I recently had to read a few such stories for a research project, and, frankly, they left my feeling a bit icky a about the way in which they simultaneously misrepresent and exploit gay relationships. For example, there’s often a great deal of angst around the protagonist or antagonist sleeping with (or even just lusting after) someone else in circumstances that don’t even qualify as infidelity (e.g. Typically, the male protagonists have values and attitudes to sex and relationships that directly align with female romance novel readers – in other words, not even remotely typical of the vast majority of gay men. But in order to appeal to them the sex is either entirely eliminated or is so vanilla and twee as to be laughable. It seems the ladies just can’t get enough of male same-sex romances. I was 14, just starting high school at an all-boys public school in the Bronx, when I began to feel a strong physical attraction to other boys. But they are largely aimed at the female consumers of romance novels.

If you’re looking for a “juicy” gay romance read then I’d definitely avoid the so-called M/M novels.