Patrick is a superhero well he plays a super hero anyway. Filming in England brings him to a bar with a drag queen that catches his eye but could America's boyfriend actually have one of his own?

This was such an interesting read and the drag names are brilliant and hilarious. Especially Will's. The plot is sweet, fun but does focus on the way the world still sees drag queens and the lgbtq+ community. The ending was perfect and I loved how it all came together. We also learn the story of the creators of KIssmet adding a little more depth and tying everything together. I really liked Patrick and Will, Plus April was great too. A fun read.

This story was nothing short of enlightening, painfully truthful (in the right way), organic, and heartbreaking. “We Could Be Heroes” follows Patrick, an actor whose career is on the rise, especially because he is filming the second installment of his superhero movie, which is bound to lock him into stardom. We then meet Will, a bookseller by day and Grace Anatomy by night, his drag persona. Patrick finds himself at the local gay bar, The Village, on a night off with his colleagues. Things take a turn for the worse when Patrick is recognized by the MC, and the crowd goes wild. In a scene of craziness, Patrick is saved by Grace Anatomy in all her redhead glory. This sparks the beginning of a long journey that both characters are not ready for… or are they? We are also taken down a parallel storyline that dates back to the 1950s, where we watch the creators of the “Captain Kismet” comics gain their inspiration and how it ties back to the present day.

My favorite part of this novel was how the author compared the similarities between being a celebrity and being gay in a way that can be understood by all readers. Celebrities are public figures. They must act a certain way and be “role models” for their fans. They are not allowed to be sloppy, unattractive, poor, have their own opinions, and forget about having any privacy. One simple mistake can tank their reputation and career. The same can be said about the gay community. We are not allowed to be outgoing, feminine, masculine, loud, proud, experimental, etc. This results in us being called names and discriminated against. A long list can be found in this novel. We are confined to our society's expectations of us, whether they are right or wrong. This stood out to me and made many sections of this novel more meaningful to me when reading.

Actor falls in love with a drag queen, who wouldn't love this. That is what drew me to the book.
I liked Will an up and coming Drag Queen straight from the start. Will's sassiness had me laughing out loud, but he was endearing.
Patrick whilst a famous actor did not come across as one of those spoilt actors who demanded everything, but a person who when he found a friend, he kept them close to his heart and whilst I understand why he had to hide that he was gay, he shouldn't have had to. But slowly thanks to Will, Will's found family and Patrick's close work colleagues he could be himself.
This was a quick read that kept interested from page 1. I must admit I was a bit confused at the first time line swap as I was not expected it and I was too wrapped up with Will. Whist at first I thought the story about Charles and Iris wouldn't fit, I quickly changed my mind when more of their story was told.
However the very best thing about this book is that it is set in Birmingham, my excitement when I read place like Hurst street, the Floozie in the Jacuzzi and I have spent a many a time in the Village Inn with friends. As a Brummie living in Yorkshire I loved every minute of this and every time a place was mentioned I knew exactly where they were.
This is a book I will reread and it will be one I will keep recommending.

This book is definitely all tell and no show. Pretty predictable, as well, sadly. The queer joy tried to hook me in, but couldn't do much, sadly. The gen-z slang used was just... Weird.

This is a very short book, only 288 pages, and a gay romance which is not the sort of thing I usually read but the plot was sort of geeky so I thought I'd give it a try. The general storyline was pretty much as expected: two people meet and get coupled up, there's an argument and misunderstanding so they go their separate ways, but later on realise that they've been idiots and they make up. There's a nice twist with one of the couple being an actor in a recent series of superhero films but closeted, while his partner is a bookseller by day and drag queen by night. There's also a culture clash with the actor, Patrick being an American in England, specifically Birmingham, and his intended being a Brummy. It does make it very much less sexy if you picture Will talking in a thick Birmingham accent! In addition, there's a little bit of a second timeline every so often which gives some of the history of the creation of the superhero character that Patrick is portraying. I was little torn over that because it did give important backstory, as well as presumably being an accurate portrayal of comic history, but the characters in that timeline weren't as substantial or engaging. I did like that the reality of homophobia and Transphobia were included, so it wasn't all sunshine and roses. I can see that some people might not like that but I think it's an important aspect of LGBT+-ness. Overall it's a quick and easy read, fairly short but entertaining. I think it would make a good Netflix film.

This book was abjectly terrible. Aside from having a complete lack of plot, the most boring characters I’ve read in months, and bizarre writing and stylistic choices, it was dull beyond words. I also did not vibe with the casual drug use, horrible, bitchy and uninteresting side characters, and complete lack of atmospheric grounding. SUPPOSEDLY this is set in Birmingham, but all the author does is tell you a street name and occasionally say Brum. As another reviewer said, this book is all tell, no show. It’s only redeeming feature is the queer joy and representation, which was not enough to keep me interested

I had seen some reviews for this one online so I was delighted to be able to read an early copy. Honestly I wanted to love this one because the premise sounded great, but unfortunately it was just ok for me. I was predictable in parts as well, and it just sort of missed the mark for me sadly.

This book is a joy. Patrick is closeted and doing his best to be the 'America's heart throb' that his agent is building him up to be. Things come undone a bit when he goes clubbing in a Birmingham gay bar with his work colleagues and is rescued by the drag queen Grace Anatomy. (I love the drag queen names!). Will is Grace Anatomy when he's performing. He is instantly attracted to Patrick - who wouldn't be? He's a literal movie star with movie star good looks.

They meet again and become friends and then more to each other. This is a lovely rom com with conflict baked in because Will and Patrick's relationship has to be kept a secret.

I enjoyed reading about the found/ chosen family that surrounds Will. Patrick has that too, to an extent, but he doesn't realise it until late in the book. The book has some serious things to say about being free to be yourself and the physical danger queer people face just by existing. I really liked the anti-protest during drag queen story hour in the library. Both Will and Patrick were realistic and relatable characters.

There is a secondary historical storyline about the people who created comic book that Patrick's character is based on. This was interesting too (and the unfairness of the situation, infuriating).

I raced through this book because, despite touching on some serious themes, this book is a lighthearted and funny romcom. Perfect for people who enjoyed Boyfriend Material.

I received an ARC from Netgalley. Thank you, Harper North.

I loved this, a really funny gay romantic comedy between Patrick, a closet Hollywood actor playing superhero Captain Kismet, and Will, a drag queen/bookseller. They meet on location in Birmingham.
Will and his friends are great, as are Patrick's fellow cast members.
This is intertwined with a bittersweet second story about the lives of Charles and Iris, the artist and writer of the 1940s Captain Kismet comics on which the film is based.

This was an excellently fun gay rom-com with a great cast of characters that jumped of the page, which left me wanting it longer just so I could read about everyone hanging out.

This book centres on the romantic relationship between Patrick, a closeted Hollywood actor and Will, a book seller and drag queen from Birmingham (uk) who meet while Patrick is filming a superhero movie, “Kismet 2” in Will’s home town. Occasionally the chapters go back through time to the story of Charles and Iris, the original writer and illustrator of the Kismet comic, I found these parts intriguing and more and more exciting as the story developed and you understood their significance.

I felt like Patrick fell for Will so quickly, not just as a person but the idea of him and his life and that he so desperately wishes to have that sort of freedom for himself, to be his queer self but he’s afraid and it’s that fear and the pressure and sometimes shame from different parts of his life that prevents him from being that person. Will is authentic, sarcastic, funny and at times chaotic which I found very enjoyable to read.

I smiled and laughed so much reading this book, there were sad moments too but i felt like the queer joy and humour in this story really shines through. You are willing these two characters to get it together and ultimately choose each other and hoping that Patrick will ultimately choose to be himself.

At first I was confused by the Charles and Iris story and how it fit in but by the end I felt like it was a clever addition and I would have gladly read a whole book just about their story! I would have loved to learn even more about them.

For me the heart of this story is self discovery, love and acceptance, not only of yourself but of situations and people you cannot change. Can you be brave enough to be your own hero when the world would rather you be their version of one?

Unfortunately this one didn’t work for me at all! It’s a shame because I’m a sucker for a romance and it’s always bonus points when it has solid queer representation (and this had tons of it!) but I really did not enjoy this very much.

It’s full of social media talk and catchphrases (all of the ‘slays!’ and ‘check your privilege!’) which gave the writing a very immature feel, without actually having very much more to say, other than homophobia = bad.

Moreover, the story itself is very very far-fetched and, although I understand that with cheesy romances I have to suspend my disbelief, I just did not believe in Patrick and Will’s original attraction to each other. They had several meet cutes but none of them explained why Patrick, who had always been quite reluctant to put himself out there, suddenly took an interest in Will, seemingly out of nowhere, and kept coming back to see him. I mean, trying to make me believe that you could randomly meet a movie star in a bookshop, that the movie star would come back two days later just to see you, and that shortly after that he would just decide without much prompting or explanation to come eat lasagne with your family before finally falling madly in love with you…It’s all a bit much.

To be completely honest, this book really strongly reminded me of my high school days when I was scrolling tumblr, tiptoeing for the very first time into unrefined queer politics and reading Chris Evans fan fiction. (although this is not a diss to fan fiction in any way whatsoever! fan fiction has a very important place in my heart and in the literary world!)

It’s a a lot of fun, highly readable, and scratches an itch, but also quite silly, superficial, unrealistic and frustrating.

A bookseller who moonlights as a drag queen meets a closeted actor who's in town filming a superhero movie.

This could/should have been a sweetly predictable meetcute, but it unfortunately fell flat at every turn. I was so excited by the comfort-blankie-esque premise and instead I got whatever this is.

Reader, I really hated this book. I'm giving it two stars purely because of the queer representation and because it lacked grammatical errors. But like a character quotes, the bar is so low, it's in He'll.

So what went wrong?

What didn't.

Firstly, this is ostensibly set in Birmingham, but it could have been set on the moon or in your back yard: you'd never know the difference. That's because the author manages to miraculously avoid any actual descriptions of just about anything. Whatever happened to show, don't tell? This is all tell, no show. There's zero atmosphere, zero local anything. They walk down A Street to A Bookstore and then go to A Club and/or The Hotel. ... actually, that might be more descriptive than this book.

Secondly, the characters are utterly unlikeable and downright stereotypical. Will and Patrick are both utterly vapid and not just boring but so boring as to be forgettable. There's zero chemistry. They're not even actually into each other, but at least there's some chemsex to ease the way, I guess?

Thirdly, there's no plot. Normally the meetcute or the closeted character coming out are the climactic events, but here even those are so watered down they have no impact.

Fourthly, there's an attempt to shoehorn a side story, set in the past, about the authors of the superhero franchise. This is just jarring and smacks of filler.

And lastly, the insistence on using apostrophes instead of quotation marks for all the dialogue - and this book is nothing but pages of pointless, shallow dialogue strung together.

I'm really sorry, but I can't recommend this book, as I don't even know who the target audience would be. It's so many words, and yet no plot, character growth, or even a scenic backdrop to patch them together. The author needed an outline and to focus on depth, and a good editor to wrangle this into any semblance of storytelling.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thank you to NetGalley, HarperNorth, and PJ Ellis for a Galley of this in return for an honest review.

This was an immaculate mix of campy humour, subtle political statement, and heart breaking emotion. Caught between a fun, and funny, superhero themed romcom, a scathing indictment of systemic homophobia, and a wrenching representation of what it is to be queer, traumatised, and queer & traumatised, We Could Be Heroes is a wonderful novel filled with humour.

Ellis has taken care to craft characters who behave like people, which is something I adore in novels. Will and Patrick couldn't be more human if they tried, and (without spoiling anything) the other characters we meet across timelines do the same! I did just say timelines. Unexpectedly, this novel is somewhat epistolary, and features snapshots from the lives of people in the 1950s - this for me was a bonus, but if that kind of changing about isn't something you enjoy in books then all I can say is it's a real shame you'll be missing out on this one!

I really loved this. I had a lot of fun, and once I was in it I was consumed. It just misses the 5 star mark for me, because I do think some of the more intimate scenes were a little confused. There was enough to tell you what was happening, but they were all a little rushed or vague. For me that kind of half-open / not-quite-closed door intimacy, where detail is there but also withheld, is never really enjoyable. It's too much for closed door, not enough for open, and I always find it weakens the moment a little. It's a small thing, and really just a me problem!

Overall, brilliant. A fun, feisty, colourful, unapologetically queer love story. A true delight to read. 4.5 stars.

I'm leaning away from contemporary romance at the moment, but this book honestly made me reconsider that. It's cute, easy to read and enjoyable. It plays with queer culture and doesn't shy away from some of the worse aspects of it, but still feels lighthearted.

I wish there'd been more of the historical story; I could truly read a whole book about those characters.

I read 2 banger novels back to back this month; both had so much to say about queerness, queer joy, and the community that exists for people across the queer spectrum. Phillip Ellis’ sophomore novel was the first of the two; it’s a gorgeous story of two men who fall in love, overcoming all obstacles - it had me kicking my feet and giggling, but I learned a lot from it too, and isn’t that what we all want, in the end?

Patrick Lake is a popular, handsome Hollywood actor who is currently the leading man in Captain-America style blockbuster, filming in Bermingham. Patrick is America’s sweetheart - he’s fuckin’ adorable, to be fair - but he’s gay, and coming out would have massive ramifications for his career.
But when he meets bookseller-slash-drag performer Will Wright/Grace Anatomy, the chemistry between the two is electric, meaning Patrick has to make a big decision. Will, for his part, refuses to even consider going back to the closet - he is out and proud, and his refusal to tone himself down to fit into a heteronormative world is a wonderful element of the book.

The second part of the novel is set in 1949, and follows the two queer creators of Captain Kismet. They are living happily enough in a sham marriage, but both want more, too. This second storyline acts as a bridge between the past and present, and it’s a wonderful reminder of the importance of remembering our queer forefeathers (and mothers) who paved the way for people like Patrick and Will living happily ever after.

Phillip Ellis has an outrageously charming writing style; We Could Be Heroes is filled with banter, jokes, references and wordplay that made it so much fun to read. I laughed out loud several times - not something all books do for me - but my heart was tugged at more than once too. Ellis does a fantastic job of digging into issues in the queer community that aren’t necessarily the mainstream ones, like hate crimes, right-wing bigots attacking drag queen story hours, kink and the need to flatten yourself to be “accepted” by the straights. Will’s relationship with his own flamboyance was wonderful; I loved how self-assured he was in himself. The found family elements are great - all the characters leap off the page, not just the two romantic leads Special shout out to Audra, the mad bitch.
A lovely, lovely book that I will be pressing into the hands of anyone and everyone once its published. I just adored it.

'They were soulmates, in their own way.'

This book made me laugh, cry and everything in between.

We Could Be Heroes by PJ Ellis is a split-timeline romance that in the present day follows Patrick and Will. Patrick is a rising actor, star of Captain Kismet. Will is a bookseller by day, but by night is the drag queen Grace Anatomy. When fate seems to throw them together again, they can't deny the sparks flying, and the unconcious flirting on both sides. But superstar Patrick Lake can't be interested in Will from Birmingham can he?
In 1948, Captain Kismet is the star comic putting Wonder Magazine on the map, but creators Iris and Charles are hiding a secret, something that in 1948, could get them locked up or worse. As Charles and Iris' story runs parallel to Will and Patrick's can they overcome the barriers in front of the to get their happily ever after?

I can't describe how much I enjoyed this book. I love dual time line stories, and this one is one of the best I've read. Charles and Iris' story was so cleverly entwined with Will and Patrick, that it only enhanced the story, there are times when dual stories can get confusing, but that never happened here. While their story wasn't overpowering, the time dedicated to their story gave it the most interesting arc, and I was always wondering what was going to happen next with their story, whilst also wondering how Patrick and Will's story was going to go. The switching beween the two timelines was always done at the best time, that made it so hard to put the book down.

Character driven stories are some of the best, and the characters in this book were so fun. I found myself being able to relate to most of the characters. Will and Patrick, whilst so different from each other, complimented each other so well. Although he is the movie star, Patrick was quiet and reserved, which made him so likeable, whilst Will was larger than life, but never in a way that was overbearing, and it made me want to have someone like him be my best friend. Even the side characters were intresting, and it made it so much better to read. Iris and Charles really stole my heart. I thought their relationship was so interesting and I really enjoyed reading them. Ellis being able to craft two different stories with two seperate set of characters and plots, and have the reader care about them all, and have them entwine at the end, was so well done that I can't praise it enough.

Whilst I really enjoyed this book, I wish there had been a bit more to the 1948 timeline, I found myself wanting to get through that bit of the story, and it felt as though there was alot of time inbetween the chapters that were set in the time. I also wish that there was more of Audra, Hector and Patrick's friends. Whilst I get the idea that they don't know him as well, I would've liked to have seen them progress more, and just see them more in general. Any time they were on page, I really enjoyed seeing them.

The best thing about this book was the way Ellis managed to balance tough issues with humor and having neither be overshadowed. This book touches on many current issues that the LGBTQ+ face, such as drag queens participating in story hour, the protests that make them unsafe, hate crimes, not feeling like its safe to come out, but it still keeps that balance of being funny and lighthearted, without detracting how serious these issues are.

Overall, I really emjoyed this book, I give it 4 stars.

Thanks to NetGalley, PJ Ellis, and HarperNorth, for the opportunity to read this early copy. All thoughts are my own.

I loved loved loved this book so very much. I was initially drawn to it because of the similarity to Red, White and Royal Blue, but was quickly swept up in the unique love affair of Patrick and Will. Seeing the author’s dedication at the end to The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Klay, their inspiration, and one of my all time favourite books, was just the icing on the cake.

I'm so disappointed that this has to be a DNF. Now, don't get it wrong, I'm not giving up on this author altogether - I gave his first book five stars and really enjoyed it - BUT. Having gotten about 15% of the way into this book, I just can't keep going. It's two different books that have been jammed together for a? reason? Honestly, the plot set in the 40s was far more interesting than the present day one. A queer comic book writer in the 40s creating a superhero and discovering queer joy? There's a book I'd pick up in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, we also get a lot of meandering story set in the present day which is covering far too many themes (it's split narrative between the two male leads) to then also add in a flashback plot. Pick a lane and stay in it - the writing suffers as a result.

This was a super fun and lighthearted read. I adored the main characters and found myself rooting for them and their happiness. I also haven’t read a pairing like this before, a superhero actor and drag queen, and loved this element! Their romance was sweet and entertaining and the entire thing felt like a love letter to superhero movies, albeit with more LGBTQ+ love. Cute!