A Kind of Honesty

A Kind of Honesty is one of Lane Hayes’s queer contemporary romance novels, possibly part of her A Kind of Stories series, working in the territory she has been mining across her catalogue for over a decade. Hayes has built her reputation on contemporary queer romance with low angst and patient plotting, and the A Kind of Honesty title fits the kind of emotional center that her novels often build around.

The A Kind of Stories series, if this novel is part of it, has been one of Hayes’s connected projects, with each book focused on a different couple working through the kind of emotional realities that the wider series takes seriously. Hayes uses these connected series to develop a wider cast of characters whose appearances across multiple books reward longtime readers, with friendships, family connections, and the kind of supporting world that keeps her catalogue feeling lived in rather than disconnected. The A Kind of Honesty premise points to the central concern of the novel. Two characters whose situations have required various kinds of hiding, dissembling, or careful self presentation, who eventually have to confront the honesty that the relationship is going to require if anything is going to actually develop between them.

Lane Hayes writes contemporary queer romance with the kind of emotional honesty and patient plotting that her readers return to her for. Her dialogue is sharp, her sensual scenes serve the relationship rather than substitute for it, and her endings tend to feel earned because she has done the work of building the case for the relationship.

What distinguishes Hayes from a lot of her peers is the warmth of her supporting casts and the patience of her plotting. Her books are not the longest in the genre and they do not lean on extended dark themes, but they take the time to make the central romance feel earned. Her couples talk to each other like adults rather than miscommunicate their way through three quarters of the book.

For longtime Lane Hayes fans, A Kind of Honesty is a satisfying entry into her connected catalogue. For new readers, the standalone nature of the central romance means the book can be picked up without significant prior context, though readers who follow her work will get the additional pleasure of recognizing recurring characters. Readers who enjoy Riley Hart, N.R. Walker, Garrett Leigh, or Sloane Kennedy will find similar warmth in Hayes’s catalogue.