queer joy and resilience in grief: some favorite romance novels on a theme

Grief and death have been huge parts of my life in recent years. And of many of my friends’ lives. And of my communities’ lives. I do not (alas) have to ponder hard to come up with ideas about why I’ve gotten into what I cheerfully and enthusiastically call “grief books.”
 
When a romance writer asks me for help envisioning ways they might deal with grief in their own fundamentally happy and hopeful book … or when someone’s experiencing grief and wants a joyful read that also engages with loss and mortality … these are the novels that come to mind immediately:

• You Should Be So Lucky, Cat Sebastian
• Satisfaction Guaranteed, Karelia Stetz-Waters
• Rules for Ghosting, Shelley Jay Shore
• Season of Love and For Never and Always, Helena Greer

 
These books also deal with grief in less head-on but meaningful, thoughtful, and I think lovely ways:

• Felix Navidad, ’Nathan Burgoine
• 10 Things That Never Happened, Alexis Hall
• Roll for Love, M. K. England

 
The voracious romance readers among you may have noticed a pattern here: That is a very queer book list.
 
Now admittedly, I do just read a lot of LGBTQIA+ stories. But not exclusively, and I don’t think it’s accidental that 100% of my favorites in this particular thematic and emotional area are queer.

In fact, it’s probably because I believe in queering grief, and because queer(ed) grief is the kind that resonates with me and supports me.
 
These stories—even as they work with death and loss in diverse ways (and in different subgenres with different emotional tones)—explore grief as layered, as complicated, often as compounded by marginalization, invisibility, and a culture that belittles or misunderstands our most heart-central relationships. They talk about death-related grief in a world where there are also many other kinds of grief and trauma, where there’s isolation and mismatch and persecution and rejection, where there are deeply considered chosen beliefs and deeply appreciated and needed chosen family, where the fact of loss or the reality of emotional experiences can be and often are denied, where being seen and held in grief—getting to grieve in community—is valuable beyond measure.
 
These stories also don’t assume everybody’s grief feels the same or works out the same. It’s not a script, or linear, or normative; it’s messy and personal; it’s a place where we (have to) make our own meaning. They don’t assume that a happy ending involves “getting back to normal,” because the characters and their lives were never “normal” in the first place. They explore how grief exists in people’s particular bodies and minds, in our whole selves, and how it hurts like hell, and also how it acts as a creative force, forging new futures for us and through us and with us.
 
And they do all of that in the context of romance, the HEA genre, where we can trust that all hope is not lost. Where we’re going to see not unremitting pain and despair, but pain and despair in a broader human context of humor, love, pleasure, joy, and new versions of life.
 
Where the grief is real, and not going anywhere, and there are still possibilities ahead.
 
Bonus resources!:

• “Thanatology (Death & Dying) with Cole Imperi,” Ologies (podcast episode)
• Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett (my favorite non-romance not-particularly-queer death-and-grief book, a real treasure)
• “Queering Grief Means Showing Up in All Our Messy Glory,” Zena Sharman
• “Queering Grief: Part 1,” Jessica Esquivel