Discussion for original M/M works, both professionally published and free online.
Free Talk Friday!
Hey, it's free talk friday, our weekly chat post! Just hangout and chat about whatever you'd like. :)
Some questions to get you started:
- What m/m works are you reading right now, and what are your thoughts on it?
- Is there anything you'd like to see in this community?
- Which book did you read that you really did not expect to enjoy as much as you did?




Does "Queer Identities and Politics in Germany, 1880-1945" count? Probably not :p I recently finished "Provoked," the first novella in Joanna Chambers' Enlightenment series, which is about an aristocrat and a lawyer in regency-era Edinborough. It had a plot, guys! An actual plot that was completely separate from the sex/romance elements! Other pleasant bonuses include: a Regency-era setting with a middle-class hero who's profession is relevant to the plot (I also read a lot of het Regencies and am so tired of wall-to-wall Dukes everywhere), three-dimensional supporting characters, and a realistic-feeling internal struggle by the hero over his 'sinful'/'illegal' desires. The ending is more bittersweet than HEA or even HFN, but there are two more novellas in the series that I'm definitely going to track down and read, which hopefully will fix that.
Woah, that sounds really interesting. I didn't know people in the regency period had jobs outside of duke or butler. :P
Let us know how the rest of the series turns out! If there's an HEA I might pick it up.
<i>I didn't know people in the recency period had jobs outside of duke or butler. :P</i>
Not true! There are also valets. The Regency era had a lot of valets. And gambling dens that doubled as kinky sex clubs and employed male prostitutes. And the occasional half-pay naval officer or military hero wounded at Waterloo.
Seconding this rec! That series is so good!
The Glasgow Lads series... Haven't gotten far enough to have an opinion, sorry about that! Not gave up reading, though.
I just finished the sample of Alex Beecroft's latest release. It's not technically m/m but I think one of the characters may be NB(?) I'm not that far in yet, so I'm not sure. It's only $2.99 on amazon, so I'm thinking about picking it up. The hero is capable of mind-control, which is usually a bullet-proof kink for me, but I'm not sure if the tropes are going to work for me, and I felt kinda lukewarm about the only other book of theirs I've read, so I'm still on the fence.
I read On a Lee Shore by Elin Gregory. It was good, but it didn't really knock my socks off. I felt like the romance parts of the plot were a little bit shoehorned in, especially later in the book, but the adventure parts were fun.
I'm currently reading The Prince of Silk and Thorns which so far is pretty much everything I want in a tropey slave fic. \o/
Ohh, that's intriguing. But "not technically m/m" then drops my interest. XD And I don't know if I've ever read a Beecroft book.
And I really need to get around to reading The Prince of Silk and Thorns... okay! Definitely the next book I'm reading. :D
Most of what she writes is m/m historicals. I read one of her age of sail books and it was really well written and researched. My main gripe was that the heroes spent too much time apart, and I would have liked more steamy content. I think she's definitely worth a shot if you're into historicals.
I finished "Recluse's Torment" by Azalea Moone and Anais Morgan. It was kinda meh, to be honest. I liked the demon hunting side of the story, but I felt like the characters had nothing in common and were flat and underdeveloped. They both proclaimed they were falling for the other but I couldn't see any hint of that, apart for wanting to fuck like bunnies. Even the sex was boring!
In the end I was more interested in the different types of demons than what the characters were doing...
Oh man, that sucks. :( But I've definitely read books where I just didn't see the supposed chemistry between characters. Or the times when the narration says a character is super amazing and caring and loving but the actual actions of the character come off as the opposite...
Yeah, this one was a bust. Oh well, I'm sure the next book I read will be better! :)
Is that the one with the spider demon? I remember thinking the demon/urban fantasy worldbuilding was interesting, but being similarly underwhelmed by the relationship.
Yup, exactly that one. I kept imaging the spider demon as Marvel's Natasha Romanov, so when she died I was pretty upset :( Also, for a story written by two women it was pretty mysogynystic... >_>
There are a bunch of weirdly misogynistic m/m books, despite the fact that women are the target audience... Thankfully there seem to be less of those lately than there used to be.
Yeah, I'm really grateful for that!
I've been rereading Avon Gale's "Scoring Chances" series, since the new one came out earlier this month. I'll probably do a full recs post for these books, but omg I love these books. kinky and funny and sooo much h/c it's amazing. I think these are definitely going to be some of my "feel better" books, for those times when you just need to read about people in terrible situations being lifted up.