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[rhyssj]

Firstly -- apologies to people still waiting on responses to various memes. I'm slowly getting them answered, but I keep getting sidetracked because, um, stories, sparkly boys, the sexy. This'll learn me to post a bunch of meme things in too short a period of time, because I am too frigging slow and overworked and busy to fully participate in

Comments

[giogio]

Have you read At Swim, Two Boys? It's a very, very good gay novel about the Easter Uprising in Ireland and the relationship between two boys who are dragged into it. Probably not a traditional romance, but well worth reading.

If you don't mind reading books that were written for young adults, there are several very good authors writing gay-themed books aimed at that market right now that have first romances at their core. I really liked Alex Sanchez' Rainbow Boys and its sequel Rainbow High. Bret Hartinger's Georgaphy Club is also very good, although there's less romance in it. I've been meaning to write reviews of all of them...

You also might want to check out the gay romance section (subsection of fiction) of Alyson Press, their books are usually good quality.

The other publisher I'm linking with an official badfic warning is Gay Men's Press. They actually publish something that I'd describe as the gay version of Harlequin romances--I read one of them and despite its badness could not bring myself to stop reading. Also, they really need editors. Apart from the over-the-top emoting, high-level drama and borderline bad plots, I wanted to read their stuff with a red pen because it was chockful of typos... but, it definitely fell more into the romance genre than any of the other books I've linked :)

[giogio]

Oh, also, for a really good browsing bookstore for gay fiction, check out Prowler's Bookstore. They have thorough summaries up for every books, which might make it easier to pinpoint stuff you're interested in.