Cat Sebastian seems to be everywhere right now. She is like Rachel Reid, one of those cis women writing gay m/m romance that hits with an audience of other cis women. This is a whole ass trend, and it’s been going on for so long that maybe it’s no longer a trend but now a regular part of publishing.

Anyway, Cat Sebastian. Her books have long been on my radar: They’re on best-of romance lists, all over social media and podcasts, and come up in good, old fashioned in-person conversation. I was looking to get out of my romance slump, so I put a library hold on We Could Be So Good, her most recommended book.

I genuinely enjoyed this book. It’s a sweet love story about two reporters working for a major NYC paper in the 1950s. They start as friends and become something more. I’m a sucker for a New York book. I’m a sucker for a mid-century setting. I’m a sucker for plucky journalists.

But this book truly surprised me in its queer Italian American representation. One of the protagonists is Nick Russo, a handsome gumshoe with a full head of dark, curly hair and a mama who constantly asks him when he’s gonna bring a nice girl over. (Spoiler: Nick is not interested in girls.) He has a homophobic brother who is the walking embodiment of il machismo Italiano. He has an endearing nephew who is bullied at his all-boys Catholic school. He has a table full of zie wearing all black.

I enjoyed the romance, but what I really wanted was more of Nick’s story — more of him navigating his family and their expectations, his risky reporting on crooked cops, his relationship with his nephew. I’ve been so starved of stories about Italian Americans that are about anything other than the mafia that I’ll take these crumbs.

Last year, I started seeking out Italian American women writers, and now I need to find Italian American queer writers, too. It feels like a slow excavation, this discovery of my own literary tradition. I am slowly working my way through Helen Barolini’s bibliography and the NYPL’s reading list for Italian American Heritage Month. But sometimes it comes when I least expect it. Genre fiction has some of the best contemporary IA stories — Jo Piazza’s airport thriller The Sicilian Inheritance and Cara Bastone’s romance novel Promise Me Sunshine. (Yes, we share a last name. We might be distant cousins. I’m serious. I would love to confirm this.)

And I can now add Cat Sebastian to that list. I’m grateful to her for giving me something I hadn’t read before, even if what I took from this book isn’t what most readers take. And I’ll gladly read more of her work. I can always use a happy ending these days.