It’s June again, and that means it’s Pride Month. As you likely know if you’re reading this, most of my books are M/F romances. But more than a few of them have queer or LGBTQIA+ content and characters!
Several include demisexuality (most of my books are also slow burn). A couple have main characters who are asexual and/or aromantic. There’s an F/F romance, a M/M one, and a couple with a MMF polyamorous relationship. And of course the “Enemies to it’s complicated” Best Foot Forward.
I’ve avoided big plot spoilers below. But of course there are some in talking both about people’s identities and orientations, and about which books that’s relevant in. Some additional characters can easily be read as fitting in the following categories. If they do for you, please read them that way!
I’ve a few more ideas coming! This post covers all of that. Plus it ends with a couple of recs of where to find other great queer romances.
Want a handy list of my books that are particularly LGBTQIA+?
Or here’s Geoffrey, commenting on the state of his relationships and the people he loves, not always in easy to label ways.
“As I keep saying, if I am lucky, he will to the end of our days. See, I am already experienced in complicated relationships that no one understands. We’ve muddled along, far better than fine, for going on twenty years now.”
Geoffrey Carillon, Best Foot Forward, chapter 41
Lesbian / Sapphic
Complementary finds Elizabeth Mason and Rosemary Ditson working together to investigate an odd bit of magic in a non-magical artist colony.
Gay
Gil and Magni’s first appearance, in terms of writing, takes place in Pastiche. In 1906, they are a long-established couple, if very private about it. Four Walls and a Heart is their romance in 1884. It’s a cheerful little novella with Gil figuring out his life after the loss of his leg in the Sudan.
Bisexual
We have a running joke that if one of my main characters is a man whose name begins with G, there is a good chance he’s bisexual. Geoffrey. Galen. Golshan. Gabe (though he’s also monogamous, it’s not terribly relevant in practise). Not Garin, though, or Gil or Giles or Griffin.
(This is not intentional, but I do think the pattern is hilarious.)
Geoffrey Carillon makes it’s clear that he’s bisexual in Goblin Fruit. But that’s the book where he both falls in love with Lizzie and they’re in the middle of a complex plot. In Best Foot Forward, Lizzie is the one to point out that Geoffrey may have fallen for someone again. (More on that below.) This book also highlights some of Geoffrey’s past relationships with men, and there’s another reference or three in Ancient Trust.
Galen and Martin are best friends – they have been since they were 13. In Point by Point, it becomes more obvious that Galen would have been interested in a romance. But Martin wasn’t, and that’s fine by both of them.
Polyamorous
Casting Nasturtiums (collected in the Winter’s Charms volume) involves Seth going on a quest to find his best friend. Golshan was paralysed due to an injury toward the end of the Great War. They’ve been best friends since they were 13, but the changes in their lives mean they come to a new understanding of each other. That’s with the active approval and encouragement (and eventually participation) of Seth’s wife Dilly. MMF polyamorous triad by the end of the book.
Geoffrey and Lizzie directly discuss Geoffrey’s interest in Alexander in Best Foot Forward well before Geoffrey acts on it. Through the rest of the Land Mysteries series, it becomes clear there’s a great deal of fondness, trust, and ‘these people are family’ between the three of them.
Demisexual
It doesn’t come up directly in Gabe’s romance, The Fossil Door. But it is a bit more obvious both in some of the extras for that book (and hinted at later in his life) that he’s bisexual. In Gabe it takes the form ‘it never quite became relevant’ because he’s also strongly demisexual. It’s not until he meets and works with Rathna that he sorts out wanting to do anything about the more physical aspects of sexuality.
Thomas Benton in On The Bias is another good example. He’s over 40 when he meets Cassie. They move from cautious tolerance to mutual support to romance over the course of the book. It works in large part because she’s able to get over her assumptions about a few things. And because she’s an independent businesswoman who has her own plans in mind.
A number of other characters can be read as demisexual: a number of them need specific things to line up before they’re particularly interested in a romance or in a sexual relationship.
Aromantic and/or Asexual
I wrote Seven Sisters and I’m honestly not sure if Vivian and Cadmus have ever actually had sex with each other by any particular definition of sex you care to use. They do, however enjoy each other’s company a great deal. They delight in curling up in the same bed with books, and have their own customs and patterns that make them happy. I’m certainly not going to argue with that.
Alexander, the other protagonist of Best Foot Forward, is absolutely both asexual and aromantic. He’s also been badly buffeted about by the world, without the sort of support and companionship – platonic or otherwise – that he should have had. Geoffrey, for his part, sees that hurt and isolation. He responds to it, while being cautious about checking on what Alexander will accept.
(There is no sex between them in the main novel. But there is in the included novella, Intimacies of the Seasons. Though, being the two of them, it is about ritual and the land magic as much as anything else they’re doing with their bodies. Even if Geoffrey absolutely is a hedonist if you give him any encouragement at all.)
No tidy label
I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention the relationship between Geoffrey Carillon and Thomas Benton. It can be seen through many books but particularly Ancient Trust, Goblin Fruit, Best Foot Forward and some of the extras.
At some point between when Geoffrey and Benton meet in the trenches of the Great War and the beginning of Ancient Trust, they come to trust each other deeply, rely on each other, and twine their lives around the other’s skills and talents in a way that goes far beyond formal employment. Fortunately, that works out well for them (and their eventual partners). But as I quoted up at the beginning, Geoffrey has long experience with complicated relationships that don’t have a simple name.
Coming in the future
I do have some more queer romances coming in the future. There’ll definitely be a M/M romance out in 2026 that I’m so excited to share.
I don’t have a formal place in the writing schedule for this next one yet. But there’s a secondary character in the Mysterious Fields trilogy who is a bisexual woman. She has been very politely making it clear she would like a romance duology, please, one with each of her partners. These are going to be set in the late 1840s and mid-1850s, probably, which means a whole new era!
(She is legally married to her male partner, and she lives with both of them. Her romance with her female lover comes first, chronologically.)
There’s a chance I’ll get at least one of these two out in 2025, it depends how the writing goes. If not, almost certainly 2026.
LGBTQIA+ reads I love
I am a “pre-order and read immediately” fan of KJ Charles, who is brilliant at writing romances that are deeply historically grounded, emotionally deep, and also often hilarious and nail-biting, in suitable alternation.
Most of her books are M/M, a few are other categories, and a few (she’s great about labelling them in the blurbs) aren’t romances. My favourite rec for starting places are Proper English (F/F) and Think of England (M/M, including the F/F characters) which form a duology. But honestly, start anywhere that appeals.
For recent releases, Skye Kilaen has been putting together a fantastic newsletter highlighting queer or LGBTQIA+? romance releases. Here’s the June 2024 edition (link at the top to subscribe in email), and you can read all of the archives. I particularly love and appreciate her comments on each book that pull out highlights and make it easier to spot particular delights.
