Don’t you just love it when the new year kicks off with a bang? These delightful titles will get your 2024 off to an excellent start.
Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend
Author: Emma Alban
Released: January 9, 2024 by Avon
Genre: Historical: European, LGBTQIA, Romance
Series: Mischief & Matchmaking #1
Gwen has a brilliant beyond brilliant idea.
It’s 1857, and anxious debutante Beth has just one season to snag a wealthy husband, or she and her mother will be out on the street. But playing the blushing ingenue makes Beth’s skin crawl and she’d rather be anywhere but here.
Gwen, on the other hand, is on her fourth season and counting, with absolutely no intention of finding a husband, possibly ever. She figures she has plenty of security as the only daughter of a rakish earl, from whom she’s gotten all her flair, fun, and less-than-proper party games.
“Let’s get them together,” she says.
It doesn’t take long for Gwen to hatch her latest scheme: rather than surrender Beth to courtship, they should set up Gwen’s father and Beth’s newly widowed mother. Let them get married instead.
“It’ll be easy” she says.
There’s just…one, teeny, tiny problem. Their parents kind of seem to hate each other.
But no worries. Beth and Gwen are more than up to the challenge of a little twenty-year-old heartbreak. How hard can parent-trapping widowed ex-lovers be?
Of course, just as their plan begins to unfold, a handsome, wealthy viscount starts calling on Beth, offering up the perfect, secure marriage.
Beth’s not mature enough for this…
Now Gwen must face the prospect of sharing Beth with someone else, forever. And Beth must reckon with the fact that she’s caught feelings, hard, and they’re definitely not for her potential fiancé.
That’s the trouble with matchmaking: sometimes you accidentally fall in love with your best friend in the process.
This debut is like a fun, frisky hug, warm and funny and sexy and just brimming with the rare kind of chemistry between the two leads that makes watching them become friends almost as fun as watching them realize, “Whoops, I am so gay,” and you get double the banter fun with the parents they’re trying to set up.
Most Ardently
Author: Gabe Cole Novoa
Released: January 16, 2024 by Feiwel & Friends
Genre: Historical: European, LGBTQIA, Romance, Young Adult
Series: Remixed Classics #9
In the Remixed Classics series, authors from marginalized backgrounds reinterpret classic works through their own cultural lens to subvert the overwhelming cishet, white, and male canon. This bittersweet Pride & Prejudice remix follows a trans boy yearning for the freedom to live openly, centering queerness in a well-known story of longing and subverting society’s patriarchal and cisheteronormative expectations.
London, 1812 . Oliver Bennet feels trapped. Not just by the endless corsets, petticoats and skirts he’s forced to wear on a daily basis, but also by society’s expectations. The world—and the vast majority of his family and friends—think Oliver is a girl named Elizabeth. He is therefore expected to mingle at balls wearing a pretty dress, entertain suitors regardless of his interest in them, and ultimately become someone’s wife.
But Oliver can’t bear the thought of such a fate. He finds solace in the few times he can sneak out of his family’s home and explore the city rightfully dressed as a young gentleman. It’s during one such excursion when Oliver becomes acquainted with Darcy, a sulky young man who had been rude to “Elizabeth” at a recent social function. But in the comfort of being out of the public eye, Oliver comes to find that Darcy is actually a sweet, intelligent boy with a warm heart. And not to mention incredibly attractive.
As Oliver is able to spend more time as his true self, often with Darcy, part of him dares begin to hope that his dream of love and life as a man to be possible. But suitors are growing bolder—and even threatening—and his mother is growing more desperate to see him settled into an engagement. Oliver will have to choose: Settle for safety, security, and a life of pretending to be something he’s not, or risk it all for a slim chance at freedom, love, and a life that can be truly, honestly his own.
Even if I weren’t already a fan of the author, I’m not gonna not buy a gay trans historical Pride & Prejudice; that’s just bananas. Also, everything in the Remixed Classics series is a gem, and I’d be stunned if Novoa doesn’t knock this one out of the park.
Escaping Mr. Rochester
Author: L.L. McKinney
Released: January 16, 2024 by HarperTeen
Genre: Gothic, Historical: European, LGBTQIA, Romance, Young Adult
In this fresh reimagining of Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel by acclaimed author L. L. McKinney, Jane Eyre and Bertha Mason must save each other from the horrifying machinations of Mr. Rochester in this intrigue-filled, empowering young adult romance.
Jane Eyre has no interest in a husband. Eager to make her own way in the world, she accepts the governess position at Thornfield Hall.
Though her new employer, Edward Rochester, has a charming air—not to mention a handsome face—Jane discovers that his smile can sharpen in an instant. Plagued by Edward’s mercurial mood and the strange wails that echo through the corridors, Jane grows suspicious of the secrets hidden within Thornfield Hall—unaware of the true horrors lurking above her very head.
On the topmost floor, Bertha Mason is trapped in more ways than one. After her whirlwind marriage to Edward turned into a nightmare, he locked her away as revenge for withholding her inheritance. Now his patience grows thin in the face of Bertha’s resilience and Jane’s persistent questions, and both young women are in more danger than they realize.
When their only chance at safety—and perhaps something more—is in each other’s arms, can they find and keep one another safe before Edward’s dark machinations close in around them?
It’s always fascinating to see the different ways authors take on Jane Eyre, and this definitely marks the first time I’ve seen it as a Black, Sapphic historical romance, which is just way too intriguing, especially by the author of the Nightmare-verse trilogy.
The (Fake) Dating Game
Author: Timothy Janovsky
Released: January 23, 2024 by Afterglow Books by Harlequin
Genre: Contemporary Romance, LGBTQIA, Romance
“Game show antics, idiots in love, and a healthy dose of steam…this book is everything I want in a romance novel!” —Alison Cochrun, author of The Charm Offensive and Kiss Her Once for Me
Ready. Set. Faux .
Holden James picked the worst time to have a meltdown. His chance to audition for his favorite game show, Madcap Market, should have been a moment of triumph—a glorious, loving homage to his adored mom, who died six years ago. Instead, he’s destroying the minibar in a grim Los Angeles hotel room…recently dumped, partnerless and sliding into misery.
But at least the hotel service is sublime. It even comes with an unfairly fit and sexy (smart-ass) concierge who arrives at the door with pizza, Monopoly and deliciously distracting forearms.
All Holden knows about Leo Min is that he’s beautiful and unexpectedly sympathetic, and the chemistry between them is beyond . Maybe it’s even enough to convince everyone, including the show’s casting directors, that they’re a real couple. All they’d have to do is crush the competition, win the huge cash prize and all of Holden’s problems—his broken heart, his buried grief, his complete lack of money and direction—will be fixed.
Of course, reality doesn’t quite work out that way. But love is an entirely different game…
Everything Janovsky writes is just a delight, and I love a good fake romance when you can totally buy the reasons behind doing it. Plus, starting off with a meet cute already in a hotel is just so promising…
Keep This Off the Record
Author: Arden Joy
Released: January 30, 2024 by Rising Action Publishing
Genre: Contemporary Romance, LGBTQIA, Romance
Abigail Meyer and Freya Jonsson can’t stand one another. But could their severe hatred be masking something else entirely?
From the moment they locked eyes in high school, Abby and Freya have been at each other’s throats. Ten years later, when Abby and Freya cross paths again, their old rivalry doesn’t take more than a few minutes to begin anew.
And now Naomi, Abby’s best friend, is falling for Freya’s producer and close pal, Will. Both women are thrilled to see their friends in a happy relationship—except they are now only a few degrees of separation from the person they claim to despise … and they can’t seem to avoid seeing one another.
Keep This off the Record is a fun and fresh LGBTQIA+ story about the freedom to be who you are, even if that means falling for the person you hate.
The rivalry is real, the hijinks are ridiculous (in a good way), the side characters are bursting with personality, and I’m always here for Jewish rep!
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