Tropes/themes/secondary plot: BDSM, polyamory, characters dealing with PTSD, lots of on-the-page sex (this one is definitely erotic romance). MCs: a gay SWAT commander who’s mostly in the closet about being kinky and submissive and a bisexual, polyamorous kinky doctor who works for the coroner’s office. Rep: disabled MC contemporary Gay Romance Novels Tactical Submission by ada maria soto Tropes/themes/secondary plot: enemies-to-lovers a mystery involving blackmail interesting and complicated family dynamics explorations of class differences and disability. Setting: Regency London and the English countryside MCs: a grumpy, unscrupulous, street-smart private eye (think: Olivia Pope in 1820s London) who grew up in the slums and despises nobility and a retired (and very proper) soldier who craves order and predicability. Rep: Indian, neurodivergent MC The Soldier’s Scoundrel by Cat sebastian Tropes/themes/secondary plot: a murder mystery a beautifully depicted tight-knit queer community some kink. MCs: a quiet boarding-house keeper and one of his lodgers, a taxonomist.
Rep: black MC, trans MC An Unseen Attraction by K.J. Tropes/themes/secondary plot: an exciting and action-packed rescue of a hospital patient about to be committed to an asylum racism and transphobia in 1830s NYC.
