Adventures In Love & Time Books in Order

The Adventures In Love & Time books collect some of Kerry Greenwood's most unabashedly romantic and erotic writing. Rather than crime or quest narratives, these volumes focus on love stories between men, told across a sweep of historical and sometimes speculative settings.

Herotica is the starting point, gathering short tales that move from ancient Egypt and classical Greece through medieval Europe, the age of sail, and into imagined futures. The men at the centre of each story are soldiers, scribes, travellers, priests, scholars, pirates, and occasionally beings who are not entirely human, but all are treated with the same mix of affection, sensuality, and respect. Historical detail matters; Greenwood clearly enjoys evoking the texture of clothing, food, and architecture, even when the scenes themselves are very intimate.

Herotica 2 continues in a similar vein, with stories that range from Troy and other legendary sites to almost modern periods. The connecting thread is not a shared character or plot, but the promise that, whatever perils the protagonists face, the endings will land closer to happy than tragic. War, exile, and magic all turn up, but so do domestic moments and quiet jokes.

Mytherotica leans more heavily into myth and legend, playing with gods, heroes, and monsters from various traditions. Here Greenwood reshapes familiar tales so that male male desire, which is often hinted at or coded in classical sources, can stand openly at the centre of the narrative. Readers who know their mythology will recognise beats and names; those who do not can enjoy them simply as lush, fantastical romances.

Across the three volumes the tone is unapologetically sex positive. The stories do not shy away from explicit encounters, but they are rarely purely about conquest or shock. Consent, mutual pleasure, and the idea that two people can find a measure of safety and joy together, even in dangerous times, are recurring themes. Humour and wordplay sit alongside tenderness.

Because these are collections, they can be dipped into in any order, though reading the volumes in sequence makes it easier to see how Greenwood experiments with different periods and tones. They will particularly suit readers who like their historical fiction more interested in emotions and relationships than in battles and court politics, and who are happy for fantasy and time travel to slip in around the edges when the story calls for it.