Behind the Hood


Marita A. Hansen - 2011
    See additional notes at the bottom of the blurb."The novel shines a light on a cultural sector rarely addressed in fiction writing, and the fast-paced narrative befits a contemporary thriller fiction novel." -HarperCollins.Life on the rough side of New Zealand.In this South Auckland neighbourhood where gang culture, drink, drugs, sex and violence is already a way of life, a vicious attack on a teenage girl sparks a ripple effect of revenge and fury. Live the carnage through multiple viewpoints as the tale unfolds to a bloody climax. NOT for the fainthearted. WARNING: Language and sexual references are graphic. 18+Additional notes: This book has no M/M. It has different main characters from book 2 and 3. The Rata brothers are minor characters in book 1 and major characters from book 2 onward. Unless you're a crime, social realism, or street lit reader, my suggestion is to start from book 2, then read book 3, and if you like those two then you could try book 1. Graffiti Heaven is a prequel series based around Ash Rata when he was younger.

The Complications of T


Bey Deckard - 2015
    Then, when things take an even bigger turn for the worse one night, he winds up blind drunk and lost in a foreign city. Thankfully, someone’s there to rescue him before his face ends up plastered all over the tabloids. Wary of the motives of the reclusive stranger who brings the fading star into the quiet shelter of a hip but isolated loft, Stuart nonetheless can't deny his curiosity… Or his attraction. Tim is unlike anyone the actor has ever met, but underneath the mystery and quiet attempts at invisibility, Stuart discovers someone whose life has been intertwined with his own for years. Neither could have predicted that Tim's act of kindness would lead to one of the most intense encounters of their lives—but, are they willing to weather the media storm their extraordinary relationship will cause?

History of a Pleasure Seeker


Richard Mason - 2011
    Unlike Frédéric Moreau in Flaubert's L'Éducation sentimentale (to which this book owes no meagre debt), Piet is magnificently gifted, not only "extremely attractive to most women and to many men," but also a fine pianist, draughtsman and lover. We first meet him interviewing for the role of tutor to the son of the wealthy hotelier, Maarten Vermeulen-Sickerts. All is not well in his gilded household. Egbert, the son, is agoraphobic. The matriarch, Jacobina, hasn't been touched by her husband in almost a decade. Into this highly strung atmosphere comes Piet, charged with the task of freeing Egbert from his paralysing fear of the outside world. We soon realise, however, that Egbert isn't the only one in need of help. Piet sets about liberating the libidos of the repressed family through music – championing bawdy Bizet over abstract Bach – and oral sex. While the setting is Dutch, the influences are French – think Bel-Ami, Les Liaisons dangereuses and Gide's L'Immoraliste.

English Animals


Laura Kaye - 2017
    Richard and Sophie are chaotic, drunken, frequently outrageous but also warm, generous and kind to Mirka, despite their argumentative and turbulent marriage. Mirka is swiftly commandeered by Richard for his latest money-making enterprise, taxidermy, and soon surpasses him in skill. After a traumatic break two years ago with her family in Slovakia, Mirka finds to her surprise that she is happy at Fairmont Hall. But when she tells Sophie that she is gay, everything she values is put in danger and she must learn the hard way what she really believes in. English Animals is a funny, subversive, poignant and beautifully written novel about a doomed love affair, a certain kind of Englishness and prejudice.

Wedding Season


Sean Ashcroft - 2017
    As the heir to his family's fortune, his future is already pre-arranged: a partner will be picked for him based on what’s best for the family business. When he meets Oz at his sister’s wedding, he thinks the other man—his new brother-in-law—might just be fun for the night. But then one wedding turns into two, and two turns into three, and before Seth knows it, he’s falling in love with a man he can’t have, one social event at a time. Oz is tired of having his heart broken. He’s been so focused on finding someone to settle down and be happy with that he’s thrown himself into one bad relationship after another, looking for a partner he’s no longer sure he can find. Seth proves to be a great distraction, a casual fling Oz doesn’t have to take seriously… until he realises he’s falling in love with a man he knows he can’t have. With Seth’s father putting pressure on him to marry someone else, he’s faced with an impossible choice: lose Oz forever, or leave the security of his family behind and make his own way in the world. Can Seth take a leap of faith into Oz’s arms? Or will he choose safety and security over the man he loves? Wedding Season is a standalone gay romance with a HEA ending. It does not contain a cliffhanger, but it does contain two cowboy hats, an oversized adult toy, four weddings, explicit sex scenes, and everything being bigger in Texas.

In the Absence of Men


Philippe Besson - 2001
    It also dares to introduce an asthmatic middle-aged Proust into its masterfully manipulated plot and invents a series of deeply felt letters written by him to the novel's young protagonist, Vincent de l'Etoile. In the summer of 1916, the emotionally precocious Vincent, who is the same age as the century, awakens to the possibilities of both erotic and platonic love. In the course of one week-at literary salons, at the Ritz, in cork-lined rooms-Vincent launches an intense friendship with the celebrated Proust, while at his parents' house in Paris he embarks on a sensual journey with Arthur Vales, the soldier son of a family servant, on leave from the front. Unknowingly, Vincent is also beginning a passage into a manhood that will be haunted by the secret he uncovers behind the love he bears for a doomed French infantryman and a famous middle-aged Jewish writer.

The Passionate Mistakes and Intricate Corruption of One Girl in America


Michelle Tea - 1998
    The novel charts the turbulent adventures of one girl in America as she moves from Boston's teenage goth world to whoring in New Age Tucson before finally arriving in San Francisco's dyke underground.Honest, sarcastic, lyrical and direct, Tea's writing is possibly the most literate and sophisticated treatment of underground dyke culture ever written and circulated. She is a reincarnation of when Jill Johnston used to be cool.

What Binds Us


Larry Benjamin - 2012
    He's ready for anything—except the arrival of Donovan Whyte in his life. Sophisticated and dazzlingly handsome, Dondi quickly becomes the center of Thomas-Edward's universe, introducing him to a world full of drama, passion and feuding families.When their relationship fizzles, they remain uneasy friends until Dondi invites Thomas-Edward to his family's summer house. Thomas-Edward is immediately attracted to Dondi's mysterious brother, Matthew—and finds himself hopelessly drawn to both men.As time passes, Thomas-Edward develops a unique bond with both brothers as they orbit around each other, although he knows only one of them can be his lifelong love. Will the three of them be able to find a way to hold on to each other? Or will love, its loss and the threat of death destroy their connection once and for all? 60,000 words

Venus as a Boy


Luke Sutherland - 2004
    The writer ignores him. But a month later, a package arrives containing, among discs, sunglasses and other trinkets, a photograph of the writer aged eight. So he listens to the discs and emerges amazed and shaken. He then transcribes this heartbreaking story which traces Desiree's life as a bullied youth in South Ronaldsay to the streets of Soho where he reduces his grateful clients to tears with his astonishing gift of sex...

What They Always Tell Us


Martin Wilson - 2008
    But at home, there is Henry, the precocious 10-year-old across the street, who eagerly befriends them both. And when Alex takes up running, there is James's friend Nathen, who unites the brothers in moving and unexpected ways.

The Danish Girl


David Ebershoff - 2000
    Uniting fact and fiction into an original romantic vision, The Danish Girl eloquently portrays the unique intimacy that defines every marriage and the remarkable story of Lili Elbe, a pioneer in transgender history, and the woman torn between loyalty to her marriage and her own ambitions and desires.The Danish Girl is an evocative and deeply moving novel about one of the most passionate and unusual love stories of the 20th century.

Woke Up in a Strange Place


Eric Arvin - 2011
    Before he knows it, he's off on the last great journey of his life. With his soul guide Baker and a charge to have courage from a mysterious, alluring, and somehow familiar Stranger, Joe sets off through a fantastical changing landscape to confront his past.The quest is not without challenges. Joe's past is not always an easy thing to relive, but if he wants to find peace—and reunite with the Stranger he is so strongly drawn to—he must continue on until the end, no matter how tempted he is to stop along the way.

Undue Influence: A Persuasion Retelling


Jenny Holiday - 2018
    Now that mistake is coming back to haunt him. His family’s beloved vineyard has gone into foreclosure, and the new owner is the sister of the only man he’s ever loved—the man he dumped under pressure from family and friends who thought the match was beneath him.When Freddy Wentworth, aka the bad boy of Bishop’s Glen, left town with a broken heart, he vowed never to return. But a recently widowed friend needs his help, so here he is. He’s a rich and famous celebrity chef now, though, so everyone can just eff right off.But some things are easier said than done. Despite their attempts to resist each other, old love rekindles—and old wounds reopen. If they want to make things work the second time around, they’ll have to learn to set aside their pride—and prejudice.This modern retelling of Jane Austen’s Persuasion is a standalone novel that can be enjoyed by Austen-philes and by those allergic to the nineteenth century.

Real Life


Brandon Taylor - 2020
    An introverted young man from Alabama, black and queer, he has left behind his family without escaping the long shadows of his childhood. For reasons of self-preservation, Wallace has enforced a wary distance even within his own circle of friends—some dating each other, some dating women, some feigning straightness. But over the course of a late-summer weekend, a series of confrontations with colleagues, and an unexpected encounter with an ostensibly straight, white classmate, conspire to fracture his defenses while exposing long-hidden currents of hostility and desire within their community.

The Geek and His Artist


Hope Ryan - 2015
    He needs to get away from his abusive father before he suffers the same grisly fate as his mother. Because he's learned the hard way running away doesn’t work, he’s counting the days until his eighteenth birthday. Jimmy Bennet should be spending his lunch studying so his senior GPA is good enough to get him into college, but he can't seem to focus thanks to his distracting artist. When he’s given the opportunity to tutor Simon in Trig and discovers Simon’s home-life nightmare, he wants nothing more than to get Simon out of danger. This need becomes more urgent when Simon comes to school the Monday after their first date with bruises, but it takes a broken leg before Jimmy can convince his boyfriend the Bennets really want him. But the danger Simon thought was past shows up at the most unexpected time, and he must stand up to the fears he’s held so long to protect not only himself, but the man he wants to spend his life with.