I really enjoyed this book. Will, with his warm, chaotic energy, and Patrick who is far more introverted, bring out great things in one another and their chemistry is charming and believable. The story line was good, though I do feel like they were overstepping the hollywood stigma on same sex people a bit much- it’s pretty accepted in the industry these days. That said, being part of the “all-American” superhero franchise… it could be different. I did find the use of drugs (poppers) odd.

Mostly, I just loved the characters and the families they created for themselves. Their friends and coworkers were pretty amazing and I loved the dynamics there. Will is so sweet and charming, and so strong. I loved his character. Patrick and Will both showed character growth through the story, which I love. The characters, and the community they created, was wonderful to see. The story in itself was a fun, fast read with a lot of witt and heart. For me, it was a four star read.

⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
As far as adult content there are a few instances of drug use, language, violence and reference to hate crimes. I would say this one is geared more towards adults, maybe new adults.


I was lucky enough to recieve an eARC of this book from Netgalley and Penguin Group Putnam in exchange for an honest review. My thanks!

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 🌶️🌶️
Netgalley arc

*superhero movie star + drag queen
*dual timelines
*dual POV
*insta-love
*great side characters
*queer joy
*needed more groveling, the ending resolved way too quickly
*fun read overall

4.5

We Could Be Heroes put an interesting spin on the tried and true celebrity romance trope, creating a whole slew of characters who’s chosen family triumphed with love in times of hate. I was a bit lost at first with the time period changes to 1949, but once I realized what story Ellis was trying to tell, parallel to Will and Patrick’s newfound romance, I got invested in the lore of the Wonderverse and it’s true creators. I awarded it a 4.5 out of 5 — it did have some weak moment at the beginning of the story — but Patrick and Will were charming enough to fill the gaps in the narrative. I’m looking forward to Phillip Ellis’ future releases!

3.75 ⭐️

I definitely will be reading more from Phillip Ellis in the future.

It took me a little bit to get into this book, but that 100% was on me and not the plot or the writing. Were there parts of this book where it felt a little awkward? Yes. But overall I really enjoyed it and I thought that this book was so much fun.

Although I feel like they were both a little under developed, I loved both Patrick and Will. I really felt like they had complimented each other so well through their story. So many of their interactions had made me giggling and kicking my feet because of how sweet the two of them were. I just wanted to hug the two of them and just shrink them down to put them in my pocket. Seeing Patrick almost rediscover himself throughout the book made my heart so warm and seeing Will be unapologetically himself brought me so, so much joy.

So much of this book made me love Phillip as a person also because it's so clear that although this book is lighthearted, he cares so much about the community and the history within it. Between the variety of queer characters, the original authors of Captain Kismet, trying to erase queer spaces, hate crimes, etc.

Thank you to NetGalley and G.P. Putnam Sons for providing me an ARC copy of the book for my honest opinion.

I'm so happy that I stuck with this and switched to an audiobook. It was the perfect book to get through a slow work week. Will and Patrick are both kind of funny with some of the banter. Banter is the best thing a book can have and this book doesn't disappoint. I really enjoyed the parts with historic context for the comic Patrick's character is based off. I think it gives a nice dimension to the story and why it's so important to tell and get correct.

In We Could Be Heroes, we meet American movie star Patrick Lane who is filming his latest “Captain Kismet” film in Birmingham, England. Through a couple chance encounters, Patrick meets local bookseller and drag queen, Will, and the two start an unlikely friendship. It must be only a friendship… because Patrick is straight, right?!

I don’t think anyone will be surprised to find that sparks begin to fly between the two “friends” and they soon find themselves spending every free minute together. Each leading man comes with their supporting cast of characters/found family and we get to explore storylines about the harsh realities of the stigma and hate that still exists toward drag queens, societal pressures to be straight-presenting/closeted, and how today’s society is a mirror to how things were many decades ago. Now more than ever, queer people need to be loud and proud and that’s something this book celebrates.

The initial presentation of the multiple storylines/timelines did confuse me a bit, and I felt at times there was maybe one too many subplots trying to be explored. Not sure why, but I just wasn’t hooked into this, and took me a lot longer to read than I would’ve thought.

Overall, a feel good read on being proud in your queer identity. Thank you to NetGalley and Putnam books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

An up-and-coming American superhero movie star and a British bookseller/drag queen don’t seem like the most likely of pairs but when Patrick is in Birmingham England filming scenes for his latest movie and meets Will during a night out, something clicks. I thought Patrick was very cute when he kept turning up where he knew Will would be, trying to spend more time with him. Patrick was closeted due to the nature of his job and the morality clause in his contract and Will was very much not closeted. I liked seeing Patrick indulge that side of himself that he was forced to keep hidden. Will wasn’t super happy with having to keep everything on the down low but he was supportive and understanding. The more time Patrick spent around Will and his friends and family, the more he realized how suffocating his life had become. I enjoyed seeing him find his bravery so he could live his life authentically. There was a little drama in the later parts of the book that I didn’t love and I could have used some more groveling as a result but ultimately I was pleased by how it all turned out.

In addition to Patrick and Will’s story, the story of the creators of Captain Kismet was woven throughout. I enjoyed their story too. Set in the late 1940s/early 1950s we get a glimpse of the struggles queer people faced during that period. When set against the events of the current day in the book, it was interesting to see both how far we’ve come in the time since and also how certain struggles remain. I also liked how the two timelines came together in the end.

I thought the book did a good job of balancing a cute love story and queer joy with the heavier topics of the struggles queer people have faced and continue to face. It was informative and entertaining!

A delight of a book! Will and Patrick’s romance was so cute! They complimented each other so well and I was kicking my feet giggling the whole time! Also Patrick’s first drag experience was so good!!

4.5 Stars

I really loved Ellis's first book, so I JUMPED at the opportunity to read this story!

Don't let the cover throw you off, this book is full of depth and heart and drag queen fierceness and ugh, I just loved it.

Like I've said in previous reviews, I'm not a huge fan of actor tropes, and in all fairness, the co-lead of the book who is an actor, Patrick, was fine and his arc was god, but it was my least favorite of the two character arcs. It was still good, but omg Will is the true star of this show in all of his authentic glory.

Told in alternating POVs, we get the love story of a semi-closeted (at least publicly closeted) franchise leading man (think Marvel and Captain America, but instead of Chris Evans, take Will Lexington's, played by Chris Carmack, storyline from Nashville and you've got the vibe) who has the most FABULOUS meet cute with an out and proud bookseller by day/Drag Queen Grace Anatomy at night.

We have NDAs and struggling to accept ones queerness alongside battling for queer representation and spaces. But what really and truly sold this book for me was how beautifully Ellis was able to take our main storyline and weave in flashbacks to a separate storyline that comes all together in one of the most moving full circle moments I've read in a long time.

Patrick is the leading superhero character for a big movie franchise based on comics. As you read about Patrick and Will's journey through love and self-acceptance, we get parallel moments of the original comic's creators lives. Set post-WWII, these characters are also struggling to find their voices, find safe and accepting spaces to live authentically, and navigating the outside perception of who they are and how it will effect their art.

It's beautiful and moving and honestly, one of my favorite reads this year for that full circle moment alone. Add in healthy doses of commentary on society's effed up gender expectations, and loads of glorious drag moments, this book is sure to make your heart glow with pride.

Happy Pride Month, babes.

Love,
you're semi-closeted bi-baby PenGwyn 💖💜💙

Patrick hit it big when he landed the role of Captain Kismet in a major Hollywood movie. But filming the sequel has been a challenge, what with so much refilming due to last minute script changes. Patrick, his co-stars, and all the crew have been doing endless retakes on a soundstage in Birmingham, England. After a grueling series of reshoots, Patrick and the others decide to unwind at a club–undercover, of course. The studio bankrolling the Kismet films requires all employees to sign a morality clause; attending a drag performance at a club would certainly be out of bounds. Despite Patrick and his co-stars’ best efforts, however, they inevitably get recognized. Thankfully, before things have a chance to really escalate, a drag queen named Grace Anatomy sashays to the rescue.

Will never expected another day at the club performing as Grace Anatomy to be anything more than an affirmation of his community. However, when movie star Patrick gets caught in a compromising position at the club, Grace helps him and his friends sneak out without further ado. A single, fleeting brush with fame where Will saved the day was everything Will could have hoped such an encounter to be. To his endless surprise, Will actually meets Patrick again when the star pops into the bookstore where Will works with a request for a rare comic that puts these two in each other’s orbit. What unfolds from there is an unlikely romance that defies Hollywood’s expectations for a leading man. But it’s not all rainbows and roses. If Will wants a shot at being with Patrick, he must comply with a rigid NDA that puts Will firmly back in the closet. Not only that, but long ago Patrick agreed to sublimate his own queer identity for a chance at stardom.

We Could Be Heroes is a contemporary, opposite-sides-of-the-track, get-together story starring Will as an every man and Patrick as an up-and-coming superstar. It’s set in London; Will is from England and Patrick hails from America. That physical distance may separate them as much as social circles do, an eventuality that looms ever larger for the MCs. Despite being similar ages, they are both at very different stages in their lives. Over the course of the book, Will goes on a journey of discovering what his community means to him and what it means to be part of that community. Patrick, on the other hand, goes on a personal journey and must contend with what it means for him to be a closeted Hollywood star.

As far as the romance goes, these two have a good chemistry built on attraction and a mutual interest in books and comics. With Patrick being a movie star, the lovers have to do a fair amount of sneaking around and keeping things on the down low. That said, when they step away from Patrick’s world and spend time in Will’s, there’s a much greater sense of down-home charm. For example, spending time with Patrick means being holed up in hotel rooms accessed by service elevators, whereas time with Will means gathering around his stepsister’s kitchen table in mismatched chairs and sharing a meal. I think this shows that the two MCs are clearly clicking with each other, but highlights that while Patrick may fit snugly in Will’s life, Will will never fit into Patrick’s. Even when Will and his friends get invited to a private karaoke session with Patrick and his co-stars, they are only free so long as the plans are kept from prying eyes.

Sprinkled throughout the book are chapters that feature a different timeline and different characters. This alternate timeline is set in mostly post-World War II era America. It stars the creators of the original Captain Kismet comic, Charles and Iris, a gay man and a lesbian. Eventually, Charles and Iris’ story begins to echo with Patrick and Will’s story in the present day. For example, the original comic’s publisher finds out about Charles and Iris, which has major ramifications for their lives. This is reflected in Patrick’s time through the morality clause and NDAs he must sign with the studio. The creators of Captain Kismet took a gamble with the way they ended the original run of the comic in what’s know as the “Omega Issue.” This was a neat little device that actually kick-started Patrick and Will’s relationship and gave me hope that maybe finding the Omega Issue would give Patrick the leverage he’d need to break out of the closet.

The get-together elements of Patrick and Will’s story were fun, but I really liked the second half of the book when the timeline starts to take on more depth by more closely following Charles and Iris’ struggles. And a little later, there is a climactic scene between Patrick and Will that causes tension in their relationship. At this point, it was fast-and-furious reading for me, gripped by the portrayal of what queer people did to survive in a world where being outed as gay was a one-way ticket to being blacklisted or worse. I also really loved the growth Patrick and Will experience, learning how to stand up for himself in Patrick’s case and for his community in Will’s.

We Could Be Heroes starts off as a very generic Hollywood-star-meets-delightful-drag queen. I think this star-crossed lovers, feel-good story gets legs as the two MCs grapple with their individual struggles. The inclusion of an on-page backstory for the Captain Kismet comic was literally a tearjerker for me. If you like stories about opposites attract, or people overcoming self-imposed barriers to embrace who they are, then I think you will super enjoy We Could Be Heroes.

It was a sensational opposites-attract romance between Patrick and Will.

I really enjoyed how the romance progressed slowly. However, I did question Patrick's behavior at times & how he handled or pursued things.

Overall, it was enjoyable!

Thank you Netgalley and publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was excited to read this one and it did not disappoint!

From the beginning I was instantly hooked with the current pop culture references and the witty banter between the main characters. Will and Patrick are two characters you instantly in love with and root for their happy endings.

I loved that not only did this book have laugh out loud moments, but also had moments of queer history and important queer topics that are a priority in today’s world. It may be a romcom book, but you are slowly gaining queer knowledge.

For those that are fans of pop culture, superhero’s, and heart warming moments, this book is for you!

I was looking forward to reading this one after reading the blurb. Unfortunately, this didn't really work well for me. It took most of the first half to get into the story. There were also many things that took away from the story for me throughout.

Everything about this book just felt super disjointed to me. There were a lot of ideas that I liked conceptually but the execution was just not there.

As far as pros go, this cover is really fun. I especially enjoy the whimsical comic book style art. Other than that I guess that I like the secret relationship premise cause the drama is very fun.

Now for everything that didn’t work for me. The concurrent story plot with flash backs to the folks writing the comic book just felt disjointed. Conceptually I see what the author was going for, a parallel of McCarthyism and the ways in which modern day famous queer people are forced into the closet for their career. However, all the flashback chapters felt like they were randomly thrown in. To me it felt as if these chapters were added in during a later edit to try and make the ending reveal feel more built up. I think that this disjointedness could have been solved by instead having the boys meet cute/plot revolve around getting the Omega Issue. My core issue with this book I think comes down to there not being a strong enough plot to bring these boys together. Overall just a meh read.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me with a free e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Superhero movie star falls for local drag queen, it’s a tale as old as time. I’m a sucker for a celebrity romance that provides commentary on Hollywood and the sacrifices that people make living in the public eye, so I had a great time with this book. Patrick is in England filming the second Captain Kismet movie when he meets Will, a local drag queen and bookseller. The two become fast friends, which leads to them secretly dating. But how can this work out when Patrick is in the closet publicly and will return back to the US once filming is done?

I felt like this did a really good job at having fun, silly, and steamy moments while also acknowledging the hardships that Patrick and Will are facing. There’s conversations about what coming out could do to Patrick’s career and there are anti-drag protests within the story. But even though these more serious things are touched upon, the overwhelming feeling that I got while reading the book was joy.

There’s an interesting extra element to this book that is going back to the 1940s and including some of the story of the people who originally created the Captain Kismet character. I can be a bit hesitant when romance novels spend too much time away from the main romance, but I think that these little bits added a lot to the overall story and the themes that Philip Ellis was touching upon with queer history and community.

Definitely check this one out if you’re in the market for a fun, queer celebrity romance. It has great side characters, found family, silly drag queen names, as well as big conversations about identity and coming out.

The marketing for this felt a tad misleading. There’s a dual timeline element that wasn’t mentioned anywhere in the blurb that I found really jarring. And the present timeline, while occasionally funny, didn’t particularly grab me either.

I am giving this a 3.5 for a rating. I really enjoyed the premise of the book, loved all the characters and their personalities and their individual stories but for me I didn't really feel the chemistry between the MMCs and I did feel at times the writing was a little choppy.

When it came to the MMCs I liked them separately and together I get what the author was doing but I just didn't feel the connection between the two of them. I felt more chemistry and emotion between Will and his best Drag Queen friend. Which was a joke in the book as well but in my opinion that means the chemistry between the two love interests needs to be even more prevalent and stronger and the only time, I felt any real and deep chemistry between them was when they made up and what happened at the premier and epilogue.

Like I mentioned I really did enjoy the premise and the storyline outside the relationship like Patrick coming to terms with his situation, Will and the drag queens and standing up for their bar and drag queen story time were what kept me really interested in the book. I especially enjoyed the back story of the writers of the Captain Kismet and the issues they were facing having to stay in the closet for safety and how much as we would like to think times have changed, they really haven't progressed as far as we would like to think. Those flashbacks were both entertaining and heartbreaking at the same time.

This book is about Patrick who is a rising action star and is the leading man in one of the biggest superhero franchises Captain Kismet. He is in the middle of filming the seemingly endless reshoots of the 2nd movie when he dragged to a drag queen bar one night with some of his coworkers to blow off some steam. There he meets Grace Anatomy who helps him get out of the bar when things get a little out of hand. Grace Anatomy is the drag persona for Will who works in a 2nd hand bookshop who never thought he would be the one to save a movie star from some handiest customers. But that action led to the start of a curious friendship between the two men who are from different worlds. But as they get to each other Will starts to wonder who Patrick really is behind the mask he wears because he is starting to get the feeling that there is more going on... but that would be crazy because superheroes don't date drag queens... Do they??

I received an ARC Copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Enjoyed this one! I am so glad that I went outside of my normal tropes to read this story! It was a well told story that gave me a new perspective on the romances that I enjoy on a regular basis! Thank you to the author and know that I will be reading more!

BOOK REVIEW - WE COULD BE HEROES by Philip Ellis

⭐⭐⭐⭐

I want to give a big thanks to NetGalley, Penguin Group Putnam, and Philip Ellis for providing me with an eARC of We Could Be Heroes for review.

Okay, confession time: I’m a sucker for stories about finding yourself, especially when there is a side of romance! Patrick, a big-shot actor, and Will, a part-time drag queen and full-time sass-master, is like Captain America meeting RuPaul – unexpected but so good.

This book ticks a lot of boxes: secret romances, quirky side characters, and even a dash of superhero history thrown in. Plus, so much drama 😄. Sure, there were a couple of moments where I raised an eyebrow and thought, "Really?" But hey, what's a good story without a few eyebrow-raising moments, am I right?

Overall, We Could Be Heroes is a really solid rom-com with heart and a side of glitter – what's not to love?

Thank you NetGalley and G.P. Putnam's Sons for the ARC of We Could Be Heroes.

We Could Be Heroes by Philip Ellis is a delightful exploration of friendship, love, and self-acceptance set against the backdrop of the colorful worlds of acting and drag performance. The novel follows the lives of two captivating protagonists, Patrick and Will, whose chance encounter sets off a chain of events that challenge their perceptions of themselves and each other.

Patrick, a rising star in the acting world, and Will, a secondhand bookseller and part-time drag queen, couldn't be more different on the surface. Yet, as their friendship deepens, they discover a profound connection that transcends societal expectations and labels. Ellis skillfully navigates their journey, blending humor and heart in equal measure. Woven through Patrick and and Will's story is also the story of the original creators of the superhero who Patrick plays. The story's overlap in many of their themes specifically hiding ones identity.

At its core, We Could Be Heroes celebrates the joy of embracing one's true self and the power of love to overcome obstacles. Through authentic characterization and witty dialogue, Ellis creates a compelling narrative that is both entertaining and thought-provoking.

With its vibrant characters and engaging storyline, We Could Be Heroes is a captivating read that celebrates the beauty of diversity and the importance of staying true to oneself. Ellis's writing shines with warmth and sincerity, making this novel a truly uplifting experience for readers.