💋 11 Books for a Queer Smut Summer (or a Queer Romance Summer)
Hello, and welcome to pleasure reading. I'm your host, Amelia Ruby, and this is a podcast about the pleasure of reading, where I share curated reading lists, author rankings, chats with my bookish friends, and more. If you too take pleasure in reading, I hope that you will subscribe and share the show with a friend. Cheers to your next best book. Hello, and welcome to Pleasure Reading, a podcast about the many pleasures of reading hosted by me, Amelia Ruby, PhD.
Speaker 1:On this show, I share curated book lists on all sorts of topics, and I have occasional chats with my bookish friends. And today, I am very excited to be bringing you this episode full of queer romance books. In my personal reading life, I have been calling this summer my queer smut summer. I am trying to read spicy books that have all sorts of relationships, and so far, it's been a real win win win all around for me. And I thought that I would bring that win win win queer smut summer energy to the podcast, but I wanted to expand it a bit.
Speaker 1:The books in this episode are not just smut. They're romance more generally. So this is a queer romance episode for the summer season when we all want something fun to read poolside or on the beach or in the comfort of your air conditioned home, which is my preferred place to be. So in this episode, I am going to tell you about the most recent book that I have read and loved, and then I'm gonna share with you my queer romance TBR. Now this is not a hypothetical TBR.
Speaker 1:This isn't just some, like, list of books I curated off of the Internet. This is literally a stack of books that has been sitting on my desk begging to be read, begging for me to tell you about them for a few weeks now. So I have just been adding books to the pile as I come across a new queer romance to read, and I will be literally holding them in my hands and reading off of the back of the books when I talk to you about them today. I say this because I know that, like, in online reading culture, it can veer into consumerism and this pressure to purchase a ton of books and always be buying the new thing. And I mean, I love to buy books.
Speaker 1:I buy a lot of books. That's true. But I also love to get books from the library, to listen to audiobooks on my Spotify account, and to, like, slowly accrue reads over the course of years. So some of the books I'll talk about today have been on my bookshelf for years, and others I literally got last weekend, and others are due back to the library very soon. So I feel like it's important to talk about how we get the books that we read and to deemphasize buying every single book that we see perhaps.
Speaker 1:And I also just wanna emphasize that, like, I am a real human being really reading these books. And when I talk about books, it's not just because I, like, saw some list online. It's because I maybe read about it online, but liked it enough to get it from the library. Or maybe I came across it in a bookstore and bought a copy of it, which is true for quite a few of these books. So for me, reading is like an embodied activity that I do in my day to day life.
Speaker 1:And, yes, it requires mostly my mind and less so my body. But I love books as physical tangible objects, and I guess I just wanted to share that as we kick off this episode. So with all of that said, let's go ahead and dive in to the 11 books I recommend. If you would like to spend your summer reading queer romance or like me, enter your era of queer smut summer. Okay.
Speaker 1:So the first book on this list is my most recent read. It was a very anticipated release of the year, and that is Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Now I didn't really know anything about this book when I picked it up. I actually didn't even know it was a queer romance. I just saw the cover, and I was like, I'm all in.
Speaker 1:I love space. I love Taylor Jenkins Reid. I love, like, nineteen seventies, eighties cool. I love, like, nineteen eighties cool girls, and I was like, okay. I'm here for it.
Speaker 1:Whatever is gonna happen is gonna happen. So I was incredibly lucky to get this off the library holds list the day it came out, and I read it shortly after, and I loved it. So here is the general plot from the synopsis. Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long as she can remember. Thoughtful and reserved, Joan is content with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and as aunt to her precocious niece, Francis.
Speaker 1:That is until she comes across an advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA's space shuttle program. Suddenly, Joan burns to be one of the first few people to go to space. Selected from a pool of thousands of applicants in the summer of nineteen eighty, Joan begins training at Houston's Johnson Space Center alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates. As the new astronauts become unlikely friends and prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined. In this new light, Joan begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her place in the observable universe.
Speaker 1:So I'm realizing in this exact moment that while a love story isn't the title of this book, it's not in the synopsis this is a queer romance, and maybe that's a spoiler. So my apologies if you feel like that spoils it for you. But for me, I would have picked it up way sooner if I knew that. So I want to tell you that in case it encourages you to pick up this book sooner because Joan's story is just really beautiful, and I feel like this main character just represents a sort of, like, coming into your queerness that we don't see all of the time in romance or contemporary literature, to be honest. So atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid is the queer romance I have most recently read, and I loved it.
Speaker 1:And I want to highly recommend it to you for your own queer romance summer reading. Now let's move on to my TBR, this giant stack of books that is sitting next to my desk. So let's start with a fun book that I picked up at my local bookstore, Sewer Books, and that is Triple Sec by TJ Alexander. I picked up this book because I love books set in the hospitality industry, restaurants, bars, hotels. It's just a scene I really enjoy.
Speaker 1:And I thought it could be fun for summer to have a sort of, like, cocktail themed romance. So let me read you the description, and you can see if it sounds like your kind of thing too. As a bartender at Terror and Virtue, a swanky Manhattan cocktail lounge known for its romantic atmosphere and Insta worthy drinks, Mel has witnessed plenty of disastrous dates. Between that and her own romantic life being in shambles, Mel is convinced that love doesn't exist. Everything changes when Bebe walks into the bar.
Speaker 1:She's beautiful, funny, knows her whiskeys, and is happily married to her partner, Kate. Mel's resigned to forgetting they ever met, but Bebe makes her a unique offer. Since she and Kate have an open marriage, she's interested in taking Mel on a date. What starts as a fun romp turns into a burgeoning relationship, and soon Mel is trying all sorts of things she'd been avoiding, from steamy exploits to grand romantic gestures. Mel even gains the self confidence to enter a cocktail competition that would make her dream of opening her own bar a reality.
Speaker 1:In the chaotic world of all these new experiences, Mel realizes that there might that there might be a spark between her and Cade too. As they explore their connections, Mel begins to think that real love might be more expansive than she ever thought possible. So for me, this is like an ideal sort of romance. We have the setting that I like, and we have an open relationship, and we have a punny title, triple sec, and three people involved. And so this was like an immediate purchase when I saw it, and I'm really excited to read it while I float in my little backyard pool this summer.
Speaker 1:Up next, we've got a book that I just checked out from the library, and that is For Her Consideration by Amy Spaulding. This is a book about breakups and found families, and it is set in the Hollywood movie TV world, which I also love, another setting that I adore. And it features Nina and Ari. So let me read you the description. Since a crushing breakup three years ago, Nina Rice has written romance, friends, and her dreams of script writing for TV and even LA proper out of her life.
Speaker 1:Instead, she's safely out in the suburbs in her aunt's condo, working her talent agency job from home, managing celebrity email accounts, and certain that's plenty of writing and plot for her life. But a surprise meeting called by Ari Fox, a young actress on everyone's radar, stirs up all kinds of feelings Nina thought she deleted for good. Ari is sexy out and proud, and a serious control freak according to Nina's boss. She has her own ideas about how Nina should handle her emails, and about getting to know her ghostwriter. When she tells Nina she should be writing again, Nina suddenly finds it less scary to revisit her abandoned life, then seriously consider that Ari is flirting with her.
Speaker 1:Between reconnecting with her old crew and working on a new script, a relationship with a movie star seems like something she'll definitely mess up. But what could be more worth the risk? So this to me feels sort of like a queer Hollywood, maybe even a bit like you got mail with the whole email account situation. And I love the question on the cover, which is what if her Hollywood job turns into a Hollywood ending? It's like sickly sweet, but I'm into it.
Speaker 1:So that is For Her Consideration by Amy Spaulding. Let's talk about another book on my queer romance TBR that is set in Hollywood. And this one I picked up at a romance bookstore that I visited in Portland recently. It was called Grand Gesture, and it was so cool. So highly recommend checking them out online or visiting if you happen to be on the West Coast.
Speaker 1:But while I was there, I picked up Because Fat Girl by Lauren Marie Fleming. And I wanted to read this one, because it's a queer romance and I will read almost any queer romance. But two, because it is also about being fat and about body acceptance and sovereignty and how that relates to our romantic lives, which is something that's like really close to my own heart. So you add that to the Hollywood setting and the queer romance, and I am all in. Here's what the synopsis says about because fat girl.
Speaker 1:Hollywood isn't nice to women like Diana Smith, but that hasn't stopped her from being unabashedly queer, plus sized, and determined to make award winning movies that showcase the diversity of her community. She was so close to her goal, appearing at festivals and gaining attention for her short films when grief came and shattered Diana's directorial dreams. Forced to move to the suburbs with her sister, the closest thing Diana gets to the movies these days, is dressing the stars of them at her high end department store job. Until one day, she gets a pity invite to a gala full of Hollywood's most elite, where she unwittingly attracts the attention of a famous action star. The unexpected pairing shocks their friends and the tabloids, forcing Diana to choose between the status quo and the silver screen.
Speaker 1:For the first time in her life, doors open for Diana, and the possibilities seem endless. The chance to create unforgettable films, to shake up the industry, to inspire everyone who's ever felt like they didn't belong. But fame always comes with a cost, and to get her Hollywood ending, Diana's going to have to go completely off script. Hell yeah. Once again, I'm like, is it a little corny?
Speaker 1:Yes. Is it a pun I love? Yes. I just can't wait to read this. So maybe I'll pop it on the top of my TBR list above all of these other books.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I can commit to that yet, but let's look at another book that I bought at that very cool bookstore in Portland. And this one is called Brood With Love by Shelley Page. This is a You romance, which I don't read that often, but I loved the cover. It is beautiful. So I highly recommend going to the show notes, clicking on the link, and checking out the gorgeous cover of brewed with love.
Speaker 1:And here is the description. Plant witch Sage Bishop intends to run her family's apothecary one day. The doors just have to stay open until she can take over from her nana. That's why she spends all her time perfecting a heartbreak tonic that'll put Bishop Brews on the map to compete with a magic superstore. She certainly doesn't need their latest hire and her ex best friend, Zemena Reyes, causing any distractions.
Speaker 1:Alas, at the first sight of Zemena's cheeky smile, Sage flees the shop, allowing someone to break into Bishop Brews, and steal the tonic she's been tinkering with. One that wipes their high school cheer captain's memory. With Bishop Brews now at risk of being shut down, Sage reluctantly partners with Zamena to find the culprit. As the mystery deepens, so do pesky old feelings. Their first kiss and Zamena's subsequent ghosting keeps replaying in Sage's mind.
Speaker 1:Will she resist Zamena's charm, or will she let it work its magic for a second chance at love? This book feels like it would fit perfectly on my list of magical books for romantic witches, which was an episode I did very early on, maybe my second episode of the show. And I'm just really happy to have a little magic on my list of queer romance for the summer. So I will definitely let you know in the future how I feel about Brood With Love by Shelley Page. Up next on my queer romance summer reading list, I have another much anticipated 2025 release, and that is Flirting Lessons by Jasmine Guillory.
Speaker 1:Now Jasmine Guillory is famous for novels like The Wedding Date and The Proposal. And I think this might be her first major queer romance, although I could be wrong about that, and I'm very open to being corrected. So in this book, we have Avery who is almost 30 and just went through a breakup. And she is excited to date around and maybe not focus on being such a uptight good girl all the time. And she meets Taylor, who is a huge flirt, a champion heartbreaker as the description puts it.
Speaker 1:And Taylor is very recently single, and her best friend has just bet her that she can't make it to Labor Day without sleeping with someone. So Taylor offers to give Avery flirting lessons, hence the title of the book, so that she has something to focus on instead of doing dating and flirting of her own. From there, we have a classic combo of forced proximity by choice versus fake dating kind of versus, like, the ripe circumstance to build tension through these flirting lessons. So I'm really excited to read this. I love Jasmine Guillory's other books that I have read.
Speaker 1:And I'll be honest, I think the only reason I haven't picked it up yet is because it is a bit of a chunk of a book. It's about 400 pages long. And so far this summer, I've been on my 250 page book grind. But I will definitely very soon be reading Flirting Lessons by Jasmine Guillory. Up next on my queer smut summer TBR is a book by another author I have read before, and that is Meryl Wilsner, and the book is My Best Friend's Honeymoon.
Speaker 1:I bought this book purely based on the cover and the tagline, they'll give her anything she wants as long as she asks for it. And I was like, this book is gonna be smutty. It 100% has to be.
Speaker 2:And from what I've
Speaker 1:read of Meryl Wilsner before, I think I feel pretty confident that there will be some sexy sex scenes in this book. So here's a synopsis of my best friend's honeymoon. Elsie Hoffman has been engaged to her college boyfriend for a year and a half. Ginny Holtz has been in love with Elsie for almost a decade and a half. When Elsie discovers her fiance already planning their wedding and honeymoon as a surprise, and she's expected to be in a white dress in seven days, she swiftly realizes she's let herself become too comfortable with a future she never wanted.
Speaker 1:She breaks things off, and a week later is on a plane to The Caribbean for her nonrefundable honeymoon with her best friend, Ginny, instead. Ginny thinks it's high time Elsie learned how to speak up for herself. So they make a deal with her. For the next week, Elsie can have whatever she wants, wherever, however, and whenever she wants it, as long as she asks. They never expected Elsie to want them.
Speaker 1:What starts as choosing activities and taking selfies soon turns into toe curling kisses and much, much more. But what happens when the honeymoon is over?
Speaker 2:I think this is just gonna be such
Speaker 1:a good pool read or beach read if I was going to the beach. I will be reading it in the pool. I hope you might read it on the beach, especially if you're headed to The Caribbean. It just feels like the quintessential queer smut summer book. Once we have that very smutty adult moment, perhaps we might wanna go back to another You queer romance.
Speaker 1:We can take it back to high school even, maybe even a sports romance, which I read so rarely. But for all of that, we have the next book on my queer romance summer reading list, which is Girl Crushed by Katie Heaney. Here is the synopsis of this one. Quinn Ryan has senior year all figured out. She's going to be the captain of the varsity soccer team.
Speaker 1:She'll be recruited by UNC with a full ride. She'll graduate in glory alongside her girlfriend Jamie, and they'll go off to college stronger than ever. But then Quinn's team votes for her best friend Ronnie as captain, and UNC still hasn't called. And worst of all, a month before senior year begins, Jamie dumps Quinn. None of this was part of the plan, But neither was a new crush, Ruby Ocampo, the lead singer of an extremely cool local band.
Speaker 1:Jamie and soccer are all Quinn's ever cared about until Ruby. But why does it feel like the closer Quinn grows to Ruby, the more she misses Jamie? And that maybe, just maybe, Jamie misses her too. This book has a queer love triangle. It has a coming of age story.
Speaker 1:It has North Carolina references, which is where I grew up and always am happy to read about. So it is exactly up my alley, and I will probably read this while, like, eating an ice cream cone and sitting on my front porch one day, which feels like the perfect activity for a queer romance summer. Right? Okay. I think I have three more books for us.
Speaker 1:These have gone so quickly. I'm gonna save the one that's been on my shelf the longest for last. So up next, let's talk about the other two books that I got at Grand Gestures in Portland. And the first of those is They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera. This one has a really interesting sort of like speculative tech setup, I suppose.
Speaker 1:And when I saw it at the bookstore, there was a huge book tag where one of the workers there had written this, like, long thing about how much they loved the book. So I bought this book and its prequel without even, like, opening the cover. Like, I just read the description and bought the books because they raved about it so much. So we are going to enjoy this synopsis together for the very first time. Here we go.
Speaker 1:On September 5, a little after midnight, Death Cast calls Matteo Torres and Rufus Emetario to deliver some bad news. They are going to die in less than twenty four hours. Matteo and Rufus are total strangers. But for different reasons, they're both looking to make a new friend on their end day. The good news is there's an app for that.
Speaker 1:It's called last friend, and through it, Rufus and Matteo meet up for one final epic adventure, to live a lifetime in a single day. I truly just got chills reading that. It just seems so, so, so beautiful. And I know it's also a You romance, and it has the most beautiful painting on the cover. This one and the prequel, like, they're just so gorgeous.
Speaker 1:So I really can't wait to read both of these books. And once again, I will report back how lovely I'm sure I'll find them. After that, I have a book called Heart Waves by Anita Kelly. This one was recommended to me when I asked for a recommendation of a local author at Grand Gesture. I wanted to read somebody who was based in Portland, and the bookseller was immediately like, this is the book for you.
Speaker 1:So I was like, great. That sounds wonderful. Here's the description from the back cover. May Kellerman is content. After forty years of ups and downs, she has a meaningful job at a queer community center in Portland, Oregon.
Speaker 1:She has an apartment full of plants and a ride or die group of friends Until the day her best friend actually does up and die, leaving May with a hole in her heart and a shocking amount of money. But before she can think about that, she has to throw his perfect death party, followed by spreading his ashes on the Oregon Coast. It's there that she stumbles upon an empty storefront for sale in the tiny whale watching town of Grayfin Bay. Overnight, an old dream resurfaces, and May's newfound inheritance could make it possible. If only Del McCleary didn't stand in her way.
Speaker 1:As May upends her life for the pursuit of opening a queer owned bookstore in a conservative coastal town, she and Del are forced to work together, navigating prejudices and past traumas along the way. But as opening day of Bay Books grows near, May's heart grows increasingly tangled with her landlords, even if his own heart might already belong to someone else. I will always read a book about opening a bookstore. Let's be honest. Who among us doesn't secretly harbor that dream?
Speaker 1:I mean, plenty of people, but I love the premise of this book. And I also love that it is about folks who are in their forties. I obviously mentioned some You books here, but also plenty of books with main characters set in their twenties or their thirties. And I really love to read romance that centers main characters who are older. In fact, one of my favorite books of last year was Role Playing by Kathy Yardley, where the protagonists were in their forties or maybe even fifties.
Speaker 1:Like, I love when part of a romance is a sort of coming of age story as well and, like, someone's really discovering themselves as they fall in love. And I think that we always learn things about ourselves when we fall in love, but I also really like to read, like, two fully formed adult characters who meet each other as they fall in love and, like, realize that even though they already know themselves really well, there are still ways they can change and new things they can discover. So I'm hoping I get a lot of that in this book, and that was Heart Waves by Anita Kelly. And that, my friends, takes me to the final book on my queer smut summer, queer romance summer reading list, and this book will probably not be news to you. It is incredibly popular.
Speaker 1:It has been out for years, and I own the first two books in the series. There are three of them, but I have never read them. So even though my friends have raved about them, I don't know why I've been putting it off. I could not give you a legitimate reason, but this author just started a new series. Like, the series I'm gonna read is finished.
Speaker 1:They've just started a new series this summer. And so I'm like, I've gotta just read these books so I can start the new series with everybody else. So that book, the first book in that series, is Delilah Green Doesn't Care by Ashley Herring Blake. Let's enjoy the synopsis together, shall we? Delilah Green swore she would never go back to Bright Falls.
Speaker 1:Nothing is there for her, but memories of a lonely childhood in which she was little more than a burden to her cold and distant step family. Her life is in New York with her photography career finally gaining steam and her bed never empty. Sure. There's a different woman in it every night, but that's just fine with her. When Delilah's estranged stepsister, Astrid, pressures her into photographing her wedding with a guilt trip and a 5 figure check, Delilah finds herself back in the godforsaken town that she used to call home.
Speaker 1:She plans to breeze in and out, but then she sees Claire Sutherland, one of Astrid's stuck up besties, and decides that maybe there's some fun to be had in Bright Falls after all. Having raised her 11 year old daughter mostly on her own while dealing with her unreliable acts and running a bookstore, Claire Sutherland depends upon a life without surprises. And Delilah Green is an unwelcome surprise at first. When they're forced together during the gauntlet of wedding preparations, including a plot to save Astrid from her horrible fiance, Clare isn't sure she has the strength to resist Delilah's charms. Even worse, she's starting to think she doesn't want to.
Speaker 1:Dot dot dot. This sounds super fun. There's another bookstore. I already talked about how much I love bookstore books. And I'm excited to read that description because I already know the next book is called Astrid Parker Doesn't Fail.
Speaker 1:So I can see how this series is gonna have some overlapping characters, which I always love. And I can't wait to get started. So my dear friends, that has been our list of 11 ish, 11 plus a few if you consider all the, like, prequels and sequels I've mentioned, queer romance books that I recommend if you would like to have a queer romance summer. Or like me, if you are obsessed with having a queer summer and that's all you wanna do this summer. Let me remind you very quickly what did the books I talked about today were.
Speaker 1:So we began with atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Then I talked about triple sec by TJ Alexander, for her consideration by Amy Spaulding, because fat girl by Lauren Marie Fleming, brewed with love by Shelley Page, Flirting Lessons by Jasmine Guillory, My Best Friend's Honeymoon by Meryl Wilsner, Girl Crushed by Katie Heaney, They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera, Heart Waves by Anita Kelly, and Delilah Green Doesn't Care by Ashley Herring Blake. If you have queer romance recs for me, please send them my way. You can find my contact info in the show notes. I would love to hear what you're reading this summer.
Speaker 1:And while the episode cadence here has slowed down, please know that I am still reading plenty of books, and I always want to hear from you. Sending you much love and romance and perhaps even smut as you move through your summer. And until next time, here's to your next best book.