Texas Reads for PRIDE with Kimberly Packard
When the wonderful team at Lone Star Literary Life asked if I would pen the Texas Reads column for Pride month, I wondered if I would be the right person for it. While I’m not part of the LGBTQ+ community, I am a staunch ally and advocate. It’s even more important now to understand someone else’s life and stories, stand up and speak up when we see injustices, and to celebrate progress made.
And there is no better way to step inside someone else’s life than through books. Here are some books either written by LGBTQ+ authors or with LGBTQ+ characters. Happy Pride Month!
No Protocol for Love (Jen FitzGerald, 2019)
While Heated Rivalry put M/M hockey romance on everyone’s TBR, Texas author Jen FitzGerald has been penning the genre for years. Her Face Off for Love series looks at the struggles of coming out under the spotlight of professional hockey, addressing the stigma gay male athletes continue to face as they must choose between a career they have worked their whole lives for, or being their authentic selves. The first book in the series, No Protocol for Love, goes deeper into these struggles with a closeted Russian main character, who grapples with adhering to the cultural demands of his family and home country while falling deeply in love with an American man.
Thirteen Therapists (Russell J. Sanders, 2023)
Texas native Russell J. Sanders’ novel Thirteen Therapists combines a coming-out story and a coming-of-age story. The main character, Aaron, is a mostly-closeted teenager in Chicago’s upper crust. While escorting the daughter of his mother’s friend to a debutante event, he meets Derrick, another gay teenager who might just be the more dangerous type than the take-home-to-mother type. Throughout Aaron and Derrick’s relationship, you feel the flush of first love all along with an undertow of impending doom. And the name? It comes from an endearing exchange with Aaron and his thirteenth therapist as he tries to scare her off. He doesn’t and instead calls her Thirteen, which just made me fall in love with Aaron that much more.
Go Find Less (Thea Claire, 2024)
Go Find Less is the first novel in Texas writer Thea Claire’s Recovering Good Girls series. And, while the first two books are M/F romance, Thea herself is a member of the LGBTQ+ community, which is part of the reason I’m including her books in this column, but the other reason is that her stories embody the spirit of Pride month. I think the best way to show that is in this quote that gives the first book its name: “If I’m too much, go find less.” The main character, Piper, refuses to shrink herself to fit into someone else’s box. Go Find Less is as much as a story about loving ourselves unconditionally as it is about finding that same love and acceptance in a partner.
Kimberly Packard is an award-winning author of women’s fiction and romance. When she isn’t writing, she can be found planning her next trip, asking her dog what’s in his mouth or curled up with a book. She resides in Texas with her husband Colby, a clever cat named Oliver and a precocious black lab named Tully.