LGBT Event 2015 : Everyone Deserves Their HEA by Kate Canterbary (with $5 Amazon Gift Card)

 

Hola and a big smushy WELCOME to our LGBT event which is here for the month of May. We have reviews, Guest Posts, Top Ten List and lots and lots of prizes all with a LGBT theme. The posts will be indexed on the side and I do hope you hop through … I have been so lucky this year!

Today, we have something slightly different for you lovely people. The lovely Kate Canterbary is a Romance writer who writes het-fiction but wants to give her view on why she thinks LGBT fiction is important. She is also giving away a $5 Amazon Gift Card to one lucky commenter at the end of the event.

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I write hetero romance. Straight up M/F. A girl and guy, and some form of shenanigans on the path to love. It’s your standard p-in-the-v (or wherever the p happens to go) fare.

But all I can think about is LGBT romance.

Or, more specifically, the shortage of LGBT romance.

And you—whether you love contemporary M/F romance, stepbrothers and taboo erotica, Victorian-era dukes, sweet and clean romances, love triangles, ménages, shifters, all of the above and more—should be thinking about it, too. Here’s why:

First, Romancelandia is an ecosystem built on the principle that everyone wants to be loved and everyone deserves an HEA, and LGBT deserves space on that shelf.

Think of it this way: for many years, being gay was one of those things that seemed far removed from the average person’s life, and only existed in distant pockets like musical theater or San Francisco. It wasn’t close enough to be relevant or real. But then your uncle or sister or childhood babysitter came out, and your perspective shifted. Suddenly, your connection was very tangible and that distant pocket was now a person that you cared about.

More LGBT books in mainstream romance means that more people are making those tangible connections and confirming what we’ve known all along: love is for everyone.

Second, books are often reflective of the times in which they are written and they tell us something about the shifting views of an era. Just as Fifty Shades of Grey (regardless of all controversy) has brought discussion of kink to the masses and introduced handcuffs and spanking into otherwise vanilla bedrooms, a broader shelf of LGBT romance is needed to advance the discourse.

Maybe you don’t want bondage in your bedroom, or you don’t identify as LGBT. But that doesn’t mean those topics should be dismissed. If anything, we need to elevate those conversations and normalize our differences because that is the only way we’ll come to understand and respect each other.

Finally, diverse perspectives make us better. They push our thinking and challenge our assumptions. They force us to consider experiences through a different lens. They help us understand world beyond our shoes.

Romance readers always know what they’re getting into: people moving around the planet who cross paths, find love, struggle to make it work, and then earn their happy ever after. It’s the HEA that makes it romance, and regardless of the wild twists and turns the author throws in, we know we’re getting there. In that sense, the question isn’t what will happen in a given story, it’s how it will happen. We go on the journey with our characters, and that’s where we learn the world from their unique perspectives.

We live in a beautifully diverse world where our friends, families, coworkers, neighbors, and Twitter followers represent a range of sexual identities, races, religions, ethnicities, socioeconomic statuses, ages, abilities, and education levels (to name a few), and that exposure can’t be undervalued.

I write hetero romance, but I’ll never stop advocating for LGBT romance. Even if it isn’t on your bookshelf or in your bedroom, you can and should be an ally. Everyone deserves their HEA.

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Kate Canterbary doesn’t have it all figured out, but this is what she knows for sure: spicy-ass salsa and tequila solve most problems, living on the ocean–Pacific or Atlantic–is the closest place to perfection, and writing smart, smutty stories is a better than any amount of chocolate. She started out reporting for an indie arts and entertainment newspaper back when people still read newspapers, and she has been writing and surreptitiously interviewing people–be careful sitting down next to her on an airplane–ever since. Kate lives on the water in New England with Mr. Canterbary and the Little Baby Canterbary, and when she isn’t writing sexy architects, she’s scheduling her days around the region’s best food trucks.

Links

Website | Twitter | FaceBook

Necessary Restorations

Amazon Link:

They liked to call me names. Manwhore. Slut. Player. But I make wrong look so right…

He’s a flawed perfectionist…
I can read women better than any blueprint. I understand their thoughts and feelings, their secret desires and insecurities, and I know how to get rid of them once I get off.

But all bets are off when Tiel Desai slams into my life. She redefines what it means to be friends, and she makes it sound like the filthiest thing I’ve ever heard.

I can’t read the gorgeous conservatory-trained violinist, but she’s the only one keeping me from shattering by small degrees, and I can’t let her go.

She’s wildly independent…
My past—and New Jersey—are far behind me, and now my life is blissfully full of music: playing, teaching, and lecturing, and scouring Boston’s underground scene with an annoyingly beautiful, troubled, tattooed architect.

I’m defenseless against his rooftop kisses, our nearly naked dance parties, the snuggletimes that turn into sexytimes, and his deep, demanding voice.

I have Sam Walsh stuck in my head like a song on repeat, and I’m happy pretending history won’t catch up with me.

The one thing they have in common is a rock-solid disregard for the rules.
They find more in each other than they ever realized they were missing, but they might have to fall apart before they can come together.

It’s the wrongs that make the rights come to life.