Charmed & Bound's Monthly Queer Romance Book Pick

Queer Romance (MMC): Operation Boyfriend by Zarah Detand

Sharing a king-sized bed? Check.
Convincing his family they're madly in love? Easy.
Ignoring their sizzling chemistry? Impossible.

Dean Hollis has a plan to survive his sister's tropical destination wedding: invent a boyfriend so his mom will stop worrying about his perpetually single status. The only problem? Now he needs an actual date.

Enter Taylan Carter--charming, gorgeous, and in need of a vacation he can't afford. When Dean offers him a deal--pretend to be Dean's boyfriend for a week on a private tropical island in exchange for an all-expenses-paid luxury getaway--how can Tay refuse?

But between sunset swims, probing family questions, and a rival trying to steal his fake boyfriend, Tay's finding it harder and harder to remember this is all just pretend. And as for Dean, the workaholic American surgeon with walls higher than the hospital where they both work? He's discovering that keeping things professional with Tay might be the one operation he can't successfully complete...

One desperate lie. One luxury resort. One very real attraction. Operation Boyfriend is a delicious fake-dating male x male romance featuring:
- Fake Dating
- Grumpy x Sunshine
- Forced Proximity / Shared Bed
- Open-Door Spice
- Slow Burn
- Opposites Attract
- Hidden Depths
- Witty Banter

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Queer Romance (FMC): For the Bride by Becca Grischow

"Bridesmaids meets Emily Henry." --Alison Cochrun, author of The Charm Offensive and Kiss Her Once For Me

"For the people who think more bridesmaids should kiss." --London Sperry, author of Passion Project

From the author of I'll Get Back To You, a "sparkling sapphic romance" (Bridget Morrissey) about two nemeses who must put aside their animosity to plan the wedding of the summer

On the surface, Alice has her life together. She's got a job in music she loves; she's firmly sober; and she's grateful to be back in the good graces of her ex-girlfriend-once-best-friend-now-literal- only-friend Gin. Just in time, too, because Gin's getting married this summer! And Alice gets to be a bridesmaid.

If only the maid-of-honor wasn't Renee Roberts: Type-A, the opposite of her in every way, and a long-time Alice-hater who's clung to her animosity like a leech. Every second Alice spends around Renee makes her feel like who she used to be, rather than the person she's spent years trying to make herself into--and she doesn't want to be reminded of her younger self any more than she wants to be thinking, more constantly than she wants to admit, about Renee: her hair, her lips, her wit.... No, Alice has her own stuff to figure out. She still loves music, but her career feels directionless. She's grieving the loss of her father just a year ago, to alcohol. And then she finds out that her mother's started to date her father's ex-bandmate, which sends her reeling ...and with the wedding just around the corner, she doesn't want to bother Gin about any of it.

It's pure chance that Renee runs into Alice, just when she needs someone the most--and suddenly, everything shifts. Neither of them are what they assumed the other to be. Over the days and nights they're spending helping Gin throw a DIY summer wedding of epic proportions, Alice and Renee discover that though they have nothing in common--that might be precisely what each of them need. Heartfelt and hopeful, For the Bride is a banter-filled sapphic romance with deep emotional resonance about found family, second chances, and finding love in the unexpected.