Runner is a 1974 novel by Patricia Nell Warren. The story centers on Harlan Brown who is a tough, conservative track coach hiding from his past at a small college. Billy Sive is a brilliant young runner who is homosexual and doesn’t mind who knows it. When they fall in love, they enter a race against hate and prejudice which takes them to the ’76 Olympics and a shattering, shocking conclusion.
With 10 million copies in 7 languages, this landmark classic is the most popular gay love story of all time. Wildcat Press presents the 20th Anniversary Edition.The Front Runner is noted for being the first contemporary gay novel to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success.
Buy ‘The Front Runner’ on Amazon
Release by Patrick Ness
Inspired by Mrs Dalloway and Judy Blume’s Forever, Release is one day in the life of Adam Thorn, 17. It’s a big day. Things go wrong. It’s intense, and all the while, weirdness approaches.
Adam Thorn is having what will turn out to be the most unsettling, difficult day of his life, with relationships fracturing, a harrowing incident at work, and a showdown between this gay teen and his preacher father that changes everything. It’s a day of confrontation, running, romance, love, heartbreak, and maybe, just maybe, hope. He won’t come out of it unchanged. And all the while, lurking at the edges of the story, something extraordinary and unsettling is on a collision course.
Tigers and Devils by Sean Kennedy
The most important things in Simon Murray’s life are football, friends, and film—in that order. His friends despair of him ever meeting someone, but despite his loneliness, Simon is cautious about looking for more.
Then his best friends drag him to a party, where he barges into a football conversation and ends up defending the honour of star forward Declan Tyler—unaware that the athlete is present. In that first awkward meeting, neither man has any idea they will change each other’s lives forever.
Buy ‘Tigers and Devils’ on Amazon
What if it’s us? by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera
A New York Times, USA Today, and Indie bestseller!
Critically acclaimed and bestselling authors Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera combine their talents in this smart, funny, heartfelt collaboration about two very different boys who can’t decide if the universe is pushing them together—or pulling them apart.
ARTHUR is only in New York for the summer, but if Broadway has taught him anything, it’s that the universe can deliver a showstopping romance when you least expect it.
BEN thinks the universe needs to mind its business. If the universe had his back, he wouldn’t be on his way to the post office carrying a box of his ex-boyfriend’s things.
But when Arthur and Ben meet-cute at the post office, what exactly does the universe have in store for them . . . ?
Maybe nothing. After all, they get separated.
Maybe everything. After all, they get reunited.
But what if they can’t nail a first date even after three do-overs?
What if Arthur tries too hard to make it work and Ben doesn’t try hard enough?
What if life really isn’t like a Broadway play?
But what if it is?
What if it’s us?
Buy ‘What if it’s us?’ on Amazon
At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O’Neill
Praised as “a work of wild, vaulting ambition and achievement” by Entertainment Weekly, Jamie O’Neill’s first novel invites comparison to such literary greats as James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and Charles Dickens.
Set during the year preceding the Easter Uprising of 1916—Ireland’s brave but fractured revolt against British rule—At Swim, Two Boys is a tender, tragic love story and a brilliant depiction of people caught in the tide of history. Powerful and artful, and ten years in the writing, it is a masterwork from Jamie O’Neill.
Jim Mack is a naïve young scholar and the son of a foolish, aspiring shopkeeper. Doyler Doyle is the rough-diamond son—revolutionary and blasphemous—of Mr. Mack’s old army pal. Out at the Forty Foot, that great jut of rock where gentlemen bathe in the nude, the two boys make a pact: Doyler will teach Jim to swim, and in a year, on Easter of 1916, they will swim to the distant beacon of Muglins Rock and claim that island for themselves. All the while Mr. Mack, who has grand plans for a corner shop empire, remains unaware of the depth of the boys’ friendship and of the changing landscape of a nation.
Buy ‘At Swim, Two Boys’ on Amazon
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
A gay fiction classic, Giovanni’s Room is a 1956 novel that centers on the events in the life of an American man living in Paris.
The book explores his feelings and frustrations with his relationships with other men in his life, particularly an Italian bartender named Giovanni whom he meets at a Parisian gay bar.
Buy ‘Giovanni’s Room’ on Amazon
Pretend You’re Mine: A Protectors Short Story by Sloane Kennedy
Landscape architect Devon Rhodes doesn’t know what to think when he overhears a heated conversation in his new next-door neighbor’s back yard, but when he decides to intervene, he definitely isn’t expecting the encounter to change his life forever.
Forced to retire from his career as a professional ballet dancer far too soon, Sebastian DeVille has moved to the quiet suburbs of San Francisco to figure things out and maybe get away from his poor decisions for a while.
Well, one poor decision, his very married ex. An argument with the man leads to an unlikely meeting with his new neighbor and an unexpected Valentine’s date that neither Sebastian nor Devon will ever forget. But can one night of a pretend romance really lead to a lifetime of love?
Buy ‘Pretend You’re Min: A Protector’s Short Story’ on Amazon
Zero at the Bone by Jane Seville
After witnessing a mob hit, surgeon Jack Francisco is put into protective custody to keep him safe until he can testify. A hitman known only as D is blackmailed into killing Jack, but when he tracks him down, his weary conscience won’t allow him to murder an innocent man.
Finding in each other an unlikely ally, Jack and D are soon on the run from shadowy enemies. Forced to work together to survive, the two men forge a bond that ripens into unexpected passion. Jack sees the wounded soul beneath D’s cold, detached exterior, and D finds in Jack the person who can help him reclaim the man he once was. As the day of Jack’s testimony approaches, he and D find themselves not only fighting for their lives… but also fighting for their future. A future together.
Buy ‘Zero at the Bone’ on Amazon
Maurice by E.M Forster
Set in the elegant Edwardian world of Cambridge undergraduate life, this story by a master novelist introduces us to Maurice Hall when he is fourteen. We follow him through public school and Cambridge, and into his father’s firm. In a highly structured society, Maurice is a conventional young man in almost every way―except that he is homosexual.
Written during 1913 and 1914, immediately after Howards End, and not published until 1971, Maurice was ahead of its time in its theme and in its affirmation that love between men can be happy. “Happiness,” Forster wrote, “is its keynote…. In Maurice I tried to create a character who was completely unlike myself or what I supposed myself to be: someone handsome, healthy, bodily attractive, not a bad businessman and rather a snob. Into this mixture, I dropped an ingredient that puzzles him, wakes him up, torments him and finally saves him.”
Maurice has also been made into a movie which made our list of our Best Gay Movies.
Working out the Kinks by Misha Horne
Working Out the Kinks is a 98,000-word kinky forbidden romance novel about a grumpy, broken rock star who refuses to fall in love and a lonely, relentless, spoiled brat looking for someone to belong to.
So much angst, so much arguing, so much spanking… but this is a Misha Horne book, so you knew that already.
Buy ‘Working out the Kinks’ on Amazon Kindle
Free Spirit by Spencer Spears
He’s my fake boyfriend and I’m straight. So why do I suddenly want more?
Tate: I’m everything people hate—
Spoiled, arrogant heir to a billion-dollar fortune.
Scion of a family that made its name opposing LGBTQ+ rights.
The last thing I expected to develop was a conscience.
I blame Emory Murphy—the golden-haired mess of a dreamer who turned my life upside down.
Somehow, I agree to pretend to be Em’s boyfriend for his brother’s wedding.
Somehow, I don’t realize this means we’ll share a bed.
Somehow, I find myself kissing him.
More than kissing him.
And liking it.
How do you go back to being friends after that?
Hey, wanna grab some beers and forget about the time I had my mouth around your—
Yeah. Not happening.
With my family calling me home, I need to put this all behind me.
But try as I might, I can’t get Em out of my mind.
He has no idea that I’m really falling for him.
And my family has no idea who I really am.
I just want to feel free for once in my life—
But am I brave enough to tell either of them the truth?
Free Spirit is a 122,000-word m/m romance that’s got more sweetness than sunshine and peaches, more angsty pining than a coniferous forest, and more steam than a south Georgia summer night. Fake boyfriends, discovering bisexuality, and out-for-you themes. No cheating, no cliffhangers, and a guaranteed HEA.
Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman
Call Me by Your Name is a 2007 novel by American writer André Aciman which was turned into an Oscar winning movie in 2018.
The story centers on a blossoming romantic relationship between an intellectually precocious and curious 17-year-old American-Italian Jewish boy named Elio Perlman and a visiting 24-year-old American Jewish scholar named Oliver in 1980s Italy.
Buy ‘Call Me By Your Name’ on Amazon
Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan
This is the story of Paul, a sophomore at a high school like no other: The cheerleaders ride Harleys, the homecoming queen used to be a guy named Daryl (she now prefers Infinite Darlene and is also the star quarterback), and the gay-straight alliance was formed to help the straight kids learn how to dance.
Less: A Novel by Andrew Sean Greer
Who says you can’t run away from your problems? You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can’t say yes–it would be too awkward–and you can’t say no–it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world.
QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town? ANSWER: You accept them all.
What would possibly go wrong? Arthur Less will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Saharan sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a Christian Retreat Center in Southern India, and encounter, on a desert island in the Arabian Sea, the last person on Earth he wants to face. Somewhere in there: he will turn fifty. Through it all, there is his first love. And there is his last. Because, despite all these mishaps, missteps, misunderstandings and mistakes, Less is, above all, a love story.
A scintillating satire of the American abroad, a rumination on time and the human heart, a bittersweet romance of chances lost, by an author The New York Times has hailed as “inspired, lyrical,” “elegiac,” “ingenious,” as well as “too sappy by half,” Less shows a writer at the peak of his talents raising the curtain on our shared human comedy.
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
When four classmates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they’re broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their center of gravity.
Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.
Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
What happens when America’s First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales?
When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, genius—his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There’s only one problem: Alex has a beef with the actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse.
Heads of family, state, and other handlers devise a plan for damage control: staging a truce between the two rivals. What at first begins as a fake, Instragramable friendship grows deeper and more dangerous than either Alex or Henry could have imagined. Soon Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret romance with a surprisingly unstuffy Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations and begs the question: Can love save the world after all? Where do we find the courage, and the power, to be the people we are meant to be? And how can we learn to let our true colors shine through? Casey McQuiston’s Red, White & Royal Blue proves: true love isn’t always diplomatic.
Buy ‘Red, White and Royal Blue’ on Amazon
Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
San Francisco, 1976. A naïve young secretary, fresh out of Cleveland, tumbles headlong into a brave new world of laundromat Lotharios, pot-growing landladies, cut throat debutantes, and Jockey Shorts dance contests.
The saga that ensues is manic, romantic, tawdry, touching, and outrageous – unmistakably the handiwork of Armistead Maupin.
Buy ‘Tales of the City’ on Amazon
The Wedding Guest by Jonathan Kellerman
In the middle of a ‘Saints and Sinners’ themed wedding, a bridesmaid finds a young woman’s body collapsed in the bathroom.
None of the wedding guests claim to know the well-dressed victim but psychologist Alex Delaware and Detective Milo Sturgis aren’t so convinced.
Buy ‘The Wedding Guest’ on Amazon
Someday, Someday by Emma Scott
How long would you wait for love?
Max Kaufman was kicked out of his home as a teen and his life has been an uphill battle ever since. From addiction and living on the streets, to recovery and putting himself through nursing school, he’s spent the last ten years rebuilding his shattered sense of self. Now he’s taken a job as a private caretaker to Edward Marsh III, the president and CEO of one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Max soon learns Marsh’s multi-billion-dollar empire is a gold and diamond-encrusted web of secrets and lies.
The longer Max works and lives with the Marsh family, the tighter the secrets tangle around him. And his heart—that he’s worked so hard to protect—falls straight into the hands of the distant, cold, and beautiful son of a dynasty…
Silas Marsh is set to inherit the family fortune, but his father is determined his heir be the “perfect” son. Before Silas can take over the company and end its shady business practices, he must prove himself worthy…and deny his true nature.
Silas must choose: stand up to his father by being true to himself and his undeniable feelings for Max. Or pretend to be someone he is not in order to inherit everything. Even if it means sacrificing a chance at happiness and real love.
Buy ‘Someday, Someday’ on Amazon
Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders by Samuel R Delany
Like his legendary Hogg, The Mad Man, and the million-seller Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany’s major new novel Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders—explicit, poetic, philosophical, and, yes, shocking—propels readers into a gay sexual culture unknown to most urban gay men and women, a network of rural gay relations—with the twist that this one is supported by the homophile Kyle Foundation, started in the early 1980s by a black multi-millionaire, Robert Kyle III, to improve the lives of black gay men.
In 2007, days before his seventeenth birthday, Eric Jeffers’ stepfather brings him to live with his mother, who works as a waitress in the foundering tourist town of Diamond Harbor on the Georgia coast. In the local truck stop restroom, on his first day, Eric meets nineteen-year-old Morgan Haskell, as well as half a dozen other gay men who live and work in the area. The boys become a couple, and for the next twenty years labor as garbage men along the coast, sharing their lives and their lovers, learning to negotiate a committed open relationship. For a decade they manage a rural movie theater that shows pornographic films and encourages gay activity among the audience. Finally, they become handymen for a burgeoning lesbian art colony on nearby Gillead Island, as America moves twenty years, forty years, sixty years into a future fascinating, glorious, and—sometimes—terrifying.
Buy ‘Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders’ on Amazon
A Faithful Son by Michael Scott Garvin
A Faithful Son is an award-winning, dazzling debut and genre-defying novel. This captivating coming of age tale chronicles the life of Zach Nance, a young man struggling to find his place in an ever-shifting world and the zany cast of local characters who help him come to an understanding of himself and the secret he harbors. The small town of Durango, Colorado provides the rural backdrop for Garvin’s masterful novel.
A hunky traveling carnie, an eccentric gaggle of pious church spinsters, a flirty drag queen and Jesus Christ, himself, all make appearances within the pages of this endearing novel. After tragedy befalls the Nance’s, Zach’s close-knit family unravels. He vows to protect his beloved mother and sister from the fallout of his troubled father’s choices — forcing young Zach to redefine his loyalties, his faith and his own destiny. A beautiful and heartrending tale in the grand tradition of To Kill A Mockingbird and The Help. A Faithful Son captures life’s bittersweet journey through lost innocence, sacrifice, and self-discovery, treating readers to a compassionate story of enduring hope.
Buy ‘A Faithful Son’ on Amazon
Ingenious by Barrie Farris
Welcome to the Triangle, where a man’s greatest asset is his ability to breed.
In a dystopian world ruled by women, brilliant but awkward Cadet Quiggs Fallon has a bright future. Academically gifted with a brain like the ancestors, he’s well on his way to figuring out how to kill the vines overtaking the land, earning him—a male—an unheard-of seat in the Assembly of Ruling Mothers. And with inheritance and an impeccable pedigree, he’s guaranteed his pick of virgins to marry after graduation from the academy.
Instead, one moment changes everything. Caught in a compromising position with his loyal-to-a-fault friend Beau, a half-breed feral, his plans are derailed. Now Quiggs’s life depends on the gorgeous soldier who saves him. Their forbidden attraction burns hotter than Quiggs’s new fuel paste as political intrigue, danger, and the rules of society threaten their lives, and their budding romance. Now it’s a battle to save the world as they know it . . . or create a new one.
Adventure, science fiction, and scorching hot m/m romance come together in a slow burn that heats up with every unexpected twist and turn in this first book of the Ingenious series.
Warning: For readers 18 and older. Contains emotionally charged, explicit m/m love. Look elsewhere if you want horny heroes jumping into bed by the second chapter. If you want a plot with steamy sex only when a scene justifies it, this sci-fi is written for you. But, yeah, there are plenty of totally justified, smoking hot scenes.
Four Ever by Sloane Kennedy
Surrounded by a group of devoted four-footed and two-winged family members, Zak and Killian have built what should have been a dream life in their countryside farmhouse.
But a cruel twist of fate and the re-emergence of old demons has frayed the edges of the men’s seven-year relationship until just one wrong move could end up severing their bond for good.
Doctor Daddy by Aiden Bates
Sixteen years ago, I lost the love of my life. Callum was everything to me, right up until a twist of fate tore us apart. After that, I thought Cal was out of my life good.
But I thought wrong. Now, Cal’s back, and he only wants one thing from me: a baby.
Talk about a curveball, right? It might have been if I didn’t happen to run the best fertility clinic in the city. Even though I know Cal and I are still over, I’d never dream of denying him the chance to become a father.
Even though having a baby is the last thing on my mind.
Even though the sperm donor he ends up choosing bears a striking number of similarities to, well… me.
But if I thought hooking my favorite ex-boyfriend up with some premium baby batter was going to be the end of it, turns out I’m wrong again. Sparks are flying between Cal and I, and the hotter the flames of passion burn between us, the more complicated the story gets.
See, Cal isn’t my only ex. When my psychopathic, baby-crazy former boyfriend learns that Cal and I might have a chance together, he’ll stop at nothing to break us up all over again.
But that’s the thing about love: sometimes, the harder the universe pulls you away from each other, the closer you become. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect Cal and his baby, whether it’s mine or not.
This time, Cal’s mine, and he’s staying that way. I’m not making the same mistake twice.
A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
When A Single Man was originally published, it shocked many by its frank, sympathetic, and moving portrayal of a gay man in midlife. George, the protagonist, is adjusting to life on his own after the sudden death of his partner, determined to persist in the routines of his daily life.
An Englishman and a professor living in suburban Southern California, he is an outsider in every way, and his internal reflections and interactions with others reveal a man who loves being alive despite everyday injustices and loneliness. Wry, suddenly manic, constantly funny, surprisingly sad, this novel catches the true textures of life itself.
A Boy’s Own Story (The Edmund Trilogy Book 1) by Edmund White
Originally published in 1982 as the first of Edmund White’s trilogy of autobiographical novels, A Boy’s Own Story became an instant classic for its pioneering portrayal of homosexuality.
The book’s unnamed narrator, growing up during the 1950s, is beset by aloof parents, a cruel sister, and relentless mocking from his peers, compelling him to seek out works of art and literature as solace-and to uncover new relationships in the struggle to embrace his own sexuality. Lyrical and poignant, with powerful evocations of shame and yearning, this is an American literary treasure.
Buy ‘A Boy’s Own Story’ on Amazon
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
In the summer of 1983, twenty-year-old Nick Guest moves into an attic room in the Notting Hill home of the Feddens: conservative Member of Parliament Gerald, his wealthy wife Rachel, and their two children, Toby-whom Nick had idolized at Oxford-and Catherine, highly critical of her family’s assumptions and ambitions.
As the boom years of the eighties unfold, Nick, an innocent in the world of politics and money, finds his life altered by the rising fortunes of this glamorous family. His two vividly contrasting love affairs, one with a young black clerk and one with a Lebanese millionaire, dramatize the dangers and rewards of his own private pursuit of beauty, a pursuit as compelling to Nick as the desire for power and riches among his friends.
Richly textured, emotionally charged, disarmingly comic, this U.K. bestseller is a major work by one of our finest writers.
Buy ‘The Line of Beauty’ on Amazon
The Charioteer by Mary Renault
After enduring an injury at Dunkirk during World War II, Laurie Odell is sent to a rural veterans’ hospital in England to convalesce. There he befriends the young, bright Andrew, a conscientious objector serving as an orderly. As they find solace and companionship together in the idyllic surroundings of the hospital, their friendship blooms into a discreet, chaste romance.
Then one day, Ralph Lanyon, a mentor from Laurie’s schoolboy days, suddenly reappears in Laurie’s life and draws him into a tight-knit social circle of world-weary gay men. Laurie is forced to choose between the sweet ideals of innocence and the distinct pleasures of experience.
Originally published in the United States in 1959, The Charioteer is a bold, unapologetic portrayal of male homosexuality during World War II that stands with Gore Vidal’s The City and the Pillar and Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories as a monumental work in gay literature.
Buy ‘The Charioteer’ on Amazon
Dancer from the Dance by Andrew Holleran
One of the most important works of gay literature, this haunting, brilliant novel is a seriocomic remembrance of things past — and still poignantly present. It depicts the adventures of Malone, a beautiful young man searching for love amid New York’s emerging gay scene. From Manhattan’s Everard Baths and after-hours discos to Fire Island’s deserted parks and lavish orgies, Malone looks high and low for meaningful companionship.
The person he finds is Sutherland and one of the most memorable literary creations of contemporary fiction. Hilarious, witty, and ultimately heartbreaking, Dancer from the Dance is truthful, provocative, outrageous fiction told in a voice as close to laughter as to tears.
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The City and the Pillar by Gore Vidal
A literary cause célèbre when first published more than fifty years ago, Gore Vidal’s now-classic The City and the Pillar stands as a landmark novel of the gay experience.
Jim, a handsome, all-American athlete, has always been shy around girls. But when he and his best friend, Bob, partake in “awful kid stuff,” the experience forms Jim’s ideal of spiritual completion. Defying his parents’ expectations, Jim strikes out on his own, hoping to find Bob and rekindle their amorous friendship. Along the way, he struggles with what he feels is his unique bond with Bob and with his persistent attraction to other men. Upon finally encountering Bob years later, the force of his hopes for a life together leads to a devastating climax. The first novel of its kind to appear on the American literary landscape, The City and the Pillar remains a forthright and uncompromising portrayal of romantic relationships between men.
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Pick of the Litter by Liam Kingsley
Finding love in a divisive world has come down to the luck of the draw.
At 25, Graham is an alpha werewolf that’s just come of age and that means one thing—it’s time to settle down. However, with so many omegas to choose from, an alpha is stuck hoping he picks the right name from a number of potential mates.
The CEO of Roll Over needs a submissive lover, one that will support him in his business ventures.
Parker is Graham’s omega life-long friend. Upon reaching puberty he, like all other omegas, was rounded up and tossed into an omega safe zone. When he’s dragged to a mate choosing ceremony, Parker never considers the alpha waiting for him on the other side of the curtain might be the alpha he’s been dreaming of.
When the two are finally reunited, sparks fly—and not just romantic ones. Coming from two very different lifestyles, will Graham and Parker rise to the challenge of a real relationship? Or will they come undone after so many years apart?
Pick of the Litter is intended for adults only and guarantees a happily ever after ending for the main characters.
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The Cowboy’s Secret by Riley Knight
Bobcat Ranch is struggling. Since the illness of his father, Malcolm is trying to keep the ranch in business and hold onto the family property–as he promised his father he would. But his brothers want to sell, and they send Kyle, an up-and-coming lawyer to try to convince him to let the farm go.
Their scheme doesn’t quite go as planned because Malcolm has a secret hidden away in his heart–one only Kyle has the key to unlock. This gay cowboy romance is for adults only–you won’t regret giving love a try.
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The Clothesline Swing by Ahmad Danny Ramadan
The Clothesline Swing is a journey through the troublesome aftermath of the Arab Spring. A former Syrian refugee himself, Ramadan unveils an enthralling tale of courage that weaves through the mountains of Syria, the valleys of Lebanon, the encircling seas of Turkey, the heat of Egypt, and finally, the hope of a new home in Canada.
Inspired by Arabian Tales of One Thousand and One Nights, The Clothesline Swing tells the epic story of two lovers anchored to the memory of a dying Syria. One is a Hakawati, a storyteller, keeping life in a forward motion by relaying remembered fables to his dying partner. Each night he weaves stories of his childhood in Damascus, of the cruelty he has endured for his sexuality, of leaving home, of war, of his fated meeting with his lover. Meanwhile Death himself, in his dark cloak, shares the house with the two men, eavesdropping on their secrets as he awaits their final undoing.
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City of Night by John Rechy
When John Rechy’s explosive first novel, City of Night, was first published in 1963, it became a national bestseller and ushered in a new era of gay fiction. Bold and inventive in his account of the urban underworld of male prostitution, Rechy is equally unflinching in his portrayal of one hustling “Youngman” and his restless search for self-knowledge.
As the narrator careens from El Paso to Times Square, from Pershing Square to the French Quarter, we get an unforgettable look at a neon-lit life on the edge. Said James Baldwin of the author, “Rechy is the most arresting young writer I’ve read in a very long time. His tone rings absolutely true, is absolutely his own; and he has the kind of discipline which allows him a rare and beautiful reckless.”
A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham
From Michael Cunningham, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours, comes this widely praised novel of two boyhood friends: Jonathan, lonely, introspective, and unsure of himself; and Bobby, hip, dark, and inarticulate.
In New York after college, Bobby moves in with Jonathan and his roommate, Clare, a veteran of the city’s wars. Bobby and Clare fall in love, scuttling the plans of Jonathan, who is gay, to father Clare’s child. Then, when Clare and Bobby have a baby, the three move to a small house upstate to raise “their” child together and, with an odd friend, Alice, create a new kind of family. A Home at the End of the World masterfully depicts the charged, fragile relationships of urban life today.
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Something Like Summer by Jay Bell
Love, like everything in the universe, cannot be destroyed. But over time it can change.
The hot Texas nights were lonely for Ben before his heart began beating to the rhythm of two words; Tim Wyman. By all appearances, Tim had the perfect body and ideal life, but when a not-so-accidental collision brings them together, Ben discovers that the truth is rarely so simple.
If winning Tim’s heart was an impossible quest, keeping it would prove even harder as family, society, and emotion threaten to tear them apart.
Something Like Summer is a love story spanning a decade and beyond as two boys discover what it means to be friends, lovers, and sometimes even enemies.
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Kiss of the Spiderwoman by Manuel Puig
Kiss of the Spider Woman is a graceful, intensely compelling gay fiction novel about love and victimization. In an Argentine prison, two men share a cell: Molina, a gay window dresser who is self-centered, self-denigrating, yet charming as well; and Valentin, an articulate, fiercely dogmatic revolutionary haunted by memories of a woman he left for the cause.
Both are gradually transformed by their guarded but growing friendship and by Molina’s obsession with the fantasy and romance of the movies.
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I’ll Give you the Sun by Jandy Nelson
At first, Jude and her twin brother Noah, are inseparable. Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude wears red-red lipstick, cliff-dives, and does all the talking for both of them. Years later, they are barely speaking. Something has happened to change the twins in different yet equally devastating ways . . . but then Jude meets an intriguing, irresistible boy and a mysterious new mentor.
The early years are Noah’s to tell; the later years are Jude’s. But they each have only half the story, and if they can only find their way back to one another, they’ll have a chance to remake their world. This radiant, award-winning novel from the acclaimed author of The Sky Is Everywhere will leave you breathless and teary and laughing—often all at once.
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They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera
On September 5, a little after midnight, Death-Cast calls Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio to give them some bad news: They’re going to die today.
Mateo and Rufus are total strangers, but, for different reasons, they’re both looking to make a new friend on their End Day. The good news: There’s an app for that. It’s called the Last Friend, and through it, Rufus and Mateo are about to meet up for one last great adventure—to live a lifetime in a single day.
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The Farewell Symphony by Edmund White
Named for the work by Haydn in which the instrumentalists leave the stage one after another until only a single violin remains playing, this is the story of a man who has outlived most of his friends. Having reached the six-month anniversary of his lover’s death, he embarks on a journey of remembrance that will recount his struggle to become a writer and his discovery of what it means to be a gay man.
His witty, conversational narrative transports us from the 1960s to the near-present, from starkly scenes in the back rooms of New York clubs to episodes of rarefied hilarity in the salons of Paris to moments of family truth in the American Midwest. Along the way, a breathtaking variety of personal connections–and near misses–slowly builds an awareness of the transformative power of genuine friendship, of love and loss, culminating in an indelible experience with a dying man. And as the flow of memory carries us across time, space, and society, one man’s magnificently realized story grows to encompass an entire generation.
Sublimely funny yet elegiac, full of unsparingly trenchant social observation yet infused with wisdom and a deeply felt compassion, The Farewell Symphony is a triumph of reflection and expressive elegance. It is also a stunning and wholly original panorama of gay life over the past thirty years–the crowning achievement of one of our finest writers.
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Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan
New York Times bestselling author David Levithan tells the based-on-true-events story of Harry and Craig, two 17-year-olds who are about to take part in a 32-hour marathon of kissing to set a new Guinness World Record—all of which is narrated by a Greek Chorus of the generation of gay men lost to AIDS.
While the two increasingly dehydrated and sleep-deprived boys are locking lips, they become a focal point in the lives of other teen boys dealing with languishing long-term relationships, coming out, navigating gender identity, and falling deeper into the digital rabbit hole of dating sites while the kissing former couple tries to figure out their own feelings for each other.
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As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann
In the seventeenth century, the English Revolution is underway. The nation, seething with religious and political discontent, has erupted into violence and terror. Jacob Cullen and his fellow soldiers dream of rebuilding their lives when the fighting is over. But the shattering events of war will overtake them.
A tale of passion and obsession, As Meat Loves Salt is a gripping portrait of England beset by war. It is also a moving portrait of a man on the brink of madness. Hailed as a masterpiece, this is a novel by a most original new voice in fiction.
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Another Country by James Baldwin
Set in Greenwich Village, Harlem, and France, among other locales, Another Country is a novel of passions.
Romantic, racial, political, artistic–that is stunning for its emotional intensity and haunting sensuality, depicting men and women, blacks and whites, stripped of their masks of gender and race by love and hatred at the most elemental and sublime.
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Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima
Confessions of a Mask is the story of an adolescent who must learn to live with the painful fact that he is unlike other young men. Mishima’s protagonist discovers that he is becoming a homosexual in polite, post-war Japan. To survive, he must live behind a mask of propriety.
Christopher Isherwood comments—”One might say, ‘Here is a Japanese Gide,’….But no, Mishima is himself—a very Japanese Mishima; lucid in the midst of emotional confusion, funny in the midst of despair, quite without pomposity, sentimentality, or self-pity. His book, like no other, has made me understand a little of how it feels to be Japanese. I think it is greatly superior, as art and as a human document to his deservedly praised novel, The Sound of Waves.”
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Fatal Shadows by Josh Lanyon
Adrien English runs a small bookstore in Pasadena, which is reputed to have the largest collection of gay and gothic whodunnits around.
But mystery invades his own life one morning when his best friend is found stabbed to death and he is seen as the most likely suspect.
The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara
It’s 1980 in New York City, and nowhere is the city’s glamour and energy better reflected than in the burgeoning Harlem ball scene, where seventeen-year-old Angel first comes into her own. Burned by her traumatic past, Angel is new to the drag world, new to ball culture, and has a yearning inside of her to help create a family for those without.
When she falls in love with Hector, a beautiful young man who dreams of becoming a professional dancer, the two decide to form the House of Xtravaganza, the first-ever all-Latino house in the Harlem ball circuit. But when Hector dies of AIDS-related complications, Angel must bear the responsibility of tending to their house alone.
As the mother of the house, Angel recruits Venus, a whip-fast trans girl who dreams of finding a rich man to take care of her; Juanito, a quiet boy who loves fabrics and design; and Daniel, a butch queen who accidentally saves Venus’s life. The Xtravaganzas must learn to navigate work, addiction, and persistent abuse, leaning on each other as bulwarks against a world that resists them. All are ambitious, resilient, and determined to control their own fates, even as they hurtle toward devastating consequences.
Told in a voice that brims with wit, rage, tenderness, and fierce yearning, The House of Impossible Beauties is a tragic story of love, family, and the dynamism of the human spirit.
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Cut and Run (Book 1) by Abigail Roux and Madeleine Urban
A series of murders in New York City has stymied the police and FBI alike, and they suspect the culprit is a single killer sending an indecipherable message. But when the two federal agents assigned to the investigation are taken out, the FBI takes a more personal interest in the case.
Special Agent Ty Grady is pulled out of undercover work after his case blows up in his face. He’s cocky, abrasive, and indisputably the best at what he does. But when he’s paired with Special Agent Zane Garrett, it’s hate at first sight. Garrett is the perfect image of an agent: serious, sober, and focused, which makes their partnership a classic cliche: total opposites, good cop-bad cop, the odd couple. They both know immediately that their partnership will pose more of an obstacle than the lack of evidence left by the murderer.
Practically before their special assignment starts, the murderer strikes again this time at them. Now on the run, trying to track down a man who has focused on killing his pursuers, Grady and Garrett will have to figure out how to work together before they become two more notches in the murderer’s knife.
Carry On (Simon Snow, Book 1) by Rainbow Rowell
A #1 New York Times-bestseller. Simon Snow is the worst Chosen One who’s ever been chosen.
That’s what his roommate, Baz, says. And Baz might be evil and a vampire and a complete git, but he’s probably right.
Half the time, Simon can’t even make his wand work, and the other half, he starts something on fire. His mentor’s avoiding him, his girlfriend broke up with him, and there’s a magic-eating monster running around, wearing Simon’s face. Baz would be having a field day with all this, if he were here — it’s their last year at the Watford School of Magicks, and Simon’s infuriating nemesis didn’t even bother to show up.
Carry On – The Rise and Fall of Simon Snow is a ghost story, a love story and a mystery. It has just as much kissing and talking as you’d expect from a Rainbow Rowell story – but far, far more monsters.
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One Man Guy by Michael Barakiva
Alek Khederian should have guessed something was wrong when his parents took him to a restaurant. Everyone knows that Armenians never eat out. Between bouts of interrogating the waitress and criticizing the menu, Alek’s parents announce that he’ll be attending summer school in order to bring up his grades. Alek is sure this experience will be the perfect hellish end to his hellish freshman year of high school. He never could’ve predicted that he’d meet someone like Ethan.
Ethan is everything Alek wishes he were: confident, free-spirited, and irreverent. He can’t believe a guy this cool wants to be his friend. And before long, it seems like Ethan wants to be more than friends. Alek has never thought about having a boyfriend—he’s barely ever had a girlfriend—but maybe it’s time to think again.
The Steel Remains (A Land Fit For Heroes) by Richard Knightly
Such is the prophecy that dogs Ringil Eskiath—Gil, for short—a washed-up mercenary and one-time war hero whose cynicism is surpassed only by the speed of his sword. Gil is estranged from his aristocratic family, but when his mother enlists his help in freeing a cousin sold into slavery, Gil sets out to track her down.
But it soon becomes apparent that more is at stake than the fate of one young woman. Grim sorceries are awakening in the land. Some speak in whispers of the return of the Aldrain, a race of widely feared, cruel yet beautiful demons. Now Gil and two old comrades are all that stand in the way of a prophecy whose fulfillment will drown an entire world in blood. But with heroes like these, the cure is likely to be worse than the disease.
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The Captive Prince Trilogy by C.S. Pacat
Damen is a warrior hero to his people and the rightful heir to the throne of Akielos. But when his half brother seizes power, Damen is captured, stripped of his identity, and sent to serve the prince of an enemy nation as a pleasure slave.
Beautiful, manipulative, and deadly, his new master, Prince Laurent, epitomizes the worst of the court at Vere. But in the lethal political web of the Veretian court, nothing is as it seems, and when Damen finds himself caught up in a play for the throne, he must work together with Laurent to survive and save his country.
For Damen, there is just one rule: never, ever reveal his true identity. Because the one man Damen needs is the one man who has more reason to hate him than anyone else.
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The Lost Language of Cranes by David Leavitt
David Leavitt’s extraordinary first novel, now reissued in paperback, is a seminal work about family, sexual identity, home, and loss.
Set in the 1980s against the backdrop of a swiftly gentrifying Manhattan, The Lost Language of Cranes tells the story of twenty-five-year-old Philip, who realizes he must come out to his parents after falling in love for the first time with a man. Philip’s parents are facing their own crisis: pressure from developers and the loss of their longtime home. But the real threat to this family is Philip’s father’s own struggle with his latent homosexuality, realized only in his Sunday afternoon visits to gay theaters. Philip’s admission to his parents and his father’s hidden life provoke changes that forever alter the landscape of their worlds.
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More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera
In the months after his father’s suicide, it’s been tough for sixteen-year-old Aaron Soto to find happiness again-but he’s still gunning for it.
With the support of his girlfriend Genevieve and his overworked mom, he’s slowly remembering what that might feel like.
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The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth
The Miseducation of Cameron Post is a coming-of-age teen novel by Emily M. Danforth published in 2012.
The novel’s protagonist is Cameron Post, a 12-year-old Montana girl who is discovering her own homosexuality. After her parents die in a car crash, she is sent to live with her conservative aunt.
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History is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera
When Griffin’s first love and ex-boyfriend, Theo, dies in a drowning accident, his universe implodes.
Even though Theo had moved to California for college and started seeing Jackson, Griffin never doubted Theo would come back to him when the time was right. But now, the future he’s been imagining for himself has gone far off course.
To make things worse, the only person who truly understands his heartache is Jackson. But no matter how much they open up to each other, Griffin’s downward spiral continues. He’s losing himself in his obsessive compulsions and destructive choices, and the secrets he’s been keeping are tearing him apart. If Griffin is ever to rebuild his future, he must first confront his history, every last heartbreaking piece in the puzzle of his life.
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Death of a Pirate King (The Adrien English Mysteries) by Josh Lanyon
Gay bookseller and reluctant amateur sleuth Adrien English’s writing career is suddenly taking off. His first novel, Murder Will Out, has been optioned by notorious Hollywood actor Paul Kane.
But when murder makes an appearance at a dinner party, who should be called in but Adrien’s former lover, handsome closeted detective Jake Riordan, now a Lieutenant with LAPD — which may just drive Adrien’s new boyfriend, handsome UCLA professor Guy Snowden, to commit a murder of his own.
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Shattered Glass by Dani Alexander
A gay man, a mangy cat, a murder, and a maniacal mix-up that threatens his career, his impending marriage, and his life. Nothing is going as planned for Austin Glass.
Austin—seems to have it all. At least on the surface. A loving fiancee. A future with the FBI and a healthy sized trust fund. He also has a grin and a wisecrack for every situation.
But the smile he presents to everyone hides a painful past he’s buried too deeply to remember. And his quips mask bitterness and insecurity. Austin has himself and most of the whole world fooled. Until he meets someone who immediately sees him better than he sees himself.
As events unfold and Austin’s world unravels, he finds himself pushed into making quick life-changing decisions. But can he trust Peter or what’s happening between them when each meeting seems to be just a series of volatile reactions?
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All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens Throughout the Ages by Saundra Mitchell
Take a journey through time and genres and discover a past where queer figures live, love, and shape the world around them. Seventeen of the best young adult authors across the queer spectrum have come together to create a collection of beautifully written diverse historical fiction for teens.
From a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood set in war-torn 1870s Mexico featuring a transgender soldier, to two girls falling in love while mourning the death of Kurt Cobain, forbidden love in a sixteenth-century Spanish convent or an asexual girl discovering her identity amid the 1970s roller-disco scene, All Out tells a diverse range of stories across cultures, time periods and identities, shedding light on an area of history often ignored or forgotten.
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Swordspoint (The World of Riverside #1) by Ellen Kusher
On the treacherous streets of Riverside, a man lives and dies by the sword. Even the nobles on the Hill turn to duels to settle their disputes.
Within this elite, dangerous world, Richard St. Vier is the undisputed master, as skilled as he is ruthless–until a death by the sword is met with outrage instead of awe, and the city discovers that the line between hero and villain can be altered in the blink of an eye.
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The Lightning-Struck Heart by T.J. Klune
Once upon a time, in an alleyway in the slums of the City of Lockes, a young and somewhat lonely boy named Sam Haversford turns a group of teenage douchebags into stone completely by accident.Of course, this catches the attention of a higher power, and Sam’s pulled from the only world he knows to become an apprentice to the king’s wizard, Morgan of Shadows.
When Sam’s 14, he enters the Dark Woods and returns with Gary, the hornless gay unicorn, and a half-giant named Tiggy, earning the moniker Sam of Wilds.At 15, Sam learns what love truly is when a new knight arrives at the castle – Knight Ryan Foxheart, the dreamiest dream to have ever been dreamed.Naturally, it all goes to hell when Ryan dates the reprehensible Prince Justin, Sam can’t control his magic, a sexually aggressive dragon kidnaps the prince, and the king sends them on an epic quest to save Ryan’s boyfriend, all while Sam falls more in love with someone he can never have.Or, so he thinks.
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The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde’s only novel depicts a story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty is the author’s most popular work. The tale of Dorian Gray’s moral disintegration caused a scandal when it first appeared in 1890, but though Wilde was attacked for the novel’s corrupting influence, he responded that there is, in fact, “a terrible moral in Dorian Gray.”
Just a few years later, the book and the aesthetic/moral dilemma it presented became issues in the trials occasioned by Wilde’s homosexual liaisons, which resulted in his imprisonment. Of Dorian Gray’s relationship to autobiography, Wilde noted in a letter, “Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be—in other ages, perhaps.”
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Last Seen Leaving by Caleb Roehrig
Flynn’s girlfriend, January, is missing. The cops are asking questions he can’t answer, and her friends are telling stories that don’t add up. All eyes are on Flynn—as January’s boyfriend, he must know something.
But Flynn has a secret of his own. And as he struggles to uncover the truth about January’s disappearance, he must also face the truth about himself.
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You Know Me Well by David Levithan and Nina LaCour
Mark and Kate have sat next to each other for an entire year, but have never spoken. For whatever reason, their paths outside of class have never crossed. That is, until Kate spots Mark miles away from home, out in the city for a wild, unexpected night. Kate is lost, having just run away from a chance to finally meet the girl she has been in love with from afar.
Mark, meanwhile, is in love with his best friend Ryan, who may or may not feel the same way. When Kate and Mark meet up, little do they know how important they will become to each other—and how, in a very short time, they will know each other better than any of the people who are supposed to know them more.
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Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
Sixteen-year-old and not-so-openly gay Simon Spier prefers to save his drama for the school musical. But when an email falls into the wrong hands, his secret is at risk of being thrust into the spotlight. Now Simon is actually being blackmailed: if he doesn’t play wingman for class clown Martin, his sexual identity will become everyone’s business. Worse, the privacy of Blue, the pen name of the boy he’s been emailing, will be compromised.
With some messy dynamics emerging in his once tight-knit group of friends, and his email correspondence with Blue growing more flirtatious every day, Simon’s junior year has suddenly gotten all kinds of complicated. Now, change-averse Simon has to find a way to step out of his comfort zone before he’s pushed out—without alienating his friends, compromising himself, or fumbling a shot at happiness with the most confusing, adorable guy he’s never met. One of the features on our list of gay movies, ‘Love, Simon’, was inspired by this novel.
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Caught Running by Madeleine Urban and Abigail Roux
A recent gay fiction book. Ten years after graduation, Jake “the jock” Campbell and Brandon “the nerd” Bartlett are teaching at their old high school and still living in separate worlds. When Brandon is thrown into a coaching job on Jake’s baseball team, they find themselves learning more about each other than they’d ever expected.
High school is all about image, even for the teachers. Brandon and Jake have to get past their preconceived notions to find the friendship needed to work together. And somewhere along the way, they discover that perceptions can always change for the better. Read a full chapter excerpt at www.dreamspinnerpress.com.
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Warrior’s Cross by Madeleine Urban and Abigail Roux
Cameron Jacobs is an open book. He considers himself a common waiter with normal friends, boring hobbies, harmless dogs, and nothing even resembling a secret… except a crush on a tall, dark, devastatingly handsome man who dines alone at his restaurant on Tuesday nights. All it takes is one passionate night with Julian Cross to turn Cameron’s world on its head.
Julian’s love and devotion are all Cameron could have hoped for and more. But when his ordinary life meets and clashes with Julian’s extraordinary lifestyle, Cameron discovers that trust and fear can go hand in hand, and love is just a step away from danger.
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