Author: Read with Pride

Sydney Harbour during World War II wasn’t just a strategic naval base: it was a crucible of connections, fleeting moments, and stolen kisses under the shadow of uncertainty. When American sailors began flooding into Sydney in 1942, the port city transformed into a vibrant, chaotic melting pot where thousands of young men from different corners …

Waiting for the Tide: Australia's Wartime PortsRead More

War has a way of stripping everything down to what matters most. When bombs fall and empires crumble, love doesn’t wait for permission, it just happens. And during the liberation of Italy between 1943 and 1945, amidst the rubble of fascism and the chaos of Allied advance, countless untold stories of forbidden romance bloomed in …

Vines and Victory: Romance During the Italian LiberationRead More

There’s something about bombs falling from the sky that puts everything into perspective. When the sirens wailed across London during the Blitz, people had seconds to make a choice: take shelter or take your chances. But for some men loving men in 1940s London, the air raid shelters became more than just refuges from German …

Love in the Air Raid Shelters: London Under the BlitzRead More

History has a way of hiding its most intimate stories in the margins. Between the official war records and sanitized accounts of battles lies another narrative, one of connection, tenderness, and quiet rebellion against a world determined to keep certain loves invisible. Welcome to the Western Front, 1916. Where mud, blood, and fear created an …

Trenches and Tender Moments: WWI's Quiet BondsRead More

There’s something achingly romantic about Berlin in the 1920s: a city that sparkled with sequins and champagne while dancing on the edge of an abyss. For a brief, glorious moment between the collapse of Imperial Germany and the rise of the Third Reich, Berlin became the queer capital of the world. It was a place …

Cabarets and Courtesies: Berlin's Weimar TwilightRead More

www.readwithpride.com Picture this: the USS Enterprise cutting through the Pacific waters, 1943. Below deck, in the cramped quarters where sailors sleep stacked like sardines, two men exchange a glance that lasts a second too long. That look: charged with everything they can’t say: could cost them everything. Their careers. Their freedom. Maybe even their lives. …

Anchored Hearts: Gay Sailors in the Pacific TheaterRead More

Imagine falling in love while your entire world is crumbling. Now imagine that love itself could get you killed, not just by the Nazi occupiers hunting your Resistance cell, but potentially by your own comrades. Welcome to occupied Paris, 1940-1944, where being gay and being a freedom fighter meant living with secrets layered upon secrets, …

Secrets and Silhouettes: The Paris ResistanceRead More

History rarely tells the whole story. And when it comes to LGBTQ+ lives during wartime, the silence is deafening. We’ve been digging deep into Read with Pride’s historical MM romance collection, exploring stories that imagine what life was like for queer men in some of history’s most challenging periods. Today, we’re looking at a particularly …

Duty and Devotion: Inside the Imperial Japanese ArmyRead More

The North African desert in 1941 wasn’t just hot, it was a different world entirely. British soldiers stationed in Libya and Egypt found themselves in an endless expanse of sand, where temperatures soared to unbearable highs during the day and plummeted at night. There were no pubs, no dance halls, no weekend passes home. Just …

Sand and Solidarity: The North African CampaignRead More

When you think about World War II romance, your mind probably doesn’t immediately jump to the frozen hell of the Eastern Front. And honestly? Fair. The Eastern Front was one of the most brutal theaters of war in human history: temperatures plummeting to -40°C, supply lines collapsing, and death lurking around every snow-covered corner. But …

Winter Whispers: The Eastern Front's Hidden LoveRead More

Some symbols carry weight beyond words. The pink triangle is one of them: a piece of fabric that started as a mark of persecution and transformed into a beacon of resistance, memory, and ultimately, pride. For those who wore it unwillingly in the darkest chapter of modern history, it represented unimaginable suffering. For the LGBTQ+ …

Strength in the Shadows: The Resilience of the Pink TriangleRead More

The vast Canadian wilderness became an unexpected backdrop for thousands of love stories during the World Wars, stories that couldn’t be told openly, but burned just as fiercely in the hearts of young men facing an uncertain future. When Mountains Witnessed What History Forgot Picture this: It’s 1916, and you’re a young man standing on …

Far From the Front: Training Grounds in CanadaRead More

Imagine this: It’s 1942, the monsoon rains are beating down on Calcutta’s colonial streets, and somewhere in a dimly lit room, two men risk everything for stolen moments together. One wears the crisp uniform of a British officer; the other, the simple cotton of a local clerk. Their love isn’t just forbidden by the rigid …

Forbidden Monsoon: The British Raj During WWIIRead More

December 6, 1941. Hawaii. The sun sets over Waikiki Beach in shades of tangerine and gold, palm trees swaying in the warm trade winds. Sailors and servicemen fill the streets of Honolulu, laughing, drinking, enjoying their Saturday night liberty. For two men among the thousands stationed at Pearl Harbor, this tropical paradise offered something beyond …

Before the Storm: Paradise and Pearl HarborRead More

Behind the iron gates of Bletchley Park, 12,000 brilliant minds worked in absolute secrecy during World War II. Their mission? To crack the seemingly unbreakable German Enigma code. But while they were deciphering enemy messages, some were also guarding secrets far more personal: secrets of forbidden love in an era when being gay could destroy …

The Enigma of Love: Code Breakers at Bletchley ParkRead More

When we think about World War II love stories, we usually picture the classic goodbye kiss on a train platform or the tearful reunion when soldiers came home. But some of the most profound connections forged during the war happened in places history books rarely mention, aboard merchant ships crossing the Atlantic, where the ocean …

Rough Seas, Quiet Ties: The Merchant Marines at WarRead More

There’s something profoundly ironic about Greece during World War II. Here was a country that gave the world Achilles and Patroclus, Sacred Band of Thebes, and symposiums where love between men was celebrated in philosophy and poetry: suddenly occupied by forces that would persecute those same expressions of love with brutal efficiency. The Nazis didn’t …

Ancient Echoes, Modern Fears: Resistance in GreeceRead More

www.readwithpride.com When we think about wartime love stories, we often picture tearful goodbyes at train stations or letters penned by candlelight. But there’s another kind of love that bloomed in the darkest corners of World War II, the kind forged in safe houses, whispered in coded messages, and sealed with acts of extraordinary courage. The …

Safe Harbors: The Underground Railroad of WWIIRead More

The smell of antiseptic never quite masked the metallic tang of blood. Canvas tents flapped in the wind while shells exploded in the distance: close enough to rattle your teeth, far enough that you kept working. Field hospitals during wartime weren’t places for the faint of heart. But for some men, these makeshift sanctuaries of …

Healing Hands, Hidden Hearts: Medics on the Front LinesRead More

The war was over. Cities lay in ruins, millions were displaced, and the world was trying to piece itself back together: one shattered fragment at a time. But for gay men who had found love in the chaos of war, the aftermath brought a different kind of battle: finding each other again in a world …

Building from Ashes: Love Among the DisplacedRead More