This Rec League comes from Will. Thanks, Will!
I’m looking for a recommendation of a queer romance novel (ideally f/f or m/m or trans) with great side characters. I’d love a book with the feeling that the side characters have their own lives and their own stories. Bonus points if they don’t ship the main couple, get bored when the main character talks about their love life or are so occupied with their own problems they don’t let the mc get a word in edgewise. Quirky or deeply strange side characters are also good.
Sarah: The first series that pops in my mind is Queers of La Vista by Kris Ripper. If I recall, there’s a lovely evolving group of friends in the five books.
Lumberjanes for sure sure because camp!
Julian Winters’ books would definitely work, especially Summer of Everything and Running with Lions.
Elyse: Miffy and Alex in Boyfriend Material although their part is small, it’s hilarious
Sarah: Oh the superhero series that Carrie liked.
Lara: I absolutely adored the side characters in Cat Sebastian’s London Highwaymen series. Read them close together though because they’re deeply interwoven.
Sarah: Yes! That’s a great rec.
And a lot of KJ Charles’ books involve friends, family, and characters who try to manage the others in loving ways
Tara: One Last Stop‘s side character game is really strong, although some people had mixed feelings about how much the found family was doing for the lead.
Off Limits by Vanessa North ( A | BN | K ) is another great one, especially since one of the leads is in a band. Anything by Robin Alexander tends to have hilarious side characters. I would start with Just Jorie or Always Alex, especially if you love sassy grandmothers.
Melissa Brayden also has a couple of series I enjoyed that have groups of friends who find love. One of them starts with the book Kiss the Girl and the other with Eyes Like Those, both of which are among my favourites of hers.
Shana: I know I keep recommending For Her Consideration ( A | BN | K ) for every rec league, but I just love it so much! The main character has a group of queer LA friends who are loving but totally willing to call her out, and they all have their own life stuff. But the most scene stealing character is probably her extra fabulous elderly aunt.
I think a Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall has exceptionally hilarious and memorable side characters. I loved the heroine’s sister in law and her feminist group of friends.
And in How to Find a Princess by Alyssa Cole the heroines spend the middle of the book on a cargo ship filled with memorable misfits. I remember wanting all of them to have their own book.
Which books would you recommend? Let us know in the comments!
Wild Things (Kay)
In the Lives of Puppets (Klune)
The Fiancée Farce (Bellefleur)
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches (Mandanna)
And I second One Last Stop (McQuiston)
A book I just finished and loved: SOMETHING WILD AND WONDERFUL, an m/m romance by Anita Kelly. One of the MCs has a circle of supportive family and friends. This was my first book by Kelly, but I understand some of these supporting characters are MCs in other Kelly books.
Iron and Works series by EM Lindsey and Nothing to Lose by them
A Delicate Deception by Cat Sebastian and A Gentleman Never Keeps Score also have good communities.
Having side characters that don’t ship the MCs or don’t care about the MC’s romance is tough bonus question! I’ll have to think more about that one.
Kris Ripper writes excellent side characters and more specifically, ze writes about queer community really well. I agree with Queers of LaVista, with the caveat that it’s a 5 book series with an overarching murder mystery / serial killer plot, so you have to read them in order. The first 2 are very light and the rest get darker.
Kris Ripper’s The Love Study series is also good with excellent side characters. Some of them get their own books and some don’t.
KJ Charles’ A Society of Gentlemen series might tick the “supporting characters don’t ship the MC’s romance” box. Books 2 and 3 are far superior to book 1 imo, but reading book 2 first will definitely spoil the suspense plot part of book 1.
Oh, I thought of one. For Real by Alexis Hall (mm bdsm contemporary). The narrator’s friend group is quirky, with rich lives outside of the MC. And his closest friends totally thought he was going to get with someone else, not his LI.
Olivia Waite’s The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows (f/f historical) has an excellent community of people around the main characters. They’re all interesting, distinct people, and some of them are queer too which is nice. They start out friends of one of the main characters but they become friends and acquaintances of both.
“Red, White & Royal Blue” by Casey McQuiston. There’s a whole slew of side characters with their own lives and stuff going on: Nora, June, Pez, Bea, Zahra, and Shan. Nora, particularly, has other stuff going on and has to kind of tear herself away to be Alex’s sounding board.
Cat Sebastian always has good “found family” side characters; I actually wrote to her after the end of the Turner trilogy (her first 3 books) to ask if a pair of side characters who’d appeared through all of the books were a couple and she confirmed they were. I want their book.
I also really loved Steve Kluger’s “Almost Like Being In Love”. I recall it had side characters I liked at least as much as the main characters.
Shameless self-rec here for mostly-contemporary romance featuring F/F, M/M, F/M, M/M/F and F/F/M. My contemporary story universe centers on Los Angeles but features settings including Las Vegas and London and even the ‘straight’ romances are pretty darn queer. 🙂 Found family and community of choice are two of my primary themes, along with loss & reinvention and midlife evolutions. For a deep dive into my diverse, inclusive community may I recommend recent F/F/M novel UNDERTOW? by Alexandra Caluen, available at AMZ and in PB through B&N. A review can be found at Queeromance Ink. My website thelastories dot com features pages with short descriptions of each novel, novella, or collection. 🙂
I’d also recommend looking at some m/m sports romances, particularly hockey (Avon Gale, Rachel Reid, Piper Vaughn, Eden Finley, Saxon James), because the background teammates generally become part of the story—and then are MCs in future books. You might also check out the multi-author Vino & Veritas series of m/m (and I think there might be at least one f/f) romances because many of the characters weave in and out of each other’s lives & stories. (I do have to add a side note: the V&V books are set in Burlington, Vermont, which—like many other areas of the state—has experienced significant flooding this week. It may be hard to read about a fictional location within a real place and know that irl it would be flooded right now.)
Glitterball series, by Alexis Hall
I am currently rereading and loving Bear, Otter and the kid series and related At First Sight series by T J Klune.
Skye Kilaen is excellent, check her out! She’s who you want to read to take the bitter taste of Bi/Pan erasure out of your mouth.
I absolutely love The Home I Find With You. It’s a dystopian Western that is somehow more hopeful about human nature and community than most contemporary romances. Pan guy + gay guy. Also: queer M/F partnership, budding queerplatonic M/F relationship.
The Love at Knockdown series features romance around the Knockdown Coffee shop in Austin TX. Get It Right was reviewed here https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/reviews/get-it-right-by-skye-kilaen/. My favorite in the series is Check Your Work (Book 3), a fake-dating romance between a bi woman + bi man.
I’ve enjoyed the books I’ve read so far in the multi-author Clover Hill novella series. The town of Clover Hill is full of queer community and romance all across the rainbow. The romances range from hot & heavy to intimate & platonic. I’ve especially liked:
Winning Move by Skye Kilaen (bi woman + bi man, one-night-stand to lovers.)
The Heartbreak Handshake by J.R. Hart (M/Genderqueer, asexual romance, fake dating.)
Sotto Voce by Suzanne Clay (MMF with trans MMC.) This one features a vocal lesson that turns into a blazing hot seduction. CW for grief after the loss of a parent.
Two m/m fantasy books that come to mind – A STRANGE AND STUBBORN ENDURANCE by Foz Meadows and WINTER’S ORBIT by Everina Maxwell (which is more sci-fi & also has a sequel that I’ve yet to read). They’re not actually related at all but my mind always pairs them because I read them close together and they have a very similar vibe to me, which kind of fits the request here, IMO.
Both have a central romance but also have a LOT going on around the main pairings. Both are set in societies where queerness is accepted/normal and gender is less binary, and there’s a lot of great worldbuilding and politics and intrigue going on amid which the main pairings have to try to figure out their relationships.
Both also have a great assortment of very interesting side characters who all very much have their own things going on, including their own romances and conflicts.
Anna Zabo’s “Cinnamon Roll” is part of the multi-author Bold Brew series, but this one is my absolute favorite (and a comfort read), in part because Zabo creates a rich world for their characters. Some of the side characters features in other books, while others are unique to this book, but add substance to the story.
Roan Parrish also does side characters well, I think – her series are loosely connected to each other, and side characters (whether they get their own books or not) add substance. I’m partial to her Garnet Run series (especially “Better Than People”) and the Riven series (especially “Rend”).
The fifth book in Chloe Liese’s Bergman Brothers series, “Everything For You”, features a m/m couple with a strong set of side characters (including Ollie’s siblings, who are the focus of the other books in the series. The rest of the series features m/f couples, although Ziggy, the focus of the most recent book, identifies as bi.
I also love Con Riley’s “Learning to Love” series, especially the first book (“Charles”), which has a lovely supporting cast (with “supporting” being truly so). This series branched off her earlier “His” series, all set in and around Cornwall.
I also second the earlier E.M. Lindsey recommendation.
I will keep bringing her up because she is so awesome, but I LOVE AJ Sherwood – great mm series with lots of support towards characters who think they are too difficult for love, lots of humor, and fantastic side characters/friends. I LOVE the Jon’s Mystery and the R’iyah Family Archives the most (Nico and Wicky’s friendship is so fun to read), but really all her series are fantastic!
Also, for the “side characters that don’t ship the MCs or don’t care about the MC’s romance” I will add Flybait and Whiskey’s friendship in Clear Water by Amy Lane – they are grouches who don’t like to talk about feelings, so when Patrick comes into the picture there is a lot of “I don’t want to hear about it!” stuff.
Mary Calmes – the Marshals and Torus Intercession series both have close work relationships that don’t want to hear about/talk about romance, and generally give each other lots of shit.
Jennifer Cody – The Trouble with Trying to date a Murderer series has a lot of people falling in love and a lot of side characters who don’t want any details, or outright oppose the relationship (book 3).
I thought first of Alexis Hall, specifically Boyfriend Material for friends who have their own lives and don’t necessarily ship the couple. Also as mentioned KJ Charles, Society of Gentlemen, and also Lilywhite Boys features supportive side characters who are nevertheless actively against the main romances. KA Mitchell has a Bad in Baltimore series with lots of overlapping and chaotic characters who aren’t necessarily in favor of one another’s romances.
Wow, looking through over a thousand titles in my library and very few of them meet the criteria. There are lots of series with great found families and amazing queer communities, but typically the friends are there to talk about the relationship, egg the MCs on, and to tease their own future stories.
Fearne Hill’s 2nd Rossingley book has some fun side characters – Rueben’s best friend that he writes to in prison and the fellow gardeners he works with.
Renae Kaye’s “Loving You” series had some great side characters.
Lily Morton’s books are mostly set among interconnected groups of gay friends, some more quirky than others. As for these friends not shipping the MCs’ relationship, I think After Felix and Risk-taker might fit the bill – I seem to remember the friend group warning the MCs to be cautious about getting involved.
If you loved Lumberjanes check out Backstage Boys, also from Boom Comics, about theater geeks at a all boys high school with a magical theater. Definitely found family with several gay and at least one trans character.
Shaun David Hutchinson is an amazing (queer)author, if you want specific recs my favorites are Before We Disappear and We are the ants (both by him) although Before We Disappear is the more romancy one of the two, its also worth noting that neither have spicy/love scenes and the MCs have other stuff going on besides romance, also we are the ants does have multiple TWs so id look those of before reading.
Agree on EM Lindsay, Anita Kelly, Kris Ripper, Skye Kilaen, Roan Parrish, Alexis Hall, KJ Charles, Anna Zabo, and adding my recommendation for FOR THE LOVE OF APRIL FRENCH, by Penny Aimes
Also Lily Seabrooke, particularly the Taste of Port Andrea series.
I just finished Wolfsong by t j klune, and I loved it. I thought I was pretty much done with werewolves, but klune just brings whole new dimensions to the subgenre. And the side characters are wonderful.
Adriana Herrera’s AMERICAN DREAMERS series and Chenicia Higgins’ f/f books as well, I think.
I read this post and some of my new favorite authors jumped
Into my brain.
Coffee Boy by Austin Chant (trans)
I think that One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston deserves all
of its recommendations. (f/f)
Roan Parrish’s Garnet Run series is very good.
For the Love of April French by Penny Aimes is so good.
(Trans)
Karelia Stetz-Waters’ Out in Portland series is amazing.
Glitterland by Alexis Hall (m/m)