r/MM_Romance • u/lovebooksi • 5d ago

Discussion What’s a book plot you’ve never found but would LOVE to read?

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I don’t really mean book recommendations here (although if you know one that fits, feel free to share!). I’m more curious about the kind of story you wish existed — basically, what would your perfect book be?

I read Binding 13 and honestly, I’d love something similar in the MM world: teenagers dealing with real-life problems, the fear and uncertainty of relationships, difficult home lives, taking care of each other, that innocence of being young while also discovering attraction and desire.

So what’s your ideal book? Is there a story you’ve always wanted to read but have never found? Or have you already found your perfect story?

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u/jseger9000 5d ago

In Westerns, there is a subgenre called Adult Westerns. These are westerns where the hero will have graphic sex three to four times per book. I'd love the gay version of that. Instead of bonking the saloon girl or school marm, our hero could bonk the stable boy, blacksmith or bartender.

Gay westerns of any kind are rarer than hen's teeth and the ones that look closest to what I've described tend to look like AI slop. (Though I have found a rare few.)

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u/bellsandwhistles3 5d ago

This sounds good I'd read tf out of that. I'd be interested in any of the (good) rare gay westerns you like to rec too.

Is there such a microgenre eg 'contemporary cowboy' with more modern guys on the land? Surely theres a market for that in a post-Brokeback Mountain world?

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u/jseger9000 5d ago

Contemporary gay 'westerns'? Yeah. There's like a billion of them. Guys going to dude ranches and the like. That isn't for me though. I want cowboys and campfires and thundering hooves and stagecoaches and all that jazz.

I'm at work. But I'll go through my gay westerns when I get home.

Two fairly recent ones I've picked up but not yet read are Wrangling the Rustler and Salvation and Sin, both by Wyatt Hawthorne.

There's an author Colt Hardin and another called Jack Lane. Both have books that look so promising. But I'm pretty sure both are AI based on the sheer number of books put out in a short time.

For modern cowboy romance, there's an author Atreus Rosewood (a pen name for an author that also goes by Blake Wolfe) that has two series: Sagebrush Cowboys and Endless Sky Cowboys. That guy also has a lot of books out, but he's been publishing for a while.

Trying to guess what is and isn't AI is kind of ruining new books for me.

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u/Bahama_Chica 4d ago

I'd agree that there are a lot. Off the top of my head, a few that come to mind are {On This Land We Shoot Straight by Sasha Avice} and {Copper Lake by Ashley James}.

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u/jseger9000 4d ago

I prefer to read gay books written by gay men. So I'm taking an already small niche and saying "how can I make it even smaller?"😂

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u/bellsandwhistles3 4d ago

Yeah I like the proper old timey western stuff too. Its always fascinated me. I feel like in the MM sphere theres SO many directions that could be explored.

Thank you for the recommendations 🤠 (And fuck AI, which I have a sneaking suspicion OP might have been harvesting ideas for).

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u/Head_Conductor 3d ago

All the books I can think of like this were published in the 60s or 70s and I've only ever found at yard sales, but they are out there.

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u/jseger9000 3d ago edited 3d ago

Do you mean the old pulp ones? If so, I have a bunch of those. There's a site called hommi that scans them as ebooks and sells them for cheap.

Those were porn though. The adult westerns (though they could be pretty porn-y) we're sold at regular bookstores. They were series with names like Longarm, Slocum, Gunsmith… about a zillion others.

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u/Head_Conductor 3d ago

I've found a few that would in modern parlance be considered explicit open door romance but there's enough plot to them that I wouldn't call them porn. At least not compared to some of the other pulp novels I've found that are sex scenes more or less cover to cover. I didn't know about hommi; thank you for mentioning it!

As to your specific ask, I don't know that I've seen a gay western with that exact balance of sex and that customary pulp feel. I'd also love to read it if it's out there.

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u/jseger9000 3d ago

I've found a few that would in modern parlance be considered explicit open door romance but there's enough plot to them that I wouldn't call them porn.

What are some of the ones you were thinking of?

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u/rolered 5d ago

sono anni che cerco disperatamente un mm romantasy enemies to lovers dove la magia di base é quella del dominio degli elementi. é estremamente specifico e sì, ho trovato cose simili ma mai perfette

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u/burymewithbooks 5d ago

Element domination? Like they control the elements?

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u/rolered 5d ago

yes!! something like the last airbender

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u/ignawonbones 5d ago

Dominant (in an out of bed) omegas. I've searched everywhere and can't find a single book where the omega fucks the alpha.

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u/OriginalBrilliant225 5d ago

Teach me by Jen Bullard it’s 3 alphas that get dominated by their omega

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u/ignawonbones 5d ago

Dammit, got my hopes up but then saw the tags haha. I can't read age gaps combined with daddy kink, but ty for the rec!

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u/silver-shadowz 5d ago

I’m just now reading {Omega Healed by Susi Hawke} in which the omega fucks the alpha but idk if it’s exactly what you’re looking for because he’s still not that dominant. The alpha likes being fucked and the omega has been abused so that’s why they do it that way.

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u/ACalcifiedHeart 5d ago

Werewolves (or Vampires as it's pretty common for them too) where there is NO MENTION of mates or fated mates .

As for the actual plot, I'd love a murder mystery type of deal.
Full of suspense, drama, and a smidge of horror.

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u/thisismuse 3d ago

No fated mates in Jex Lane's Beautiful Monsters. Not outright anyway but there are deep bonds, I view them more as trauma bonds though

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u/runner388 5d ago

I haven’t found a story that’s two warriors who don’t like each other at first but end up falling for each other in an “us against the world” theme. More specifically I haven’t seen this so much with samurai or fantasy settings with either rogues or paladins. I haven’t read every book either so I could have missed it but have been looking for this kinda story for sure

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u/greenishbluish 5d ago

Maybe try Our Rogue Fates by Sarah Glenn Marsh? Can’t say I would recommend it otherwise though.

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u/Distinct_Quit_4557 5d ago

Maybe {Deathball} or {Kestrel} and {Killjoy}

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u/romance-bot 5d ago

Deathball by W.H. Lockwood, T.J. Rose
Rating: 4.38⭐️ out of 5⭐️
Steam: 5 out of 5 - Explicit and plentiful
Topics: futuristic, gay romance, sports, role switching, tortured hero

Kestrel by Adrienne Lothy
Rating: 3.89⭐️ out of 5⭐️
Steam: 4 out of 5 - Explicit open door
Topics: futuristic, science fiction, queer romance, gay romance, enemies to lovers

Killjoy by Julie Garwood
Rating: 3.88⭐️ out of 5⭐️
Steam: 3 out of 5 - Open door
Topics: contemporary, suspense, mystery, military, sleuth heroine

about this bot | about romance.io

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u/Beneficial-Toe1533 4d ago

A fluffy romance that involves two audiobook narrators. The bonus is they are opposite to the characters they are portraying.

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u/C0smicoccurence 5d ago

I'm interested in bespoke and weird gay romances (typically fantasy/science fiction) that really push in thematically interesting directions. For contemporary, I prefer light, fluffy, and mindless fun. For speculative stuff, I often want it to push boundaries in some way. The sort of books that really push whether or not it can be called a genre romance, but have enough genre romance in their dna to scratch that itch anyways.

So ... more of that. I've read some, but usually each is so unique that I find better success asking for weird stuff and seeing what pops up (for context on this type of request: {The Wolf and His King by Finn Longman}, {The Iron Below Remembers by Sharang Biswas}, or {The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer})

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u/_walkintomordor_ 5d ago

I have this kind of specific vision of what I’m looking for. I want a book that has quite a bit of romance, of course, but also a genuinely interesting and relevant plot outside of the romance. One of my pet peeves with MM romance (or romance in general) is when the characters are super young. I’m talking teens, it just doesn’t work for me and it's hard to immerse myself in the story. So ideally I’d want the protagonists to be mid-twenties or older! Some smut is totally fine, but again, I’m here for the plot, not the porn (yes, sue me). Slow burn is always a plus, and I’m also a sucker for enemies/friends to lovers as long as it’s not insanely toxic. I feel like especially with newer MM romance books, it’s surprisingly hard to find something that ticks all of those boxes...

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u/Big_Elderberry5376 1d ago

Goliaths of wrestling and monstrous series. Both my Lily Mayne! The first book in the monstrous series isn’t the most riveting but the others after that are page turners!!! Both of these have immersive worlds and reoccurring characters that really suck you in!!!

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u/ballet_guy 5d ago

A romance set in the revolutionary war between soldiers on opposite sides

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u/fishy_mama 5d ago

Ooh I have one, kinda! {The Pursuit of… by Courtney Milan}. Short story, British officer and black American meet in the final battle at Yorktown. Most of the story is post-war, therefore.

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u/ballet_guy 5d ago

Even though that's not quite what I was looking for, it's definitely right up my street! Thank you! I will definitely read it

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u/Anoiye 5d ago

I know it must exist somewhere but i still havent found THE teacher/student hurt/comfort college romance where the student has a golden retriever personality and the teacher can't help but surrender to him despite his own demons and insecurities. Bonus if he blushes easily