Hi all! My brother is gay and he was just complaining to me that there are no fantasy books with a lot of world building with mlm MCs.
As it's his birthday in two weeks, I am now looking for something along those lines. Best would be a series, with the adventure as the main part of the story and the love part as a side story.
Thank you all for the help!
I love the idea of supporting new authors, most especially new, indie, gay authors. I've picked up a number of ARCs from new authors here, on Book Sprout and Book Sirens.
But so many of them feel like either AI, are AI assisted or are written in a way that sure feels like AI. I've read a number of books in the past year, from various authors, that all have the same feel to them: they try to come off as literary through use of bad similes, lack any sort of description that might give the books a unique flavor and in general are written in a way that puts me at arm's length from the story.
At first I thought it was that particular author, but then I got another book, different author, same narrative feel. The fantasy book I'm reading now has that familiar feeling and I'm wondering how I'm going to wade through it.
Now I've found some winners this way. Missionary by Dylan Gray was excellent. Salvation by Frank Faustino was a gay 'men's adventure' novel with an ass-kicking, gay SAS soldier.
There's also established authors I trust and will still buy their new stuff.
But new to me authors… if I see the book was written in 2024 it earlier, I feel better about it.
I know there's good, new stuff coming out. But sifting the wheat from the chaff is just so much harder.
I’ve been thinking about how easy it has become for gay people to find one another online, and how that has not necessarily made us feel any closer.
So I started Dear Gay Stranger, a personal art project centered on handwritten letters between strangers. This is a noncommercial project. There is nothing to buy and no fundraising involved.
You can share one true thing about your life right now and ask to receive a letter written by hand. It is a small experiment in slowing down, being honest, and making connection feel tangible again.
If the idea resonates with you, come take part at deargaystranger.com.
last book i read was moonflow about a lesbian cult that has orgies and drank their leaders psychedelic breast milk.
current book i’m reading is He’s the devil by Tobi Coventry.
i’m down for any recommendations or talks.
Think Crimson Peaks or Innamorata but make it gay?? I love Ava Reid and have read several of her books, and Im looking for a similar vibe but make it queer! Also love Freya Marske but they tends to be too lighthearted when im looking for more of a spicy, dark fantasy, romantasy or historical fiction. All kinds of recs appreciated!
I have been struggling to find books with deeper perspectives and meaning lately. All the LGBT authors and books i have found in bookstores lately feels like a copy of what came before them, as well as most of them focusing on cliche stories of "from rivals, bullies or friends going to lovers".
I would like to read a book that explores in detail being an LGBT individual, the twists and turns, the inner storms, and also the peace that might come after it. Not just acceptance, but something deeper than that - solace.
Hey guys so I enrolled in a gender studies SF class and as a final project I’m supposed to add 3 books and I wanted some recommendations because u haven’t read enough SF that connects with gender identity beside the left hand of darkness. Any recommendations?
Movies also accepted
hi there! u/tricky-mention-1700 mentioned that this is a safe Reddit for promo, so I thought I'd both introduce my books and make fanmuppet sounds about some fellow authors here?
I’m the author of Chai and Charmcraft, which was released this May and is still available for this weekend's indie book sale price of $2.99 until tomorrow morning.
(If you'd like to know more about it from someone who is not me, Siavahda wrote an amazing review!)
I know I write in a particular niche because I want to see more books like this, portraying more people and more parts of the world with a gently loving story-brush. I hadn’t thought that there were many comp titles in a niche that looks like:
🤴🏽A kind, soft, middle-aged Middle Eastern gentleman who…
🫖…loves his home’s food and culture and architecture and definitely the chai…
🧸…and needs a break from all the obligations and expectations and thou-shalts in his life…
🐈…and adores the many cats who wander around his city.
🚋(So much that he made them a little solar powered cat tram!)
Up til that last bit about the tram there, I might also have been talking about Chai and Charmcraft, but I am entirely thrilled to have found C. Quince’s Consorting with the King. (Book buddies! 🤝)
There are differences, of course; Charmcraft is set in medieval Egypt and Consorting with the King is set in Regency-ish Istanbul. We’re telling different ends of the Cinderella story, with Consorting taking the lead-up to the equivalent of Cinderella’s ball and Charmcraft looking more at what happens when you’re trying to figure out the start of a relationship after that one magical night outside one’s customary sphere.
But I’m also delighted by how much we have in common: Midlife M/M relationships set with a loving look at Middle Eastern / Southwest Asian and North African people and places, gentlemen who are gentle men in the kindest sense of the word, delicious food and feasts, and so many cats.
All of mine will be on sale until Tuesday morning:
(They’ll go back to full price tomorrow.)
C. Quince couldn’t enter his book in the indie sale because he works through a publisher and can’t personally set his prices to a discount. But:
I’ve got a more lengthy review of Consorting with the King (and, of course, bonus recipes 😆) over at my website.
And taking off my author-with-comps hat, speaking as an enthusiastic reader, if anyone knows of more queer books set in the general ME/SWANA area, I’d love to know about them too!
I know about Alexandra Rowland's Mahisti books; I love Running Close to the Wind, and haven't had the emotional fortitude to absorb all the MC's anxiety in A Taste of Gold and Iron but it sounds amazing and I want to get out of my month of 15 work conventions and associated stress vibrations before I try it again?
I'd describe Running Close to the Wind as "Our Flag Means Death x the Great British Bakeoff as told by the least reliable narrator ever." We have Avra, the manic pixie trash panda with bardic ambitions who has terrifyingly fixated on the idea that all attention is good attention; Tev, a stunningly well-dressed and short-tempered pirate captain who can't manage to pry Avra off their ankles long enough to kick him to the curb; and the unfairly gorgeous and devotedly celibate Brother Julian, whom both of them would very much like to bang like an inadequately secured sail in a storm.
Has anyone got more recs to throw out there?