Celebrating Disability Pride Month with the RNA
7 July 2025
July is Disability Pride Month, and here at the RNA we’re dedicated to uplifting authors (and characters!) from all walks of life. Disability Pride Month, which runs throughout July, has been observed in the UK since 2015 as a way to celebrate and uplift the disabled community. This includes physical and sensory disabilities, neurodivergence, invisible and undiagnosed disabilities and mental illnesses.
To celebrate Disability Pride Month, we’ve put together a selection of some fantastic romance books by RNA members which feature disabled characters.
A Deal with Her Father – Caitlyn Callery
Features a disabled WWI veteran
1926: Disabled war veteran Harry Pearson needs a loan to start his business. Businessman William Chilvers will lend him the money, but only if he can make William’s career-minded daughter lose her aversion to marriage before her 21st birthday, in six weeks. Against his better judgement, Harry agrees.
Regina “Reggie” Chilvers is determined: on her birthday, she will leave home, and become independent. The last thing she wants is a husband, even if Harry is charming, attentive and sympathetic to her views.
Will he win her heart before his deadline? And how will she feel if she learns about his deal with her father?
Midnight Rainbows Over the Little Village – Ella Cook
Features a main character with connective tissue hypermobility disorder and fibromyalgia.
After years on the move, Imogen Finnegan is finally ready to put down roots. She’s purchased an old shop in the quaint village of Broclington and plans to open her own holistic therapy business.
Kim Macpearson wants the spark back in her life. She’s returned to Broclington to work at her brother’s veterinary practice while she decides her next move. But when a beautiful and unconventional newcomer walks into the vets everything changes. Drawn together by an undeniable chemistry, an unlikely friendship blossoms into a deeper relationship.
The Earl Pretender – Caitlyn Callery
Features side characters with Down’s syndrome.
Robert Carrow thought himself heir to an earldom until discovering he had an older brother. Born with developmental disabilities, Benedict disappeared at birth. Robert means to find him. Meeting Jane Winter and her brother, Ben, Robert suspects his search is over, but he’s injured by a runaway coach, the latest in a series of accidents. Jane nurses him and their feelings for each other grow.
To protect her daughter, unmarried mother Jane poses as a widow. Despite her attraction to Robert, she fears his enquiries may tear her family apart. Worse, whoever is behind his “accidents” may hurt Ben, too, thinking he’s the lost Carrow heir.
Can they stay safe long enough to uncover whose brother is Ben? Hers? Or his?
Features a main character with Fibromyalgia.
After seeing her twin sister’s heart broken by the man she was supposed to marry, Dawn has put off love, marriage and children to focus on her career. But after a shock diagnosis, Dawn starts to worry that she’s left it too late. How can she go on dates when all her energy goes towards her new job? And who would love someone who’s broken?
When her twin sister forces her out of the house, she meets Connor – the boy from her past, all grown up. As their relationship develops, Dawn realises that Connor might be the person who will hold her the way she needs him to.
Features a main character who is an amputee.
Heartbroken after her almost-engagement was called off, Jess goes on a mini-break to Paris seeking closure and meets a hot French stranger called Gabriel. As sparks fly, Jess, fearing she was dumped because she was boring, vows to be more spontaneous, and they have mind-blowing, earth-shattering sex.
With his troubled past and soulful eyes, Jess quickly realises there’s more to Gabriel than a great shag and, when he whisks her away to his fixer-upper chateau in the country, Jess thinks she might be falling for him—even though they’ve only known each other a few days. But is this what she wants? She was all for taking risks, but risking her heart so soon after a break-up was not in the cards, especially when Gabriel’s troubled past arrives in the present.
Features an ex-military MC main character with a physical disability and PTSD.
Having recently left the army, Hope Everett is now learning to live with a physical disability and PTSD. When a florist job becomes available on the Moondreams House estate, Hope jumps at the chance to indulge her lifelong passion for flowers. Despite her limited experience, her enthusiasm wins her the job.
However, her excitement is dampened when Dante Troughton — the aloof son of the estate owner — insists on overseeing the financial side of Hope’s business.
Though Hope initially finds Dante arrogant and overbearing, their uneasy relationship gradually grows into a mutual respect. And as both begin to open up about their past, Hope questions whether she is ready to let someone get close to her…
Oddity of the Ton – Emily Royal
Features a main character with autism.
Eleanor Howard has never fitted in. She yearns to be loved for herself, not what others expect her to be, and her secret infatuation with the Duke of Whitcombe would, if revealed, make her the laughingstock of the ton. Until he strides across a crowded ballroom and offers his hand.
Montague FitzRoy, fifth Duke of Whitcombe, is unwilling to surrender the pleasures of bachelorhood. When his mother forces his hand, he decides to punish her by kneeling before the least desirable woman in the room. Only Miss Howard believes his proposal to be genuine.
The solution? A false betrothal that keeps Monty’s mother in check, and lifts Miss Howard’s prospects. But beneath Eleanor’s awkward exterior lies a passionate, intelligent woman, who challenges Monty’s notions of duty, life, and love – and with whom he’s falling in love himself. Will he surrender to duty, or follow his heart?
