My Top Five Books in the Genre by Kaje Harper – Guest Blog and Giveaway

Long and Short Reviews welcomes Kaje Harper, who is visiting with us to celebrate today’s release of Fair Isn’t Life. Leave a comment or ask the author a question for a chance to win a digital copy of the book.

Thanks for inviting me to the blog to do a Top-5 chat with your readers, as I release my new book. I picked this topic, but really, I should’ve gone with top 5 recipes, or writing snacks. Because if you know me, you know that I love recommending M/M books. I’ve reviewed over 1,000 of them with 4-5 stars on Goodreads in the last 7 years. So… top 5? What was I thinking???

Well, I’m committed, so I’m going with a range of stories that wowed me in different ways. In NO PARTICULAR ORDER. Because yeah, 5 is bad enough, picking a number 1 is impossible.

Whistling In the Dark by Tamara Allen (historical)

This wonderful book gave me real historical flavor from 1919, with lovely character immediacy and connection. Sutton is sweet and honorable and a little lost. Jack is wild and determined and wounded, and carries on with gallant courage behind the mask of not giving a damn. There are moments of humor and moments of sharp poignancy.

Chase in Shadow by Amy Lane (contemporary)

Amy Lane writes guys who get deeper in my heart than almost any other author. This is one of her most intense stories, about a closeted man with a painful past who will break your heart, little by little. But thank God she writes romance, and so at the end of deception and discovery, worry and pain, there is love.

For Real by Alexis Hall (BDSM)

Two men, one older, one younger; one experienced in the scene, one completely new to it; one broken by losing love through no fault of his own, one urgently seeking something he’s never had… and the young, inexperienced guy is the Dom.

His Quiet Agent by Ada Maria Soto (ace character, contemporary)

A lovely, slow, subtle book in which an asexual government agent and a demisexual analyst discover, through nearly silent meals, and moments of stress, that their hearts speak to one another.

Claimings, Tails, and Other Alien Artifacts by Lyn Gala (SciFi, Dom/sub)

This is the best alien-human romance I’ve ever read, because the alien isn’t just a human in purple skin. Ondry has his own culture, his own physiology, and imperatives that complement what human Liam needs in real ways. Wonderful world-building, and believable love.

Honorable mention (because I’ve never met a limit I didn’t just blow past. Even the book I’m here about – Fair Isn’t Life – is 52,000 words into Dreamspinner’s 50,000 word limit 🙂 )
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Erik the Pink by Matthew J Metzger (contemporary, trans, pregnancy, established couple)

I read everything by this author, and this is a recent favorite. (Consider reading Married Ones first, with trans and cis guys hoping for a family.) But either way, check out this sweet, real story of a different couple after the baby. Palpable love, real dysphoria issues, a strong couple, an overweight MC, and conversation that is sharp and funny and wonderful.

One of the things I love most about M/M is the range of stories. I could have mentioned a wonderful werewolf BDSM by Kim Dare, or historical urban magic fantasies, or one of Harper Fox’s many great contemporary thrillers, or several mysteries. We have stories with autistic MCs, like Jordan Castillo Price’s Mnevermind, or with OCD like Taylor Donovan’s Disasterology 101 or even dissociative identity disorder in Nicky James’s Love Me Whole. And we have straightforward contemporaries like my new release, each one different because the authors and writing and characters and settings are never the same. I love recommending all the good books, and I love writing. I hope Fair Isn’t Life will end up on someone’s favorites list. When a book speaks to even one reader enough to become a favorite, then it’s done what it was created for.

– Kaje Harper
November 2018

Luke Lafontaine survived the past year by not thinking about the father he lost, the dairy farm he couldn’t save from bankruptcy, or his way of life that vanished with the rap of an auctioneer’s hammer. Cleaning up city folks’ trash at the Minnesota State Fair is just another dead-end job. But at the Fair, surrounded by a celebration of farm life, ambitions he’d given up on and buried deep start to revive. And seeing Mason Bell in the parade—gorgeous, gay, out-of-his-league Mason—stirs other buried dreams.

Mason left his hometown for college in Minneapolis without looking back. Student life is fun, classes are great, gay guys are easy to find, but it’s all a bit superficial. He’s at the State Fair parade route with his band when he realizes a scruffy maintenance worker is Luke, his secret high school crush. Luke should be safely home working on his dad’s farm, not picking up litter. Mason wishes he hadn’t fallen out of touch. He’s an optimist, though, and it’s never too late for second chances. Now he just has to convince Luke.

Kaje Harper – Bio
I get asked about my name a lot. It’s not something exotic, though. “Kaje” is pronounced just like “cage” – it’s an old nickname. I’ve been writing far longer than I care to admit (*whispers – forty years*), mostly for my own entertainment, usually M/M romance (with added mystery, fantasy, historical, SciFi…) I also have Young Adult short stories (some released under the pen name Kira Harp.)

It was my husband who finally convinced me that after all the years of writing just for fun, I really should submit something, somewhere. My first professionally published book, Life Lessons, came out from MLR Press in May 2011. I now have a good-sized backlist in ebooks and print, both free and professionally published, including Amazon bestseller The Rebuilding Year and Rainbow Award Best Mystery-Thriller Tracefinder: Contact. A complete list with links can be found on my website “Books” page.

I’m always pleased to have readers find me online.

Buy the book at Dreamspinner Press, Amazon, Amazon UK, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, or iBooks.