The Best Queer Romance Novels to Read for Pride Month
By Melissa Lenhardt
Celebrate Pride Month and load up your suitcase or e-reader for vacation with some of my favorite queer romance novels (and one bonus straight novel, because love is love).
The Fiancée Farce by Alexandra Bellefleur
I could choose any of Bellefleur’s queer rom-coms for the list, but I’m going with The Fiancée Farce. Tansy Adams invents a fake girlfriend to get out of family obligations, using a romance cover model as inspiration. When she runs into said cover model, Gemma Van Dalen, in front of her entire family, Gemma surprises her by playing along. It’s a fortuitous turn of events for Gemma, who needs to be married—and soon—to meet the requirements of her grandfather’s will and inherit the family business. Tansy needs money to save her family bookstore. A fake engagement and marriage are arranged. Can Tansy and Gemma keep everything business, or will this farce of a relationship turn into pleasure?
Mistakes Were Made by Meryl Wilsner
Most romance novels are about the chase. The unrequited sexual tension. The longing. So much longing. Not Mistakes Were Made by Meryl Wilsner. Chapter one finds Erin and Cassie picking each other up in a bar and having an anonymous one-night stand, in a parked car no less. Chapter two finds them meeting the next morning at breakfast; Erin is the mother of one of Cassie’s best friends. Cue the longing, interspersed with some incredibly hot sex scenes. The question in this book isn’t will they or won’t they?, but should they?
Poppy Jenkins by Clare Ashton
Poppy Jenkins is a ray of sunshine. The book as well as its eponymous main character. Everyone in her village loves her. But being the only lesbian in town isn’t wonderful for her dating life. Things get messy when Rosalyn Thorn, Poppy’s former best friend and the last person she wants to see, barrels into town. Poppy Jenkins is a small-town, friends-to-lovers, second-chance romance that you shouldn’t miss.
Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake
The last thing Delilah Dawson wants to do is return to Bright Falls, her hometown, and be her stepsister’s wedding photographer. But the money is good, ridiculously good, and she needs to pay rent. She also doesn’t want to be attracted to Claire Sutherland, one of her sister’s mean girlfriends. What starts off as a game, and maybe a little retribution, turns into something else as she’s forced into close proximity with Claire through all the wedding festivities. But Bright Falls and Claire worm their way into her heart, and it turns out that Delilah Green does care. Very much.
30 Dates in 30 Days by Elle Spencer
When Veronica Welch accidentally lets slip to her assistant, Bea, that she’d set a personal goal to be married by 35 years old, Bea takes matters into her own hands. She signs Veronica up for a dating app and gets her boss to reluctantly agree to go on 30 dates over 30 days. Hilarity ensues.
Book Lovers by Emily Henry
I know, I know. This isn’t a queer romance. But a good romance is a good romance, and Book Lovers is a great romance. Emily Henry turns the Hallmark movie rom-com trope on its head and turns the rom-com “villain,” the hard-charging career woman who is dumped at the end of the story, the heroine. Snappy dialogue, prickly characters you can’t help but love, amazing sexual tension, and so many feels make this romance a must-read regardless of sexual orientation—the reader’s or the character’s.
Melissa Lenhardt writes women’s fiction, historical fiction, and mysteries. The New York Times called Heresy an “unapologetically badass western” and “an all-out women-driven, queer, transgender, multiracial takeover of the Old West.” Her debut women’s fiction novel, The Secret of You and Me, was the first LGBTQ+ novel published by Mills and Boon in the UK. A lifelong Texan, Melissa is currently traveling the world as a digital nomad. Her forthcoming novel, Run Baby Run, publishes on June 13.