Every year, Valentine’s Day rolls around, and every year, we all have to endure lists of monolithic romance novels about very boring people. Aside from the usual “hot blonde meets borderline emotionally abusive hockey player/CEO/pop star/cowboy/hometown hero” lists, there are also lists of Black romance, Asian romance, Latin romance, queer romance and all sorts of other romance that despite itself still manages to often be shockingly same-y and non-inclusive, even if the target community is *not* people who revel in being basic.
I’m the first to remind everyone that romance is a genre of comfort. There’s no need to think deeply about the plot of romance novels because a)there are maybe 5 total romance novel plots on earth and b)that is okay, because romance novels are all about character and depictions of personal happiness in relationships. We know they’re going to argue and nearly break up for good in the third act. We know they’re going to get back together dramatically and unrealistically anyway. We also don’t really care, because the point of romance is to see who is in love, not how. But in the real world, people are complex. Nobody is ever just one thing, and part of the beauty of love is people accepting each other’s multiplicities and uniqueness.
That’s why I find limited demographic romances so frustrating. One of the unsung triumphs of romance novels, (aside from being a genre largely focused on pleasure, happiness and joy) is diversity. I’m talking real diversity here, not just non-whiteness. Ignoring the very real (and problematic) possibility of soft fetishization and the massive importance of identifying with romantic leads for a moment, romance novels are one of the few places readers can find normal human levels of diversity and complexity without that being the entire focus of the book. Romance protagonists are also consistently more than one thing at the same time, and it’s often handled well because romance is about mixing personalities and exploring individual happiness, not thematic posturing for literary points. Romance novels are one of the few places where everyone deserves love and gets it, no matter who they are, or what their community is like.
Romance novels are also my second favorite genre of book after fantasy, so why not make a booklist of some of my favorite diverse and intersectional romance novels to share with the crowd?
A few disclaimers before I begin; I’m not an expert. I’m just a happy Black lady with way too many books in her house and a powerful need to discuss them. This list is in no way meant to be definitive or even all that up to date. I literally just pulled the first seven books out of my mental card catalog for discussion’s sake because I like books and so do you.
Also, as I put this booklist together, I noticed some glaring omissions that need a brief word of explanation. First, while I’ve dipped my toes in the waters of romantasy and monster romance, those genres tend to not be my cup of tea, diverse or not. I haven’t read anything in those sub-genres I’ve enjoyed enough to really discuss at length, and with a few happy exceptions, they seem to be glaringly, obliviously white and American which is also not my thing. I have liked some romantasy and monster romance, but their diversity and intersectionality is often cloaked in racialicious, problematic metaphors that make me uncomfortable.
A much more surprising omission is that I realized I don’t really read romance novels about queer women, although I’ve read quite a few titles where one or both of the main couple are queer men and there is a polyamorous romance on this list. This is a whopping big blind spot, and in lieu of explaining or doing some embarrassing performative word dance, I’m just going to direct you here to a booklist by people who know what they are talking about when it comes to sapphic diversity.
And now that the disclaimer-y bits are out of the way, on to the booklist!
(If you’re already tired of my blather and just want to skip straight to the books, they’re in a nice and tidy list in my shop here. Otherwise, buckle up!)
Signs of Attraction, by Laura Brown (Harper Collins, 2016)
This is an interesting novel to start with, because it uses my least favorite romance plot as its foundation; broken little bird and stern overprotective guy against the whole world. But as much as I don’t love that sort of plot, it takes on an interesting flavor here because it’s introduced through a deaf couple. One thing deaf people do exceedingly well in real life (at least in my experience) is recognize multiple identities and difference under the deaf umbrella, and that’s what happens here. Carli is hard of hearing, born into a working-class hearing family, and meets Reed through attempts to connect to deaf culture. Reed is a deaf Latino adopted by a loving, upwardly mobile Black/white interracial couple, which broadens and shapes the experience of deafness that he shares with Carli, who is white.
There’s a lot going on here, but the truth is there’s a lot going on with most real-life couples. It’s nice to see that reflected in a book without it interfering with the wish-fulfillment love tropes or the steam. And speaking of steam, I hope this comes along as appreciative and not creepy–it’s good to see disabled people in intimate situations without it being portrayed as weird or exotic. She’s hot, he’s hot, they get down and that’s all there is to it. Take note, [name of book that annoyed me by being weird about disabled sexuality redacted].
You can find Signs of Attraction here.
Take a Hint, Dani Brown, by Talia Hibbert (Avon Books, 2020)
Speaking of a lot going on, my favorite entry in the Brown sisters trilogy handles the beauty of finding love in the chaos of a regular life very well. Dani is a plus-size, bisexual Black professor who prefers hookups to commitment. Zafir is a Southeast Asian security guard with a minor celebrity past, generalized anxiety disorder and a history of being an ooshy-gooshy romantic. They’re both British. After a fake dating ruse turns into regular hookups, the two fall in love (as you do).
This book does a wonderful job of portraying what emotional vulnerability and good communication look like as two people develop a relationship. It also gets a gold star for making the relationship about attraction and emotion, not about their obvious culture and class differences. Cultural and social differences are important in any relationship, but not as important as having the safety to be vulnerable and the willingness to love and be loved.
You can find Take A Hint, Dani Brown here.
Opposite of Always, by Justin A Reynolds (Katherine Tegen Books, 2020)
A wise man once told me that all relationships are intercultural, and this book is an interesting example of that. Jack and Kate are Blerds who meet on a college campus but there’s a sense that they each come from very different parts of Blackness, and that features in their relationship in subtle ways throughout the book. I appreciate the portrayal of internal diversity, and the book also handles a few tricky themes well. Kate has sickle cell anemia, a common chronic condition that isn’t portrayed in Black fiction often enough. She’s also slightly older than Jack–a college freshman to his high school senior, which concerns his parents and hers. Both of these things are realistic parts of the characters and their interaction, but a lesser book would make this or their nerdish Blackness the focal point.
Instead, this is a book about grief and time travel. You read that right. This is a Black time travel romance with a slight age gap, a lot of grief, and a heroine with a chronic illness. And instead of being heavy, it’s actually so sweet that I won’t re-read it for fear of getting cavities.
Hold Me, by Courtney Milan (Createspace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016)
Believe it or not, I almost never read reviews until long after I’ve read the book in question. That’s why I was so blindsided when I went looking to see what other people thought of this book and found that it’s drawn quite a bit of fire for cramming too much performative diversity in its pages.
But listen. I’m an American who came of age in a multicultural neighborhood in the Western part of the country in the late ’90s, in a community that wasn’t particularly progressive. This book seemed utterly normal to me.
Maria’s an orphaned transgender working-class Latina math whiz. Jay’s a bisexual mixed-Asian physics professor who grew up in a mixed-faith technocrat household. The two can’t stand each other in person, but it turns out that their internet avatars have been good friends for years. All of their identities are presented undramatically as part of the backdrop to their romance. Because this couple live in a diverse community, nobody asks any stupid questions and there aren’t long explanations of obvious things for folks who don’t get it. It doesn’t feel performative at all, only situational.
I love that this book is about love between unique people without any un-necessary didactic ick. Milan chooses to write these two as a normal romance couple because they are. I can’t imagine why anyone would see this any differently. (Okay, I can imagine, but as I’ve discussed before at length, We Don’t Do That Here.)
Also, side note–if I find out that the mean reviews of this are why Courtney Milan still hasn’t finished The Cyclone Series, some of you are going to get some sternly worded Youtube comments. I need the Adam and Peter story, stat!
Let’s Talk About Love, by Claire Kann (Squarefish, 2019)
I’m never a fan of identity didactics in fiction, but sometimes a bit of explanation is helpful. This book does an exceedingly good job of personalizing explanation by diving deeply into the thoughts and feelings of the characters.
Alice is asexual but biromantic and trying hard to figure out what that means for her socially while also living up to the expectations of being an upper middle class Black college student. Japanese-American Takumi is straight, allosexual, and really into Alice–but isn’t sure what asexuality might mean for their relationship in the long term. Fortunately, they have a supportive community and family of both blood and choice to help them figure out what they mean to each other, and how to make it all work.
Again, we have a very multicultural California community full of diverse identities but it’s not played for performativity, it’s just a backdrop for a story that has a lot of emotional authenticity and sweetness. This is one of the most unique romance novels I’ve ever read, but also one of the most mature ones.
Let’s Talk About Love is Available here.
I’m So (Not) Over You, by Kosoko Jackson (Berkley Books, 2022)
I’m only about halfway through this second-time-around meets fake dating gay Black romance, but there’s a few things about it that make it stand out enough to belong on this list.
First, main guys Kian and Hudson are both from different parts of Blackness, much like the couple in Opposite of Always. The interplay between different parts of Black culture creates a lot of fun but also a lot of tension, and it’s nice to see Black people portrayed with social nuance in that way.
The other is that this book is an interesting example of how much thought regarding queer men, particularly queer Black men, has changed. While reading this I keep thinking of the Black gay classic Invisible Life and how sadly different the story of two men much like Kian and Hudson had to be told just 30 years ago. Race and class are much bigger issues than sexuality for this couple, and while that’s not necessarily always accurate to real life, we’ve come far enough for this to be a reasonable portrayal.
It’s also notable that the author of this book is actually a queer Black man. For a lot of reasons, published gay romance is primarily written by cis women and while that’s not for me to unpack, something hits different when you read queer Black love and joy by a queer Black person.
I’m So (Not) Over You is available here.
The Art of Three, by Erin McRae and Racheline Maltese (Avian30, 2017)
This is another book that showed up on my radar relatively recently. Once I finished giggling at the retro cover, I started paying attention to the buzz about it and it really does sound interesting. The relationships explored are international, polyamorous, and queer. They also promise to navigate the power dynamics inherent in age differences, national backgrounds, and class in a way that really got my attention just from the first few pages.
I haven’t read a lot of this yet, so I can’t say too much more about it, but it gets a spot here because of what it might have to offer. If not, trust I’ll let you know when I do finish it.
And there you have it, fellow readers. Seven interesting intersectional romances. There are plenty of others, of course–I didn’t have space to talk about books by Alexis Daria, Alyssa Cole, Blake Allwood, Helen Hoang, Marcella Bell, just to start with. But I did put books by all of these writers and more into a handy-dandy booklist here, if you want to explore further. Also, this is where I need to tell you that if you click and purchase anything from a link on this blog, we have affiliate relationships and will get paid a little bit. I’m serious when I tell you that I’m not trying to sell you stuff(exceptions may be made when my book eventually comes out), but this blog does cost money to run and I have a pretty serious book habit, both of which your affiliate clicks and buys fund.
Hope you’re loved and fully yourself, in all of your identities, fellow readers. Now, go and read something good! Peace!
Equal Opportunity Reader 
Mel, this post is great. I am going to bookmark for later because I want to read more carefully your book list. I am not a huge romance reader but like to read one from time to time. Like you I look for diverse love stories, especially disabled ones. We are absent from the romance genre and when I find ones they are typically white characters. When I do find a disabled book to read it is usually a non-fiction or biography not romance.
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