Book picks similar to
The Peacock's Eye by Jay Lewis Taylor


historical
m-m-romance
manifold-press
lgbt

Flaunt


E. Davies - 2017
    was supposed to give Nic Montero a fresh start. After escaping his family, coming out as a gay trans man, and excelling in computer programming out of desperation to get financially stable or die, everything should be easy. But joining gay culture now, post-transition, feels impossible... until he runs into the force of nature that is Kyle. Everything Nic isn't, Kyle embodies. Green hair, garters and cut-off shorts, sports jerseys, and all, brash Kyle is the most gorgeous man he's ever laid eyes on, and he pulls Nic headlong into the center of his world. If only Nic felt like enough for a man like Kyle. “One-night stands are my only option.” Loud, loving, and too much for most men to handle, Kyle Everett catches eyes and occasionally scorn... even at his job at the local HIV charity, Plus. His days and nights are spent at work, his precious spare moments spent with his son, Kevin, when it's his turn to co-parent, or his best friend, drag queen River. He only has money or time for cheap flings, but the lanky otter who walks into his life makes Kyle want to hold him for longer than a night. He knows what it's like for Nic to be without a family, but he isn't brave enough to let this man into his life... until his charity is targeted by bigots, and Nic's there for him. “I'll stay with you if you're brave enough to be you.” Nic spent his twenties avoiding family and even his own femininity, but his yearning is impossible to ignore. Kyle's used to flying solo, but Nic offers him safety and fills gaps in his life he never realized existed and now can't stand. Living in close proximity, they can't run from their attraction, but they're each used to being rejected, with the emotional scars to prove it. Can two men who feel like they're not enough and too much find something just right? Flaunt is a standalone gay romance novel with a happily ever after ending.

Unmentionables


David Greene - 2010
    Jimmy, who despises whites, mistakes Cato for a white man. But soon he learns that Cato is only half white. Cato is the illegitimate son of plantation owner Augustus Askew. With time, Jimmy's fascination with Cato grows into romantic love.Unmentionables is also the story of Dorothy Holland, whose parents own Jimmy. Dorothy does not want any man to control her life. When she falls in love with Cato's half-brother, William Askew, she must persuade him to agree to her terms, and to betray his role as a Confederate army officer.On June 25th, 2011, Unmentionables was awarded the bronze medal for Gay and Lesbian fiction at the Book of the Year awards at the American Library Association conference in New Orleans.This is Book one in the two book series....."Think Gone with the Wind meets Brokeback Mountain, one of the best novels of the year for any grown-up." --Kindle Nation Daily....... "Surpasses the majority of Civil War novels by bringing together two enthralling love stories. Superb historical fiction with a contemporary angle; an enlightening look at the hidden elements of our past." --ForeWord Clarion Review

Straight Boy


Jay Bell - 2018
    I imagined us being together, and we are, but only as friends. Best friends! I’m trying to be cool with that, even though I know he has secrets, and there have definitely been mixed signals. I don’t want a crush to ruin what we already have. Then again, if there’s any chance that we can be together, it’s worth the risk, because Carter could be the love of my life. Or he might be the boy who breaks my heart.Straight Boy is Jay Bell’s emotional successor to his critically acclaimed Something Like… series. This full-length novel tells a story of friendship and love while skating the blurry line that often divides the two.

Patchwork Paradise


Indra Vaughn - 2016
    They share a gorgeous house in Antwerp, go out with their friends every weekend, and count down the days to their dream wedding. But their happy ending is shattered one late night, and just like that, Ollie is left bereft and alone.The months that follow are long and dark, but slowly Ollie emerges from his grief. He even braves the waters of online dating, though deep down he doesn’t believe he can find that connection again. He doesn’t think to look for love right in front of him: his bisexual friend Thomas, the gentle giant with a kind heart and sad eyes who’s wanted him all along.When Thomas suddenly discovers he has a son who needs him, he’s ill prepared. Ollie opens up his house—Sam’s house—and lets them in. Ollie doesn’t know what scares him more: the responsibility of caring for a baby, or the way Thomas is steadily winning his heart. It will take all the courage he has to discover whether or not fairy tales can happen for real.

Heroes for Ghosts


Jackie North - 2018
    A sacrifice that could keep them apart forever. In present day, near the village of Ornes, France, Devon works on his master's thesis in history as he fantasizes about meeting a WWI American Doughboy. In 1916, during the Battle of Ornes, Stanley is a young soldier facing the horrors of the battlefield. Mourning the death of his friends from enemy fire, Stanley volunteers to bring the message for retreat so he can save everyone else in his battalion. While on his mission, mustard gas surrounds Stanley and though he thinks he is dying, he finds himself in a peaceful green meadow where he literally trips over Devon. Devon doesn't believe Stanley is who he says he is, a soldier from WWI. But a powerful attraction grows between them, and if Stanley is truly a visitor from the past, then he is Devon's dream come true. The problem is, Stanley's soul wants to finish his mission, and time keeps yanking him back to relive his fateful last morning over and over, even as his heart and body long to stay with Devon. Will Stanley have to choose between Devon and saving his battalion? Will time betray their love, leaving each alone? A male/male time travel romance, complete with hurt/comfort, French coffee, warm blankets, fireplace kisses, the angst of separation, and true love across time.

Loving Djinni


Beryll Brackhaus - 2016
    But instead of producing a little light for David’s last hours, it conjures forth a veritable djinni.An ancient, tempting, puckish djinni, who in David’s company prefers to show himself as an irresistibly handsome, fit and barely legal teenager. Quite literally an incarnation of trouble waiting to happen.So what’s a modern man to do with his three wishes, when he can literally wish for anything except the one thing the truly desires - to mend his broken heart?Tags: Romance - Gay - HEA - Paranormal Romance - Humor - Fluff - Explicit Erotica - Dubious Consent - New York - Magic Spirit - Nerd

Easy Ryder


Deanna Wadsworth - 2013
    Fresh from rural Pennsylvania, Michael is doing whatever and whoever it takes to get to San Francisco, where he hopes to find a new life with the freedom to love without fear.While hitchhiking, a mysterious, tattooed biker named Snake offers him a ride west—on the back of his customized Harley chopper. During their journey across Route 66, Snake introduces Michael to new and steamy pleasures, leaving Michael aching for more than just a physical relationship. But a violent encounter with a cruel biker gang and a harrowing secret from Snake’s military past might destroy their unlikely relationship long before they reach the end of the road.

A Royal Affair


John Wiltshire - 2014
    In reality, he is a man haunted by an unusual past and running from his own nature. While the Reformation transforms much of Europe, it has yet to touch Hesse-Davia; this is a land mired in superstition with cruel punishments for crimes such as witchcraft and sodomy. While traveling to the dying king’s bedside to offer his medical expertise, Nikolai is set upon by a bandit. Reaching the king’s ancient stronghold, he discovers his mysterious brigand is the beautiful, arrogant Prince Aleksey. Aleksey is everything Nikolai is not: unguarded, passionate and willful. Despite their differences, Nikolai feels an irresistible desire for the young royal that keeps him in Aleksey’s thrall. But Hesse-Davia is a dangerous world for a newly crowned king who wants to reform his country—and for the man who loves him.

Stag's Run


Zaya Feli - 2016
    But when the king and Ren’s half-brother, Crown Prince Hellic are brutally murdered, Ren is accused. Now, he is forced to flee the city together with the mysterious prisoner Anik who may know how to survive in the wild, but who seems to have an agenda of his own, one that may spell danger for Ren.Ren’s accuser now sits on his family’s throne, and things are about to get much, much worse. It may be time to seek help in unexpected places.

What It Takes


Jude Sierra - 2016
    When Milo is called home from college to attend his domineering father’s funeral, he and Andrew finally act on their mutual attraction. But, doubtful of his worth, Milo decides to sever all ties with his childhood friend. Circumstances send both men home again years later, and their long held feelings will not be denied. But will they have what it takes to find lasting love?

Plus Ones


Hank Edwards - 2011
    They try to make do by falling in and out of the beds of several different men as they search for their own Mr. Right, and along the way, they learn new skills, like the secrets to Tantric sex, or the moves required to succeed at lube wrestling.Yet all through the hot summer months, they flirt and eye each other by the buffet tables and open bars of reception halls crowded with men, even though they never get a chance to take their relationship to the next level. When the summer draws to a close and their two best friends are about to marry, the stars might finally align for Paul and Evan. They might just get to be each others' forever 'plus one'.

Kidnapped by the Pirate


Keira Andrews - 2017
    Under the thumb of his controlling father, the governor of Primrose Isle, he’s sailing to the fledging colony, where he’ll surrender to a respectable marriage for his family’s financial gain. Then pirates strike and he’s kidnapped for ransom by the Sea Hawk, a legendary villain of the New World.Bitter and jaded, Hawk harbors futile dreams of leaving the sea for a quiet life, but men like him don’t deserve peace. He has a score to settle with Nathaniel’s father—the very man whose treachery forced him into piracy—and he’s sure Nathaniel is just as contemptible.Yet as days pass in close quarters, Nathaniel’s feisty spirit and alluring innocence beguile and bewitch. Although Hawk knows he must keep his distance, the desire to teach Nathaniel the pleasure men can share grows uncontrollable. It’s not as though Hawk would ever feel anything for him besides lust…Nathaniel realizes the fearsome Sea Hawk’s reputation is largely invented, and he sees the lonely man beneath the myth, willingly surrendering to his captor body and soul. As a pirate’s prisoner, he is finally free to be his true self. The crew has been promised the ransom Nathaniel will bring, yet as danger mounts and the time nears to give him up, Hawk’s biggest battle could be with his own heart.This May-December gay romance from Keira Andrews features classic tropes including: a tough alpha pirate too afraid to love, a plucky virgin captive half his age, enemies to lovers, first-time sexual discovery, and of course a happy ending. 85,000 words.

The Youth & Young Loves of Oliver Wade


Ben Monopoli - 2015
    Through a computer screen, a high-school boy falls in love with his oldest friend; in a dorm room, a college boy opens up to his newest. At a hospital, a young man looks into his future; on snowy Cape Cod, he connects with his past. In the passenger seat of his car, a grown man seizes the day with a soldier; under summer fireworks, he shares his story.Ollie shows us how even the most ordinary days can move us in profound ways. In "The Youth & Young Loves of Oliver Wade," we see that our lives may be just a series of moments, but it's these moments that become our momentum.A stand-alone companion to "The Painting of Porcupine City."

Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War


Jeff Mann - 2012
    One is a war-weary but scholarly Southerner who has seen too much bloodshed, especially the tortures inflicted upon the enemy by his vicious commanding officer, his uncle. The other is a Herculean Yankee captured by the rag-tag Confederate band and forced to become a martyr for all the sins of General Sheridan's fires. When these two find themselves admiring more than one another's spirit and demeanor, when passions erupt between captor and captive, will this new romance survive the arduous trek to Purgatory Mountain?

The Subs Club


J.A. Rock - 2015
    He has a pornstache. He loves meat, stoicism, America, and real discipline. And he thinks subs exist to serve him.But . . . not everything about him is awful. His Davy Crockett act just seems like a cover for his fear of intimacy, and part of me wants to show him it’s okay to get close to people. And, I mean, sue me, but I have fantasized about real discipline. Not role-play, but like, Dave, you’re gonna be thirty in four years and you still work in a mall; get your ass in gear or I’ll spank it.Not that I’d ever trust anyone with that kind of control.I’m gonna redefine “battle of wills” for the Disciplinarian. Or I’m gonna bone him. It’s hard to say.—Dave