And yet…
I recently found myself in a bit of a rut. A rut with the books I was reading. A rut about the smut I was reading. A smut rut. A rut about people rutting.
I’m an unabashed dirty romance/smut addict (smaddict™), and my rut notwithstanding, I wasn’t willing to give the entire genre up. “Will they or won’t they?” is the second best question ever conceived. What is the best question ever conceived? Easy. “Do you have sweet potato fries on the menu?”
Love is love. So it occurred to me that maybe it was the type of love I was reading about that had me down.
I decided to do some Common Core math:
If MM + F = “meh” and M + F = “been there/done that”, what can we do the equation to get to YEAH, BABY!
Answer? M + M minus F. MM romance. Kick that F outta the bed.
I had no real experience with gay erotica, so I immediately went to Goodreads. This is why Big Data is amazing. It finds us the exact combo of humping we are looking for.
Was I nervous to dive in?
Hell to the no. First off, I’m a Bernie Sanders liberal. See my earlier point (love is love). Second, from the moment I started reading, MM romance was everything I wanted it to be. It isn’t all smut. I mean, yes, they are smutty. But wait! The romance (l’amour!) is what makes it good. The P goes in the B, but it’s the love, the angst, and the longing that draw you in.
Would I ever lead you astray?
Come on, now. It’s two dudes. Hot dudes. Falling in love.
Like Ke$ha says, Baby, don’t be scurrred. You know you want it.
Faith and Fidelity by Tere Michaels
A single noun phrase to describe my first foray into MM romance? Cops who go gay. In this book, everyone is damaged and brooding. The two heroes are straight until they go “gay for you” which means you are the type of guy who falls in love with a person, not the parts. Also, it means you are bi and didn’t know it until…
Evan Cerelli is a cop and father to a family of four. His wife has died in a tragic car accident, and naturally, Evan falls into a deep depression. Matt Haight is a former detective who is feeling lost at sea when it comes to both his career and love life. The two guys form a friendship, soothing their wounds in mugs full of beer at the local bar. What happens when you bond over chicken wings?
Neither one of these guys has any idea what they are doing in the sack (or on the couch), but boy are they good at figuring it out. Read Faith and Fidelity
Hot Head by Damon Suede
This book has everything. Bi-sexuals. Firemen. Men in kilts. Russian porn purveyors. Home renovations. Rimming. Italian cooking.
Griff Muir has fallen in love with his friend and fellow Brooklyn firefighter, Dante Anastagio. (I’m trying so hard not to use Hook and Ladder puns here.) Poor Griff, this love is eating him up inside because Dante is straight and he doesn’t want to ruin this friendship they have had since childhood. But Dante has a secret, too. He’s dead broke and about to lose his house to foreclosure. Oh no!
The story starts to heat up when Dante meets the owner of HotHead.com, a gay porn website, offering Dante cash money to appear in (and out) of his fireman outfit.
Dante realizes that two heads are better than one, proposing that Griff appear on the website with him. You know…just for the extra cash. And since Griff loves Dante and would do anything for him… Read Hot Head
Try by Ella Frank
I struggled a bit to get into this one at first, but once I got there, I got there. Like, Right. There.
Logan Mitchell is your typical lawyer: cocky, self assured, bi-sexual horndog. He takes what he wants and right now, he wants Tate Morrison, the newest bartender at Logan’s afterwork watering hole. Logan’s a little aggressive, borderline creepy, going after Tate, which kinda turned me off at first.
However, one round of amazing phone sex between these two, and I got over that skeevy feeling real quick. I’m easily swayed by smexy times that involve Ma Bell.
Tate is in the middle of an ugly divorce and developing feelings for a man has him on edge. And Logan is just as confused. He bones them and leaves them, and yet, when it comes to Tate, he has no intention of leaving. Boning? Yes. Leaving? No. Try Try (lol)
The Englor Affair by J.L. Langley
Sci-fi Regency gay romance? That sounds….weird. Relax, Amy Lou. It’s like a hot Battlestar Gallactica spy thriller with cravats and breeches and computerized hackneys.
Prince Payton Townsend pretends to be an Intergalactic Navy officer in order to find out why someone from the planet Englor has been spying on his home planet of Regelence. Simon Hollister is the heir to the Englor throne, which means he is expected to marry a lady to produce an heir of his own some day. Small hitch in that plan. Ginger headed Simon likes the dudes, and one dude in particular: the virginal Payton Townsend.
Will Simon discover that Payton is also royalty? Is Payton a friend or foe? Are they fighting for the same side?
What? I forgot the question. Read The Englor Affair
So drop that Lisa Kleypas book this very instant and find a different kind of romance. Male on male. Double the peen. Double your pleasure. Dr. Amy said so.
