Romance Genre
The Romance Genre is marked by a plot that contains one or more love stories. The traditional belief that the power of love can overcome any obstacle is also at work here with LGBTQ fiction. There are varying amounts of sexual content from the innocent to the completely erotic.
Kallmaker, Karen/ Maybe Next Time, Sugar.
Leafcour, Peter/ The Dreyfus Affair: A Love Story.
McCauley, Stephen/ The Easy Way Out.
Trans-Sister Radio. Chris Bohjalian. 2000. 344p. (Transgender)
A woman falls in love with her male teacher only to discover later that he is planning to have a sex-change operation and live as a woman. Story is told in three parts via radio interviews on NPR between the main character Allison, her daughter Carly and Dana the man who over the course of the book becomes a woman. The story explores what love means to each of these characters and how it does or does not change as Dana changes. This book has a slow romantic pace that allows story to unfold with lots of dialogue. Characters are well-developed and believable in their quest to understand what is going on.
Curious Wine. Katherine V. Forrest. 1983. 160p. (Lesbian)
A cabin at Lake Tahoe is the setting for this romance between Lane and Diana who meet during a ski weekend. The two begin a good friendship that evolves into a romance over the weekend that surprises everyone –and to some extent themselves. The pace is slow and romantic with a lot of dialogue that matches the building romance between the two women. Main characters are believable but some supporting ones are flat and stereotypical.
Not a Day Goes By: A Novel. E.Lynn Harris. 2001. 276. (Gay)
Sports writer (John) Basil Henderson and his superstar girlfriend Yancy, are planning to get married tomorrow, but Basil’s feelings for a former college football teammate threaten to break off the engagement just before they walk down the aisle. A fast read told in first person with flashbacks. The story has many unpredictable plot twists.