Once again, Romance will have its own post later this week!
Today’s post is sponsored by Janelle Cressida and her brand-new m/m fantasy romance, Son of the Moon, on sale now for $2.99!
Some acts of kindness change more than just one life…
Buy it: Amazon
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Hot Girls With Balls by Benedict Nguyen (July 1st)
Six is 6′7″, scheming to rejoin the starting lineup, and barely checks her phone. Green is 6′1″, always building her brand, and secretly jealous of her more famous girlfriend. Together, they’re going where no Asian American trans woman has gone before: the men’s pro indoor volleyball league. Our hot girls with balls just thought playing with the boys would spare them some controversy . . . haha.
In between their rival teams’ away games across the globe, Six and Green stay connected on SpaceTime and selflessly broadcast their romance to fans on their weekly Instagraph live show. After a long season, they’ll finally reunite for the championship tournament, the first to accommodate in-person fans since the COVIS pandemic struck the world a year ago. Just as they enter an airtight bro bubble of the world’s best, they’re faced with a crisis that demands an indisputably humiliating task: make a public statement online.
Can Green stock up enough clout for her post-ball future? Can Six girlboss her team’s seniority politics? Can they both take a time-out to just grieve? Their rabid fans and horny haters await their next move. We’re all just desperate for a whiff of the sweaty feminine energy that makes that ball thwack with such spectacular force.
Seven Days in Tokyo by Jose Daniel Alvior (July 1st)
Two strangers meet in Manhattan and spend a perfect night together. In Tokyo, they have seven days to see if that one night might mean something more.
Landon’s living alone in Tokyo as a British ‘expat’, Louie’s visiting while he anxiously waits for approval on his US visa. Against the backdrop of a misty Tokyo Spring, their precious time together is spent wandering into side streets and coffee shops, sharing unmade beds and plates of food. But as the days tick by, Louie’s expectations start to overtake reality and he falls too deeply for a life that’s not yet his.
The Original by Nell Stevens (July 1st)
In a grand English country house in 1899, an aspiring art forger must unravel whether the man claiming to be her long-lost cousin is an impostor.
Brought to her uncle’s decaying Oxfordshire estate when she was a child, Grace has grown up on the periphery of a once-great household, an outsider in her own home. Now a self-possessed and secretive young woman, she has developed unusual predilections: for painting, particularly forgery; for deception; for other girls.
As Grace cultivates her talent as a copyist, she realizes that her uncanny ability to recreate paintings might offer her a means of escape. Secretly, she puts this skill to use as an art forger, creating fake masterpieces in candlelit corners of the estate. Saving the money she makes from her sales, she plans a new life far from the family that has never seemed to want her.
Then, a letter arrives from the South Atlantic. The writer claims to be her cousin Charles, long presumed dead at sea, who wishes to reconnect with his family. When Charles returns, Grace’s aunt welcomes him with open arms; yet fractures appear in the household. Some believe he is who he says he is. Others are convinced he’s an impostor. As a court date looms to determine his legitimacy―and his claim to the family fortune―Grace must decide what she believes, and what she’s willing to risk.
Is Charles really her cousin? An interloper? A mirror of her own ambitions? And in a house built on illusions, what does authenticity truly mean―in art, in love, and in family?
Human Rites by Juno Dawson (July 1st)
This is the third book in the HMRC trilogy
With Her Majesty’s Royal Coven in shambles and the fate of the world hanging in the balance, the sisterhood of friends and witches must find a new way of putting together the pieces if (wo)mankind is to stand a chance, in this final chapter to Juno’s “irresistible” series (Lana Harper)
Niamh, Ciara, Leonie, Elle and Theo. Five very different witches with one thing in common: they were unwittingly chosen by the dangerously charming Lucifer, the demon king of desire, to fulfil a dark prophecy: Satanis will rise and the daughters of Gaia will fall.
The coven is reunited—but broken. Niamh is back from the dead…but she hasn’t come back alone. Elle mourns a son she never had. Ciara languishes in a prison for witches, and Leonie reels from a very unexpected surprise.
Meanwhile, Lucifer offers fledgling witch Theo a deal: if she helps him, her coven—her family—will be spared. But the magic he asks for will take her out of London—out of time, entirely.
The Gryphon King by Sara Omer (July 8th)
Bataar was only a child when he killed a gryphon, making him a legend across the Red Steppe. As an adult, he is the formidable Bataar Rhah, chosen by god to rule the continent that once scorned his people. After a string of improbable victories, he turns his sights on the wealthy, powerful kingdom of Dumakra, whose princesses rule the skies from the backs of pegasuses.
When rumours reach the capital that the infamous warlord is moving on Dumakra, Nohra Zultama prepares to face him. She and her sisters are feared warriors, goddess-blessed and mounted on winged, man-eating horses. But as deceit and betrayal swirl through her father’s court, Nohra soon learns the price of complacency. With her city under Bataar’s rule, Nohra vows to take revenge. But her growing closeness to Bataar’s wife, Qaira, threatens to undo her resolve.
When rioting breaks out and mythic beasts incite panic, Nohra must fight alongside Bataar to keep order, her mixed feelings towards the man she’s sworn to kill becoming ever more complicated. Old evils are rising. Only together will Nohra and Bataar stand a chance against the djinn, ghouls, and monsters that threaten to overrun their world.
Moonrising by Claire Barner (July 8th)
In 2073, controversial agronomist Dr. Alex Cole has dedicated her life to mutagenetic food, the only solution to feeding a world torn apart by climate change. When fierce opposition from radical environmentalists wipes out her lab funding, a surprising lifeline appears in the form of Mansoor Al Kaabi, a charismatic Emirati businessman who needs a sustainable food supply for his guests on the Moon’s first hotel.
Alex moves to the Moon colony with Mansoor, and they immediately dive into the challenging work. As she smuggles in illegal chickens, fights a vexing tomato fungus, and dreams of olive groves on the Moon, Alex is surprised to find herself falling in love not just with the lunar colony, but with Mansoor, whose vision for the future of the Moon extends far beyond luxury hotels.
Back on Earth, eccentric genius Victor Beard and Mansoor’s younger brother Rashid fight to push the Homestead Act through Congress. Without the support of the US government, they’ll never be able to achieve their goal to relocate humanity to the Moon and secure a second chance for life on Earth.
When eco-terrorists threaten the lunar colony, Alex, Mansoor, Victor, and Rashid must choose what they’re willing to die for–and what they’re really living for. Is it their grandiose visions of saving the planet, or is it each other?
Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth (July 8th)
It’s the early 1990s, and in the Irish village of Crossmore, Lucy feels out of place. Despite her fierce friendships, she’s always felt this way, and the conventional path of marriage and motherhood doesn’t appeal to her at all. Not even with handsome and doting Martin, her closest childhood friend. Lucy begins to make sense of herself during a long hot summer, when a spark with her school friend Susannah escalates to an all-consuming infatuation, and, very quickly, to a desperate and devastating love. Fearful of rejection from her small and conservative community, Lucy begins living a double life, hiding the most honest parts of herself in stolen moments with Susannah. But with the end of school and the opportunity to leave Crossmore looming, Lucy must choose between two places, two people and two futures, each as terrifying as the other. Neither will be easy, but only one will offer her happiness.
The Lavender Blade by E.L. Deards (July 8th)
A pair of con artist demon exorcists scam the nation’s wealthiest… until one of them is possessed for real
Colton and Lucian make a living conning the desperate with fake exorcisms—Lucian is the charm, Colton the trick, and together, they’ve turned deception into survival. Their work is dangerous, their romance even riskier, but they’ve always found a way to stay ahead.
Until Lucian is truly possessed.
A powerful demon takes hold, twisting his body into something unnatural, horrific, wrong—and no priest, no con, no desperate lie can fix it. With time running out and Lucian slipping further away, Colton has no choice but to learn real magic, break every rule, and attempt the impossible.
Because if he fails, Lucian won’t just be lost. He’ll be something else entirely.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N
Ascension by S.T. Gibson (July 8th)
This is the sequel to Evocation
Ever since Rhys McGowan was a boy, he’s only wanted two things: power and love.
Now, as High Priest of Boston’s premiere Secret Society, husband to his adoring witch wife Moira, and partner to David – his psychic rival-turned-boyfriend, Rhys is finally at peace. But when a strange ritual rocks Boston’s occult community, and opens the Society up to sabotage, Rhys delves even deeper into the dark world of demon-summoning. He’s used to carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, but the strain of managing so many spirits (not to mention the stress of his loved ones exploring other people) will push him to the brink.
As heaven and hell play tug of war for Rhys’ soul, he’ll have to face the greatest demon of all: his own insatiable ambition.
No Body No Crime by Tess Sharpe (July 15th)
Murder either bonds you or breaks you.
Rural PI Mel Tillman knows this well. She’s seen her fair share of bloody cases and botched cover-ups. But killing with someone? That is a different kind of mess all together, and Mel’s got real experience with it.
No one’s heard from Toby Dunne since Chloe Harper’s sweet sixteen party—because the birthday girl and sixteen-year-old Mel buried him so deep in the backwoods, no one’s ever finding him. Mel loses little sleep over it—Toby had been terrorizing them.
What she does lose sleep over is Chloe, the girl with whom she survived that horrible night in the woods. Chloe, the girl she fell in love with. Chloe, the girl who disappeared and hasn’t been seen in more than six years.
Tasked with locating Chloe by her family, Mel can’t resist the call of a good chase, or finding the one who got away with her heart (and with murder). When Mel finds an armed and vigilant Chloe living off-grid in a highly booby-trapped patch of Canadian wilderness, she realizes that Chloe had been expecting someone other than her ex to come looking for her. The thing that’s kept Chloe going for years is that she’s kept Mel safe by running. Now, the truth must come out as they run for their lives once again.
Because when they buried Toby Dunne in the backwoods, they buried something else, too. Something Toby took. And the powerful family he stole it from? They’ll do anything to get it back.
A Hex for Hunger by Alistair Reeves (July 15th)
After five centuries, a loyal guard returns from the dead without the king he once served—and loved—to find the world and his place within it much changed.
Ambrose aka the Grim Wolf of Belgrave spent his life striving to be a hero—until he died a villain in the name of the medieval witch king he was passionately devoted to. Now, after hundreds of years, he’s back from the dead without his beloved king. And the vow he once swore has him obligated to Emery Vale, a necromancer-in-training, who’s tasked him with murdering his rival and nemesis.
But Ambrose has other plans. He hopes to bring the ruler of his kingdom—and his heart—back from the grave so they can finally enjoy the love they’d once yearned for. All he has to do first is kill one other person: Emery . . .
The more time Ambrose spends with his new master though, the more his hunger for Emery’s blood is turning into a hunger for Emery. And as he continues to search for a way to resurrect the witch king, he might just discover their connection wasn’t all that it seemed.
House of Beth by Kerry Cullen (July 15th)
After a heart-wrenching breakup with her girlfriend and a shocking incident at her job, Cassie flees her life as an overworked assistant in New York for her hometown in New Jersey, along the Delaware. There, she reconnects with her high school best friend, Eli, now a widowed father of two. Their bond reignites, and within a few short months, Cassie is married to Eli, living in his house in the woods, homeschooling the kids, and getting to know her reserved neighbor, Joan.
But Cassie’s fresh start is less idyllic than she’d hoped. She grapples with harm OCD, her mind haunted by gory, graphic images. And she’s afraid that she’ll never measure up to Eli’s late spouse, who was a committed homemaker and traditional wife. No matter what Cassie does, Beth’s shadow still permeates every corner of their home.
Soon, Cassie starts hearing a voice narrating the house’s secrets. As she listens, the voice grows stronger, guiding Cassie down a path to uncover the truth about Beth’s untimely death.
The Other Wife by Jackie Thomas-Kennedy (July 15th)
Zuzu met her best friend Cash on the first day of college, and nothing was ever the same. Tall, witty, and popular, his friendship represented a kind of belonging for Zuzu, who had always felt like an outsider growing up mixed race in her rural hometown. Though their friendship was charged with longing, it never progressed to romance. Now approaching her forties, Zuzu has built a stable life with her wife Agnes, a steadfast and career-driven lawyer. Yet Zuzu is haunted by the choices that have shaped her: living with her mother instead of her father in childhood, pursuing law over art, and marrying Agnes while harboring complex feelings for Cash.
When a sudden loss pulls Zuzu back to her hometown, the “what ifs” in her mind become louder than ever, and she begins to unwind the turns that have led her here. Will she embrace the choices she’s made, or risk everything for a chance to chase the past?
Necessary Fiction by Eloghosa Osunde (July 22nd)
What makes a family? How is it defined and by whom? Is freedom for everyone?
In Necessary Fiction, Eloghosa Osunde poses these provocative questions and many more while exploring the paths and dreams, hopes and fears of more than two dozen characters who are staking out lives for themselves in contemporary Nigeria.
Across Lagos, one of Africa’s largest urban areas and one of the world’s most dynamic cities, Osunde’s characters seek out love for self and their chosen partners, even as they risk ruining relationships with parents, spouses, family, and friends. As the novel unfolds, a rolling cast emerges: vibrantly active, stubbornly alive, brazenly flawed. These characters grapple with desire, fear, time, death, and God, forming and breaking unexpected connections; in the process unveiling how they know each other, have loved each other, and had their hearts broken in that pursuit.
As they work to establish themselves in the city’s lively worlds of art, music, entertainment, and creative commerce, we meet their collective and individual attempts to reckon with the necessary fiction they carry for survival.
Volatile Memory by Seth Haddon (July 22nd)
With nothing but a limping ship and an outdated mask to her name, Wylla needs a big pay day. When the alert goes out that a lucrative piece of tech lies hidden on a nearby planet, she calls on all the swiftness of her prey-animal instincts to beat other hunters to it.
What you found wasn’t your ticket out―it was my corpse wearing an AI mask. When you touched the mask, you heard my voice. A consciousness spinning through metal and circuits, a bodiless mind, spun to life in the HAWK’s temporary storage. I crystallized and realized: I was alive.
Masks aren’t supposed to retain memory, much less identity, but the woman inside the MARK I HAWK is real, and she sees Wylla in a way no one ever has. Sees her, and doesn’t find her wanting or unwhole.
Armed with military-grade tech and a lifetime of staying one step ahead of the hunters, Wylla and HAWK set off to get answers from the man who discarded HAWK once before: her ex-husband.
Red Rabbit Ghost by Jen Julian (July 22nd)
The town of Blacknot is not what it appears, and a place on its desolate edge known only as The Night House is calling…
What remains of Jesse’s mother can fit inside an old jerky tin. Photos, postcards, a single, worn-out bracelet. But nothing that can explain why she was found dead eighteen years earlier on the bank of a river, her infant son left wailing by her side. When Jesse starts to receive anonymous messages promising him answers, he returns home to the regressive town of Blacknot, North Carolina so that his lifelong obsession can finally be laid to rest.
But Jesse’s investigation is stirring up trouble with the locals, including his well-armed ex-boyfriend and the mysterious daughter of a local businessman, each with their own inscrutable agendas. They will soon find that this backwater town holds a power more volatile than any of them could have imagined, and that the answers they seek might be better left buried.
Daughters of Flood and Fury by Gabriella Buba (July 22nd)
This is the sequel to Saints of Storm and Sorrow
Five years after the fall of the Palisade in Aynila, the Codicíans are closing in with a vast armada. Lunurin and Alon have been working desperately to solidify their alliances across the archipelago, but petty rivalries, suspicion, and conflicted loyalties threaten to undermine their efforts. To stand any chance, they must unify the disparate factions of their forces at the festival of the eclipse, when the laho will swallow the moon, and the islands’ magic will be at its strongest.
Inez has been training as a tide-touched healer, but the gentle side of her goddess’s gift does not come naturally to her. When she hears rumors that her sister, Catalina, has returned to the archipelago, Inez embarks on a dangerous journey over the sea. Aboard a pirate ship, she meets the fierce firetender Umali, who has no fear of her own power, and burns brighter than anyone Inez has ever known. Yet Inez worries her untamed, hungry magic may prove too much even for a pirate captain, and the threat of the Codicíans’ return hangs heavy over both their heads.
Three goddesses stand ready to fight. But without human allies, even their power may not be enough to keep Aynila and the archipelago free.
The Memory Hunters by Mia Tsai (July 29th)
Kiana Strade can dive deeper into blood memories than anyone alive. But instead of devoting her talents to the temple she’s meant to lead, Key is determined to use her skill as a researcher for the Museum of Human Memory. . . and to avoid the public eye in opulent, cutthroat Asheburg.
Valerian might look like a delicate country girl, but her lightning-fast swords protect Key from murderous rivals and her own enthusiasm alike. Vale cares about Key as a friend—and maybe more—but most of all, she needs to keep her job so she can support her parents and siblings in the storm-torn south.
But when Key collects a memory about the founding of the temple that diverges from official history, no one but Vale sees the fallout. Key’s mentor suspiciously dismisses the finding. Her powerful mother demands she stop research altogether. And Key, unusually affected by the memory, begins to lose moments, then minutes, then, for her own safety, days.
As Vale becomes increasingly entangled in Key’s obsessive drive for answers, the two women uncover a shattering discovery—and a devastating betrayal. Key and Vale can remain complicit in the Museum’s unethical practices, or they can jeopardize everything to bring the truth to light; either way, Key is becoming consumed by the past in more ways than one, and time is running out.
The Lighthouse at the Edge of the World by J.R. Dawson (July 29th)
At the edge of Chicago, nestled on the shores of Lake Michigan, there is a waystation for the dead. Every night, the newly-departed travel through the city to the Station, guided by its lighthouse. There, they reckon with their lives, before stepping aboard a boat to go beyond.
Nera has spent decades watching her father―the ferryman of the dead―sail across the lake, each night just like the last.
But tonight, something is wrong.
The Station’s lighthouse has started to flicker out. The terrifying, ghostly Haunts have multiplied in the city. And now a person―a living person―has found her way onto the boat.
Her name is Charlie. She followed a song. And she is searching for someone she lost.
Lonely Crowds by Stephanie Wambugu (July 29th)
Ruth, an only child of recent immigrants to New England, lives in an emotionally cold home and attends the local Catholic girl’s school on a scholarship. Maria, a beautiful orphan whose Panamanian mother dies by suicide and is taken care of by an ill, unloving aunt, is one of the only other students attending the school on a scholarship. Ruth is drawn forcefully into Maria’s orbit, and they fall into an easy, yet intense, friendship. Her devotion to her charming and bright new friend opens up her previously sheltered world.
While Maria, charismatic and aware of her ability to influence others, eases into her full self, embracing her sexuality and her desire to be an artist, Ruth is mostly content to follow her around: to college and then into the early-nineties art world of New York City. There, ambition and competition threaten to rupture their friendship, while strong and unspoken forces pull them together over the years. Whereas Maria finds early success in New York City as an artist, Ruth stumbles along the fringes of the art world, pulled toward a quieter life of work and marriage. As their lives converge and diverge, they meet in one final and fateful confrontation.
Ruth and Maria’s decades-long friendship interrogates the nature of intimacy, desire, class and time. What does it mean to be an artist and to be true to oneself? What does it mean to give up on an obsession?
Simplicity by Mattie Lubchansky (July 29th)
In 1977, a group called The Spiritual Association of Peers decamps to the woods of the Catskills, taking over an abandoned summer camp. They name their new home Simplicity.
In 2081, scholar Lucius Pasternak, a fastidiously organized trans man, tries to keep his head down living in the New York City Administrative and Security Territory, which was founded after the formal dissolution of the United States in 2041. Then, he’s offered a job by the mayor, billionaire real estate developer Dennis Van Wervel, to complete an anthropological survey of the people of Simplicity for a history museum he’s financing. A wary Lucius is nevertheless drawn in by the people of the small wooded community, intrigued by its strange rituals and in particular by the charming acolyte Amity Crown-Shy. Born and raised on the compound, Amity is comfortable in their own skin, a striking contrast to Lucius’ repressed reserve. But Lucius’ control starts to slip when he begins to suffer visions both terrifying and sensual—visits from beautiful but nightmarish creatures.
Then, just as Lucius discovers that Van Wervel’s project is more sinister than it seemed, members of the community begin to disappear, leaving behind grisly signs of struggle. The denizens of Simplicity believe that a being they call “The Lamentation” is responsible for the attacks. Amity and Lucius set out to hunt for the creature in the dangerous Exurb Zones, a wild wood full of libertarian doomsday preppers, wealthy isolationists, and worse. There, they’ll finally discover the true threat to their way of life—and what they’re willing to do to stop it.
The Needfire by MK Hardy (July 31st)
You are afraid of the border places. You are afraid of the fork in the road.
Fleeing her mistakes in Glasgow for a marriage of convenience, Norah Mackenzie’s new home on an estate far in the north of Scotland is a chance for freedom, a fresh start. But in the dim, draughty corridors of Corrain House, something is very wrong. Despite their warm correspondence, her distant, melancholic husband does not seem to know her. She is plagued by ghost ships on the sea, spectres at the corner of her eye, by winding, grasping roots. Her only possible companion, the housekeeper Agnes Gunn, is by turns unnerving and alluring, and harbours uncanny secrets of her own.
As the foundations crumble beneath her feet, Norah must uncover the truth about Corrain House, her husband, Agnes, and herself, if she is to find the freedom she has been chasing.
Buy it: Waterstones | Blackwell’s
Songs for Other People’s Weddings by David Levithan and Jens Lekman (August 5th)
J is an accidental wedding singer. Unlike most wedding singers, he writes an original song for every couple—his way of finding out about the small, strange things that brought them together and the hopeful, vulnerable feelings they’re experiencing.
J’s own love life is in a state of flux. His girlfriend is off to New York for work, and as her life grows bigger and busier without him in it, he finds it harder to stick to a happy tune. He doesn’t know whether to encourage the soon-to-be-wed couples or warn them.
When complications hit and love is tested, is there any way to sing through all the noise?
A Tale of Mirth & Magic by Kristen Vale (August 5th)
Elikki may not have a family, but she has her fierce independence, boundless charm, and enough talent as a jewelry artisan to make a living on the road. Unfortunately for some, she also can’t yet manage to control her chaotic magic. . . and her temper. Sweet, soft Barra lives a quiet life with his mas and three sisters, managing the books for his family’s business. All he wants is to blend in and not make waves—a bit tricky, as a nearly eight-foot-tall purple half-giant.
When Elikki lands in hot water after dealing with a particularly rude customer, Barra finds himself helping her flee the constables. With a bounty on her back—and a severe crush forming on his end—they decide to travel together to the next town. So begins a journey filled with cozy inns, delicious meals, heaps of excellent sex, and a sprinkling of danger. As their adventures bring them closer together and the threat of capture rises they find themselves changing in surprising ways. He’s given up on finding love. She’s always refused to try. But traveling together, they may discover unexpected, powerful romance and stronger self-identities—if the bounty hunters don’t get them first.
This is My Body by Lindsay King-Miller (August 5th)
Gay single mom Brigid always thought that cutting ties with her extremist Catholic family was the best thing she could have done for her daughter, Dylan—and for herself. But when Dylan starts having terrifying fits of unnatural violence, Brigid can’t shake her memories of a girl from her childhood who behaved the same way . . . until Brigid’s uncle, Father Angus, performed an exorcism.
Convinced that her daughter is suffering from demonic possession, Brigid does the thing she told herself she’d never do: she goes home. Father Angus is the worst person she knows, but he’s also the only person who can help her daughter.
But as Brigid starts to uncover secrets about Father Angus, that long-ago exorcism, and her family’s past, she realizes that she and Dylan have never been in more danger.
The Faceless Thing We Adore by Hester Steel (August 5th)
Eat, Pray, Love goes full Lovecraft in this queer, feel-good cosmic horror that reflects on gaslighting and emotional abuse.
Lemon, poppy seed, sun-warmed sand. These visions convince Aoife to quit her job, leave her manipulative boyfriend, and escape to the isolated shores of the Farmstead commune. There, among its charismatic and hedonistic residents, Aoife finds everything she’s been missing: a community that adores her, the freedom to indulge, and the promise to be a part of something miraculous.
But darkness underpins her airy new way of life. A disappearing cave looms above an ocean no one dares step foot in, mysterious crying fills the night hours, and a rot is spreading across the island. But perhaps most concerning is the commune’s reverence for their leader, Jonah―a love tinged with fear that Aoife knows all too well.
When Aoife’s boring old life comes crashing into her bold new one, loyalties are tested, unleashing a spiral of unspeakable violence that threatens to fracture reality itself. At the helm, Aoife finds herself desperately trying to protect everyone and everything she’s grown to love. Awkward, clumsy Aoife, who was always told she was weak, will soon realize the depths of her strength―and the pleasures of her rage.
Ghost Fish by Stuart Pennebaker (August 5th)
Alison is mired in loneliness and grief. Freshly twenty-three and mourning the loss of her younger sister, who has drowned at sea, she’s moved out of her hometown and into a cramped apartment on New York’s Lower East Side. Now she’s living the cliché, barely making rent as a restaurant hostess and avoiding her roommates, while watching the bright, busy passersby from her bubble of grief. She doesn’t need originality; she just needs to be alive.
Then, late one night, she rounds the corner and sees a shape in the air—a ghost. And how strange, it looks like a fish. What is it? Alison knows, without hesitation: it is her beloved sister, finally returned to her side. Safe in a pickle jar filled with water, the ghost fish goes wherever Alison does: in an alcove at the restaurant; in a tote bag on the subway; in her room at night as her roommates chatter outside. She knows she has to keep her safe from the world, the way she didn’t before. She knows that, together, they will never be lonely again. But as Alison’s new life in New York begins to grow, and as she navigates the murky waters of dating, friendship, and desire, she must ask: what if her sister is keeping her away from a life outwardly lived?
Extinction Capital of the World: Stories by Mariah Rigg (August 5th)
In ten vibrant, affecting stories, Mariah Rigg immerses readers in contemporary Hawai’i. By turns heartbreaking and hopeful, these stories of love, longing, and grief are fierce dispatches from a state haunted by the specter of colonization, a precious biome under constant threat.
An older man grapples with the American-weapons research conducted on a neighboring island that reverberates through his entire life. A pregnant woman seeks belonging while poaching flowers in the rainforest with her partner’s mother. Two teenage girls find love during a summer spent on Midway Atoll. A young woman returns home to O’ahu following a breakup and reconnects with her estranged father and the island itself.
Linked by both place and character, Rigg’s stories illuminate the exotification and commodification of Hawai’i in the American mythos. Extinction Capital of the World is an environmental love letter to the Hawaiian Islands and an indelible portrayal of the people who inhabit them—marking the arrival of an exciting new voice in contemporary fiction.
Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle (August 12th)
Four years ago, an unthinkable disaster occurred. In what was later known as the Low-Probability Event, eight million people were killed in a single day, each of them dying in improbable, bizarre ways: strangled by balloon ropes, torn apart by exploding manhole covers, attacked by a chimpanzee wielding a typewriter. A day of freak accidents that proved anything is possible, no matter the odds. Luck is real now, and it’s not always good.
Vera, a former statistics and probability professor, lost everything that day, and she still struggles to make sense of the unbelievable catastrophe. To her, the LPE proved that the God of Order is dead and nothing matters anymore.
When Special Agent Layne shows up on Vera’s doorstep, she learns he’s investigating a suspiciously—and statistically impossibly—lucky casino. He needs her help to prove the casino’s success is connected to the deaths of millions, and it’s Vera’s last chance to make sense of a world that doesn’t.
Because what’s happening in Vegas isn’t staying there, and she’s the only thing that stands between the world and another deadly improbability.
The Sunflower Boys by Sam Wachman (August 12th)
In many ways, twelve-year-old Artem’s life in Chernihiv, Ukraine, is normal. He spends his days helping on his grandfather’s sunflower farm, drawing in his sketchbook—a treasured gift from his father, who works in America—and swimming in the river with his little brother, Yuri. In secret, Artem has begun wrestling with romantic feelings for his best friend, Viktor. In a country where love between two boys is unthinkable, Artem has begun to worry that growing up, his life will never be normal.
Then, on a February night, Artem and Yuri are woken by explosions—the beginning of a war that will tear their life in two. The invading Russians destroy their home, killing their mother and grandfather, and leaving young Artem and Yuri to fend for themselves. Fleeing in hopes of somehow reuniting with their father, the brothers traverse the country their ancestors once fought and died for, with nothing but their backpacks and each other. Surrounded by death and destruction, Artem is certain of one thing—that whatever may come, he must keep himself and his brother alive.
The Midnight Shift by Seon-Ran Cheon, trans. by Gene Png (August 12th)
When four isolated elderly people die back-to-back at the same hospital by jumping out of the sixth-floor window, Su-Yeon doesn’t understand why she’s the only one at her precinct that seems to care. But her colleagues at the police force dismiss the case as a series of unfortunate suicides due to the patients’ loneliness. But Su-Yeon doesn’t have the privilege of looking away: her dearest friend, Grandma Eun-Shim, lives on the sixth floor, and Su-Yeon is terrified that something will happen to her next.
As Su-Yeon begins her investigation alone, she runs into a mysterious woman named Violette at the crime scene. Violette claims to be a vampire hunter, searching for her ex-lover, Lily, and is insistent that a vampire is behind the mysterious deaths. Su-Yeon is skeptical at first, but when a fifth victim jumps from the window, her investigation reveals the body was completely drained of blood. Desperate to discover the cause of the deaths, Su-Yeon considers Violette’s explanation-that something supernatural is involved.
The Rio Affair by Stacy Lynn Miller (August 12th)
This is the second book in the Hattie James quartet. The third, The Secret War, releases October 7th.
When a disgraced singer is snared in the undercurrents of WWII espionage, she must learn to become a shadow in the limelight.
Still struggling with personal loss and haunted by the memories of her near-death experience at the hands of the Nazis, dazzling singer Hattie James desires to leave her past behind and focus on reviving her career and rising in the ranks of the glamorous Brazilian music scene.
But when she discovers that her mother’s new suitor, Swiss diplomat Frederick Ziegler, is associated with SS leader Heinz Baumann, Hattie’s suspicions ignite. Then, while performing for an exclusive gathering at Ziegler’s residence, she overhears a chilling plan to assassinate a high government official and sabotage the Brazilian-American alliance by sinking a Rio-bound passenger ship―possibly the same one that Hattie’s own sister is traveling on.
With this, Hattie is catapulted back into the delicate dance of espionage. But her fragile safety net suddenly evaporates when her agency contact goes dark. Forced to take matters into her own hands, Hattie uses her cover as a singer in a risky bid to gather crucial intelligence.
Alone in the field and with her family in danger, Hattie must cultivate unconventional contacts and trust uneasy alliances in order to protect her loved ones…and save hundreds of innocent lives.
Alchemy and a Cup of Tea by Rebecca Thorne (August 12th)
This is the 4th book in the Tomes & Tea series
Reyna and Kianthe have no trouble commanding the Realm, running a bookshop, or rescuing baby dragons…but can they save their town from the swarming influx of…tourists?!?
On the night of her kidnapping, all Reyna wanted was a relaxing cup of tea. She didn’t expect to be dropped in a hidden prison cell, but what the hells. She’s flexible.
With appropriate fanfare, Kianthe “rescues” her wife…but Reyna’s actually a terrible damsel in distress. Even worse, Reyna’s cell was booby trapped with a mysterious alchemy circle. What does a radical alchemist want with the Arcandor’s wife? And why did they think they could get away with this?
While they investigate, another problem surfaces in their hometown. Word of New Leaf Tomes and Tea―and its celebrity owners―has finally spread. Tourists are everywhere, harassing the locals and ruining the charm of Tawney. As their friends struggle with the sudden influx, Kianthe and Reyna have to face a bigger conundrum than rogue alchemists: the fact that closing their bookshop might be the only way to save their town.
Things can’t just be simple, can they?
Lord of Ruin by K.M. Enright (August 12th)
This is the sequel to Mistress of Lies
It has been six months since the failed coup led by Isaac De La Cruz, and Shan LeClaire is struggling under the mantle of Royal Blood Worker. Left with a dwindling blood supply and a ravenous nation whose thirst will drown them, Shan is forced to turn to darker means to fill the need. And that is only the start of the horrors her Eternal King asks of her.
Now Councillor to the King, Samuel is trapped in a labyrinthine world of politics and bylaws. Crushed by the knowledge that he can never change things from within, Samuel breaks from Shan, turning to her rebellious brother to help him rescue the disgraced Isaac de la Cruz from the King’s dungeons.
Despite his newfound freedom, all is not well with Isaac. His actions have consequences, the dangerous magic he experimented with changing him from man to monster. But a monster might just be the only thing that can stand up to the Eternal King. Embracing the beast within, Isaac will see this broken nation shattered-even if it would cost the love of those he holds most dear.
Lessons in Magic and Disaster by Charlie Jane Anders (August 19th)
Jamie is basically your average New England academic in-training–she has a strong queer relationship, an esoteric dissertation proposal, and inherited generational trauma. But she has one extraordinary secret: she’s also a powerful witch.
Serena, Jamie’s mother, has been hiding from the world in an old one-room schoolhouse for several years, grieving the death of her wife and the simultaneous explosion in her professional life. All she has left are memories.
Jamie’s busy digging into a three-hundred-year-old magical book, but she still finds time to teach Serena to cast spells and help her come out of her shell. But Jamie doesn’t know the whole story of what happened to her mom years ago, and those secrets are leading Serena down a destructive path.
Now it’s up to this grad student and literature nerd to understand the secrets behind this mysterious novel from 1749, unearth a long-buried scandal hinted therein, and learn the true nature of magic, before her mother ruins both of their lives.
Sweetener by Marissa Higgins (August 19th)
In Sweetener, recently separated wives, both named Rebecca, can’t seem to disentangle their lives. Lonely and depressed, Rebecca is scraping by as a part-time cashier at an organic grocery store. Despite having less than ten dollars in her bank account, she lists herself as a sugar mama on a lesbian hookup app. Enter Charlotte, a charismatic artist who, unbeknownst to Rebecca, is also dating her wife.
Meanwhile, the other Rebecca, a newly sober doctoral student, has renewed her efforts to foster a child. The catch? Because the Rebeccas are still legally married, she needs her wife to attend parenting classes with her as part of the approval process.
Neither of them asks whether this means they’re getting back together, but the idea alone sends Charlotte into a tailspin. As Charlotte navigates her desire for each Rebecca—or her desire for attention—her world becomes more and more Gumby-like and surreal. It doesn’t help that she’s been wearing a fake pregnancy belly to all of her dates, and only one of the Rebeccas knows it isn’t real.
This Vicious Hunger by Francesca May (August 26th)
Thora Grieve finds herself destitute and an outcast after the sudden death of her husband, but a glimmer of hope arrives when a family friend offers her the chance to study botany under the tutelage of a famed professor. Once at the university, Thora becomes entranced by a mysterious young woman, Olea, who emerges each night to tend to the plants in the private garden below Thora’s window.
Hungry for connection, Thora befriends Olea through the garden gate and their relationship quickly and intensely blossoms. Thora throws herself into finding a cure for the ailment confining Olea to the garden and sinks deeper into a world of beauty, poison, and obsession. Thora has finally found the freedom to pursue her darkest desires, but will it be worth the price?
Three Parties by Ziyad Saadi (August 26th)
A queer Palestinian refugee plans to come out at his elaborate birthday dinner party in this tragicomic modern reimagining of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway.
Firas Dareer wakes up on his twenty-third birthday with a sense of purpose: today he’ll jump from a Stage 3 to a Stage 6 in his self-determined Coming Out Scale, professing his sexuality to a captive audience of immediate and extended family, friends, acquaintances, coworkers, and neighbours. But despite the meticulously designed invitations, carefully chosen place settings and floral centerpieces, painstakingly curated playlist, and agonizingly fretted-over menu, factors begin to spin out of his control.
Threatening to thwart his big moment are his younger brother, whose mental fragility requires him to be monitored at all times; his cantankerous grandfather, who’s just completed his third escape from the retirement home; the Dareers’ embittered housekeeper (and Firas’s arch nemesis), who could scoop the story before he gets the chance; his harried boss, who on this of all days calls him into work at the architecture firm, where his colleagues share a talent for butchering his name; and his mother, whose accidental text message may have blown the cover of an illicit extra-marital affair. There’s also the fact that Firas too has found himself in a love triangle of sorts, choosing between soft and steady Tyrese and fiery Kashif, who makes a sport out of demonstrating how Palestinian he is.
As the future Firas has precisely architected for himself slips further out of his grasp, the past comes crashing in like a wrecking ball. Sharp, darkly funny, and full of surprises, Three Parties pays twisted homage to a literary classic, gleefully upends the western coming-out narrative, and sensitively explores the traumas and pressures faced by Palestinian immigrants—all in the span of a single life-changing day.
Daddy Issues by Eric C. Wat (September 1st)
Daddy Issues is a collection of moving and complex—yet simply and directly told—stories of queer Asian American experiences in Los Angeles. In many of these stories, the protagonists are artists and writers and other creative thinkers living on the fringe of survival, attempting to align a life of the imagination with the practical considerations of career, income, and family: a gay father who hasn’t come out to his young son; a social worker, numbed by the destitution of his clients, who finds himself lost in self-destruction; a trans man who returns home to a father with dementia to help his family pack as they are pushed out by gentrification; a husband who can only stand aside as his wife heals from a miscarriage; and a broke writer who learns to love his stories again.
The stories in Daddy Issues offer different contemplations on solitude—the good and the bad of it. Ultimately, this collection by Eric C. Wat is full of hope, and it shows how we can find the connections we need once we allow ourselves to become vulnerable.
The True Story of Raja the Gullible by Rabih Alameddine (September 2nd)
In a tiny Beirut apartment, sixty-three-year-old Raja and his mother live side by side. A beloved high school philosophy teacher and “the neighborhood homosexual,” Raja relishes books, meditative walks, order, and solitude. Zalfa, his octogenarian mother, views her son’s desire for privacy as a personal affront. She demands to know every detail of Raja’s work life and love life, boundaries be damned.
When Raja receives an invite to an all-expenses-paid writing residency in America, the timing couldn’t be better. It arrives on the heels of a series of personal and national disasters that have left Raja longing for peace and quiet away from his mother and the heartache of Lebanon. But what at first seems a stroke of good fortune soon leads Raja to recount and relive the very disasters and past betrayals he wishes to forget.
To the Moon and Back by Eliana Ramage (September 2nd)
My mother took my sister and me, and she drove through the night to a place she felt a claim to, a place on earth she thought we might be safe. I stopped asking questions. I picked little glass pieces from my sister’s hair. I watched the moon.
Steph Harper is on the run. When she was five, her mother fled an abusive husband—with Steph and her younger sister in tow—to Cherokee Nation, where she hoped they might finally belong. In response, Steph sets her sights as far away from Oklahoma as she can get, vowing that she will let nothing get in the way of pursuing the rigorous physical and academic training she knows she will need to be accepted by NASA, and ultimately, to go to the moon.
Spanning three decades and several continents, To the Moon and Back encompasses Steph’s turbulent journey, along with the multifaceted and intertwined lives of the three women closest to her: her sister Kayla, an artist who goes on to become an Indigenous social media influencer, and whose determination to appear good takes her life to unexpected places; Steph’s college girlfriend Della Owens, who strives to reclaim her identity as an adult after being removed from her Cherokee family through a challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act; and Hannah, Steph and Kayla’s mother, who has held up her family’s tribal history as a beacon of inspiration to her children, all the while keeping her own past a secret.
In Steph’s certainty that only her ambition can save her, she will stretch her bonds with each of these women to the point of breaking, at once betraying their love and generosity, and forcing them to reconsider their own deepest desires in her shadow.
Moonflow by Bitter Karella (September 2nd)
I see something out there, in the woods. It does not have a face.
They call it the King’s Breakfast. One bite and you can understand the full scope of the universe; one bite and you can commune with forgotten gods beyond human comprehension. And it only grows deep in the Pamogo forest, where the trees crowd so tight that the forest floor is pitch black day and night, where rumors of disappearing hikers and strange cults that worship the divine feminine abound.
Sarah is a trans woman who makes her living growing mushrooms. When a bad harvest leaves her in a desperate fix, the lure of the King’s Breakfast has her journeying into those vast uncharted woods. But as she descends deeper, she realizes she’s not alone. Something in the forest is waking up. It’s hungry—and it wants her.
The Maiden and Her Monster by Maddie Martinez (September 9th)
The forest eats the girls who wander out after dark.
As the healer’s daughter, Malka has seen how the wood’s curse has plagued her village, but the Ozmini Church only comes to collect its tithe, not to protect heretics with false stories of monsters in the trees. So when a clergy girl wanders too close to the forest and Malka’s mother is accused of her murder, Malka strikes an impossible bargain with a zealot Ozmini priest. If she brings the monster out, he will spare her mother from execution.
When she ventures into the shadowed woods, Malka finds a monster, though not the one she expects: an inscrutable, disgraced golem who agrees to implicate herself, but only if Malka helps her fulfill a promise first and free the imprisoned rabbi who created her.
But a deal easily made is not easily kept. And as their bargain begins to unravel a much more sinister threat, protecting her people may force Malka to endanger the one person she left home to save―and face her growing feelings for the very creature she was taught to fear.
You Weren’t Meant to Be Human by Andrew Joseph White (September 9th)
Alien meets Midsommar in this chilling debut adult novel from award-winning author Andrew Joseph White about identity, survival, and transformation amidst an alien invasion in rural West Virginia.
Festering masses of worms and flies have taken root in dark corners across Appalachia. In exchange for unwavering loyalty and fresh corpses, these hives offer a few struggling humans salvation. A fresh start. It’s an offer that none refuse.
Crane is grateful. Among his hive’s followers, Crane has found a chance to transition, to never speak again, to live a life that won’t destroy him. He even met Levi: a handsome ex-Marine and brutal killer who treats him like a real man, mostly. But when Levi gets Crane pregnant—and the hive demands the child’s birth, no matter the cost—Crane’s desperation to make it stop will drive the community that saved him into a devastating spiral that can only end in blood.
Middle Spoon by Alejandro Varela (September 9th)
The narrator of Middle Spoon appears to be living the dream: He has a doting husband, two precocious children, all the comforts of a quiet bourgeois life—and a sexy younger boyfriend to accompany him to farmers markets and cocktail parties. But when his boyfriend abruptly dumps him, he spirals into heartbreak for the first time and must confront a world still struggling to understand polyamorous relationships. Faced with the judgment of friends and the sting of rejection, he’s left to wonder if sharing a life with both his family and his lover could ever truly be possible.
Hot Wax by M.L. Rio (September 9th)
Summer, 1989: ten-year-old Suzanne is drawn like a magnet to her father’s forbidden world of electric guitars and tricked-out cars. When her mother remarries, she jumps at the chance to tag along on the concert tour that just might be Gil and the Kills’ wild ride to glory. But fame has sharper fangs than anybody realized, and as the band blazes up the charts, internal power struggles set Gil and his group on a collision course destined for a bloody reckoning—one shrouded in mystery and lore for decades to come.
The only witness to a desperate act of violence, Suzanne spends the next twenty-nine years trying to disappear. She trades the music and mayhem of her youth for the quiet of the suburbs and the company of her mild-mannered husband Rob. But when her father’s sudden death resurrects the troubled past she tried so hard to bury, she leaves it all behind and hits the road in search of answers. Hitching her fate and Gil’s beloved car to two vagabonds who call an old Airstream trailer home, she finds everything she thought she’d lost forever: desire, adventure, and the woman she once wanted to be. But Rob refuses to let her go. Determined to bring her back where she belongs, he chases her across the country—and drives her to a desperation all her own.
The Haunting of William Thorn by Ben Alderson (September 9th)
William Thorn had his life all planned out… until his long-term boyfriend Archie cheats, breaking his heart. Distraught, William kicks him out of their home, where tragedy strikes when Archie is killed instantly in a car accident.
Riddled with guilt, William is shocked to learn that he’s inherited a manor in the quaint village of Stonewall, left to him in Archie’s will. He leaves the city with plans to make a new start for himself, but is surprised by the rundown state of the manor, and the unwelcoming villagers who want him gone. His only ally is Edward, a seemingly friendly local with secrets of his own.
However, it’s not only the villagers who are adverse to his presence. A malevolent spirit roams the manor, one that seeks to drive William out for good. But when he uncovers the heartbreaking tale of two men in love in the 1920’s, William strives to find peace for the spirit, ending the haunting once and for all.
But what dark secrets lie hidden in the manor walls? And will William be able to put aside his own grief to save his new home…and his life?
We Are Always Tender With Our Dead by Eric LaRocca (September 9th)
The lives of those residing in the isolated town of Burnt Sparrow, New Hampshire, are forever altered after three faceless entities arrive on Christmas morning to perform a brutal act of violence—a senseless tragedy that can never be undone. While the townspeople grieve their losses and grapple with the aftermath of the attack, a young teenage boy named Rupert Cromwell is forced to confront the painful realities of his family situation. Once relationships become intertwined and more carnage ensues as a result of the massacre, the town residents quickly learn that true retribution is futile, cruelty is earned, and certain thresholds must never be crossed no matter what.
Pantomime by L.R. Lam (September 9th)
This is a revised adult rerelease of the original YA title
Micah runs away from a debutante’s life at home and joins the circus, harboring two secrets–one: he was born between male and female, and two: he may have powers last seen in mysterious beings from an almost-forgotten age.
Micah discovers the joy of flight as an aerialist, courting his trapeze partner, Aenea, and confiding in the mysterious white clown, Drystan. He finally feels free. But the circus has a dark side, and Micah’s past isn’t done with him.
Meanwhile, the strange ‘ghost’ of a woman with damselfly wings whispers to Micah that only he can help magic return to the realm, and he fears she may be right…
Micah has much to learn, and he must do it quickly—before his past and future collide, with catastrophic consequences.
A Murderous Business by Cathy Pegau (September 16th)
There can be a blurry line between what is ethical and what is legal.
Margot Baxter Harriman took the reins of B&H Foods after her father passed. It’s not easy being a business woman in 1912, but she is determined to continue what her grandparents started decades ago, no matter what it takes.
So when Margot finds Mrs. Gilroy, her father’s former assistant, dead in the office with a half-finished note confessing to nebulous misdeeds at B&H, she seeks out help from a very discreet, private investigator to figure out what’s going on. Her company, and her good name, are at stake if scandal breaks…and she could lose everything, including her freedom.
Loretta “Rett” Mancini has run her father’s investigation operation since he started becoming increasingly forgetful. When Margot offers her the chance to look into the potential scandal with B&H, she jumps at it.
But the more the two dig in, the more it becomes clear that Margot’s company may be too far lost…and someone is willing to kill them both to keep things quiet.
Runs in the Blood by Matthew J. Trafford (September 16th)
A lesbian mother feels out of place taking her daughter to a princess party; a gay couple turns to unconventional means to create their baby; a grieving man winds up on a date with a centaur; an agoraphobic must make an impossible choice before time runs out. This is the unnerving world of Runs in the Blood, Matthew J. Trafford’s sophomore story collection, and it pulses with humour, anxiety, and profound disquiet.
Darkly satirical and unflinchingly human, the stories of Runs in the Blood unsettle our notions of family, whether biological or chosen. Careening through the space beyond nature versus nurture, its characters – betrayed, wounded, unequipped – wrangle with their own worst instincts and the grotesqueries of the modern world, attempting to create families worth holding on to and to protect the children they love.
Best Woman by Rose Dommu (September 23rd)
Julia Rosenberg loves her brother. Really loves him. Enough to: be the “best woman” at his wedding; leave behind her hard-won New York life, brilliant best friends, and drag brunches for Boca Raton, Florida; entertain the uptight bride-to-be and her vicious cronies; try (and fail) to dodge the hometown hookup buddy she can’t resist; and navigate the tricky dynamics with her divorced parents.
She’s not that nervous. Her family stood by her when she came out as a woman a few years ago. And it’s just one week in Florida—a week of old memories and sisterly duties that will force Julia to confront the tensions that have been bubbling beneath the surface of her closest relationships. No big deal.
When it turns out that Kim Cameron, the gorgeous, self-assured girl that she crushed hard on in high school, is the maid of honor, Julia panics. She tells a teensy little lie to win Kim’s favor—a lie that snowballs out of her control and threatens to undermine the blossoming attraction between them and complicate an already challenging relationship with her family. Using her wit, charm, and a suitcase full of couture “borrowed” from a pop star, Julia just might survive the horde of clone-like bridesmaids, go-kart racing bachelor parties, and alcohol-fueled speeches. But she won’t make it out unscathed. As best woman, she’s making the worst decisions of her life.
Beings by Ilana Masad (September 23rd)
In 1961, an interracial couple drove through the dark mountains of New Hampshire when a mysterious light began to follow them. Years later, through hypnosis, they recalled an unbelievable brush with extraterrestrial life. Unintentionally, a genre was born: the alien abduction narrative.
In Ilana Masad’s Beings, the couple’s experience serves as one part of a trio of intertwined threads: Known only by their roles as husband and wife, Masad explores the pair’s trauma and its aftermath and questions what it means to accept the impossible. In the second thread, letters penned by a budding science-fiction writer, Phyllis, to her beloved, Rosa, expose the raw ache of queer yearning, loneliness, and alienation in the repressive 1960s-as well as the joy of finding community. In the present day, a reclusive and chronically ill Archivist attempts to understand a strange forgotten childhood encounter while descending into obsession over both Phyllis’s letters and the testimony of the first alien abductees.
Over the course of a decade, Phyllis wrestles with her desires and ambitions as a lesbian writer, while the abducted couple grapple with how to maintain control of their narrative. All the while, the archive shatters and reforms, redefining fact and fiction via the stories left behind by the abductees, Phyllis, and the Archivist themself. Masad makes human what is alien and makes tangible what is hidden – sometimes by chance and sometimes intentionally – in the archive.
I am You by Victoria Redel (September 30th)
At age eight, Gerta Pieters is dressed as a boy and put to work in the service of the Oosterwijcks, a genteel Dutch family. When Gerta catches the eye of the young Maria Oosterwijck, Gerta’s asked to accompany her to Amsterdam, where Maria will study under a noteworthy Dutch artist.
In Amsterdam, Maria rises in the ranks of society as a prodigy of still life painting. From the shadows, Gerta watches her ascension and learns to make herself invaluable to Maria in more ways than one. As their relationship evolves, Gerta may come to be more intrinsic to Maria’s personal life—and her art—than even she could have imagined.
The Shocking Experiments of Miss Mary Bennet by Melinda Taub (September 30th)
Awkward, plain, and overlooked, Mary Bennet has long been out of favor not only with her own family but with generations of readers of Pride and Prejudice. But what was this peculiar girl really doing while her sisters were falling in love?
As, one by one, Mary’s sisters get married, she hatches a plan. If the world won’t give this fierce, lonely girl a place, she’ll carve one out herself. In a desperate bid to avoid becoming a burden on her family or, worse, married to a controlling man, Mary does what any bright, intrepid girl would do. She takes to the attic and teach herself to reanimate the dead. If finding acceptance requires a husband, she’ll get one. . . even if she has to make him herself.
However, Mary’s genius and determination aren’t enough to control the malevolent force that she unwittingly unleashes. Soon, her attempts to rein in the destruction wreaked by her creations leads her to forge a perhaps unlikely friendship with another brilliant young woman unlike any she’s ever known. As that friendship blossoms into something passionate and all-consuming, Mary begins to realize that she may have to choose between the acceptance she’s always fought for and true happiness.
Fate’s Bane by C.L. Clark (September 30th)
Warring clans. Burning hearts. Deadly fate.
The clans of the fens enjoy a tenuous peace, and it is all thanks to Agnir, ward and hostage. For as long as she can remember she has lived among the enemy, learning their ways, growing strong alongside their children. When a burgeoning love for the chieftain’s daughter lures them both to a hidden spring, a magic awakens in them that could bind the clans under one banner at last―or destroy any hope of peace. By working their intentions into leather, they can weave misfortune for their enemies… just like the Fate’s Bane that haunts the legends of the clans.
Ambitions grow in their fathers’ hearts, grudges threaten a return to violence, and greedy enemies wait outside the borders, seeking a foothold to claim the fens for themselves. And though their Makings may save their families, the legend that gave them this power always exacts its price.
The Sovereign by C.L. Clark (September 30th)
The Sovereign brings princess Luca and soldier Touraine together one last time in the thrilling conclusion to C. L. Clark’s beloved queer political fantasy trilogy.
Luca is the new queen of Balladaire. Her empire is already splintering in her hands. Her uncle wasn’t the only traitor in the court, and the Withering plague will decimate her people if she can’t unearth Balladaire’s magic. The only person who can help her wants the only thing Luca won’t give—the end of the monarchy.
Touraine is Luca’s general. She has everything she ever wanted. While Luca looks within Balladaire’s borders, Touraine looks outward—the alliance with Qazal is brittle and Balladaire’s neighbors are ready to pounce on its new weakness. When the army comes, led by none other than Touraine’s old lover, Touraine must face the truth about herself—and the empire she once called home.
A storm is coming. Touraine and Luca will stand against it together, or it will tear them apart once and for all.
Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World by Mark Waddell (October 7th)
WARNING! Under no circumstances must employees strike a deal with unauthorized personnel on Dark Enterprises property. Such behavior could result in death…or the end of the world.
Colin is a low-level employee at Dark Enterprises, a Hell-like multinational corporation solving the world’s most difficult problems in deeply questionable ways. After years of toiling away in a cubicle, he’s ready to climb the corporate ladder and claim the power he’s never had.
The only problem is, he’s pretty sure he’s about to be terminated. Like, terminated. That’s tough, because his BFF has just set him up with a great guy. In fact, maybe he’s a little too great. And asks a lot of questions…
When Colin meets a shadowy figure promising him his heart’s deepest desire, he can’t resist the urge to fast-track his goals. In return for a small, unspecified favor, he asks for the one thing that will improve his life: a promotion.
But that small favor unleashes an ancient evil. People in New York are disappearing, the world might be ending, and Management is starting to notice. Getting to the top is never easy, and now it’s up to Colin to save the world. It’s the ultimate power move, after all.
Crafting for Sinners by Jenny Kiefer (October 7th)
Ruth is trapped. She’s stuck in her small, religious hometown of Kill Devil, Kentucky, stuck in the closet, and stuck living paycheck to paycheck. After her manager finds out that she lives with her girlfriend, Ruth is fired from her job at New Creations—a craft store owned by the church that dominates life in Kill Devil.
In an act of revenge, Ruth attempts to shoplift some yarn but is caught red-handed. Instead of calling the police, the employees lock her in the store—and attack her. As Ruth fights for her life using only the crafting supplies at hand, she plunges deeper into the tangled web of the New Creationists, who are hiding a terrible secret that threatens not only her but the entire town.
Cinder House by Freya Marske (October 7th)
Ella is a haunting.
Murdered at sixteen, her ghost is furiously trapped in her father’s house, invisible to everyone except her stepmother and stepsisters.
Even when she discovers how to untether herself from her prison, there are limits. She cannot be seen or heard by the living people who surround her. Her family must never learn she is able to leave. And at the stroke of every midnight, she finds herself back on the staircase where she died.
Until she forges a wary friendship with a fairy charm-seller, and makes a bargain for three nights of almost-living freedom. Freedom that means she can finally be seen. Danced with. Touched.
You think you know Ella’s story: the ball, the magical shoes, the handsome prince.
You’re halfway right, and all-the-way wrong.
All of Us Murderers by K.J. Charles (October 7th)
When Zeb Wyckham is summoned to a wealthy relative’s remote Gothic manor, he is horrified to find all the people he least wants to see in the world: his estranged brother, his sneering cousin, and his bitter ex-lover Gideon Grey. Things couldn’t possibly get worse.
Then the master of the house announces the true purpose of the gathering: he intends to leave the vast family fortune to whoever marries his young ward, setting off a violent scramble for her hand. Zeb wants no part of his greedy family―but when he tries to leave, the way is barred. The walls of Lackaday House are high, and the gates firmly locked. As the Dartmoor mists roll in, there’s no way out. And something unnatural may be watching them from the house’s shadowy depths…
Fear and paranoia ramping ever-higher, Zeb has nowhere to turn but to the man who once held his heart. As the gaslight flickers and terror takes hold, can two warring lovers reunite, uncover the murderous mysteries of Lackaday House―and live to tell the tale?
The Hearth Witch’s Guide to Magic & Murder by Kiri Callaghan (October 7th)
“For all intents and purposes, we are still blissfully separated from the mortals, but there have been…complications.”
When a rise in London’s supernatural crime puts Fey society at risk of discovery, the Winter Council turns to an unlikely solution: Avery Hemlock, the changeling they sentenced to 500 Years of Nightmares. Inherently lacking social grace and missing approximately two centuries of world knowledge, Avery must find a way to acclimate and solve the case or lose her probationary freedom.
After being left at the altar and dropping out of medical school, Saga Trygg attempts to rekindle her faith in life, humanity, and witchcraft. But when her new neighbor, Avery, accidentally reveals the Fey that have been living among humanity all along, Saga realizes magic is far more than prayers, intention, and candles.
Each faced with navigating an unfamiliar world, the two form an unexpected partnership―but shortly into Avery’s investigation, they discover the threat might be closer to Saga than either of them imagined, and Avery will do anything to protect the first friend she’s had in more than two hundred years.
Vampires at Sea by Lindsay Merbaum (October 7th)
Immortal beloveds Rebekah and Hugh are on vacation! Against a backdrop of ongoing war, this pair of chic emotional vampires from San Francisco sets off on a queer Black Sea Cruise, eager to relax, join an orgy, and feast upon their fellow passengers’ desires and sorrows. When Hugh becomes enchanted by an alluring—and possibly magical—nonbinary social media influencer named Heaven, Rebekah’s reality capsizes, and her true nature is unleashed.
Herculine by Grace Byron (October 7th)
Herculine’s narrator has demons. Sure, her life includes several hallmarks of the typical trans girl sob story—conversion therapy, a string of shitty low-paying jobs, and even shittier exes—but she also regularly debates sleep paralysis demons that turn to mist soon after she wakes and carries vials of holy oil in her purse. Nothing, though, prepares her for the new malevolent force stalking her through the streets of New York City, more powerful than any she’s ever encountered. Desperate to escape this ancient evil, she flees to rural Indiana, where her ex-girlfriend started an all-trans girl commune in the middle of the woods.
The secluded camp, named after 19th-century intersex memoirist Herculine Barbin, is a scrappy operation, but the shared sense of community among the girls is a welcome balm to the narrator’s growing isolation and paranoia. Still, something isn’t quite right at Herculine. Girls stop talking as soon as she enters the room, everyone seems to share a common secret, and the books lining the walls of the library harbor strange cryptograms. Soon what once looked like an escape becomes a trap all its own.
While trying to untangle the commune’s many mysteries, the narrator contends with disemboweled pigs, cultlike psychosexual rituals, and the horrors of communal breakfast. And before long, she discovers that her demons have followed her. And this time, they won’t be letting her go.
The Salvage by Anbara Salam (October 7th)
It is 1962, and Marta Khoury, a trailblazing marine archaeologist, has been called to Cairnroch, a small island off the east coast of Scotland. A Victorian shipwreck, dragged from arctic waters, holds the remains of a celebrated explorer and the treasures of his final expedition. But on her first dive down to the ship, Marta becomes convinced she has seen a dark figure lurking amid the wreckage.
When the Cuban Missile Crisis and the deep chill of a record-breaking winter keeps Marta stranded on Cairnroch, she forms a relationship with Elsie, a local woman working in the island’s only hotel. When the ship’s artefacts inexplicably disappear, Marta and Elsie have to brave the freezing conditions to search for the missing objects before anyone else catches on. As something eerie seems to follow her at every step, Marta must confront if the haunting is a figment of her imagination, the repercussions from a terrible mistake from her past, or if something more sinister is at play that will trap her and everyone on the island―and their secrets―in an icy wilderness.
Mirage City by Lev A.C. Rosen (October 7th)
This is the fourth book in the Evander Mills series
Private Investigator Evander “Andy” Mills’ next case takes him out of his comfort zone in San Francisco―and much to his dismay, back home to Los Angeles. After a secretive queer rights organization called the Mattachine Society enlists Andy to find some missing members, he must dodge not only motorcycle gangs and mysterious forces, but his own mother, too.
Avoiding her proves to be a challenge when the case leads Andy to the psychiatric clinic she works at. Worlds collide, buried secrets are dug up, and Andy realizes he’s going to have to make some hard choices. With secrets, drugs, and doctors swirling around him, time is running out for Andy to locate the missing and get them to safety. And for him to make it back to San Francisco in one piece.
The River and the Star by Gabriela Romero Lacruz (October 7th)
In the gripping conclusion to the Warring Gods duology, two women find themselves caught in an ancient feud between ruthless entities, and embark on an epic quest for power and liberation.
Reina is full of hope.
At long last, Reina has the peace she’s been searching for on the idyllic islands of Tierra’e Sol with the lover she’s always wanted and in service to the god of the sun. But she can’t quite trust how long this will last. When monstrous creatures of the Void appear on the isle’s shores, she is certain she knows who is behind the attacks. Reina will stop at nothing to protect the woman she loves, but it could cost her everything she’s fought so hard for.
Eva is cherished.
Finally reunited with her father, the Liberator, Eva struggles to prove herself worthy of being his heir while keeping secret her alliance with the god of the Void. As destruction, both human and magical, tears across the lands, Eva is thrust into a power struggle she’s ill-prepared for. Confronted with the limits of her own ambition, Eva must fight to save herself from the powerful corruption of the Void before she loses the family she holds dear.
The warring gods are returning and the only thing between them and absolute power are two young women. But for the first time in their lives, Reina and Eva have something to fight for. And they won’t back down.
A Mouthful of Dust by Nghi Vo (October 7th)
This is the sixth novella in the Singing Hills Cycle. The novellas are standalone stories linked by the Cleric Chih, and may be read in any order.
Wandering Cleric Chih of Singing Hills and their hoopoe companion Almost Brilliant come to the river town of Baolin chasing stories of a legendary famine. Amid tales of dishes served to royalty and desserts made of dust, they discover the secrets of what happens when hunger stalks the land and what the powerful will do to hide their crimes.
Trapped in the mansion of a sinister magistrate, Chih and Almost Brilliant must learn what happened in Baolin when the famine came to call, and they must do so quickly… because the things in the shadows are only growing hungrier.
Dead & Breakfast by Kat Hillis and Rosiee Thor (October 14th)
The new vampires in town are sinking their teeth into solving a murder…
Married odd couple Arthur and Sal are totally normal. They wear sunscreen, not because the sun can kill them, but because even the undead need a skincare regimen. They eat garlic whenever they want, though it gives Sal indigestion. They can talk to creatures of the night, but only the raccoons that rifle through their garbage. Really, they don’t bite… except into delicious baked goods.
Ready to settle down and stay out of trouble, the two have opened a bed & breakfast in the idyllic, if not-so-paranormal-friendly, town of Trident Falls, Oregon. But trouble finds them when the mayor is discovered dead in their begonias with two puncture wounds in his neck. With the help of a werewolf barista, the elven town coroner, and a very human city manager, Arthur and Sal will need to prove they aren’t literally out for blood by catching a killer…
The Dogs of Venice by Steven Rowley (October 14th)
After months of planning a romantic holiday getaway in Venice, Paul is blindsided when his five-year marriage suddenly unravels. Fueled by heartbreak, Paul endeavors to take the trip alone.
Soon after arriving in Italy, he notices a small, scruffy, self-assured dog trotting alongside a canal with the confidence he so desperately wants for himself. When their paths cross again, Paul feels compelled to learn how his new four-legged friend thrives on his own. Amid the food, sights, and welcoming people of Venice, Paul’s journey culminates in a magical encounter that leads him to feel real connection—to a dog, to a foreign city and, most importantly, to himself.
Local Heavens by Kris M. Fajardo (October 14th)
A corporate hacker. An elusive billionaire. A society trying to survive the American Nightmare.
New York City, 2075. Filipino American Nick Carraway has just moved to the heart of the fractured New Americas, where he’s struck by the city’s contradictions—shining corporate towers casting bleak shadows over the slums of a crumbling middle class.
When Nick meets alluring, new-money Jay Gatsby, he falls for Gatsby’s frank charm and confident aura. But in a city where the wealthy flaunt tech-enhanced bodies to cheat death, surfaces aren’t all they seem—and as a corporate-sanctioned cyberspace hacker, Nick knows that no secret can stay buried forever. He’s the reason they don’t. And his latest assignment? Investigate Gatsby himself.
As Nick becomes entangled in the dark affairs of the elite—and the devastating fallout of their actions on the city’s most vulnerable—he must reckon with the limits of compassion and accountability across class and status. What takes precedence: Love or truth? Heart or soul?
Minor Black Figures by Brandon Taylor (October 14th)
A newcomer to New York, Wyeth is a Black painter who grew up in the South and is trying to find his place in the contemporary Manhattan art scene. It’s challenging. Gallery shows displaying bad art. Pretentious artists jockeying for attention. The gossip and the backstabbing. While his part-time work for an art restorer is engaging, Wyeth suffers from artist’s block with his painting and he is finding it increasingly difficult to spark his creativity. When he meets Keating, a white former seminarian who left the priesthood, Wyeth begins to reconsider how to observe the world, in the process facing questions about the conflicts between Black and white art, the white gaze on the Black body, and the compromises we make – in art and in life.
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The Keeper of Magical Things by Julie Leong (October 14th)
Certainty Bulrush wants to be useful—to the Guild of Mages that took her in as a novice, to the little brother who depends on her, and to anyone else she can help. Unfortunately, her tepid magic hasn’t proven much use to anyone. When Certainty has the chance to earn her magehood via a seemingly straightforward assignment, she takes it. Nevermind that she’ll have to work with Mage Aurelia, the brilliant, unfairly attractive overachiever who’s managed to alienate everyone around her.
The two must transport minorly magical artifacts somewhere safe: Shpelling, the dullest, least magical village around. There, they must fix up an old warehouse, separate the gossipy teapots from the kind-of-flaming swords, and above all: avoid complications. The Guild’s uneasy relationship with citizens is at a tipping point, and the last thing needed is a magical incident.
Still, as mage and novice come to know Shpelling’s residents—and each other—they realize the Guild’s hoarded magic might do more good being shared. Friendships blossom while Certainty and Aurelia work to make Shpelling the haven it could be. But magic is fickle—add attraction and it might spell trouble.
We Had a Hunch by Tom Ryan (October 14th)
Few stories captured the public’s imagination in the year 2000 like the friendly rivalry between the Teen Detectives of Edgar Mills, Massachusetts. Twin sisters Alice and Samantha VanDyne were thrust into the spotlight when they helped their father Sheriff Bill VanDyne bust a dangerous drug smuggling ring. Across town, bookish Joey O’Day proved himself to be a talented investigator of a different sort when he used his computer skills to expose an online grifter preying on elderly victims.
As the two sets of teenage sleuths began jockeying to outdo each other, they became a sensation, appearing on talk shows and the covers of teen magazines.
But when a brutal series of murders rocked Edgar Mills, a deadly miscalculation on the part of the VanDyne twins led to the shocking and gruesome deaths of both their father and Alice’s boyfriend. The killer, Bruce Phillip Kershaw—better known as The Janitor—was ultimately captured, but both Edgar Mills and their beloved Teen Detectives would never be the same.
It’s been a quarter century since The Janitor terrorized Edgar Mills, and the Teen Detectives have grown up. Samantha and Joey have scattered: Sam to Los Angeles and a life as a B List reality TV star, and Joey to a lucrative tech career in Boston. Alice, on the other hand, still lives in Edgar Mills, rooted by her guilt and heartbreak.
When Edgar Mills is shaken by a new murder that matches The Janitor’s M.O., Kershaw offers, from his maximum-security prison cell, to provide information that could help crack this new case. The catch? He’ll only talk to the teen detectives that put him away.
The Princess Knight by Cait Jacobs (October 14th)
Domhnall and Clía are an ideal match—or so everyone says. They are prince and princess of neighboring kingdoms. An alliance the gods will smile on. Until Domhnall ruins everything by refusing to propose.
Heartbroken but determined, Clía makes the perfect plan: Follow Domhnall to Caisleán Cósta, the military academy he’s attending. Show she can protect her kingdom. Secure the betrothal. Sure, the castle has a brutal reputation. But how hard can dueling really be?
Warrior Ronan promised himself he’d never lose his focus. He fought and sacrificed for his place at Caisleán Cósta, and he has no time for blonde princesses who waltz into arenas like they’re attending a ball. Even if she and her otter-like pet are…well, cute.
He doesn’t want to be intrigued by Clía. But her hunger to prove herself is something he understands. He tells himself there’s no harm training her. Even if his heart does race around her. Even if Domhnall is his best friend.
But as they say, love is a battlefield—and unfortunately for them all, a very real war is looming on the horizon. It’s a fight that will threaten all their kingdoms…and test all their hearts.
My Lips, Her Voice by L.L. Madrid (October 14th)
Copper City’s bloody history is steeped in ghost stories and whispers of serial killers, but three girls have caught the attention of something far more sinister.
A grandmother tormented by visions tried to warn the town, but no one listened. Now, a haunted inheritance has passed to her granddaughters, Audrey and Mara. When Mara’s body is discovered in the old mine, Audrey fears her grandmother’s premonition is manifesting.
The nightmare begins as Mara’s spirit returns—lurking under Audrey’s skin, hellbent on vengeance and desperate to rekindle things with her former girlfriend, Zadie. Willing to hijack Audrey’s body to get what she wants, Mara drags them both into a deadly pursuit.
When another girl in town goes missing, Audrey, Mara, and Zadie know the killer has struck again. In a fight to solve Mara’s death and uncover the mystery of disappearances in Copper City, the girls soon find themselves at war with each other. How do you survive long enough to hunt a murderer on the loose if the person inside you might kill you first?
An Amateur Witch’s Guide to Murder by K. Valentin (October 14th)
Mateo Borrero has 99 problems—and all of them hinge on his missing bruja mother and the demon she trapped inside his body.
Mateo’s mother forbade him from ever using magic, but now that she’s gone, magic’s his only marketable skill, and he’d really like an exorcism—which costs money he doesn’t have. What’s the harm in making a quick buck by calling himself an Occult Specialist and chanting a few half-remembered spells in his crappy Spanish?
Enter Topher, a naive nepo baby with a curse that keeps killing people around him. Most importantly, he’s rich and too clueless to clock that Mateo—and his (absolutely-not-the-assistant) astral-projecting best friend Ophelia—have never actually had a client before. Lifting Topher’s bad luck curse should be simple, but as luck would have it, nothing is simple, and Topher–who Mateo sort of, kind of likes–might be at the center of a deadly magical conspiracy.
To make matters worse, the more magic Mateo does, the stronger the demon inside him grows and the more he wants to eat people. But would caving to the urges of an ancient evil really be that bad if it helps him get a payday?
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Isaac by Curtis Garner (October 14th)
After inexperienced seventeen-year-old Isaac loses his virginity through a dating app – a disappointing yet addictive experience – he spends his final months before university escaping into a dizzying new world of casual sex with forgettable men. This all changes when he meets twenty-eight-year-old Harrison at a party.
Isaac is immediately infatuated by the handsome, charismatic artist, but while they grow closer, his sense of self becomes increasingly hazy. Harrison’s demands shift constantly, and after Isaac tries everything to prove his worthiness, he must take a hard look at his ideas about love, sex and men, and his relationship with himself.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | Arsenal Pulp Press
Veal by Mackenzie Nolan (October 14th)
Delores “Lawrence” Franklin is a failed capitalist and a runaway headcase. Following a corporate meltdown, she decides to start fresh in Mistaken Point, a small town known for two things — Mistaken Point University, where she and her best friend, Anastasia Lanes, are now enrolled, and the grisly murders of countless young women.
At her new part-time arcade job, Lawrence meets Francesca “Franky” Delores — gritty, off-putting, and chronically serious, as opposite to Lawrence as her name would suggest. Soon, Lawrence discovers Franky is convinced there is a monster on the loose, a patchwork creature born of hatred and responsible for the supposedly solved string of violence haunting the town.
Against the advice of Franky’s closest friend, Pippa, Lawrence, and Stasia join Franky in a sticky, summertime search for a yellow-eyed monster between classes, shifts at the arcade, and eating popsicles by the pool. Motivated mostly by her unquenchable attraction to Franky, Lawrence allows herself to be pulled in strange directions, trying to appease Franky’s mania. Through the trials of hunting a monster only some of them believe in, Pippa, Lawrence, Stasia, and Franky discover truths about womanhood, relationships, and the reliability of urban legends.
When They Burned the Butterfly by Wen-Yi Lee (October 21st)
Loner schoolgirl Adeline Siow has never needed more company than the flame she can summon at her fingertips. But when her mother dies in a house fire with a butterfly seared onto her skin and Adeline hunts down a girl she saw in a back-alley barfight―a girl with a butterfly tattoo―she discovers she’s far from alone.
Ang Tian is a Red Butterfly: one of a gang of girls who came from nothing, sworn to a fire goddess and empowered to wreak vengeance on the men that abuse and underestimate them. Adeline’s mother led a double life as their elusive patron, Madam Butterfly. Now that she’s dead, Adeline’s bloodline is the sole thing sustaining the goddess. Between her search for her mother’s killer and the gang’s succession crisis, Adeline becomes quickly entangled with the girls’ dangerous world, and even more so with the charismatic Tian.
But no home lasts long around here. Ambitious and paranoid neighbor gangs hunt at the edges of Butterfly territory, and bodies are turning up in the red light district suffused with a strange new magic. Adeline may have found her place for once, but with the streets changing by the day, it may take everything she is to keep it.
This is the Only Kingdom by Jaquira Diaz (October 21st)
From the Whiting Award-winning author Jaquira Díaz, an epic novel of a mother and daughter wrestling with the aftermath of a murder, set against the backdrop of a tightknit, working-class barrio in Puerto Rico.
When Maricarmen meets Rey el Cantante, beloved small-time Robin Hood and local musician on the rise, she begins to envision a life beyond the tight-knit community of el Caserío, Puerto Rico – beyond cleaning houses, beyond waiting tables, beyond the constant tug of war between the street hustlers and los camarones. But breaking free proves more difficult than she imagined, and she soon finds herself struggling to make a home for herself, for Rey, his young brother Tito, and eventually, their daughter Nena. Until one fateful day changes everything.
Fifteen years later, Maricarmen and Nena find themselves in the middle of a murder investigation as the community that once rallied to support Rey turns against them. Now Nena, a teenager haunted by loss and betrayal and exploring her sexual identity, must learn to fight for herself and her family in a world not always welcoming.
The Isle in the Silver Sea by Tasha Suri (October 21st)
In an England fuelled by stories, the knight and the witch are fated to fall in love and doom each other over and over, the same tale retold over hundreds of lifetimes.
Simran is a witch of the woods. Vina is a knight of the Queen’s court. When the two women begin to fall for each other, how can they surrender to their desires, when to give in is to destroy each other?
As they seek a way to break the cycle, a mysterious assassin begins targeting tales like theirs. To survive, the two will need to write a story stronger than the one that fate has given to them.
But what tale is stronger than The Knight and the Witch?
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | East City Bookshop
Witches of Honeysuckle House by Liz Parker (October 21st)
Florence and Evie Caldwell have long disagreed on how to break their family’s curse, and tension has been high since their mother’s death thirteen years ago. Honeysuckle House, the family estate where every Caldwell has lived, now only houses one of the sisters. Evie has crafted it into an enchanted bed and breakfast while Florence runs a magical bookstore in town, refusing to even set foot inside Honeysuckle House.
But when the house starts behaving dangerously and catches fire, Florence and Evie must set aside their differences and dig into past generations of their family and the town’s history before the curse claims someone they love.
Crawl: Stories by Max Delsohn (October 21st)
A darkly comic, introspective debut collection that looks beneath the surface of trans life in 2010s Seattle
People called it paradise, but baby, it wasn’t.
What to do when starting testosterone unlocks a newfound desire for men? How to respond when your boss’s boss asks if you’ve had “the surgery” and then requests you talk her niece out of transitioning? What obligation do you have to intervene in the faltering mental health of the baby trans drug dealer you’ve met only once while tripping on the acid he sold you?
The young transmasculine characters in Crawl navigate these and other questions in the dive bars, bathhouses, parks, workplaces, music venues, beaches, and college campuses of 2010s Seattle. Max Delsohn’s stories―by turns exuberant, heartfelt, tragic, and wry―portray the pleasures and pains of sex and romance, the possibilities and ambivalences of gender expression, and the joys and failures of community in a city and a time that has branded itself a radical queer utopia but proves much more complicated in reality.
You Gone Gurl by Greg Herren (October 21st)
This is the second book in the Killer Queen mystery series
The follow-up to “Death Drop,” the second book in our drag queen “Killer Queen” mystery series. Having graduated now from drag school, Jem is thrilled when he’s hired to help out Miss Queer Mississippi at the Miss Queer America pageant. The only problem? The pageant is being held in Florida, the “don’t say gay” state, as an act of political defiance! But once Jem—accompanied by friends Kyle and Ellis—arrives in St. Petersburg, it’s soon apparent a lot of the chaos surrounding the pageant is more than just the usual backstage backstabbing and politics, but part of a bigger plan . . . and when a contestant disappears and is presumed dead, Jem and company have to put on their sleuthing caps, find the missing contestant and save the pageant!
Cry, Voidbringer by Elaine Ho (October 28th)
In a broken system, do you save yourself or fight for the people you love?
With the godspower waning, the queen of Ashvi has had to find another way to bolster her fight against her imperialist oppressors. The solution: wrenching children of other cultures from their homes and conscripting them into service.
Hammer was one of those children. Now, she’s a jaded soldier waging Ashvi’s perpetual war, thinking only of her own survival. But when she accidentally rescues Viridian, a child with rare and potentially devastating powers, her priorities shift. The girl appears to be the answer to the queen’s prayers—the perfect weapon to restore her kingdom’s ancient borders, even if the colonized cities they reconquer don’t want her version of liberation. Can Hammer protect Viridian from the system that broke her . . . before the girl’s power is unleashed on the world?
Like Family by Erin O. White (November 4th)
It was too much to ask. But sometimes too much is what we ask of the people we love most.
Radclyffe, New York, is an idyllic upstate town, nestled in the hills and complete with artisanal bakeries, pottery studios, and hidden swimming holes. Ruth and her wife, Wyn, are living the dream (or Wyn’s dream, at least) with their four children on their small farm, which is also the bucolic gathering place for their circle of friends. It’s a sweet life, but there’s a secret at its center, one that not even Ruth’s best friend, Caroline, knows.
What Caroline does know is that she loves and depends on Ruth, and on the bond between their families. More than anything, she wants her tender-hearted son not to grow up lonely the way she did. Unfortunately, no one can assure her of that, especially not her husband. He just wants things to be easy, drama-free—which is impossible, as he has donated his sperm to his cousin Tobi and her wife so that they could have kids of their own. Now those children are asking unanswerable questions.
Palaver by Bryan Washington (November 4th)
In Tokyo, the son works as an English tutor, drinking his nights away with friends at a gay bar. He’s entangled in a sexual relationship with a married man, and while he has built a chosen family in Japan, he is estranged from his family in Houston, particularly his mother, whose preference for the son’s oft-troubled homophobic brother, Chris, pushed him to leave home. Then, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, ten years since they’ve last seen each other, the mother arrives uninvited on his doorstep.
Separated only by the son’s cat, Taro, the two of them bristle against each other immediately. The mother, wrestling with memories of her youth in Jamaica and her own complicated brother, works to reconcile her good intentions with her missteps. The son struggles to forgive. But as life begins to steer them in unexpected directions― the mother to a tentative friendship with a local bistro owner, and the son to cautiously getting to know a new patron of the bar―the two of them begin to see each other more clearly. Sharing meals and conversations and an eventful trip to Nara, both mother and son try the best they can to define where “home” really is―and whether they can find it even in each other.
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Town & Country by Brian Schaefer (November 4th)
The trendy rural town of Griffin has become a popular destination for weekenders and the city’s second homeowners, but now a congressional race in this swing district is highlighting tensions between life-long residents and new arrivals. The campaign pits local pub owner and town supervisor Chip Riley against the wealthy young carpetbagger Paul Banks, challenging the social and political loyalties of their families and friends with lasting repercussions.
Diane Riley, Chip’s wife, is a religiously devout real estate agent who feels conflicted about selling second homes—including to Paul and his much older husband, Stan. Their elder son, Joe, is grieving the recent overdose death of his best friend and spiraling into drugs himself, while their younger son, Will, is a newly out college student seduced by the decadent lifestyle of Paul’s circle.
Meanwhile, Stan Banks uses the race to give purpose to the pain of losing a loved one to AIDS, even as he begins to doubt Paul’s readiness for office. And within their growing fraternity of city transplants, Eric Larimer finds unexpected connection with a local farmer that opens his eyes to the region’s complexity as Leon Rogers, still reeling from a divorce, becomes increasingly desperate to infiltrate the Banks’s exclusive crew.
Spanning six months from Memorial Day to Election Day, Town & Country paints a kaleidoscopic portrait of a community in flux.
Terry Dactyl by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore (November 11th)
Terry Dactyl has lived many lives. Raised by boisterous lesbian mothers in Seattle, she comes of age as a trans girl in the 1980s in a world of dancing queens and late-night house parties just as the AIDS crisis ravages their world. After moving to New York City, Terry finds a new family among gender-bending club kids bonded by pageantry and drugs, fiercely loyal and unapologetic. She lands a job at a Soho gallery, where, after partying all night, she spends her days bringing club culture to the elite art world.
Twenty years later, in a panic during the COVID-19 lockdown, Terry returns to a Seattle stifled by gentrification and pandemic isolation until resistance erupts following the murder of George Floyd, and her search for community ignites once again.
To Kill a Queen by Amie McNee (November 11th)
Enter a shadowy world of crime in Elizabethan London with this twisty historical mystery featuring a queer sleuth and a dash of romance!
When Queen Elizabeth I is nearly assassinated, the rebellious heir to a criminal legacy seizes an opportunity for a better life.
London, 1579. In the treacherous alleyways of London, Jack has left behind the life of petty crime, hoping to atone for the past by rooting out murderers. As the eldest child of a notorious and infamous figure who controls the slums, Jack has no safe place to land and dreams of a future off the streets. When an attempt is made on the Queen’s life, it falls to Jack to catch the would-be-assassin and fight for different future.
With the help of a coroner, Damian, a sultry barmaid with a secret, and the criminal connections from Jack’s past, the unlikely investigator dives into the case. But the former thief’s informants keep turning up dead, and every lead seems to vanish just when it feels within reach. As Jack follows the trail deeper into danger, the question becomes: who can truly be trusted?
With the promise of security and redemption hanging overhead, Jack must uncover who orchestrated the assassination attempt before time runs out in this historical mystery perfect for fans of Tasha Alexander.
Next Time Will Be Our Turn by Jesse Q. Sutanto (November 11th)
Izzy Chen is dreading her family’s annual Chinese New Year celebration, where they all come together at a Michelin-starred restaurant to flaunt their status and successes in hopes to one up each other. So when her seventy-three-year-old glamorous and formidable grandmother walks in with a stunning woman on her arm and kisses her in front of everyone, it shakes Izzy to her core. She’d always considered herself the black sheep of the family for harboring similar feelings to the ones her Nainai just displayed.
Seeing herself in her teenage granddaughter’s struggles with identity and acceptance, Magnolia Chen tells Izzy her own story, of how as a teen she was sent by her Indo-Chinese parents from Jakarta to Los Angeles for her education and fell in love with someone completely forbidden to her by both culture and gender norms—Ellery, an American college student who became Magnolia’s best friend and the love of her life. Stretching across decades and continents, Magnolia’s star-crossed love story reveals how life can take unexpected turns but ultimately lead you to exactly who you’re meant to be.
I’ll Make a Spectacle of You by Beatrice Winifred Iker (November 18th)
This heart-pounding Southern gothic horror debut from Beatrice Winifred Iker takes readers to Bricksbury University, the oldest and most storied HBCU in the nation. But as one student is about to find out, a long history comes with a legacy of secrets.
Zora Robinson is an ambitious grad student in her dream program, Appalachian Studies, at Bricksbury University. When her thesis advisor hands her a strange diary and suggests she research the local folklore about a beast roaming the woods surrounding campus, Zora finds a community uneager to talk to an outsider.
As she delves into the history of the beast, she uncovers a rumored secret society called the Keepers that has tenuous ties to the beast…and Bricksbury itself. Zora soon finds herself plagued by visions of the past, and her grip on reality starts to slip as she struggles to uncover what is real and what is folklore. But when a student goes missing, Zora starts to wonder if the Keepers ever really disbanded.
There’s something in the woods and it has its eyes on Zora.
As Many Souls as Stars by Natasha Siegel (November 25th)
1592. Cybil Harding is a First Daughter. Cursed to bring disaster to those around her, she is trapped in a house with a mother paralyzed by grief and a father willing to sacrifice everything in pursuit of magic.
Miriam Richter is a creature of shadow. Forged by the dark arts many years ago, she is doomed to exist for eternity and destined to be alone—killing mortals and consuming their souls for sustenance. Everything changes when she meets Cybil, whose soul shines with a light so bright, she must claim it for herself. She offers a bargain: she will grant Cybil reincarnation in exchange for her soul.
Thus begins a dance across centuries as Miriam seeks Cybil in every lifetime to claim her prize. Cybil isn’t inclined to play by the rules, but when it becomes clear that Miriam holds the key to breaking her family curse, Cybil finds that—for the first time in her many lives—she might have the upper hand. As they circle each other, drawn together inescapably as light and dark, the bond forged between them grows stronger. In their battle for dominance, only one of them can win—but perhaps they can’t survive without each other.
The Book of Luke by Lovell Holder (December 2nd)
Following the car accident that ended his football career and left his body scarred, 22-year-old Luke Griffin joins the cast of Endeavor, a new competition-based reality show that pits the tabloids’ darlings against one another in tasks of endurance and problem solving. At first, he thrives, effortlessly forming friendships and even a romantic relationship that he thinks will last a lifetime. But Luke has aspirations far bigger than the show’s million-dollar prize, and soon a series of betrayals leads to irreversible tragedy, changing the course of his and his fellow contestants’ lives forever.
Ten years later, Luke’s world looks very different: he is now a father of two and the stay-at-home husband to America’s only openly gay senator. When his husband’s serial cheating is exposed, Luke impulsively joins the cast of Endeavor‘s latest season in a desperate bid to earn some fast cash. Back on set, he is confronted with everything he tried to leave in the past: bitter rivalries, shattered friendships, and crushing guilt, all of which threaten to tear down the walls he’s spent a decade building. As Season 20 of Endeavor kicks off, Luke must give everything to the game, even as he finally learns what it means––and what it costs––to face the truth.
Casanova 20: Or, Hot World by Davey Davis (December 2nd)
Cursed by an extreme and unrelenting beauty, Adrian has drawn the frenzied attention of adoring strangers since childhood. As a twenty-nine-year-old in New York City, he spends his days drifting between affairs with women (and occasionally men) who provide him with everything he needs, from spending money to luxurious vacations to even, once, a mini yacht. With this generosity comes a dangerous possessiveness that often puts him at risk of much worse than heartbreak. But as people begin removing their masks in the spring of 2021, Adrian’s aimless sexual availability is interrupted by a shocking discovery: He is no longer beautiful.
Across the country, Adrian’s best friend and companion, Mark, a world-famous painter, has returned to the family home in rural Northern California. He’s faced with his own horrible revelation: He’s dying from the same mysterious disease that will soon take his mother and sister.
Despite the depth of their platonic romance, neither man reveals his fate to the other. Feeling as if he’s disappearing from sight, Adrian searches for answers among his thousands of lovers. In a race against his failing body, Mark becomes obsessed with watching fifty-two VHS tapes of unknown origin, left to him by his sister, before it’s too late.
