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Gay

Review

He’s to Die For

by Brian Kenney

What the world needs now is more LGBTQIA+ romantic and suspenseful fiction, and fortunately Erin Dunn’s He’s to Die For delivers just that. It’s totally head over heels when NYPD Detective Rav Trivedi (British born, Ivy League educated, Dad’s a Lord, suits are bespoke, get the picture?) can’t take his eyes off rock star Jack Vale, who is as talented a musician as he is super hot. But here’s the one flaw: Jack is the lead suspect in a murder case, and Rav is leading the investigation. Fortunately, Jack is able to clear his name, although both he and Rav remain cautious about hooking up thanks to the media onslaught, their own private natures, and the threat of violence that continues to surround them. Meanwhile the dialog snaps, the stakes are high, and the pacing pops. Give yourself a treat and get a copy of He’s to Die For, which miraculously succeeds as a romance as much as it is a suspense novel. Yes it’s early in the year, but this is already one of my favorite novels of 2025.

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Review

The Betrayal of Thomas True

by Brian Kenney

It is 1715, and young Thomas True has managed to escape from his parent’s home, arriving in London, where he takes up residence with his uncle, a candlemaker to whom he becomes apprenticed. But that’s hardly the story. Eighteenth-century London was home to a flourishing, if risky, gay subculture, a world that seduces Thomas and that was centered around the molly houses. “Molly was a slur used for effeminate, homosexual men and the term was adopted to describe the clubs, taverns…where they met up in secret”, according to The British Newspaper Archives. And although the houses were called mollies, they attracted a range of men, from workers to aristocrats. It was a world where Thomas felt a sense of belonging, made all the more immediate with his discovery of beefy carpenter Gabriel Griffin (AKA Lotty), the doorman at Mother Clap’s Molly House. But when a young molly is found murdered, Gabriel goes in search of the rat who is exposing the men to the judicial system. Could it be someone he is close to? This book is that rare thing: both a strong historical novel that drops you into a richly rendered early 18th century and a powerful mystery that remains at the center of the book.

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Review

The Resurrectionist

by Willy Williams

As the third son of a modestly landed family, James Willoughby has been told from an early age that he must earn a living befitting his station. Being of “a diminutive stature,” James decides the military is not for him. Nor is the Church of England an appealing option. Despite his family’s opposition, the young man abandons his clerical studies at Oxford and heads north to Edinburgh to become a physician. It’s 1828, the Age of Enlightenment, and the Scottish city is a “shining beacon of medical discovery.” But James quickly learns that if he wants to develop anatomical knowledge and surgical skills, he must join one of the private schools in Surgeon’s Square. Unable to afford the additional tuition, James makes a bargain with his professor’s secretary and dissectionist, the charismatic Aneurin “Nye” MacKinnon, to serve as a lookout to prevent possible grave robbing in the Greyfriars kirkyard (graveyard) beneath James’s chamber window. The naive student soon discovers that he is aiding a gang of body snatchers who steal fresh corpses from churchyards for anatomical study at the medical schools. Nye explains to a horrified James that he is a Resurrectionist: “Our motivation is not in the value of the bodies we steal, but in the second life we give them.” Bedazzled by Nye’s scientific passion (and his dark sexiness), James plunges into this illicit, gritty underworld. However, their rivals in the body-snatching game, the sinister Burke and Hare, will murder anyone to corner the corpse market. Mixing a macabre gothic mystery with a sensitive coming-of-age tale and a touching queer romance, Dunlap has written an exciting, well-researched debut historical adventure. Bizarre, authentic details, like the mortsafes, or cages, that grieving families installed to protect the graves of their loved ones, make for an unforgettable read.

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Review

Ways and Means

by Brian Kenney

It’s thrilling to discover a debut this brilliant, full of wonderment, humor, and above all, love. Alistair McCabe, gay and handsome, smart and funny, arrives at New York University from upstate to pursue his destiny as a financial whiz kid. He’s got the talent, the obsessiveness, the drive—and the desire to help his Mom, who has done so much for him. Sweet, right? But being a brainiac isn’t quite enough—you need to fit in with the finance bros—and a much coveted banking internship leads to, well, nothing. Except for more debt. Fortunately, there’s Mark and Elijah, a couple ten years or so older who take him in as their third paramour (we’re spared “throuple”). Mark, a sort of small-time trust funder, and Elijah have their own set of troubles, which they’re happy to cast aside whenever Alistair visits. Alistair is eventually offered an opportunity to work for an elusive, sinister billionaire and he jumps at it while continuing to investigate the mogul’s wealth. What he discovers catapults him out of the life he had come to know into one both terrifying and wildly anxiety producing. Lefferts moves around the narrative with ease, visiting family and friends, picking up a character or two then setting them down. Slowly these scenes fall together and this expansive novel becomes far greater than the sum of its parts. Comparisons to Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life are inevitable, and in both books there is plenty that horrifies. But also, like A Little Life, it’s ultimately friendship that saves the characters. And us as well.

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Review

The Bliss House

by Henrietta Thornton

In the rural Ontario Bliss House live 17-year-old Cam; his cousins Wes, who’s in his late twenties; and Dorie, who’s five and is a distant relative Gramp and Gran took in. Gran died a few months ago and her abusive, alcoholic spouse not long after, but Gramp is not quite gone, his corpse hidden under a tarp in the house’s cold room. With no will leaving the house and farm to the remaining family, what else can they do? Wild-child Dorie is able to keep Gramp’s death a secret, as well as her knowledge of the game Cam and Wes play in Wes’s bedroom, the same one, she thinks, the nasty neighbor boy, Kyle, wanted to play with her in the barn. The ramshackle family is just starting to believe things are safe when Kyle’s mother sets the Misses Gurney on them. Beulah and Audrey Gurney are with Bethel Baptist and Dorie’s attire—or lack of it—when she plays in the yard is, they say, “the Lord’s business.” They brush Kyle’s behavior aside (“They’re Pentecostal”) but cannot see their way to ignoring Wes and Cam’s “sin,” launching the Bliss boys on a startlingly violent and engrossing path to keep their family and love safe from the state. Young adults as well as adult readers who aren’t squeamish (terms like “corpseooze” stand out) will root hard for this loving family and stay up to find out how their bizarre, Murphy’s-law-ridden odyssey turns out. Playwright Bartley’s previous fiction is set in Balkan war zones, making this memorable work a fresh start.

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Review

The City of the Living

by Brian Kenney

A deep, dark descent into one of Italy’s most disturbing true crimes, drawing on actual documents, news reports, and interviews to tell the story. Billed by the publisher as a “spellbinding literary thriller”—it’s certainly spellbinding, but no one’s definition of a thriller—this is a slow, methodical, layered journey into the murder of 23-year-old Luca Varani. The method? Torture. The perpetrators? Manuel Foffo, who confesses to his father, while driving to a family funeral, that he killed someone—three, four, five days ago?—he’s too drugged out to know. And Marco Prato, also from a “good family,” a nightclub promoter, gay and considering transitioning. Manuel and Marco barely know each other, although after several drug-and-alcohol fueled days holed up in Manuel’s apartment they develop an intimacy that’s somewhat sexual but more a twisted sort of friendship. “So-called psychic contagion, like a racing engine, brought the two young men close to the point of fusion.” What do they share, besides a love of drugs and alcohol? For starters, an inability to mature, jealousy of the rich, and complete irresponsibility. Lagioia intertwines the descent of Manuel and Marco with the descent of Rome itself—drug filled, rat-infested, garbage strewn, home to wild animals, yet ultimately, he claims, freeing. This story begs for comparison with the Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb murder of Bobby Franks in 1924 Chicago. Brilliantly translated.

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Review

Board to Death

by Jeff Ayers

Ben Rosencrantz leaves his job as an English professor and returns home to Sugar House, a suburb of Salt Lake City, newly divorced from his husband and ready to help his ailing dad run the family’s game shop. The store is struggling financially, so Ben’s initially torn when Clive, a customer known for unscrupulous methods, offers a chance to buy a rare board game worth thousands of dollars. But when Ben tells the seller no thanks, Clive is livid. The next time Ben sees Clive is when his dead body lands on the store’s doorstep. Ben and Ezra, the cute florist from next door, decide to investigate on their own but quickly learn that the case is no game. Connor’s large and charming cast of characters is so engaging that the mystery, while fun to solve, is just icing on a multi-layer cake. Many cozy mysteries have recipes in the back of the book, but this one has rules for a fun game and questions for your next book club meeting. Whether you are a fan of LGBTQ fiction or not, this is a terrific debut.

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Review

The Body in the Back Garden

by Brian Kenney

Growing up, Luke Tremblay loved being sent off to spend his summers with family on a small hamlet on Vancouver Island. Until high school hit and his parents learned he was gay and disowned him. Even his beloved Aunt Marguerite, a full-time island resident, refused to see him. So decades later, when his aunt dies and leaves Luke her estate, including a charming cottage and antique business, it’s a shock. He returns to the island with one goal: sell the properties and get back to Toronto. But when he’s attacked at the cottage by a seemingly random guy, who’s making crazy claims about his aunt, and when that guy is discovered the next morning dead in the garden, Luke can’t help but get pulled deeper into island life. Thanks also go to the Mountie, Sergeant Munro, aka Officer Beefcake, who, wouldn’t you know, was a childhood friend of Luke’s and still harbors a grudge for Luke disappearing all those years ago. There’s plenty to enjoy in this qouzy, from a budding romance to more crimes that need unearthing. And while Luke may not be the most charming of protagonists—he’s just a wee bit bitchy and somewhat of a snob—he’s certainly realistic. For anyone needing a quick vacation, this is it.

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Review

Knock Off the Hat

by Brian Kenney

It’s summer in post-World-War-II Philadelphia. The temperature is rising, and so too is the gay bashing, thanks to the police department and the City’s hugely corrupt judicial system. Tough-talking, but also hugely funny, Clifford Waterman—a former police detective who received a dishonorable discharge from the Army for being caught in the act in Cairo—is trying to make a go as a noirish PI. He’s hired to get the charges against a young man caught up in a bar raid dismissed and his $500 bribe reduced. Shake-downs of lesbians and gay men are nothing new, but Waterman begins to realize that the scope of the attacks and the size of the bribes are escalating hugely—along with the psychological damage and suicides that the publicity is causing among the LGBTQ community. Waterman’s search is a broad one, taking him throughout the greater Philadelphia area and up and down the social ladder. Sex and lovers, the relationships between Black and white queer men—expect the racist language of the day—and jazz and the blues all contribute to creating a memorable time and place. It’s great to have the author of the ground-breaking Don Strachey novels back with what we can only hope will be as prolific a series.

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Review

A Killing in Costumes

by Brian Kenney

Jay and Cindy have quite a history. Back in the ‘90s they were husband and wife, soap-opera stars, and a successful musical duo. Then Cindy came out as gay, and Jay quickly followed, sinking their entertainment careers as fast as you can say “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Today the two are still buddies, share a home in Palm Springs, and have recently launched Hooray for Hollywood, a movie memorabilia store—think Betty Davis’s director’s chair from the set of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? But business is slow and money is tight, so when ninety-year-old Yana Davis, an actress from Hollywood’s golden age, approaches them to sell her vast collection of costumes and other items, they’re ecstatic. Hooray for Hollywood indeed, until they discover that they’re competing against Dylan Redman, VP at a Sotheby’s-like firm with enormous resources. This book is an absolute delight. Yes, there’s plenty of humor, and Yana is pure camp. But at the book’s core are Jay and Cindy, both struggling with loss and loneliness, both trying to make a success out of what they love. There’s plenty here to attract a broad range of cozy readers, all of whom will be back for book two.

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