15 Queer Historical Romance Books to Dive Into the Genre

This is one of the greatest one-two punches in all of queer romance: a pair of hopeful yet heartbreaking books about men falling in love in postwar, pre-Stonewall New York. In the first, the scrappy Italian American reporter Nick falls for Andy, the earnest, hapless son of a press mogul. In the second, Mark, a journalist, is reeling from the loss of his beloved partner when he’s assigned to shadow Eddie, a flailing, failing pro baseball player. These books make me laugh, they make me cry, and they make me yearn for a million books just like them. I cannot think of any higher superlative.

The Exposition Universelle provides the backdrop for Herrera’s Belle Époque trilogy of determined heroines and the titled partners they bedevil. This second volume in the series features a Caribbean heiress, Manuela, who has only a few short weeks to enjoy herself among the women of Paris before she marries a man of her parents’ choosing. But then she meets Cora, a countess with a wicked mind and financial smarts, who offers her a much more tempting future — if only Manuela is bold enough to seize it.

This novel reimagines the intense relationship between Philip II of France and Richard the Lionheart, one of England’s most famous medieval monarchs (and a queer icon for centuries). Is it basically “The Lion in Winter” fan fiction with a love story between two difficult, warlike kings? Yes. Is it a marvelous read filled with royal angst, an Eleanor of Aquitaine cameo and lines of pure poetry? Also yes.

With so many bluestocking heroines in upper-class historical romance, it’s easy to forget how many restrictions there were on reading and literature for most British people during the early 19th century. Here, Trent offers us a clock mender whose friend is facing sedition charges as part of a crackdown on political reading clubs, and a housemaid whose testimony might exonerate her. It’s a sweet, sensitive vision of two people finding their way to happiness in a hostile time, despite their lack of wealth or station.

And now, for a different take on the late 18th century, we have a murderous, pistols-blazing, provocative, bi-for-bi romance between a countess who’s just shot her awful husband and the thief who’s blackmailing her about it. Falling in love via letters is one thing; falling in love via extortion letters is quite another. Filled with top-tier romance shenanigans, this book is by turns hilarious and heartbreaking — a Sebastian specialty.

In a small room, every Wednesday, a radical printer and bookseller named Silas Mason meets a highborn Tory gentleman — and offers him some of the roughest sex in Regency London. They’ve been meeting for a year, but it’s only when Silas’s bookshop is raided that his lover’s name becomes known to him. Dominic Frey is a member of the oppressive class and everything Silas should despise — but now their mutual discretion is all that’s keeping them from punishment for their crimes of passion. Rich with political undercurrents and personal drama, this second volume in Charles’s much-loved Society of Gentlemen series stands out for both its political history and its high-octane kink.

I love it when people in historical romances have interesting jobs, and so does Ottoman. This book, set in 19th-century New York City, showcases a gentle, low-stakes romance between a bisexual quilt maker and the trans silversmith who hires her to turn his old clothing into a memorial quilt. The novel is a quiet masterpiece of tone, and the way that each character’s artistic skill plays into their growing feelings is a joy to behold.

There is a moment in this stunning novella where one character looks at the other and thinks, “Every act of gravity and time made beauty in nature — except when it happened to human women” — and then proceeds to list every last beloved detail of a seven-decade-old body in all its specificity and imperfection. Set in late-19th-century England, this short book casts a long shadow: redefining beauty and usefulness, putting two older women at the center of a love story and punishing terrible men with the consequences they so richly deserve. A perfect book.

The interwar era of the early 20th century saw flourishing queer subcultures bloom in many places — most famously Paris, but not even the staid manor houses of England were entirely exempt. In this sweet romance, a quiet English girl meets a bold, brash American bombshell in town for her sister’s wedding. Soon all bets are off and all futures are possible.

Gray explores the complexity of queer expression in different eras in this time-travel romance between a 1960s college student and the Civil War soldier he wakes from an enchanted hundred-year sleep. Russell, our soldier, is accustomed to casual affection between men — hand-holding, cuddling — that Caleb, in the 20th century, finds painfully revealing of queerness, and which might even be dangerous in a bigoted small town. A reflection on how history shapes our experience and expression, and a charming fairy tale of a romance, all in one witty package.

Polyamorous characters are still comparatively rare, even in queer romance, so gems like this one are worth celebrating. The Honorable Aubrey Fanshawe has a perfectly acceptable sexual arrangement with a lord and lady of his acquaintance. He shouldn’t also be taking up with a servant like Lucien Saxby, especially since Lucien supplements his valet’s income by writing scurrilous gossip pieces for a scandal-hungry press. But once begun, the affair is irresistible. The threads of debt, power, passion, negotiation and compromise that our two leads weave together are as delicate and lovely as a spider’s web in winter.

On a famously gay island, during the height of the AIDS pandemic, something evil stalks a young man, and only the powers of a disco-dance coven of queer witches can save him — if he even wants to be saved. This is the kind of heartfelt, messy, weird novel you find on the shelves of a beachside cabin because your uncle left it there 20 years ago. It perfectly makes a case for the necessity of hope, no matter how bleak the world may feel.

An unusual romance, and not only on account of its Cold War setting, this book starts as the American F.B.I. agent Daniel and the Soviet spy Gennady are forced into a road trip across the Midwest. Gennady has been ordered to seduce his American counterpart, but finds he can’t betray Daniel entirely — and as the years go by and politics transform the world, the men struggle to suppress all they once meant to one another. It’s a happy ending three decades in the making.

Ancient Greece and Rome were in many ways more open about queer relationships than later eras would be. But those later eras did much to muddy the historical waters, and this setting now comes with a hefty load of baggage. Demas avoids any and all misconceptions in “Sword Dance,” which features an injured imperial soldier turned quartermaster, a eunuch slave from a conquered nation and a house full of philosophy students up to no good. I came for the queer romance, but I stayed for the sudden turn into ancient-world spy thriller and murder mystery.