TJ Alexander Books in Order

TJ Alexander writes romance that makes room for trans and nonbinary people to fall in love, make mistakes, and still get the happy ending. They are from Florida, earned an MA in writing and publishing from Emerson College in Boston, and now live in New York City with their wife, cats, and a crowd of houseplants.

Writing started early. Alexander has said they were always making up odd little stories as a kid, and fiction became a safe place while they were growing up queer.

That sense of refuge still runs through the books.

Romance, though, took a little longer. As a younger reader, Alexander loved love stories but often felt shut out by the genre's rigid ideas about gender. Part of what makes their work feel so warm is that it comes from writing the books they wanted to find on the shelf.

Before publishing novels, Alexander studied the business side of books at Emerson and later worked in social media, which turned out to be perfect fuel for a debut set in the messy, performative world of online food media. They are also an amateur baker, so the kitchen details in Chef's Kiss come with real enthusiasm. That first novel pairs perfectionist pastry chef Simone Larkspur with cheerful nonbinary kitchen manager Ray Lyton, and readers tend to like the banter, the desserts, and the way the story holds onto queer joy without pretending the world is simple.

Alexander kept cooking with Chef's Choice, which gives side character Luna O'Shea her own fake-dating romance with Jean-Pierre, a trans man trying to inherit his family's culinary empire. Then came Second Chances in New Port Stephen, a sun-soaked Christmas romance about trans man Eli Ward going back to his Florida hometown and running into his high school ex, Nick Wu. In Triple Sec, Alexander shifts from kitchens to cocktail bars and writes a polyamorous romance that is funny, sexy, and deeply interested in how queer community can make love feel bigger, not smaller.

Food, work, friendship, and chosen family show up again and again.

Then Alexander moved into historical romance and did not leave the trans characters at the door. A Gentleman's Gentleman follows eccentric Lord Christopher Eden and his valet James Harding through a slow-burn Regency love story, while A Lady for All Seasons turns toward schemes, gossip, and a genderfluid poet in 1820 London. In June 2026, A Gentleman's Gentleman won a Lambda Literary Award, which felt like a plainspoken sign that the audience for these stories is real and growing.

Across the bibliography, the appeal is pretty consistent. Alexander likes sharp humor, emotionally cautious people, awkward sincerity, and settings with a bit of pressure built in, a test kitchen, a hometown at Christmas, a London Season, a glamorous bar. The books can be tender and very funny in the same chapter, and they keep circling back to a simple idea: queer people deserve stories where love is not an afterthought.

That may be the clearest way to read Alexander's career so far. They write romances that know the world can be hard, but they refuse to stop there.