Sweet and sappy holiday stories are for the gays. At least, now they are. While Christmas rom-coms have oft been restricted to the hetero realm, the past few years have seen more LGBTQ+ Yuletide movies across Hallmark, Lifetime, and streaming. Likewise, queer and allied readers have been graced with a handful of same-sex holiday-romance books, just as cheesy and delightfully clichéd as their straight counterparts.
This year, an abundance of mainstream holiday books feature diverse LGBTQ+ people just on the cusp of falling in love before New Year’s. The feel-good titles are queering the classics with familiar plot lines of house swaps, fake dates, geographically convenient mistletoe, and plenty more themes that are just fun to see play out with a contemporary and inclusive case of characters.
Three queer half-siblings in distress reunite at their famous mom’s upstate New York mansion for the holidays. Rafi, the youngest, may be in love with his hot childhood best friend Ash, who is visiting from London for the season. Birdie, the messy middle child prone to hooking up in comedy-club bathrooms rather than making her set time, is struggling with new material when she encounters her next fling, inspiring and put-together artist Jecca. The oldest sibling, Liz, in from Hollywood after kissing the star of the popular streaming series she created, grapples with her identity as a reliable and responsible career woman, who may just be ready to open up her heart after a messy divorce. A contemporary holiday classic of feel-good family bonding, a touch of smut, and plenty of Hollywood intrigue, this 400-pager will give you a reason to skip spending time with your own sibling to make it through just one more glorious chapter.
As easy to page through as a frothy hot cocoa is to drink, this could be a one-sitting read, particularly in a cozy chair. Riffing off the plot of The Holiday, the book swaps Clover, a small-town Ohio farmer fresh off a broken engagement with her high-school sweetheart, and Bee, a San Francisco techie who can’t live up to her wealthy parents’ impossible expectations, into each other’s holiday habitats. Clover, reticent about her lesbianism, throws herself into a queer friend group, swooning over Bee’s hot sister. Back at the farm, Bee can’t help but feel attracted to Knox, Bee’s ex, and romanticize the pleasures of rural life.
Fans of Herring Blake appreciate the realistic sapphic world she creates in her rom-com series, including Delilah Green Doesn’t Care, Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail, and Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date. In her first holiday novel, New York violinist Charlotte Donovan travels to snowy and romantic Colorado just in time to cross paths with her ex-fiancée, a once cool guitarist who left her at the aisle. If you could never forgive Mr. Big for his stunt at the New York Public Library, this one may not be for you, but believers in second-chance romance will enjoy the sexual-tension-filled cookie decorating and snow-filled forays.
There’s nothing like a mortgage and heteronormative domesticity to kill a romance, or so goes the thesis of Timothy Janovsky’s latest novel. Luckily, a bonding crisis arises on Christmas Eve when Patrick wakes up his husband, Quinn, to announce he may have, possibly, very much accidentally murdered Santa Claus. Cue Tim Allen ready to save the day in a Santa suit, because the husbands are off to the North Pole in a sleigh to save Christmas, and thus create the role of “The Merriest Mister†— no Mrs. Claus here. It’s a really fun fantasy that makes readers ask what if Santa is queer? And what’s so bad with boring, anyway?
A super-imaginative Christmas story puts two hot princes (Nicholas “Coal†Claus and Hex of Halloween) at odds when they both have to compete to wed Iris, the Easter Princess. In true biblical fashion, Coal’s brother has a crush on Iris, and Coal, who is in line to be the next Santa after his dad effs-up the holiday with a major focus on consumerism, can’t help but swoon over Hex. Things get spicy, quickly, and this book is as delightfully weird as it is funny, fluffy, and immersive in a fantasy world where problems revolve around hookups and the holidays, not well, you know what we’re dealing with here on earth.
’Tis the season for fake dating, even in small-town Illinois. 21-year-old Murphy feels stuck at community college while coming up empty in her personal life too. That is, until she reconnects with a former high-school classmate, Ellie, who now openly identifies as queer and whom Murphy identifies as very cute. Of course, there’s a hitch: Ellie’s mom also happens to be Murphy’s toughest professor, so the two hatch a plan to spend a holiday weekend together as pretend girlfriends, in hopes of scoring Murphy a good grade. It’s a sweet and swift read that hinges on the emotions of not-quite adulthood.
A gay Santa story for YA readers, this Christmas rom-com invents a brand-new vacation destination, an island north of Alaska known for its Christmas theme park, Winter Wonderland. Here, reluctant traveler Aaron and local islander Kris (he’s desperate for his uncle to move back home from New York and become the town’s first gay Santa, so he has goals) find themselves surrounded by mistletoe and vibes, whether or not they’re ready to fall in love before New Year’s.
This YA book hits all the holiday rom-com tropes: the fake-dating, friends-to-lovers celebrity and ambitious normie. But the plot predictability is what makes this PG-13 hardcover so fun to read. Former BFFs Arden Jacobs (famous Hollywood actress) and small-town aspiring journalist Caroline Beckett reunite when Arden returns home for the holidays to soak up the Christmas wholesomeness and repair her reputation. Proving she’s in a long-term relationship with Caroline could help demonstrate her innocence (imagine if celebrity legitimacy was as easy as dating your same-sex non-famous best friend!), and the fake dates may provide fodder for Caroline’s debut article. Feelings start to develop, naturally — they are but young women immersed in back-to-back romantic situations.
Perhaps not a holiday romance in the traditional sense, but Cochrane’s debut is a nondenominational wintery women’s romance perfect to cuddle up with on icy days (or between quarters at a PWHL game this season). Former hockey rivals and exes, Nat and Darcy reconnect while hosting a morning show during the Winter Olympics. Fans can’t help but ship their chemistry and they lean into a show-mance for ratings. There’s much more witty banter, stylish suits, and former flames than ice time, which may be welcome for romance readers who lean more literary than athletic.