Loved “Boyfriend Material”? Author Alexis Hall Recommends 8 Books You Won't Want to Miss (Exclusive)

From spicy romance to historical fiction to sci-fi fantasy, Alexis Hall has lots of great LGBTQ+ summer reads for longtime fans and newcomers alike

When the lovely people at, um, PEOPLE asked me to put together a list of books from my backlist that I’d love readers to rediscover, I was super excited. Then I looked at my backlist and was super intimidated.

Turns out, I wrote quite a lot of books both before and after Boyfriend Material turned me very slightly into somebody some readers might maybe have actually heard of. Except somehow the moment I had to winnow it down to seven or eight, my typical decision paralysis kicked in and I found myself with 87 reasons why none of them were suitable.

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This one’s too different from everything else, this one’s too much like everything else, this one’s too weird, this one’s too obvious, this one’s the start of a series, this one’s the middle of a series, this one isn’t part of a series and so isn’t representative, this one I’ve honestly forgotten writing…

Then I took a step back and realized that this dilemma was, in its own way, kind of lovely. I’ve been very lucky that my career to date has allowed me to write across so many different sub-genres and in so many different directions, and about so much of the nonsense I care so deeply about. With that in mind, here — in no particular order — are some books I wrote that aren’t Boyfriend Material. It would be super cool if you checked some of them out.

'Glitterland'

 If you only know my contemporary romance novels from Boyfriend Material, then you might want to try the Spires series next. While the books stand alone and can be read in any order, Glitterland came first.

It’s about a novelist (I got my obligatory “book about a guy who writes books” out the way early) with bipolar depression and a cynical streak a mile wide, who falls for an aspiring model who has neither of those things.

This was one of my earliest novels and so it’s kind of the proto-example of my recurring “you deserve love even if you’re a complete and total wreck” theme.

See at Amazon

'The Affair of the Mysterious Letter'

Did you know I also write sci-fi fantasy? This is probably one of the most exuberantly weird things I’ve ever been allowed to write. It’s a take on Sherlock Holmes except Holmes is a pansexual witch who hates herself (protagonists who hate themselves are a bit of a thing with me) and Watson is a transmasc doctor from a society of chaos-worshipping puritans. They literally fight crime.

Also there’s time travel. Also vampires. Also eels.

See at Amazon

'Something Spectacular'

 This is book two in my historical romance series whimsically called “Something Something” (because all the books have titles beginning with the word “Something,” you see). It’s about a nonbinary heiress and a castrato in an irreverent, self-consciously anachronistic regency romp about gender, art, identity, and terrible poetry.

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'Mortal Follies'

Narrated by a sardonic fairy (and marvelously narrated in the audiobook by the award-winning Nneka Okoye) who doesn’t openly say he’s Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, this is the book I always pitch as “queer magic Bridgerton.”

It’s about a young debutante who needs to work out how to protect her life — and more importantly, her reputation — when she finds herself cursed by an ancient goddess. She is aided in this by her dandyish cousin, her ditzy best friend and a mysterious, brooding heiress who she definitely winds up banging.

See at Amazon

Related: How to Read the Bridgerton Books in Order (And How They Differ From the Netflix Show!)

'How to Bang a Billionaire'

The title of this one is a little bit divisive but I kinda love it for how flatly daft it is. This trilogy is partly me in discourse with The Very Famous Book About a Rich Man Who Likes Kinky Sex (you know the one), partly me doing something romcom-adjacent before romcom was really a big thing in the industry. I’d pitch this one as funny but dark, so check it out if you like a little bit of raunch, a little bit of humor and a little bit of trauma.

See at Amazon

Related: E.L. James Says She Choreographed 'Fifty Shades of Grey' Sex Scenes with Husband in the Backseat of a Car

'A Lady for a Duke'

This is an old-school historical romance in the grand tradition of brooding heroes, spirited heroines, crumbling castles, balls, abductions and duels. Also, the heroine is a trans woman.

This was a book I’d wanted to write for a long time because, honestly, I love that style and for a long time the industry was kind of hostile to the idea of trans characters in historical settings. I don’t normally give my work thesis statements but ALAFD very firmly nails its colors to the mast of “queer people are entitled to the same stories that straight people are entitled to.”

And that includes marrying a sexy duke.

See at Amazon

'10 Things That Never Happened'

This is set in the same world as Boyfriend Material and is also heavily inspired by movie romcoms of the late 90s/early 2000s, although in this case it’s While You Were Sleeping rather than Everything Richard Curtis Ever Wrote.

It’s a standalone story about a bed and bath showroom manager named Sam who fakes amnesia for extremely good and very plausible reasons and winds up having to spend Christmas with his horrible boss and his horrible boss’s quirky extended family.

Will Watt also won an award for his work on the audiobook which is very awesome indeed. Also the book has a cute/evil cat in it. What more could you want?

See at Amazon

'For Real'

This is another entry in the Spires series but falls pretty squarely into the category of erotic romance (it’s particularly famous for the lemon meringue pie scene).

Back when I wrote it, the pattern of this kind of romance was very much “older, experienced, socially prestigious, financially secure dom/young ingenue sub” and this book was me jumping feet-first into doing very much the opposite of that.

It's also sort of about grief, sort of about finding yourself and if I’m honest, a certain amount about, well, sex.

See at Amazon

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