Lovers Leap

Lovers Leap is a 2016 gay romance novel by British author J.L. Merrow. Set near the Isle of Wight on the southern coast of England, it concerns two men who fall in love: Michael, a bisexual man freshly out of a relationship with a woman, and Rufus, a chef, who is gay. Like Merrow’s other novels, the plot development takes a back seat to characterization and romance. For its abundance of sexual scenes laden with humor, it has been categorized as soft pornography. The book, along with Merrow’s other work, has drawn criticism from some gay critics, who have argued that its accounts of gay life are inauthentic and reductive and that it provides caricatures of gay identity based on the assumptions and imagination of a female author with no lived experience of her subject.

Lovers Leap begins with a rough turn in Michael’s relationship with his girlfriend. On February 29, a Leap Day, after a fight at a pier on the island that culminates in his girlfriend shoving him off the pier, Michael swims to the beach. Rufus, seeing him emerge from the ocean, is immediately turned on. After some casual banter, Rufus invites him to his place to give Michael some fresh clothes and to escape the chilly air. Impulsively, Michael writes his phone number on Rufus’s forehead. When they part ways, they separately wish they had not done so so soon. Luckily, it turns out that Michael is staying at Rufus’s family’s bed and breakfast hotel. The two get to know each other for a few days, but then Michael says farewell and returns to the English mainland.

Michael continues thinking about Rufus but feels shame about his bisexuality. The shame is made worse by his memories of coming out, which strained his relationship with his mother. Rufus’s parents, in contrast, are entirely supportive of his sexual orientation. Eventually, Rufus decides to go to the mainland, where he rarely ventures, to find Michael. When Rufus finds him, Michael confesses that he feels more than a sexual attraction to him. The middle part of the novel concerns their developing relationship as Michael deals with his intolerant and judgmental mother. Eventually, he learns to let go of her expectations of him. Rufus and Michael date happily for several years. The novel closes exactly four years after they first met—on the following Leap Day. Having overcome several roadblocks in their relationship, Rufus and Michael decide to move in together.