Romance is a Drag is a queer Anthology that embraces the romantic life and happy ever afters of drag queens navigating the LGBT landscape. All stories are written by Own Voice gay authors! From small towns to big cities, drag queens are the heart of the gayborhoods they belong to. Stories by Shane K Morton, Blake Allwood, Jole Cannon, Kelvin Young, J. Scott Coatsworth, Kristian Parker, Brent Archer and M.D. Neu.
Reviewed by Ulysses at Paranormal Romance Guild
Drag is not my primary reading target, but as a gay elder I have the deepest respect for its place in our shared LGBTQ+ culture. I knew that an assemblage of drag-themed stories from the editorial desk of Shane K. Morton would be richly diverse and emotionally satisfying. And so it is. Each story very much reflects the narrative style of its author, and the biggest revelation of this anthology is the surprising narrative range that the theme of drag performance can encompass.
“Alec in Wanderlust”,” by Blake Allwood. Linc, a successful young country-western songwriter in Nashville, finds himself unable to get over being dumped by a younger boyfriend, who is a drag queen. A fortune-teller’s unexpected solution to his emotional woes is for him to write a Broadway musical based on Alice in Wonderland, but populated entirely by drag queens. Rather an unlikely premise, which of course Blake Allwood handles with high humor and touching candor. Weirdly believable, and filled with appealing characters.
“Jake’s Tryst” by Brent Archer. Jake Cavegn, a super-star soccer player in California, falls for Brody Rossi, a petit drag queen who goes by the stage name of Olivia Tryst. A rather dear twist on the jock-and-nerd trope, in which big burly Jake has to convince Brody that he’s for real. I have to say, the core premise that this whole professional soccer team was cool with their big name player being gay took me aback. I do have a weakness for happy gay jocks, so it won me over quickly.
“Drag Me On Stage” by Jole Cannon. Micah Cantor is a gay stand-up comic who dies on stage while performing his set at a drag bar. The only upside of his failure is meeting Sheeba Inu, a little Asian powerhouse named Choji Sato, who performs drag like nobody Micah’s ever seen. Choji dares the entranced comedian to step outside his personal comfort zone in order to find an audience that will both appreciate his story and set him free.
“Shakin’ with Sunshine” by Kelvin Young. A university senior, Dean Thomilson, is aggravated by the arrogance of his young world literature professor, Doctor Cavan Caddel. Dean doesn’t know the sadness that triggers Doctor Caddel’s arrogance, and the good professor has no idea that the handsome scholar’s alter-ego is a breathtaking drag queen named Sunshine. There’s a sort of farcical build-up to a drag showdown, which would be a little far-fetched if both Dean and Cavan weren’t such sympathetic, interesting men. It’s a romance we all root for.
“Miss Vina Volaria”,” by M.D. Neu. I’ve read Neu’s book, “Volaria,” so I quickly realized that this short-form space opera takes place in a space-age happy-post-apocalyptic world. The twist is that Pailo Annson, known internationally (including on the moon and on Mars) as his drag persona, Vina Volaria, is a lycan (wolf shifter). Along with vampires and magic-users, lycans are one of the new species of human variants that appeared as a result of the apocalyptic pandemic that forever changed the world. Pailo is set up by friends with a grumpy, handsome Ukrainian recently emigrated from Earth named Dura Petrov. That meeting goes terribly wrong over a disagreement over Volaria’s history itself. The center of this romance is not Pailo’s performance per se, but the way in which his career blends with his private self in a complicated interplanetary world.
“Miz Fortune’s Lonely Hearts Salon” by J. Scott Coatsworth. What I found so endearing about this story is that its central character, a widowed accountant named Chester Carlson, uses his drag persona as a healing retreat from the sadness of his everyday life. Faye Min Fortune has no stage act, but instead becomes a fortune-teller focused on the love-lives of her clients. Miz Fortune is as bright and exotic as Chester is competent and gray. When Dixon Murdoch shyly appears in Miz Fortune’s salon late one evening, we don’t quite anticipate the little twist of magic that transforms this sweet romance into something rather special.
“The Cowboy and the Rose” by Kristian Parker. At the end of a hugely successful run of his drag review in New York, Brit Michael Black finds himself suddenly abandoned (career-wise) by his longtime friend and collaborator, Hugh, who wants to start a line of drag couture with his rich and talented boyfriend, Josh. Seeking solace in an unlikely cowboy-themed gay bar in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, Michael finds a blue-eyed bartender in a cowboy hat. What starts as a restorative fling turns into something more, as Jack tries to find Michael work to keep his visa valid. Here again, while Michael’s drag persona is important to his life and work, the real focus here is on these two unlikely men finding each other across a crowded room.
“That Disco Night” by Shane K. Morton. In a sweet bi-awakening fairy tale, the campus jock, Ethan, visits a drag bar as the “token” straight man with his gang of gay friends. Ethan is thunderstruck at a performance by a ravishing drag queen called Shae Black. Shae, whose everyday name is Bobby, is working his way through college (in Kentucky!) as a drag performer. After a meet-cute arranged by one of his gay friends, Ethan realizes that the shy scholarly Bobby is just as interesting as the gorgeous, outgoing woman he plays on stage. It is a low-drama story, sweet and positive in its presentation of a twist on the classic jock/nerd romance.
Five stars.