While most of the books I review for my Database of LGBTQ Family Books are for kids, two new titles are novels for grown-ups that center queer parents and parents-to-be. If you’re looking for some queer joy and escapism (and really, who doesn’t need a little of that right now?), give these a read.
This Love, by Lotte Jeffs (HarperPerennial), is a highly recommended story of queer family, found, chosen, and formed. Mae and Ari meet as university students at a queer bar in Leeds and form a lifetime friendship. Ari is flamboyant and outgoing, but never speaks about his family back in America. Mae has a string of short-term relationships, but has yet to find a special someone. Ari is her soulmate, albeit a platonic one, and the two of them vow that someday, they will have a child together.
Life takes each of them in different directions than they could have predicted, though, and Jeffs (co-author of the terrific non-fiction title, The Queer Parent: Everything You Need To Know From Gay to Ze) takes us perceptively and often amusingly through years of their lives, careers, and other relationships, good and bad. Yet the dream of starting a family is always with them. Can they make it work, despite the odds?
I won’t say more about the plot for fear of spoilers, but I will say that I loved this book. Mae and Ari are both original and memorable, yet have aspects of themselves that should resonate with many queer (and even non-queer) readers. Jeffs has a flair for description and pointed phrases that capture a mood. It will be a rare reader, I think, who won’t be rooting for Mae and Ari to find their queer joy, even if we’re not quite sure at first how they’ll get there.
Content warning: A secondary character dies by suicide.
This book was originally published in the U.K. in 2024. This month marks its U.S. release.
How to Sleep at Night, by Elizabeth Harris (William Morrow), is a funny and timely novel that interweaves two stories of queer relationships. High school teacher Gabe and his attorney husband Ethan are devoted dads living in the New Jersey suburbs. But when Ethan announces he wants to run for Congress—as a Republican—Gabe realizes just how far Ethan’s politics have shifted. Gabe, whose own politics remain firmly on the left, tries gamely to support his husband’s ambitions, but soon the strain begins to show. Gabe can’t abide some of the positions that Ethan endorses, nor the even more conservative politician who endorses him. And Gabe’s colleagues are incorrectly assuming that he, too, supports more conservative views.
Meanwhile, Ethan’s sister Kate, a political reporter, reconnects with old flame Nicole, now a suburban mom married to a man. The bisexual Nicole has set her career aside in order to raise two children, but finds herself drifting further apart from her husband. Even though she loves her kids, she wants to be more than just their caretaker and a devoted wife. When Kate reenters her life, she finds herself drawn to her again.
Kate, for her part, tries to stay away from her brother’s campaign, both personally and professionally, but that proves harder than it seems, especially because she knows a long-buried secret about her brother that hasn’t come to light yet. Things build to a climax as the campaign enters its final days, with Kate’s career at risk, Nicole’s marriage teetering, and Ethan and Gabe’s marriage strained.
There’s a bit of soap opera here in the best sense—interpersonal drama under high focus—but Harris makes her characters both flawed and sympathetic, with humor and sharp observations about the interplay of relationships, values, and ambitions, set against the current political climate. But although each of the characters messes up in various ways, they are always good (if imperfect) parents (or in Kate’s case, a good aunt).
This is a thoroughly entertaining and recommended read that feels relatable as it explores what it takes to have a successful relationship but delightfully escapist as it cranks up the melodrama.
Other recent novels for grown-ups about LGBTQ families include The Bump, by Sidney Karger (Berkley Romance), about two men preparing to embark on parenthood; Falling Through the Night, by Gail M. Schwartz (Demeter Press), about a lesbian woman with generalized anxiety disorder who wants to start dating and begin a family; and The Wildes: A Novel in Five Acts, by Louis Bayard (Algonquin Books), a reimagining of playwright Oscar Wilde’s family life and the impact of his queer affair on his wife and sons. Click links for reviews!
