Gay romance novels are all the rage & author KJ Charles has written your next favorite
The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen. It happens in an appropriately country inn, where Gareth, a soon-to-be squire, and Joss, the head of a family of marsh-dwelling smugglers, hook up like there’s no yesterday, today or tomorrow.Separation anxiety ensues, then a chance meeting, and the romance of two lifetimes, with all the comforting tropes every great example of the genre has to offer, except it’s boys and not bodices being tossed around upstairs from the 18th-century pub in South East England.Finally, a film shows what sex is actually like between two men in love.
Author Charles cut her teeth on romance as an editor at London publishing houses specializing in the genre, then struck out on her own as a writer.
Now she has dozens of historical titles to her name, most of them series, an indication of her savvy in hooking readers on her colorful, yet identifiable characters.
A sequel to Secret Lives is due in September.Gay romance has taken off in the last few years, with the popularity of books like The New York Times best-selling novel Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston — now a hit movie — and the recent Boyfriend Material series from Alexis Hall.While both of those hits are contemporary, Charles mines the past for her stories, opening eyes and history to the torrid romance that was always there between the lines.I spoke with the author about her new book from a country house in the South of France, where she was vacationing with family: a supportive husband and “two eye-rolling teenagers.” She left the “cat with a history of violence” at home in London.LGBTQ Nation: When I was researching new books for 2023, I was fascinated to find out there’s an extensive subgenre of gay-themed romance novels.
