Just a plug for the earningest and angstiest of her series, the Always in Tandem saga (now in one of its final acts)

Fair warning: Thrown off the Ice (which I adore) is arguably not a romance: if you want a classic HEA it will not give you one. That said, you could argue that every romance would end in devastation if you followed it forward far enough into the future, so… read at your own risk

The Rest of the Story is completely batshit and I love it and the novellas (short stories) that follow. Cait Nary’s Seasons Change also has nuclear-grade yearning even if it doesn’t stick the landing.

Of course a lot of queer men want that! But it’s the idea that that’s the only HEA, and somehow writing MM is a get-out-of-misogyny-free card

There is a tremendous obsession with saving the children in serial killer/vigilante MM in particular, it’s like a clown car of shit to unpack and always reads like someone just swapped gender from a MF book without making any other changes - and they usually have the classic marriage-and-babies HEA.

Absolutely zero surprises this involves law enforcement characters. Loving cops and upholding power structures is one of the big tells with MM that hates queerness and women (along with, “law enforcement doesn’t go far enough when it comes to human trafficking,” another obsession in this sub-market)

My therapist got an earful about this book! It is so lovely and generous but still packs an emotional punch. I read this and Seth Haddon’s Reclaimed back to back - both have genuinely difficult protagonists who need to love themselves better so they can love their partners better, and both moved me.

I ask myself a related question with queer romances written by outside authors: “does this book like cops?” Sometimes it’s literal (motorcycle club romances!) but usually its more broad - is this book interested in queer liberation or does it prop up existing systems of power?