I’m really enjoying the current crop of queer historical romances. It’s not like this is a new subgenre… KJ Charles has been doing them for years, at the very least, and Olivia Waites’ Feminine Pursuits trilogy started in 2019. But in the past couple of years it seems like there’s been even more, queerer books, populated with trans and gender non-conforming characters, as if to remind the world that yes, the LGBTQIA+ community has always been here, and being trans and non-binary is not new, even if some of the language around it is.
I especially love how the queer historicals can play with the tropes that were established by their straight counterparts. Case in point, in A Gentleman’s Gentleman by TJ Alexander, reclusive Lord Christopher Eden needs to get married before his twenty-fifth birthday in order to secure his inheritance. Like many a historical character before him, he doesn’t want to be forced into marriage. But unlike them, he is a trans man, who is also exclusively attracted to men. Can he find a wife who will be happy in a non-standard marriage and protect his secrets?
In order to blend in to London society while on the marriage market, Christopher asks his lawyers to find him a valet for the season, and he ends up with the very serious, seriously handsome James Harding. James does not appreciate that Christopher will not allow him to perform normal valet tasks such as dressing his Lord each morning, but the two do bond over a shared love of horses.
Although there are some heavy elements in Christopher’s backstory, this is for the most part, a very fun book. Christopher loves dressing well. He loves his horse. He enjoys spending time with James. He actually does like women (in a platonic sort of way), which complicates his wife search because he doesn’t want to trap anyone in an unsuitable marriage. There are fun distractions along the way, such as when Christopher and James help a pair of star-crossed lovers elope. This book is a reminder that not only have queer people always been here, but there have always been opportunities for queer joy, even when it wasn’t safe to be out.
I had a couple of quibbles with this book, especially with a major incident from Christopher’s childhood, but over all, I greatly enjoyed it. Importantly, it ended in a way that I found especially satisfying and left me believing in the Happy Ever After laid out for Christopher and James.
CWs and TWs: Oh no, I left this in my drafts for too long and I can’t remember everything. Mainly, Christopher’s past involves traumatic family deaths. While a fear of being outed does tend to hover over any historical set in a period when it wasn’t safe to be queer, I don’t recall any specific examples of homophobia or transphobia on page. There is on-page sexual content, and it does tend towards the spicy.
Source and Format: I borrowed the ebook from Seattle Public Library.
Reading Challenge Prompts
Nook & Cranny (Card 2): Best Dressed. Despite dressing himself without the aid of a valet, Christopher is always impeccably well-dressed, in part due to his friendship with his very French, very gay tailor.
Book Riot: A romance book that doesn’t have an illustrated cover. Did you feel like the review was a little short? That’s because I was saving all of my energy to rant about this prompt. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure Book Riot was just trying to be part of the discourse — people, especially long-time romance fans, have been complaining about the illustrated cover trend for a while. Some seem to just generally hate the style. Others recall a time when illustrated covers were reserved for more light-hearted, rom-commy fare and get frustrated by the emotional mismatch between a cute illustrated cover and an emotionally heavy romance centered around trauma bonding.
There are two problems with this. First, the bigger, more general problem: in recent months, conservatives have been using these illustrated covers, especially ones that look a little cartoon-y, to suggest that spicy romance novels are being marketed to children. There’s a current attack on sexual content in books, and there’s especially a big attack on even non-sexual content centered LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC characters, let alone queer romance novels.
Which dovetails into the second problem: these illustrated covers are way less expensive and much quicker to put together than old-school painted “clinch” covers, and I dunno, maybe easier than photo covers, if you’re doing a photo shoot rather than working with stock photos. In general, publishers put more of their resources behind more “mainstream” (read: cis, het, white) authors. This leads to a situation where out of all of the LGBTQIA+ and/or BIPOC romances I had on my radar this year, all the ones I noticed in lists of upcoming books, everything I randomly came across on the lists in Libby, had illustrated covers. We’re almost halfway into the year, and other than A Gentleman’s Gentleman, every single romance novel I have read or plan to read this year has an illustrated cover.
This cover, by the way, is gorgeous. The main image is a photo of Zack Pinsent (who I used to follow on IG before I dropped Meta products), a very handsome young gay man who dresses in historic clothing every day. It perfectly evokes Christopher’s penchant for well-tailored, light-colored clothing (no matter the season or fashion trends). But a lot of the illustrated covers are gorgeous, too. Would I like to see some explicitly queer old school fully painted clinch covers? Maybe complete with stepbacks? YES. But I think we’re not really going to see a lot of that while publishers are busy focusing their resources on alternative covers with foil details and sprayed edges for the latest cishet romantasy that may or may not be republished fanfic.
World of Whimm: Romance. I read a lot of romance in general, although the first few months were rather short on romance as if I was saving it all for April and May.
Reading Challenge Progress
Nook & Cranny (Card 1): 8 of 25, no bingos.
Nook & Cranny (Card 2): 12 of 25, 1 bingo.
Book Riot: 11 of 25.
Physical TBR: 6 of 12.
World of Whimm: 12 of 24, no bingos.