From awesome librarian Carrie comes this request:
My library is doing a book display of GLBT titles, and I thought it would be fun if they included some romance. Anyone have fantastic GLTB romance to recommend?
Her caveats: she’d need the books to be in print – which is tricky because so much GLBT romance is digital only – and she needs to hopefully order a few titles, so they have to be available. So, what do you recommend?
Me again, sorry.
Probably doesn’t need to be said, but I just want to clarify—I thought the “teenager, hormonal” part was hilarious. Not the “advocate for LGBTQ” part. That part is very cool.
Why yes, I am a white, almost middle-aged heterosexual who is pussy-footing around the minority. Sue me.
I second the recommendation that Carrie check out the list of recent Lambda award winners.
Personally, I like:
Malinda Lo’s Ash (beautiful YA fairytale retelling with a bisexual heroine and a f/f love story)
Valerie Taylor’s The Girls in 3-B (classic lesbian pulp, but unusual for its time in having a happy ending and, probably because it’s written by a woman, a lot less misogyny than your average pulp novel).
Alex Beechcroft’s False Colours (I’m not sure if it really counts as LGBTQ romance, as the writer is straight, but it’s a beautiful historical novel and I loved it).
Sarah Waters’ Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith (lesbian historical novels – Fingersmith in particular is a gorgeously atmospheric gothic thriller)
Perry Moore’s Hero (I’m a longtime comics fan, and the fact that Stan Lee endorsed the book made me cry tears of joy).
Shanim Sarif’s The World Unseen and I Can’t Think Straight
And I remember liking Christopher Rice’s A Density of Souls a lot when I was a teenager.
There are also a lot of wonderful m/m romances out there from publishers like Samhain (and from SF writers like Lynn Flewelling and Jaida Jones), but I wouldn’t necessarily classify them as LGBTQ literature, except for the ones by authors like Josh Lanyon who are themselves queer.