Disability in Romance

Now you have a few books to add to your TBR, you’re welcome for the growing pile to add to the mountain 😉 Go forth and read all the joy and love disability in romance has to offer. Happy reading!


Bio: Bestselling author Mariah Ankenman lives in the beautiful Rocky Mountains with her two rambunctious children and loving spouse who is her own personal spell checker when her dyslexia gets the best of her. Mariah loves to lose herself in a world of words. Her favorite thing about writing is when she can make someone’s day a little brighter with one of her books.

Mariah was recently on the Tender and Tempting Tales podcast! Check out her episode here.

Find Mariah online and follow her to learn more about her books!

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By Mariah Ankenman

Diversify Your Bookshelf

So you want to diversify your bookshelf and add more romance books with disability rep, but you don’t know where to start? I got you, bestie!

As a disabled author, and I’ve been writing disability rep in my books for years now. I’m not the first author to write disability romance, but I am happy to add to the growing number of us who represent the disabled community in romance.

I love writing characters with disability because I want to show readers that our lives have worth. We’re not an “inspiration story” for able-bodied people. We experience love and loss like anyone else. We struggle, we succeed, and most importantly we deserve to be loved just as we are. Love doesn’t cure us, love accepts us. That’s what I aim to show in my books and so do the following authors below.

And on that note let’s get into some of my favorite romance books with great disability rep!

  1. Get a Life Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert

I am a Talia Hibbert fangirl for life! I love everything she writes, and many of her books include disability rep, but this book has a special place in my heart because the heroine, Chloe, has fibromyalgia like me. Hibbert has a way of writing characters with such familiarity and heart that they feel as if they were your best friends come to life. The care and comfort she writes in her stories stays with the reader years after you close the book.

  1. My Dear Watson series by Elm Jed

Elm Jed is a master of world building and the only author who has made me like the phrase “good girl” in a book. Their care and rawness in depicting PTSD in Autumn strikes the reader straight to their soul. You experience what the character feels on a deep level, leaving you with a better understanding of what trauma can do to a person, and how love and understanding can give someone a second lease on life they never thought possible.

  1. All Access series by Evie Mitchell

I adore this series, not only because each book represents a different disability, but because Evie Mitchell shows how disability doesn’t stop us from being sexual beings. Mitchell’s characters are real in every aspect of the word. They struggle, they succeed, and they smash! I love how Mitchell doesn’t shy away from showing that we in the disabled community are still sexual beings with desires and needs, and that we can sate those desires in the best ways!

  1. Basically Anything by Katie Mettner

Katie Mettner not only writes wonderful romance books with a variety of disabilities, but she also has some amazing resources on her website, too. If you’re looking to get into romance books with disability rep, I highly recommend adding her books to your list. You can also participate in her December of Disability reading challenge, which features a list of disabled authors writing disability romance.

  1. Backstage Night With The Billionaire by Mariah Ankenman

My latest release features an aerialist with autism and the love-cursed billionaire with ADHD who falls for her. There’s that joke that an ADHDer will find their Autistic because we click so well together (me glancing over at my AuDHD spouse in confirmation, lol), so I had to put it in a book. I love bringing disabled joy into my stories. I don’t shy away from the struggles we face in the disabled community, but I refuse to write even one book where “love cures” any disability, because we don’t need to be cured, we just need to be loved as we are.

Now you have a few books to add to your TBR, you’re welcome for the growing pile to add to the mountain 😉 Go forth and read all the joy and love disability in romance has to offer. Happy reading!


Bio: Bestselling author Mariah Ankenman lives in the beautiful Rocky Mountains with her two rambunctious children and loving spouse who is her own personal spell checker when her dyslexia gets the best of her. Mariah loves to lose herself in a world of words. Her favorite thing about writing is when she can make someone’s day a little brighter with one of her books.

Mariah was recently on the Tender and Tempting Tales podcast! Check out her episode here.

Find Mariah online and follow her to learn more about her books!

Instagram

TikTok

Facebook

Substack

Bluesky

 

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