Romance author Gabriella Gamez calls Kiss Me, Maybe cover a 'beautiful convergence of queerness and my culture'

Gabriella Gamez knew exactly what she wanted her book cover to look like.

The romance author (The Next Best Fling) wanted to be sure that her sophomore novel, Kiss Me, Maybe, reflected both the queerness of its main characters, as well as the Tejano culture at the heart of the book.

"I was actually very particular about what I wanted this cover to look like, which is funny because I was not this way at all with my first book," she tells Entertainment Weekly. "There’s a scene in Kiss Me Maybe where Krystal is placing a flower crown on Angela’s head during Fiesta, and as I was actively writing it I knew I wanted the cover to convey that scene in some way."

"Fiesta is already a colorful event on it’s own, but I also wanted pride colors depicted in some way (peep the flower crowns!)," she continues. "Altogether, it's this beautiful convergence of queerness and my culture that I can’t wait for people to discover, especially people who share my identities."

EW has an exclusive first look at the cover of Kiss Me, Maybe, which hits shelves on May 6. The novel follows librarian Angela Gutierrez, who has never been kissed. She goes viral after posting a video about her late bloomer status and ace identity, leading her to concoct a scavenger hunt, the winner of which will earn her first kiss.

Krystal Ramirez, a hot bartender and Angela's longtime unrequited crush, volunteers to help Angela pull of the scavenger hunt and find true love. But the more time they spend together, the stronger their connection grows — and Angela starts to question whether she wants to go through with the scavenger hunt. But is she falling for a woman who can never love her back?

Check out the cover below and read on for more from Gamez.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: This story is based on your own experiences as a librarian aide and someone with a Mexican background. Can you elaborate on how that influenced the story and the cover design?

GABRIELLA GAMEZ: Representation in publishing is something that’s incredibly important to me, and the more specific you can get is all the better. Tejano influence is something I don’t see a whole lot of in publishing that I’m very happy to write as a Mexican American in Texas, and I’m always incredibly stoked when readers can recognize those elements as well as themselves in my books. I’m hoping those readers will be able to clock the Fiesta San Antonio backdrop on the cover immediately and continue to see themselves in Angela’s book. 

As for the library influence, when I moved back home after college I started working at a library that was about 10 minutes from my house. I started as a library aide and eventually moved up to library assistant when I came up with the idea for the first book in what would become the Librarians in Love series. Angela herself is a library assistant who’s in school to get her Library Science degree to become a librarian. 

Where did you get the idea to have a heroine who's never been kissed?

 It’s a micro-trope in romance that I really love, and one that more people than we realize can relate to. A few years ago, I got on the side of TikTok where people are sharing their stories of what it’s like being a “late bloomer” as a fully grown adult. The oldest I came across was in their 40s, and the inexperience they describe varies from never having previously dated, been in a serious relationship, and/or been kissed for the first time. I still get a lot of those videos, but they confirmed what I already knew from talking with friends of mine that this experience (or lack thereof) is a lot more common than is generally known to people who do have romantic and sexual experience, because hello, stigma. 

Around that time, I also came across an article about a 24-year-old woman named M’Lynn Martin who went viral on TikTok for sharing her idea to have people apply to be her first kiss. She looked through the applications she received, picked one she felt good about, had her first kiss, and documented the entire process save for the actual kiss which she wanted to keep private, which is respectable. The more I thought about her story and the landscape of inexperienced adults, I started to come up with Angela’s book. What if Angela, finally ready to experience some firsts at 27, took control of her romantic life in a similar way as M'Lynn Martin, using social media as a vehicle to wade into the dating pool? What if instead of an application, Angela had people compete in a scavenger hunt to win her first kiss? And what if nothing turned out the way she originally set out for it to? 

Your heroine Angela is ace-spec. Why was it important to you to write a romance representing the asexual community?

Angela’s journey to understand her identity and where she fits on the asexual spectrum is important to me because it’s something I’ve gone through myself, though where I land on the spectrum is different than Angela. It can be incredibly isolating having an identity that no one recognizes, and because the ace spectrum is so vast it can also be one of the most misunderstood identities. The first step to rectifying that problem is more visibility. More visibility for different micro labels within the ace-spectrum, more visibility within media and publishing, and more visibility across all genres, not just romance. We still have a long way to go as far as ace-spec visibility, especially in the romance genre, but I’m hopeful that this book will reach the people it needs to and that we’ll have even more books with ace-spec leads in the next few years. 

Meanwhile Krystal identifies as bisexual. Can you tell me a bit more about the importance of bi-visibility and writing a story that includes it?

There’s so much biphobia that exists in and out of publishing, but I feel like the rise of romance books with bi leads has really helped to combat against that (or maybe it’s just easy for me to believe that because I’m safe in my small bubble where bisexuality thrives?). It’s my belief that wider visibility leads to wider understanding which leads to wider acceptance. I’m happy to be part of that movement with Krystal and more bisexual and biromantic characters in upcoming books.  

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Given how intolerant people can be nowadays, do you feel like a clinch cover with two women is its own act of rebellion in a sense?

I don’t think about intolerant people. I’m not about to start wasting my energy now by worrying about how they’ll react. The people who feel negatively about a book featuring two queer women don’t require a voice in this space—especially not when a huge percentage of romance is straight to begin with. Those people have far more options to flock to that people actively looking for queer romances, let alone BIPOC led queer romances, don’t have. Are two women on a clinch cover an act of rebellion? Maybe. But for me and for many more in the romance community, it’s about damn time.