I’m almost positive that my yearly romance kick has faded away for the time being. I’ve been settling back into some meatier fantasy/science fiction as I try and clear my shelves to prepare for r/fantasy’s yearly bingo to pick up again and I pivot to reading a lot of gay stuff again (probably including romances). It was a tough winter in Minnesota this year, which explained why I binged so many romances. They’re listed below in approximately the order I enjoyed them.
The Long Game by Rachel Reid
It’s up top because it’s my favorite, but I’m finally done! Yes I’m a fanboy, and yes the series has some issues. I really liked how this book followed Ilya and Shane (book 2 in the series, rival all star hockey players hook up then fall in love) as they try to navigate a real relationship in the closet. Ilya comes to term with his depression and seeks counseling, the two have honest arguments about what they want and the imbalances in their relationships, and it treats serious topics seriously. I wish there were less sex. Gratuitous sex can work really well in romances (see many of the other books in this series I liked) but here it took away from the emotional depth and dramatic tension.
Go Luck Yourself by Saara Raasch
This was a sequel and general all-around improvement to The Nightmare Before Kissmass. I was really hoping it would lay off on the abusive parents angle, which felt very over the top in book one. This doubled down by adding another! Uncle this time, but similar idea. This book also has a bit of an identity crisis, simultaneously wanting to assert that the rightful ruler of St Patrick’s day was robbed (admittedly by an asshole uncle), but simultaneously trying to preserve and also critique the idea of inherited power? Best not to think about it too much or the themes really begin to drag the story down. This was a fun and charming romance that minimized non-romance plot points, which bugged me a bit in the first. While you’ll miss a bit of context from the events of the previous book which ripple into this one, this is such an upgrade in terms of quality that I almost recommend skipping Kissmass and coming straight here.
You & Me by Tal Bauer
I typically resent bisexual awakening romances that fall into ‘gay for you’ storylines. While there are absolutely people who end up attracted to only a single person of their gender, it is overrepresented in m/m romance spaces and really leans into the fetishization of queer men. This book is a rare exception. It follows a dad of a 16 year old football star. His estranged wife died the year before, his relationship with his son is broken, and he’s trying to find a path forward. He agrees to volunteer for the team’s parent group, which happens to have the gay dad of one of his son’s best friends. Bauer strikes the balance of overly sappy, brutal reality checks, and authentic struggles with coming to terms with your identity that left this book touching and wonderful. It’s a reread for me here, and I’d forgotten how much I loved it.
Goliaths of Wrestling #1 by Lily Mayne
This book was recommended to me by my sister in law as a fun, but extremely stupid romance book about an underground professional wrestling league where the performers are all monsters. This book focused on a human who stumbles into the office of the owner of the business, who is himself a dark elf-esque looking man who has empathic abilities. There is absolutely nothing about this book that I could take seriously, and I was okay with that. I think my favorite part was the ruthless mocking of lots of paranormal romances where the human has the personality of a jar of dirt. Here, that is openly acknowledged often and inexplicably attractive to literally everybody. It turned a tiresome trope into a joke, and I loved it. Nothing much of substance here, but it was a great time.
Bend Him Break Him by MN Bennet
I’ve been enjoying Bennet’s urban fantasy and thought I’d give a contemporary romance a try. Bennet writes goth protagonists very well, and this book showed that off. It was really pitched as a dark revenge romance, but ended up moving into the ‘developing feelings’ stage of things really quickly. I’d have preferred if the shift from ‘you did a truly horrendous and violent thing to me years ago and I want to ruin everything you love’ to ‘I care for your feelings and don’t want my revenge plot to end up going too far’ as a slower burn across a longer novel. Definitely not something I’d recommend to someone looking for healthy relationship dynamic representation, but it reminded me of how queer men tend to get little things right that other authors miss.
Role Model by Rachel Reid
Book 5 of the Gay Hockey series I (and the rest of the world) are binge-reading at the moment. Thankfully, this was a step back up from Common Goal, but still didn’t quite hit the high notes of books 2-3. This follows Troy, a gay hockey player who himself behaved homophobically for a long time (including in other books in the series) as a coping mechanism and attempt to stay in the closet, falling in love with Harris, a PR Manager for the hockey team with severe heart problems. I was happy to see that the medical stuff was acknowledged as a part of Harris’s life, but wasn’t over-dramatized for cheap shock value. It was solid, but not a book I’d care to reread.
Common Goal by Rachel Reid
Another book in the breakout hockey series after the Heated Rivalry TV show went viral. This one features an age-gap romance and, in my opinion, is the weakest I’ve seen Reid’s writing in the series. I think her choice to make the older man a bisexual guy who’s never fooled around with men before was smart, since it’s clear she doesn’t really understand age gap dynamics in queer spaces. This wasn’t so bad I put it down, but it felt very average compared to a lot of her other writing, and a lot more in line with how I typically see women write queer men.
Let Your Hearts be Light by Fae Quin
Two single dads fall in love after being signed up for a family friendship bonding situation through school. It was … fine. Too sickly sweet for my taste, but something great to zone out to while I tackled a weekend of cleaning chores that had been piling up.
The Ruthless Commander and His Reincarnated Warhorse by Sakashima
I have nothing particularly good to say about this manga, other than that it’s short. Objectively, it’s poorly written, poorly translated, punts any important character development offscreen, and features a stupidly toxic relationship. It was cute. It took me 25 minutes to read. So … I guess it was worth it?
Marked for Plot 