Best LGBT Romance Books

Each of these love stories features an LGBT protagonist — whether their identity is the crux of the story or not.

“Thomas moves even closer until their faces were less than an inch apart, their breath mixed and harsh. He sees Taylor’s eyes move to his lips. Thomas’s breath hitches. He couldn’t resist darting his eyes lower as well to look at Taylor’s pink full lips. Taylor licks them, then parts them slightly. Almost like he was begging to be kissed.

“Fuck it” Thomas says before leaning to crush their mouths together.”

1. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo: A Novel

Author: by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Published at: Washington Square Press; Unabridged edition (May 29, 2018)

ISBN: 978-1501161933

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the author of Daisy Jones & The Sixan entrancing and wildly addictive journey of a reclusive Hollywood starlet (PopSugar) as she reflects on her relentless rise to the top and the risks she took, the loves she lost, and the long-held secrets the public could never imagine.

Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself.Why her?Why now?

Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn's luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the 80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love.


2. Red, White & Royal Blue: A Novel

Author: by Casey McQuiston

Published at: St. Martin's Griffin (May 14, 2019)

ISBN: 978-1250316776

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Instant NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY bestseller * GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD WINNER for BEST DEBUT and BEST ROMANCE of 2019 * BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR* for VOGUE, NPR, VANITY FAIR, and more! What happens when America's First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales?

When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, geniushis image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There's only one problem: Alex has a beef with the actual prince, Henry, across the pond.

And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S. /British relations take a turn for the worse. Heads of family, state, and other handlers devise a plan for damage control: staging a truce between the two rivals.

What at first begins as a fake, Instragramable friendship grows deeper, and more dangerous, than either Alex or Henry could have imagined. Soon Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret romance with a surprisingly unstuffy Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations and begs the question: Can love save the world after all?


3. Call Me by Your Name: A Novel

Author: by André Aciman

Published at: Holtzbrinck Publishers; Media tie-in edition (October 3, 2017)

ISBN: 978-1250169440

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Now a Major Motion Picture from Director Luca Guadagnino, Starring Armie Hammer and Timothe Chalamet, and Written by Three-Time Oscar Nominee James IvoryThe Basis of the Oscar-Winning Best Adapted ScreenplayA New York Times BestsellerA USA Today Bestseller A Los Angeles Times BestsellerA Vulture Book Club Pick An Instant Classic and One of the Great Love Stories of Our TimeAndre Aciman's Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents' cliffside mansion on the Italian Riviera.

Each is unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, when, during the restless summer weeks, unrelenting currents of obsession, fascination, and desire intensify their passion and test the charged ground between them. Recklessly, the two verge toward the one thing both fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy.

It is an instant classic and one of the great love stories of our time. Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for FicitionA New York Times Notable Book of the Year A Publishers Weekly and The Washington Post Best Book of the Year A New York Magazine "Future Canon" Selection A Chicago Tribune and Seattle Times (Michael Upchurch's) Favorite Favorite Book of the Year


4. Honey Girl: A Novel

Author: by Morgan Rogers

Published at: Park Row; Original edition (February 23, 2021)

ISBN: 978-0778311027

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Named Most Anticipated of 2021 by Oprah Magazine * Marie Claire * Ms. Magazine * E! Parade Magazine * Buzzfeed * Cosmo * The Rumpus * GoodReads * Autostraddle * Brit & Co * Refinery29 * Betches * BookRiot and others! A LibraryReads Pick HONEY GIRL is an emotional, heartfelt, charming debut, and I loved every moment of it.

Jasmine Guillory, New York Times bestselling author of The ProposalWhen becoming an adult means learning to love yourself first. With her newly completed PhD in astronomy in hand, twenty-eight-year-old Grace Porter goes on a girls' trip to Vegas to celebrate.

She's a straight A, work-through-the-summer certified high achiever. She is not the kind of person who goes to Vegas and gets drunkenly married to a woman whose name she doesn't knowuntil she does exactly that. This one moment of departure from her stern ex-military father's plans for her life has Grace wondering why she doesn't feel more fulfilled from completing her degree.

Staggering under the weight of her parent's expectations, a struggling job market and feelings of burnout, Grace flees her home in Portland for a summer in New York with the wife she barely knows. In New York, she's able to ignore all the constant questions about her future plans and falls hard for her creative and beautiful wife, Yuki Yamamoto.


5. Take a Hint, Dani Brown: A Novel (The Brown Sisters, 2)

Author: by Talia Hibbert

Published at: Avon (June 23, 2020)

ISBN: 978-0062941237

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Named one of the Best Romances of 2020 by Apple, Kirkus, PW, Washington Post, NPR, BookPage, OprahMag, EW, Insider, Buzzfeed, Bustle, and Amazon! USA Today bestselling author Talia Hibbert returns with another charming romantic comedy about a young woman who agrees to fake date her friend after a video of him rescuing her from their office building goes viral...

Danika Brown knows what she wants: professional success, academic renown, and an occasional roll in the hay to relieve all that career-driven tension.But romance? Been there, done that, burned the T-shirt. Romantic partners, whatever their gender, are a distraction at best and a drain at worst.

So Dani asks the universe for the perfect friend-with-benefitssomeone who knows the score and knows their way around the bedroom. When big, brooding security guard Zafir Ansari rescues Dani from a workplace fire drill gone wrong, it's an obvious sign: PhD student Dani and former rugby player Zaf are destined to sleep together.


6. Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb Trilogy, 1)

Author: by Tamsyn Muir

Published at: Tordotcom (July 14, 2020)

ISBN: 978-1250313188

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15+ pages of new, original content, including a glossary of terms, in-universe writings, and more! A USA Today Best-Selling Novel, and one of the Best Books of 2019 according to NPR, the New York Public Library, Amazon, BookPage, Shelf Awareness, BookRiot, and Bustle!

WINNER of the 2020 Crawford AwardFinalist for the 2020 Hugo, Nebula, and Locus AwardsUnlike anything I've ever read.V.E. SchwabLesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space! Charles StrossBrilliantly original, messy and weird straight through. NPRThe Emperor needs necromancers. The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman.

Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead nonsense. Tamsyn Muir's Gideon the Ninth, first in The Locked Tomb Trilogy, unveils a solar system of swordplay, cut-throat politics, and lesbian necromancers. Her characters leap off the page, as skillfully animated as arcane revenants.

The result is a heart-pounding epic science fantasy. Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape.


7. Boyfriend Material

Author: by Alexis Hall

Published at: Sourcebooks Casablanca; Illustrated edition (July 7, 2020)

ISBN: 978-1728206141

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WANTED: One (fake) boyfriend Practically perfect in every wayLuc O'Donnell is tangentiallyand reluctantlyfamous. His rock star parents split when he was young, and the father he's never met spent the next twenty years cruising in and out of rehab. Now that his dad's making a comeback, Luc's back in the public eye, and one compromising photo is enough to ruin everything.

To clean up his image, Luc has to find a nice, normal relationship... And Oliver Blackwood is as nice and normal as they come. He's a barrister, an ethical vegetarian, and he's never inspired a moment of scandal in his life.

In other words: perfect boyfriend material. Unfortunately, apart from being gay, single, and really, really in need of a date for a big event, Luc and Oliver have nothing in common. So they strike a deal to be publicity-friendly (fake) boyfriends until the dust has settled.

Then they can go their separate ways and pretend it never happened. But the thing about fake-dating is that it can feel a lot like real-dating. And that's when you get used to someone. Start falling for them. Don't ever want to let them go.


8. Written in the Stars: A Novel

Author: by Alexandria Bellefleur

Published at: Avon (November 10, 2020)

ISBN: 978-0063000803

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"I was hooked from the very first page! Christina Lauren, New York Times bestselling author of In a Holidaze"This book is a delight." New York Times Book ReviewA National Bestseller! Featured on Shondaland, Oprah Mag, Bustle, The New York Times Book Review, Buzzfeed, POPSUGAR, Entertainment Weekly, Washington Post, NPR, Culturess, Vulture, and more.

Named one of the Best Romances of 2020 by Washington Post, Bustle, and Buzzfeed! With nods to Bridget Jones and Pride & Prejudice, this debut is a delightful #ownvoices queer rom-com about a free-spirited social media astrologer who agrees to fake a relationship with an uptight actuary until New Year's Evewith results not even the stars could predict!

After a disastrous blind date, Darcy Lowell is desperate to stop her well-meaning brother from playing matchmaker ever again. Loveand the inevitable heartbreakis the last thing she wants. So she fibs and says her latest set up was a success.

Darcy doesn't expect her lie to bite her in the ass. Elle Jones, one of the astrologers behind the popular Twitter account Oh My Stars, dreams of finding her soul mate. But she knows it is most assuredly not Darcy...


9. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, 1)

Author: by Becky Chambers

Published at: Harper Voyager (July 5, 2016)

ISBN: 978-0062444134

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The acclaimed modern science fiction masterpiece, Hugo Award winner for Best Series! Follow a motley crew on an exciting journey through spaceand one adventurous young explorer who discovers the meaning of family in the far reaches of the universein this light-hearted debut space opera from a rising sci-fi star.

Rosemary Harper doesn't expect much when she joins the crew of the aging Wayfarer. While the patched-up ship has seen better days, it offers her a bed, a chance to explore the far-off corners of the galaxy, and most importantly, some distance from her past.

An introspective young woman who learned early to keep to herself, she's never met anyone remotely like the ship's diverse crew, including Sissix, the exotic reptilian pilot, chatty engineers Kizzy and Jenks who keep the ship running, and Ashby, their noble captain.

Life aboard the Wayfarer is chaotic and crazyexactly what Rosemary wants. It's also about to get extremely dangerous when the crew is offered the job of a lifetime. Tunneling wormholes through space to a distant planet is definitely lucrative and will keep them comfortable for years.

10. Let's Eat France! (Copper Point: Main Street)

Author: by François-Régis Gaudry

Published at: Artisan; First edition (January 19, 2021)

ISBN: 978-1579658762

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Named a Best Food Book of the Year / Best Book to Gift by the New York Times Book Review, National Geographic, Houston Chronicle, The Guardian, Real Simple, and more There's never been a book about food like Let's Eat France!

A book that feels literally larger than life, it is a feast for food lovers and Francophiles, combining the completist virtues of an encyclopedia and the obsessive visual pleasures of infographics with an enthusiast's unbridled joy. Here are classic recipes, including how to make a pot-au-feu, eight essential composed salads, pt en crote, blanquette de veau, choucroute, and the best ratatouille.

Profiles of French food icons like Colette and Curnonsky, Brillat-Savarin and Bocuse, the Troigros dynasty and Victor Hugo. A region-by-region index of each area's famed cheeses, charcuterie, and recipes. Poster-size guides to the breads of France, the wines of France, the oysters of Franceeven the frites of France.

You'll meet endive, the belle of the north; discover the croissant timeline; understand the art of tartare; find a chart of wine bottle sizes, from the tiny split to the Nebuchadnezzar (the equivalent of 20 standard bottles); and follow the family tree of French sauces.

11. Wolfsong (Green Creek)

Author: by TJ Klune

Published at: Bowker (September 21, 2019)

ISBN: 978-1732399983

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Ox was twelve when his daddy taught him a very valuable lesson. He said that Ox wasn't worth anything and people would never understand him.Then he left. Ox was sixteen when he met the boy on the road, the boy who talked and talked and talked.

Ox found out later the boy hadn't spoken in almost two years before that day, and that the boy belonged to a family who had moved into the house at the end of the lane. Ox was seventeen when he found out the boy's secret, and it painted the world around him in colors of red and orange and violet, of Alpha and Beta and Omega.

Ox was twenty-three when murder came to town and tore a hole in his head and heart. The boy chased after the monster with revenge in his bloodred eyes, leaving Ox behind to pick up the pieces. It's been three years since that fateful dayand the boy is back.

Except now he's a man, and Ox can no longer ignore the song that howls between them.

12. The Price of Salt

Author: by Patricia Highsmith

Published at: Dover Publications; Reprint edition (January 14, 2015)

ISBN: 978-0486800295

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A chance encounter between two lonely women leads to a passionate romance in this lesbian cult classic. Therese, a struggling young sales clerk, and Carol, a homemaker in the midst of a bitter divorce, abandon their oppressive daily routines for the freedom of the open road, where their love can blossom.

But their newly discovered bliss is shattered when Carol is forced to choose between her child and her lover. Author Patricia Highsmith is best known for her psychological thrillers Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley. Originally published in 1952 under a pseudonym, The Price of Salt was heralded as "the novel of a love society forbids." Highsmith's sensitive treatment of fully realized characters who defy stereotypes about homosexuality marks a departure from previous lesbian pulp fiction.

Erotic, eloquent, and suspenseful, this story offers an honest look at the necessity of being true to one's nature. The book is also the basis of the acclaimed 2015 film Carol, starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara.

13. Captive Prince (The Captive Prince Trilogy)

Author: by C. S. Pacat

Published at: Berkley; 1st edition (April 7, 2015)

ISBN: 978-0425274262

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From global phenomenon C.S. Pacat comes the first novel in her critically acclaimed Captive Prince trilogyincludes an exclusive bonus story! Damen is a warrior hero to his people, and the rightful heir to the throne of Akielos. But when his half brother seizes power, Damen is captured, stripped of his identity, and sent to serve the prince of an enemy nation as a pleasure slave.

Beautiful, manipulative, and deadly, his new master, Prince Laurent, epitomizes the worst of the court at Vere. But in the lethal political web of the Veretian court, nothing is as it seems, and when Damen finds himself caught up in a play for the throne, he must work together with Laurent to survive and save his country.

For Damen, there is just one rule: never, ever reveal his true identity. Because the one man Damen needs is the one man who has more reason to hate him than anyone else...

14. Zero at the Bone

Author: by Jane Seville

Published at: Dreamspinner Press (April 30, 2019)

ISBN: 978-1641080231

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After witnessing a mob hit, surgeon Jack Francisco is put into protective custody to keep him safe until he can testify. A hitman known only as D is blackmailed into killing Jack, but when he tracks him down, his weary conscience won't allow him to murder an innocent man.

Finding in each other an unlikely ally, Jack and D are soon on the run from shadowy enemies. Forced to work together to survive, the two men forge a bond that ripens into unexpected passion. Jack sees the wounded soul beneath D's cold, detached exterior, and D finds in Jack the person who can help him reclaim the man he once was.

As the day of Jack's testimony approaches, he and D find themselves not only fighting for their lives... But also fighting for their future.A future together.