15 New Gay Romance Books to Read in 2023
Get ready to fill up your to-read list with these must-read new gay romance books set to release in 2023.
If you’re looking for some new gay romance books to spice up your life and reading habit then I’ve got all the best for you.
See which MM books I recommend you read this year and then check out these additional book lists for more amazing queer romance books worth reading:
- Best Gay Romance Novels
- Best MM Romance Books
- Best Enemies to Lovers Books in MM Romance
- Best Lesbian Romance Books
- 15 New Lesbian Romance Books to Read in 2023
*Disclosure: This post may include affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
New Gay Romance Books Releasing in 2023:
Best Men
by Sidney Karger
Max Moody thought he had everything figured out. He’s trying to live his best life in New York City and has the best friend a gay guy could ask for: Paige.
But then Max’s whole world is turned upside down when Paige suddenly announces some huge news: she’s engaged and wants Max to be her man of honor.
Max was always the romantic one who imagined he would get married before the unpredictable Paige and is shocked to hear she’s ready to settle down. But it turns out there’s not just one new man in Paige’s life—there are two.
There’s the groom, Austin, who’s a perfectly nice guy. Then there’s his charming, fun and ridiculously handsome gay younger brother, Chasten, who is Austin’s best man.
As Paige’s wedding draws closer, Max, the introverted Midwesterner, and Chasten, the social butterfly East Coaster, realize they’re like oil and water. Yet they still have to figure out how to coexist in Paige’s life while not making her wedding festivities all about them.
But can the tiny romantic spark between these two very different guys transform their best man supporting roles into the leading best men in each other’s lives?
This may be my most anticipated new gay romance book for 2023! I’m all about weddings (and this one reminds me of Bowen and Blakely’s The Best Men gay romance) when it comes to romance books and I can already tell I’m going to really like Max and Chasten. It’s just a question of who of these two opposites I’ll like more!
The New Guy
by Sarina Bowen
My name is Hudson Newgate, but my teammates call me New Guy.
That was my nickname in Chicago, too. And Vancouver. That’s what happens when you keep getting traded. Brooklyn is my last chance, especially after my poor performance last season.
But I can make this work. The new guy knows to keep his head down and shoot the puck. The new guy puts the game first.
What he doesn’t do is hook up with the other new guy—a hot athletic trainer who lives in my building. Gavin needs this job with my team. He’s a single dad with responsibilities.
We can’t be a couple. My arrogant agent–who’s also my father–will lose his mind if I’m dating a dude. And my team needs me to score goals, not whip up a media circus.
Too bad Gavin and I are terrible at resisting each other.
This is probably my second most anticipated new gay romance novel because you know I love any MM romance Sarina Bowen writes, plus if it’s a hockey romance – pure gold!
My heart already bleeds for Hudson who just seems to want to blend into the background and play hockey but I’m loving that Gavin is a single dad! Bring on one of my most anticipated new romance books of 2023.
Related: Best Single Dad Romance Books, Best Hockey Romance Books
Teacher of the Year
by M.A. Wardell
Those who can, teach. Marvin Block is one of the best kindergarten teachers out there. And despite his anxiety, Marvin’s life is sweet. He knows what he wants. And what he wants is the Teacher of the Year Award. Not just for himself – his school needs him to win.
Returning from break, the New Year finds Marvin all set to welcome a new pupil to his class. But when Illona walks in with her cute-as-hell single dad beside her, Marvin’s focus starts to slide.
Sure, his students always come first, but he deserves to have a life outside the classroom, too, right?
As their friendship starts to deepen, Marvin realizes Olan has the potential to teach him things about love he never thought possible. But with the Teacher of the Year award and his school’s future on the line, now’s not the time for anything complicated.
With Olan’s past and Marvin’s present colliding, their experiment in love hangs in the balance. Marvin knows what he wants out of life. But now he’s forced to consider what he wants out of love.
Will Marvin chalk the relationship up to experience? Or can they revise their story into a textbook romance?
I’m so loving this book! I have soft spot for romance books that spotlight mental health and anxiety but I also love that Marvin is all about winning the Teacher of the Year award. You go teachers!
Bring on this steamy, friends-to-lovers gay romance novel and be sure to add it to your TBR list this year.
Related: Best Steamy Romance Novels, Best Single Dad Romance Books
New Adult
by Timothy Janovsky
Twenty-three-year-old Nolan Baker wants it all by the time he’s thirty. Too bad he’s single, barely able to cover his own expenses, and still paying his dues at a prominent NYC comedy club.
When faced with his perfect sister’s wedding, Nolan takes it as a wakeup call. It’s time to quit comedy and make good on his practical dreams—most importantly, asking Drew Techler, his best friend, to be his date.
But right as Nolan is about to give it all up, he’s asked to fill a last-minute spot for a famous comedian. Score! He crushes his set, but stands Drew up, misses his sister’s big day, and disappoints his entire family.
After major blowouts with everyone he loves, Nolan desperately wishes on a set of gift “magical healing crystals” to skip to the good part of life. When he wakes the next morning, it’s seven years later, he’s a successful comedian, and he has everything he always thought he wanted. Everything, that is, except his friends and family, none of whom are taking his future self’s calls.
With nowhere else to turn, Nolan sets out to find the only person he trusts to help. Except Drew is all grown up now, too. He’s hot, successful…and hates Nolan’s guts.
As Nolan works to get back to his younger self—and the life he so carelessly threw away—he’ll have to prove he’s not the man everyone thinks they know in order to regain Drew’s trust, friendship, and maybe, ultimately, his heart.
Janovsky is definitely making a name for himself when it comes to gay romance books. His debut romance, Never Been Kissed, was super cute but I really love this storyline which is akin to the movie, 13 going on 30 (love Jennifer Garner!).
I like that this is a different twist on time travel romance where he gets to see his life in the future to help him see what’s truly important in life. This one is definitely on my must-read list for the year.
Related: Best Time Travel Romance Books
The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen
by KJ Charles
Abandoned by his father, Gareth Inglis grew up lonely, prickly, and well-used to disappointment. Still, he longs for a connection.
When he meets a charming stranger, he falls head over heels—until everything goes wrong and he’s left alone again. Then Gareth’s father passes away, turning the shabby London clerk into Sir Gareth, with a grand house on the remote Romney Marsh and a family he doesn’t know.
The Marsh is another world, a strange, empty place notorious for its ruthless gangs of smugglers. And one of them is dangerously familiar.
Joss Doomsday has run the Doomsday smuggling clan since he was a boy. When the new baronet—his old lover—agrees to testify against Joss’s sister, Joss acts fast to stop him.
Their reunion is anything but happy, yet after the dust settles, neither can stay away. Soon, all Joss and Gareth want is the chance to be together. But the bleak, bare Marsh holds dangerous secrets.
And when Gareth finds himself threatened from every side, the gentleman and the smuggler must trust one another not just with their hearts, but with their lives.
This Regency romance has so much going for it. A second chance romance, opposites attract story about two gents from different worlds who find themselves willing to risk being together.
I love the suspense angle as well and am curious to see how the smuggling comes into play with their relationship. It’s definitely a new gay romance to check out in 2023.
Related: Best Historical Romance Novels
We Could Be So Good
by Cat Sebastian
Nick Russo has worked his way from a rough Brooklyn neighborhood to a reporting job at one of the city’s biggest newspapers. But the late 1950s are a hostile time for gay men, and Nick knows that he can’t let anyone into his life. He just never counted on meeting someone as impossible to say no to as Andy.
Andy Fleming’s newspaper-tycoon father wants him to take over the family business. Andy, though, has no intention of running the paper.
He’s barely able to run his life—he’s never paid a bill on time, routinely gets lost on the way to work, and would rather gouge out his own eyes than deal with office politics. Andy agrees to work for a year in the newsroom, knowing he’ll make an ass of himself and hate every second of it.
Except, Nick Russo keeps rescuing Andy: showing him the ropes, tracking down his keys, freeing his tie when it gets stuck in the ancient filing cabinets. Their unlikely friendship soon sharpens into feelings they can’t deny.
But what feels possible in secret—this fragile, tender thing between them—seems doomed in the light of day. Now Nick and Andy have to decide if, for the first time, they’re willing to fight.
I can honestly say I’ve never read a romance novel set in the 1950s and I’m so intrigued! I like the office romance flare to this one and can’t wait to see what goes on at the paper while they grow close to one another.
Add this to your TBR list this year if you want a different type of historical gay romance to read.
Related: Best Historical Romance Novels
The Loner
by Riley Hart
As a founding member of The Vers, a queer podcast I host with my three best friends, I’m The Loner—quieter than the others, and except for them, I don’t let myself get too close to people.
Infrequent, no-strings-attached hookups have always worked for me. Who knew my favorite one would become such a popular movie star? But Sebastian Cole and I made it work, meeting up whenever he was in Santa Monica and in the mood—until he called it off when he got a serious boyfriend. A boyfriend he later found in bed with another man.
Now Sebastian is back in California, taking a break from acting. He needs a friend, and for whatever reason, he decides that should be me. We’ve known each other intimately for years, and yet we’ve never spent much time together with our clothes on. When he starts taking me places, it feels suspiciously like dates…and surprisingly, I like it.
Despite our differences, Sebastian’s lonely, like me. The more we hang out, the more I realize I’ll never get enough of him.
A loner dating a celebrity doesn’t make much sense. I don’t know how to be someone’s boyfriend, let alone be in the public eye. But to call him mine, I’ll need to leave the past behind and finally allow myself to move forward with him.
The Loner is an opposites attract romance about a movie star rethinking his career and a loner who’s learning to open his heart. I have a feeling this is going to be a sweet, found family-type romance book with all the feels. I adore Riley Hart’s gay romance books and consider them must-reads!
Related: Best Books with the Found Family Trope
Foolish Puckboy
by Eden Finley and Saxon James
After my divorce, I’m ready to have fun, date around, and not get into anything serious. Then I meet Gabe Crosby, superhero firefighter and a disgrace to the Crosby name. He doesn’t even like hockey!
Yet, there’s a draw to him I can’t deny—something I haven’t felt since my teens. But that’s the problem. I have no idea what dating is like, let alone how to do it with another man. He makes me flakey and nervous, and I’ve never been that guy.
Gabe turns me inside out and upside down in the best possible ways. I only recently became single, but if I continue to chase after him, I might not stay that way for long.
I read the first book in this pair’s Puckboy series and loved it so I’m ready to get my binge-read on and dive into all the books including this new release.
I’m sure the sparks are going to be HOT between this firefighter and hockey stud even though they currently have different needs where relationships are concerned.
Related: Best Hockey Romance Books
The Husband Hoax
by Saxon James
For Christian, being invited to his cousin’s wedding really shouldn’t be a big deal except he hasn’t seen his family for a decade.
His parents turned their backs on him and he’s done everything since to become successful and show them what they lost. Only, it’s kinda hard to be a success when you’re a walking trainwreck.
So, he’s going to fake it. Hire a guy with an online presence so impressive they’ll be desperate to welcome him back into the elitist fold, and roll into the wedding with the kind of confidence he’s never felt a day in my life.
The plan’s a knockout. Until his fake date cancels minutes before the ceremony.
For Émile, one letter from his dearly departed grandfather, and suddenly he’s on a husband hunt. In order to get his inheritance, he has to get married.
When he runs into a tall drink of scattered mess outside of a wedding who’s in desperate need of a date, the pieces click into place.
Help each other out and then go their separate ways only what happens when feelings develop?
Yes! Another fake relationship story though this one with a marriage of convenience romance for money. I’m looking forward to seeing how these two confront each other’s families who seem like people I don’t ever want to meet.
Related: Best Marriage of Convenience Books
The Rest of the Story
by Tal Bauer
I keep things simple. I’m a classic one-night wonder. Then I’m traded to the absolute worst team in the NHL, the Rocky Mountain Outlaws, and I’m hit with a one-two punch.
First: I’m asked to step up and lead the team, which is every kind of bad idea you can imagine. But these players have been through a mess of hell, and someone thinks I can help pull them together.
The Outlaws are made up of jaded veterans and wide-eyed rookies, and we have no business whatsoever succeeding. We are scrappy and plucky and built out of spit and duct-tape… and whatever we’re doing, it’s working.
Second: The first day I’m in Boulder, I go over the boards and come face-to-face with a pair of blue eyes and lose my heart. Boy, howdy: meet my new co-captain, Shea Darling.
He’s way, way off-limits. It’s a stratospherically terrible idea to want or crave him. But I’m head over heels, and I’m all tangled up in something I can’t understand or control.
This team is finally putting up the wins, and we are making something of ourselves. Falling for my co-captain while we’re on a Cinderella run could jeopardize everything we’re striving for.
But then there’s this one night. And this one kiss. And everything changes.
Eighty-two games in a season. Twenty men hungry for redemption. One co-captain who could be my forever. This is the rest of the story.
And the new gay hockey romance books keep coming! Bauer is all about the MM sports romance books and I hope he never stops writing. Definitely pick up The Rest of the Story if you want a friends-to-lovers, hockey MM romance this year.
Related: Best Hockey Romance Books
Something Wild and Wonderful
by Anita Kelly
Alexei Lebedev’s journey on the Pacific Crest Trail begins with a single snake. And it is angling for the hot stranger who seemed to have appeared out of thin air.
Lex is prepared for rattlesnakes, blisters, and months of solitude. What he isn’t prepared for is Ben Caravalho. But somehow—on a 2,500-mile trail—Alexei keeps running into the outgoing and charismatic hiker with golden-brown eyes, again and again. It might be coincidence. Then again, maybe there’s a reason the trail keeps bringing them together.
Ben has made his fair share of bad decisions, and almost all of them involved beautiful men. And yet there’s something about the gorgeous and quietly nerdy Alexei that Ben can’t just walk away from.
Surely a bad decision can’t be this cute and smart. And there are worse things than falling in love during the biggest adventure of your life.
But when their plans for the future are turned upside down, Ben and Alexei begin to wonder if it’s possible to hold on to something this wild and wonderful.
I have yet to read Kelly’s Love & Other Disasters but it’s been on my TBR list and this new gay romance is joining it. Hiking is a theme that I keep seeing in more recent romance books and I’m anxious to go along for the “hike” with this one on the Pacific Crest Trail.
Plus, a fun, nerdy, grumpy sunshine romance sounds pretty perfect.
Related: Best Books with the Grumpy Sunshine Trope
In Case of Heartbreak
by Courtney Kae
Ben has been baking his mother’s cinnamon rolls at the family café for years. He’s been quietly in love with Adam Reed, his musician-slash-mechanic neighbor, for just as long. But Ben’s done waiting behind the pastry case.
Despite his fear of failure, he’s entered a make-or-break competition to build his recipes into a national brand. He’s going to take charge of his business instead of nearly tanking the café—again. And he’s going to finally confess his feelings for Adam. ON LIVE TV.
Except his big plans get punched down before they even half-rise. Soon Ben is dashing down the coast to his grandma’s 80th birthday party on the beach, hiding his broken heart in Maywell Bay, California.
Sun, sea, and fresh breezes should blow in something new—except they don’t. They blow in Adam Reed, grinning like a pirate and stealing the show as the musical entertainment hired by Grandma for her big bash.
Now Ben has a decision to make. Can he take the sweetness in front of him, and brave the bitterness that comes after? Or is a little sea salt just what this cinnamon roll needs?
I first met Ben who was pining for his friend while reading Kae’s first novel in this series, In the Event of Love. Unrequited crushes are so hard to watch from afar, especially when the one doing the crushing is such a sweetheart. I mean who wouldn’t want Ben?!
I’m just hoping we get some fun grandma meddling as well as some steaminess in this one.
Fake Dates and Mooncakes
by Sher Lee
Dylan Tang wants to win a Mid-Autumn Festival mooncake-making competition for teen chefs—in memory of his mom, and to bring much-needed publicity to his aunt’s struggling Chinese takeout in Brooklyn.
Enter Theo Somers: charming, wealthy, with a smile that makes Dylan’s stomach do backflips. AKA a distraction. Their worlds are sun-and-moon apart, but Theo keeps showing up. He even convinces Dylan to be his fake date at a family wedding in the Hamptons.
In Theo’s glittering world of pomp, privilege, and crazy rich drama, their romance is supposed to be just pretend . . . but Dylan finds himself falling for Theo. For real.
Then Theo’s relatives reveal their true colors—but with the mooncake contest looming, Dylan can’t risk being sidetracked by rich-people problems.
Can Dylan save his family’s business and follow his heart—or will he fail to do both?
It totally agree that this gay romance novel for 2023 sounds like a mix of Heartstopper meets Crazy Rich Asians and I’m all for it! Plus, I never turn away a book that will make me hungry 😊. Grab this book if you like fake relationship romance books and are in the mood for a young adult romance.
Related: Best Fake Relationship Romance Books
Ander and Santi Were Here
by Jonny Garza Villa
The Santos Vista neighborhood of San Antonio, Texas, is all Ander Martínez has ever known. The mixture of Spanish and English filling the streets. And, especially their job at their family’s taquería.
It’s the place that has inspired Ander as a muralist, and, as they get ready to leave for art school, it’s all of these things that give them hesitancy. That give them the thought, are they ready to leave it all behind?
To keep Ander from becoming complacent during their gap year, their family “fires” them so they can transition from restaurant life to focusing on their murals and prepare for college. That is, until they meet Santiago López Alvarado, the hot new waiter.
Falling for each other becomes as natural as breathing. Through Santi’s eyes, Ander starts to understand who they are and want to be as an artist, and Ander becomes Santi’s first steps toward making Santos Vista and the United States feel like home.
Until ICE agents come for Santi, and Ander realizes how fragile that sense of home is. How love can only hold on so long when the whole world is against them. And when, eventually, the world starts to win.
This new gay romance book for 2023 sounds like it has quite the gravitas to it about a nonbinary Mexican American teen falling for the shy new waiter at their family’s taqueria. I love the diversity spotlighted in this novel and hope it meets expectations!
Related: Best #OwnVoices Romance Books
A Rulebook for Restless Rogues
by Jess Everly
London, 1885. David Forester and Noah Clarke have been best friends since boarding school. All grown up now, clever, eccentric Noah is Savile Row’s most promising young tailor, while former socialite David runs an underground queer club, The Curious Fox.
Nothing makes David happier than to keep the incense lit, the pianist playing and all his people comfortable, happy and safe until they stumble out into the dawn. But when the unscrupulous baron who owns the Fox moves to close it, David’s world comes crashing down.
Noah’s never feared a little high-stakes gambling, but as he risks his own career in hopes of helping David, he realizes two things:
One: David has not been honest about how he ended up at The Curious Fox in the first place.
Two: Noah’s feelings for David have become far more than friendly.
What future lies beyond those first furtive kisses? Noah and David can hardly wait to find out…if they can untangle David from his web of deception without losing everything Noah has worked for.
A book about not one but maybe two restless rogues? Yes, please! I have a feeling David is the more outrageous of the two but I’m always up for a great friends to lovers story.
Related: Best Historical Romance Novels
Related Book Lists:
- Best Gay Romance Novels
- Best MM Romance Books
- Best Enemies to Lovers Books in MM Romance
- Best Lesbian Romance Books
- 15 New Lesbian Romance Books Releasing in 2023
- New Queer Romance Books Releasing in 2024
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