Different Culture Romance Read

By: Emily Carrington

There’s something incredibly satisfying when I read a different-culture-than-mine romance novel or short story. Different-culture-read doesn’t just mean black or Asian (I’m white), but nondisabled, disabled, MM, space aliens, etc., seeing the world through a different lens. Here are two of my favorites:

AJ Llewellyn wrote a short story about two men falling in love in Hawaii after the island became its own independent country again. I can’t remember the title, but this was a sampling of another culture, complete with words I had to look up to understand (which is one of my favorite parts of a book, no matter the type).

Blood Sorn 1: Salva Me is by Autumn Montague and features a Japanese-born man in England during the Regency Era. He’s a living vampire and was born by a rare female vampire who’s Japanese. The book is full of Japanese and English history, including prejudices of the time and how the heroes defeat these.

As for what I’ve written, well, Compassion Fatigue and its sequel, Independence Fatigue, star a Japanese American man and a white man who is also deaf. As they bond, their cultural differences come out, and so does their passion.

Compassion Fatigue (Marisburg Chronicles 1)

Amazon
Changeling Press
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

My other favorite is a new release, an F/F story about an all-female orchestra in the Washington, DC, area where two women meet. Both are influenced by their cultures (a second-generation immigrant and a military brat), come together, fall apart, and hopefully, in the end, find love in each others’ arms. This is called Les Orchestrations 1: Reed My Lips.

Until March, take care of each other!

–Emily Carrington
“A moment in darkness…an eternity with a lover.”