There are always more new books coming out than anyone can possibly read. There are genres that I want to sample, but don’t know where to start. Finding the good stuff can be a challenge. I use friend reviews and blogs like this one, but I want to give a shout out here to two endeavors that can help readers find the books they want, and are well worth supporting.

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The Rainbow Awards

Many people are aware of these awards, but others may not yet have found them. Every year, the amazing Elisa Rolle wrangles dozens of judges from within the LGBTQ books community to read and rate hundreds of books, while the entry fees are all donated to LGBTQ charities. Then she crunches the numbers on all the ratings, and announces the winners with the top scores.

This year’s Rainbow Award winners were announced December 8th. The 50 award categories range from the overall categories like “Best Gay Book” through more specific like “Best Asexual – Fantasy & Paranormal Romance” and “Best Lesbian – Anthology / Collection” and “Best Bisexual – Contemporary Romance” and “Best Transgender Debut” and “Best Gay – Young Adult.” (There’s also a cover contest that anyone can vote on – look for it to participate in voting next year, and check out this year’s lovely winners.)

The Rainbows are both a celebration of writing in the LGBTQ genres, and a place to find great new books to read. I wanted to find more books with Ace characters, and I love that we now have enough Asexual MCs to have their own categories. Check out the whole list of winners on Elisa’s blog :Rainbow Awards Winners 2017

And entry fees this year resulted in donations of over $13,000 to the authors’ favorite LGBTQ charities. Win-win.

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QueeRomance Ink

When All Romance ebooks suddenly shut down, a lot of readers lost a favorite place to find stories, especially books not on Amazon, free books, stories with high flame ratings or low ones. QueeRomance Ink (QRI) was founded to try to help authors and readers connect, and to provide readers with a way to find exactly the books they’re looking for.  https://www.queeromanceink.com/

QRI is not a sales site, it’s a link platform. Authors list their books on the site, and readers can browse, read blurbs and sometimes excerpts, and then find the links to places those books are sold, including the authors’ own PayHip if they have one, or download sites for free stories. At present, a couple thousand of the genres’ books are listed, and the numbers are growing every day. There is a “coming soon” book list to find soon-to-be-released stories. (Disclaimer- I am a consultant to the site owner on how to set it up in useful ways.)

One unique benefit of QRI is its search functions. Want to find a book with an asexual character? One fast option is to click on the “by Identity” link in the header, and be shown the books with a main character who is… Ace, Bisexual, Demisexual, Gay, Intersex, Lesbian, Non-Binary, Questioning, Pansexual, Straight, Transgender. When I choose “Ace” I currently find 20 books to check out. Those can be filtered in different ways, too.

Want an M/M/M book? Click on the link that says “by pairing”, pick MMM, and find 7 pages of results.

Looking for “MM, paranormal, historical”? There are a couple of options. Put those three terms into the search box at the top right, and it will lead you to books like Alex Jane’s Home is Where You Are, a werewolf story set in 1870, or Tamara Allen’s magic time-travelling Downtime, or Tinnean’s Revolutionary War vampyre The Black Swan, and more.

You can also use the Filter Search link for favorite tropes or elements. Click on “Filter Search” at the top right, to get a list of all the genres, pairings, tropes, tags etc that can be searched on. Click all the ones you want to include, hit the “Go” button, and see the books that have all those elements put together.
Or put your terms into the search box up top. “second chances MM” gives me 14 pages of books, “dragon MM” gives me 12. (Using the terms exactly as they are written on the “Filter Search” lists will get you the most results, eg. hurt/comfort, not hurt-comfort.)

Want to only buy books with a solid HEA in these troubled times? Prefer a high heat level, or low? You can Filter Search for those too.

Each book listing also has a lot of useful information that can help you choose, including a spoiler-hidden ending reveal link.
for The Black Swan, for example:

Published: October 1, 2016

Publisher: JMS Books, LLC

Genres: Action Adventure, Contemporary, Historical – America, Paranormal – Vampires

Tags: format – novella 15k-60K

Pairings: MM

Heat Level: 2

Romantic Content: 3

Ending: Click here to reveal —> Clicking this will reveal the type of ending, for those who want to know

Character Identities: Bisexual, Gay

Protagonist 1 Age: Ageless/Immortal

Protagonist 2 Age: 18-25

Tropes: Friends to Lovers, Reunited and it Feels So Good

Word Count: 43224

Setting: East Coast, USA, London

Languages Available: English

QRI is a reader resource that is still being added to, and hopefully will continue to improve (adding functions like letting readers create a TBR list.) Find exactly the stories that interest you. If you are someone who wants a different format than Amazon mobi, the buy links can steer you to other sources (and AZ links are usually listed too, if you like AZ.) If you want to support authors by buying from their publishers or personal PayHip or websites, those who have such links are there. As a bonus, there are free books offered to new newsletter members, but as a reader, you do not have to join anything or pay anything to search the site and use its links to find books to read.

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I’m hoping some holiday gift cards are on their way to my eager hands. (My family and friends know me well.) I’m going to use both Rainbow Awards winner lists and QRI searches to help find stories I want to try. I hope both prove useful to you too.

Happy Holidays to everyone who celebrates during this season.

-Kaje Harper