Middle Grade
Camp Prodigy by Caroline Palmer
After attending an incredible concert, Tate Seong is inspired to become a professional violist. There’s just one problem: they’re the worst musician at their school.
Tate doesn’t even have enough confidence to assert themself with their friends or come out as nonbinary to their family, let alone attempt a solo anytime soon. Things start to look up when Tate attends a summer orchestra camp—Camp Prodigy—and runs into Eli, the remarkable violist who inspired Tate to play in the first place.
But Eli has been hiding their skills ever since their time in the spotlight gave them a nervous breakdown. Together, can they figure out how to turn Tate into a star and have Eli overcome their performance anxieties? Or will the pressure take them both down?
Young Adult
Trailer Park Prince by Andre L. Bradley
A decade ago, a rift tore open the Kaydan sky, pulling twin princes, Noan and Jormon, plus thousands of their people, from their home world and dumping them in the American South. In the years since, they’ve grown used to the drones policing their every move and to hiding the magic-like abilities that set them apart. But they’ll never get used to the crosses burning outside their trailer—an occasional reminder that Kaydans don’t belong.
Forced to attend a human high school in the name of integration, a band-aid on an increasingly fraught diplomatic situation, the brothers are hesitant but hopeful. Jormon is excited about pursuing the feelings he has for Dirk, a human-raised Kaydan, away from his traditional father’s watchful eye. And Noan, blamed for the Kaydans’ displacement, is looking for somewhere—anywhere—to fit in.
But the halls of Toombs County High are as inhospitable as the rest of the country, and Jormon and Noan quickly find they’re as unwanted in class as they are on this planet. When tragedy strikes and violence breaks out, Jormon and Noan find themselves at the forefront of a battle for the existence of their people. Their bonds tested, the twins face gut-wrenching choices, forcing them to confront who they really are, what they truly want, and what it takes to survive.
When asked to lead in the face of oppression, will they walk away or fight fire with fire?
Furious by Jamie Pacton and Rebecca Podos
After years racing go-karts and looking up to her mother, a celebrity Formula 1 racer, Jojo Emerson-Boyd should be starting her own racing career. But when she loses her mom in a tragic crash, Jojo’s future comes to a screeching halt. Now her dad won’t let her get a license, much less race. Instead, she’s stuck working at her grandmother’s mechanic shop in the sleepy small town of Dell’s Hollow.
But Jojo’s heart quickens when Motorcyle Girl Eliana “El” Blum shows up at the shop. El grew up on the motocross circuit sidelines, watching her sister and idol Maxine compete. When El mysteriously loses all contact with Max, she’s determined to find her, with her first clue leading straight to the mechanic shop, and to Jojo.
United by fate, the two quickly bond over Mario Kart showdowns and the Fast & Furious films. As their friendship shifts into something more, they’ll have to confront both their growing romance and the grief woven into their complicated families if they hope to chase down their dreams and make it across the finish line.
Adult
All Friends Are Necessary by Tomas Moniz
Efren “Chino” Flores has just moved back to the Bay Area from Seattle, jumping from sublet to sublet. In Washington, he was a beloved middle school biology teacher with a loving wife, and a child on the way until a stunning loss changed his life. Now, he’s working temp jobs, terrified of commitment, and struggling to put himself back out into the world.
But there to nurture Chino is a coterie of new and old friends and lovers who form a protective web around him. Closest to him are Metal Matt, a red-haired metalhead with a soft spot for Courtney Love and a rangy dog named Sabbath, and Mike and Kay, a couple whose literary edge is matched only by the success of their secret OnlyFans account. As Chino begins to date more men and women—and to open himself up again to love—his bonds with other people grow both rich and profound. Like a fern blooming in the wake of a forest fire, new life comes after even the most devastating upheaval.
Everyone I Kissed Since You Got Famous by Mae Marvel
Katie Price is known in every living room in America. A small-town Wisconsin girl who became an A-list star, she rarely makes it home, but this year is different . . . Little does she know it will lead her straight into the piercing blue-eyed gaze of Wil Greene.
A lot has happened in the decade since those cold Wisconsin nights when Wil and Katie drove around in Wil’s Bronco senior year. Since then, Wil’s law career hasn’t taken off. Her father passed away. And what started as a personal challenge—kissing a new person twice a week, every week—has made her a growing sensation, but her life is still stuck in phase one. Through the years, the two have never left each other’s thoughts and desires, but now suddenly, they are back in each others’ lives. Their reconnection is instantaneous and the passion is palpable…but can it stand the test of time?”
Running Close to the Wind by Alexandra Rowland
Avra Helvaçi, former field agent of the Arashti Ministry of Intelligence, has accidentally stolen the single most expensive secret in the world – and the only place to flee with a secret that big is the open sea.
To find a buyer with deep enough pockets, Avra must ask for help from his on-again, off-again ex, the pirate Captain Teveri az-Haffar. They are far from happy to see him but, together, they hatch a plan: take the information to the isolated pirate republic of the Isles of Lost Souls; fence it; profit. The only things in their way? A calculating new Arashti ambassador to the Isles of Lost Souls who’s got his eyes on Avra’s every move; Brother Julian, a beautiful, mysterious new member of the crew with secrets of his own and a frankly inconvenient vow of celibacy; and the fact that they’re sailing straight into sea serpent breeding season and almost certain doom.
But if they can find a way to survive and sell the secret on the black market, they’ll all be as wealthy as kings – and, more importantly, they’ll be legends.
The Sons of El Rey by Alex Espinoza
Ernesto Vega has lived many lives, from pig farmer to construction worker to famed luchador El Rey Coyote, yet he has always worn a mask. He was discovered by a local lucha libre trainer at a time when luchadores—Mexican wrestlers donning flamboyant masks and capes—were treated as daredevils or rock stars. Ernesto found fame, rapidly gaining name recognition across Mexico, but at great expense, nearly costing him his marriage to his wife Elena.
Years later, in East Los Angeles, his son, Freddy Vega, is struggling to save his father’s gym while Freddy’s own son, Julian, is searching for professional and romantic fulfillment as a Mexican American gay man refusing to be defined by stereotypes.
With alternating perspectives, Ernesto and Elena take you from the ranches of Michoacán to the makeshift colonias of Mexico City. Freddy describes life in the suburban streets of 1980s Los Angeles and the community their family built, as Julian descends deep into our present-day culture of hook-up apps, lucha burlesque shows, and the dark underbelly of West Hollywood. The Sons of El Rey is an intimate portrait of a family wading against time and legacy, yet always choosing the fight.
Director’s Cut by Carlyn Greenwald
At twenty-nine, Valeria Sullivan is a celebrated, award-winning actress. But when her acting options start to decline and her attempt to transition to directing is complicated by a bad interview on a late night show, Val decides she’s had enough of Hollywood. Intent on pursuing a neglected passion, she pours herself into a guest professorship at USC, hoping to transition to academia fulltime.
Standing in her way is her co-professor, Maeve Arko, whose brilliance and beauty is matched only by her contempt for Val. As Val rises to the challenges that teaching throws at her, though, Maeve starts to soften, and soon sparks are flying.
Now with a job and a girlfriend she adores, Val should be happy. But Hollywood isn’t done with Val quite yet. Her directorial debut, Oakley in Flames, starts getting attention, and soon Val has to choose between her obligations to her class—and Maeve—and the burgeoning dream Hollywood career she may not be ready to leave behind.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N
The Stars Too Fondly by Emily Hamilton
So, here’s the thing: Cleo and her friends really, truly didn’t mean to steal this spaceship.
They just wanted to know why, twenty years ago, the entire Providence crew vanished without a trace. But then the stupid dark matter engine started all on its own, and now these four twenty-somethings are en route to Proxima Centauri, unable to turn around, and being harangued by a snarky hologram that has the face and attitude of the ship’s missing captain, Billie.
Cleo has dreamt of being an astronaut all her life, and Earth is kind of a lost cause at this point, so this should be one of those blessings in disguise that people talk about. But as the ship gets deeper into space, the laws of physics start twisting, old mysteries come crawling back to life, and Cleo’s initially combative relationship with Billie turns into something deeper and more desperate than either woman was prepared for.
Looking for a Sign by Susie Dumond
What if finding true love is as simple as dating through the Zodiac, sign by sign?
Gray has only been in love once, but things fell apart when she and her ex realized they didn’t want the same things out of life. With her twenty-ninth birthday approaching, Gray feels her biological clock ticking and is determined to meet someone, settle down, and build the loving, accepting family she’s always wanted—and didn’t grow up with. But having just moved to New Orleans for a new job working for a demanding boss, and with her last first date a decade in the past, Gray has no idea how to go about finding her future spouse.
When her best friend Cherry suggests Gray look for answers from Madame Nouvelle Lune, an astrologer, Gray’s skeptical. But she’s also desperate. So when Madame encourages her to look to the stars, she finds herself in Cherry’s kitchen, mapping out a plan: go on a date with someone of each sign before her birthday, when Saturn will make its first return to the same celestial alignment as her birth (a major turning point in every person’s life, she’s learned). As Gray moves through this quintessentially queer dating challenge while juggling her new job, she learns a lot about the Zodiac—and even more about her own needs, desires, and sense of adventure. Even when it begins to threaten everything she thinks she believes, Gray is determined to finish what she started while the planets are still on her side.
The Afterlife of Mal Caldera by Nadi Reed Perez
Mal Caldera—former rockstar, retired wild-child and excommunicated black sheep of her Catholic family—is dead. Not that she cares. She only feels bad that her younger sister, Cris, has been left to pick up the pieces Mal left behind. While her fellow ghosts party their afterlives away at an abandoned mansion they call the Haunt, Mal is determined to make contact with Cris from beyond the grave.
She enlists the help of a reluctant local medium, Ren, and together, they concoct a plan to pass on a message to Cris. But the more time they spend together, the more they begin to wonder what might have been if they’d met before Mal died.
Mal knows it’s wrong to hold on so tightly to her old life. Bad things happen to ghosts who interfere with the living, and Mal can’t help wondering if she’s hurting the people she loves by hanging around, haunting their lives. But Mal has always been selfish, and letting go might just be the hardest thing she’s ever had to do.
When You Smile by Melissa Brayden
Have you ever had a crush on your babysitter? Taryn Ross sure did. Sixteen-year-old Charlotte was sophisticated, thoughtful, gorgeous, and fun. Taryn counted the minutes until they’d hang out. But Charlotte and her family moved away.
Now a transfer student at Hillspoint University, Taryn is ready to officially come out when she runs into a familiar face at a party. Charlie, now a grad student, insists on walking a drunk Taryn home. To the detriment of Taryn’s heart (and libido), Charlie has only grown kinder (and hotter) with time.
Charlie Adler has a five-year plan: finish her MFA without any hiccups, figure out a timeline for her engagement, and become an acclaimed fiction writer. Easy, right? That is until Taryn shows up at Hillspoint and shakes up her world like a snow globe. This Taryn is different: soulful, brooding, and all grown up. Charlie’s never been attracted to a woman before, and isn’t dating your one-time charge against the rules? If only their toe-curling, mind-dulling, body-aching chemistry would calm the hell down.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | Indigo
Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker-Martin
In 1993, five queer kids whose parents want them “fixed” find themselves thrown together at the secretive “tough love” Camp Resolution, deep in the scorching Utah desert.
Tormented and brutalized by zealous counselors intent on straightening them out, they begin to notice disturbing changes in their fellow campers, and start to hear something speaking to them in their dreams.
The group knows that if they don’t escape Camp Resolution, they won’t get out alive.
Greyfin Bay by Anita Kelly
Mae Kellerman is content. After forty years of ups and downs, she has a meaningful job at a queer community center in Portland, Oregon. She has an apartment full of plants, a ride-or-die group of friends.
Until the day her best friend actually does up and die. Leaving Mae with a hole in her heart—and a shocking amount of money.
But before she can think about that, she has to throw his perfect death party, followed by spreading his ashes on the Oregon Coast. It’s there that she stumbles upon an empty storefront for sale in the tiny whale-watching town of Greyfin Bay. Overnight, an old dream resurfaces…and Mae’s newfound inheritance could make it possible.
If only Dell McCleary didn’t stand in her way.
Dell only sells property to the folks actually invested in the best interests of Greyfin Bay. Not some Portlander with pink hair who breezes in on a whim. A Portlander who, irritatingly, refuses to take no for an answer.
As Mae upends her life for the pursuit of opening a queer-owned bookstore in a conservative coastal town, she and Dell are forced to work together, navigating prejudices and past traumas along the way. But as opening day of Bay Books grows nearer, Mae’s heart grows increasingly tangled with her landlord’s—even if his own heart might already belong to someone else.
Buy it: Amazon
For Real by Alexis Hall
This is a trad pub rerelease with bonus content
Laurence Dalziel is worn down and washed up, and for him, the Scene is all played out. Six years from his last meaningful relationship, he’s pushing forty and tired of pretending nothing has changed. Then he meets Toby Finch. Young. Fearless, fierce, and vulnerable. Everything Laurie can’t remember being.
Toby doesn’t know who he wants to be or what he wants to do, but he knows that he wants Laurie. The problem is, while Laurie will surrender his body, he won’t surrender his heart. Because Toby is too young, too intense, too easy to hurt. And what they have—no matter how right it feels—can’t last. It can’t mean anything.
It can’t be real.
Paperback Release
Better Living Through Birding by Christian Cooper
Christian Cooper is a self-described “Blerd” (Black nerd), an avid comics fan and expert birder who devotes every spring to gazing upon the migratory birds that stop to rest in Central Park, just a subway ride away from where he lives in New York City. While in the park one morning in May 2020, Cooper was engaged in the birdwatching ritual that had been a part of his life since he was ten years old when what might have been a routine encounter with a dog walker exploded age-old racial tensions. Cooper’s viral video of the incident would send shock waves through the nation.
In Better Living Through Birding, Cooper tells the story of his extraordinary life leading up to the now-infamous incident in Central Park and shows how a life spent looking up at the birds prepared him, in the most uncanny of ways, to be a gay, Black man in America today.
From sharpened senses that work just as well at a protest as in a park to what a bird like the Common Grackle can teach us about self-acceptance, Better Living Through Birding exults in the pleasures of a life lived in pursuit of the natural world and invites you to discover them yourself. Equal parts memoir, travelogue, and primer on the art of birding, this is Cooper’s story of learning to claim and defend space for himself and others like him, from his days at Marvel Comics introducing the first gay storylines to vivid and life-changing birding expeditions through Africa, Australia, the Americas, and the Himalayas. Better Living Through Birding recounts Cooper’s journey through the wonderful world of birds and what they can teach us about life, if only we would look and listen.
