This week, sapphic time-travel with One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston and two well-know gay romances that I’ve been listening to in audio, For Real by Alexis Hall and the Adrien English series by Josh Lanyon.
One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
This is by the author of Red, White and Royal Blue, which I haven’t read and am now going to! It’s a sapphic time-travel found-family story set in New York in the present. The main character is August, who is twenty-three and searching for a place to fit. She has had enough of her mother, who is obsessed with finding her older brother who disappeared in the 1970s and has moved to start a new life. The other main character is Jane, who August keeps meetings on the subway. To begin with, Jane can’t remember being anywhere else. It’s clever and funny and heart-warming and I loved it.
It’s got a really good range of secondary characters which includes great trans rep.
For Real by Alexis Hall (audio)
This is one of my favourite books on the page and I recently bought the audio. I seem to be on a roll with books about belonging this week. Although it’s about a BDSM relationship, it’s not about sex. Sure, there’s loads of sex in it, but it’s the feelings and the dynamic between the characters and their need to find somewhere to fit that keeps me coming back. Laurie is forty-ish an ER doctor, jaded, sad. Toby is nineteen, lost, not quite sure what he’s looking for in life but knowing he wants someone to submit to him. They’re both clever overthinkers. They fit together and the story is about how they both come to see that.
It’s a dual-narration audio and the characterisation is perfect, particularly Toby, who is just…enchanting.
Adrien English series by Josh Lanyon (audio)
Another old favourite here. Snarky bookseller/writer/amateur detective falls for closeted cop in Pasadena, California. Five books of well-narrated mystery-cum-love story ensue. It’s such a well done series and there’s nothing I can say about it that hasn’t already been said. Fatal Shadows was first published in 2001 by Gay Men’s Press, and it’s now a bit of a blast from the past—pre smart-phone, which is the main thing that stood out to me when listening last week! It’s not dated at all, I emphasise; but it was interesting to listen and remember how things were such a short time ago.
The audio is new to me and is definitely worth a listen.
That’s the lot!