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Come next year, Cary Grant fans will have two new books about that most debonair of leading men--one that focuses on his alleged homosexuality, another co-authored by a woman who claims to have been romantically involved with Grant for four years.

The eye-brow raiser is tentatively titled “Cary Grant: A Double Life” (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich), due in late spring, co-authored by the veteran celeb chronicler Charles Higham and Roy Moseley, longtime Higham researcher.

Higham is a celeb himself, in this genre, for his spritely books on folks like Errol Flynn whom he alleged to be bisexual--and a spy for the Nazis!--and Greta Garbo whom he claimed worked for British intelligence during World War II.

According to editor Daphne Merkin, this one will detail Grant’s “heroic struggle” against his “natural (sexual) predilection” and will “name names”--including alleged Grant paramour Randolph Scott, with details of the purported affairs. “For those who’ve perceived Cary Grant as an icon of heterosexual panache (he was married five times), it’s going to be pretty amazing,” said Merkin.

The second tome is “An Affair to Remember,” due in April from G.P. Puttnam’s, written by Maureen Donaldson and William Royce.

According to Royce, long affiliated with Rona Barrett, Donaldson was a writer with Rona Barrett’s Hollywood magazine when she first met Grant in 1973. She was 27, he was in his early 70s. She claims that a four-year affair followed.

“It was a very intense, strictly heterosexual relationship,” said Royce. “It (the book) is kiss and tell to a degree, but with taste and compassion.”

He added: “If you think loving Cary Grant was all peaches and cream, well, guess what? But, this is not a terror story--it’s a love story. But it wasn’t easy. Maureen was dealing with the cumulative effect of all of Cary’s relationships with women--going back to his mother.”

Asked about that other book’s look at Grant’s relationships, Royce said, “Given what I’ve read about it, I would suspect that Dyan (Cannon, Cary’s ex) and Jennifer (Grant, Cary’s daughter) and anyone else who loved Cary would not only be pleased we’re doing this book--they’d be relieved.”