This post is sponsored by Dana Hawkins and the release of My Girlfriend is Not the Father on March 25th!
A funny, steamy, heart-warming story about navigating whatever plan life may throw at you—regardless of the timing.
Buy it: Amazon
So Very Lucky by Caitlin Devlin (1st)
You knew her. You loved her. Then she vanished…
When celebrated singer Calista plunges to her death during a concert in Rio, her former girlfriend Stevie is watching, along with the rest of the world. But while millions of fans mourn, Stevie can’t shake the feeling that something isn’t right.
Then Calista returns―alive, a little changed, but wanting Stevie back in her life for the first time in years. At first, seeing her again feels like a miracle. But as Stevie is drawn deeper into Calista’s world of smoke and mirrors, she begins to question everything: Calista’s overprotective team, the gaps in her memory and the clues that don’t add up about what really happened the night she fell.
As she gets closer to the truth, Stevie is also falling for Calista all over again. Stevie must decide: is uncovering the truth worth losing the person she loves twice?
I Was a Teenage Death God by M.J. Beasi (3rd)
Every time seventeen-year-old Charlie Ford touches someone, they absorb seconds of their life . . . which adds up when Charlie has no way of giving that time back. It feels like enough of a curse without Lou―the bratty bully of a ghost who’s hung around Charlie since childhood―forcing them to hand over that stolen life for her to use.
Charlie will steal life from whomever Lou tells them to, as long as she doesn’t hurt Charlie’s twin Sam or their best friend and secret crush Ravi. So when Lou tries to force Charlie to take life from Ravi, Charlie refuses, and Lou retaliates.
When Lou goes after Sam, Charlie breaks down and finally tells Ravi about their life-stealing abilities―and after some internet sleuthing, Ravi finds out that Charlie might not be the only person born with that power. Along with Sam, they embark on a weekend road trip to meet a pair of self-proclaimed “death gods,” hoping for answers and, if they’re lucky, a solution to the whole Lou problem. But the answers about their powers only bring up more questions. With dark discoveries at every turn, Charlie must wrestle with a supernatural legacy that redefines their relationships to Sam and Ravi―and calls their very humanity into question.
Ramin Abbas Has Major Questions by Ahmad Saber (3rd)
Now a senior at the top-ranked high school for Muslim teenagers, Pakistani Canadian Ramin can’t wait for the fresh start of college. He’s spent his whole life following the word of Allah, his parents, and his imam. His parents immigrated from Pakistan, sacrificing everything for him and his little brother, and expect Ramin to be halal in all things, meet a nice Muslim girl, and settle into devout family life. However, Ramin’s heart wishes for something—or someone—else: the strong, athletic captain of the soccer team. But at school, being gay is definitely haram, not allowed, so Ramin limits himself to dreams of moving away to New York City.
Then Ramin learns his graduation is in jeopardy, and the only chance he’s given to get the needed physical education credits quickly is to join the school’s soccer team…and train one-on-one with Fahad, a.k.a. Captain Handsome. It’s a nightmare of temptation and resistance, compounded by threats from a longtime bully who is blackmailing Ramin, threatening to reveal a secret that could ruin him. Ramin’s only ray of light is Omar, a sweet and caring new friend whose family believes in a different, kinder Allah. He gently prods Ramin to consider his faith more deeply, challenging Ramin’s long held belief of Allah as merciless and unforgiving by introducing him to one who is instead merciful and loving.
With graduation, a championship soccer match, and the blackmail looming, the pressure on Ramin is too much to keep buried. He must decide between the consequences of speaking his truth and living a lie. He must decide which Allah lives in the little mosque in his heart.
When I Was Death by Alexis Henderson (3rd)
Roslyn isn’t herself anymore. It’s been a year since her sister, Adeline, died under mysterious circumstances, and Roslyn is still tormented by her absence. So when the elusive caravan of girls that Adeline spent her last summer with rolls back into town, Roslyn joins them to finally figure out what happened to her sister.
Strange, beautiful, and intriguing, the girls are closed off from the world. And as it turns out, they’re brought together by a force more sinister than Roslyn’s nightmares could’ve conjured up: Death himself.
Death has spared the girls from untimely endings, and to pay for their lives, the girls travel the country reaping souls on his behalf. Now Roslyn must decide if finding closure is worth the price of striking the same deal.
Be Right Back by Bill Wood (3rd)
A year after the events of Let’s Split Up, the gang returns to their hometown of Sanera for a Halloween festival, only to be drawn into a chilling new mystery when a figure from their past reemerges, turning a nostalgic reunion into a deadly game of cat and mouse.
A year after solving their last mystery, the Sanera gang has split up to pursue college life, leaving their detective days behind ―except for Cam, who struggles to move on. Now an assistant coach for the Sanera Sabretooths, Cam feels adrift until the Halloween festival brings the gang back together for a commemorative event. But when Cam sees the Carrington Ghoul ― a figure tied to their final case ―he’s thrust into a new mystery.
As Sanera’s Halloween festival descends into chaos, the gang discovers that someone is using local legends to commit gruesome murders. The killer’s obsession with their past exploits becomes clear as each murder echoes the myths they once debunked. With the town’s history exploited for tourism and the gang’s fame drawing unwanted attention, they must unravel the clues before the killer strikes again ― this time targeting one of their own.
Facing familiar fears and new terrors, the gang must rely on their wits and each other to survive a twisted plot that threatens to make their past case the stuff of legend ―for all the wrong reasons.
Punk Like Me by JD Glass and Kris Dresen (3rd)
It’s the 1980s and punk rock is blowing up in New York City. Young people from all five boroughs flock to CBGBs in Greenwich Village to see the latest band and be a part of the scene. On Staten Island, just a ferry ride away, sixteen-year-old Nina Boyd is into punk rock and comic books. She plays guitar, is a straight-A student, a champion swimmer, and is in love with her best friend.
But her best friend Kerri is a girl, and Nina knows her family would never approve. They’ve sent her to a conservative Catholic high school and they’re already suspicious of any of her friends who aren’t straight enough. As Nina’s crush grows stronger, she must choose between her family’s dreams for her and her own.
Anderson in Bloom by Jennifer Dugan (3rd)
Former child star Anderson “Andy” Ducharme is hiding—has been for a long time, if she’s honest with herself, which she isn’t.
When she suddenly cut off all ties and left LA six years earlier to work in a flower shop in coastal New England, she wasn’t just running away from toxic relationships, embezzling agents, and all the rest of her Hollywood life; she was running to something… sort of, if you squinted, and if you accepted that what she was running toward was little more than a vacation daydream she had made up with her (in)famous ex, and former costar, Nicole “Nikki” Price.
Then Nikki announces her plan to write a tell-all book about growing up in Hollywood and their tumultuous time on the Nik and Andy show, and Andy’s feelings of hurt and betrayal come rushing back. Emboldened by anger (and maybe one too many drinks), Andy does something very stupid: she texts her ex for the first time in years. No one’s more shocked than Andy when Nikki actually shows up to her small florist shop, looking for answers.
Andy is fully prepared to send Nikki away, but it seems Nikki has some unfinished business as well. Now that she finally knows where Andy’s been hiding, she’s not letting her go so easy. And with each passing encounter, Andy can’t deny the simmering physical attraction that threatens to boil over every time they get close.
But can the two of them really reunite without wrecking Andy’s carefully rebuilt life? Or is she setting herself up for a fresh heartbreak?
That’s What Friends are For by Wade Rouse (3rd)
Theodore Copeland has created a fabulous life in the desert oasis of Palm Springs, where he shares a fabulous pink mid-century home with three fabulous friends: Barry, a former actor still clinging to his youth, his hair, and the memory of the dream role that killed his career; Ron, an uprooted Christian from the Midwest with a big heart but no one to give it to; Sid, who, after coming out late in life, has never found love. Teddy is the caustic, unspoken leader of “The Golden Gays”—the foursome’s monthly drag tribute to The Golden Girls. Despite their foibles and bickering, they have turned their golden years into a golden era.
But the harmony of their desert enclave becomes a carousel of emotional baggage when Teddy’s estranged sister, Trudy, shows up on their doorstep, her dramatic teenage granddaughter in tow. While Teddy keeps Trudy at arm’s length, she manages to wheedle her way into the lives of the Golden Gays, until the real reason for her visit is revealed and the secrets they’ve all been keeping from each other unravel faster than a hastily stitched hemline.
The Disappointment by Scott Broker (3rd)
It’s the night before a much-needed vacation, and Jack—a former playwright mourning his failed career—catches his husband, Randy, packing his mother’s urn. They had agreed: no mother on this trip. Parents, living or otherwise, aren’t the ideal guests for romantic getaways. But Randy has been carrying his mother’s remains everywhere since her death, and he isn’t ready to let go now.
Despite its natural beauty and kitschy charm, the Oregon coast does not provide the respite the couple seeks. Instead, their surroundings and encounters with locals grow increasingly surreal as the days pass. An overly -dedicated Method actor, tantra-obsessed neighbors, and a child environmentalist who may be able to communicate with the dead are but a few of the characters whose presence exposes long-simmering tensions that threaten to undo Jack and Randy’s marriage—to say nothing of their hold on reality.
Bloom by Robbie Couch (3rd)
Morris Warner is withering away. After the sudden death of his husband, Fred, he has shut himself off from the world. No more going to movies with friends, or swims in Lake Michigan, instead preferring the quiet loneliness of his history books and Jeopardy episodes with only the cat to hear his answers.
Morris’s stepdaughter, Sloan, feels like she has nowhere to grow. She’s about to get married to the man of her dreams, if only her mother will let her actually plan her own wedding and trust her to build her own life after her father’s death.
Jade is drying out. Literally. As a plant in Morris’s home, she and her plant housemates have been slowly wasting away, leaf by falling leaf, since Fred’s death and Morris’s lack of care. She needs to come up with a plan to make her new owner come back to life, no matter what it takes.
Star Shipped by Cat Sebastian (3rd)
Simon and Charlie, actors on a long-running sci-fi show, can’t stand one another. Charlie is impetuous, outgoing, and basically feral, and Simon thinks he should have stayed in reality television where he belongs. They’ve spent the better part of a decade quarreling over the spotlight and pretty much everything else, and everybody in the industry knows it. Now that Simon’s contract is finally done, he can move to New York, start fresh with work he actually likes, and get away from Charlie.
Simon’s only problem is that people might assume he’s been pushed off the show due to being impossible to work with. And he is kind of difficult to work with. He doesn’t get along with people—unlike Charlie, who somehow tricked everyone on the show into adoring him despite some outrageously bad on-set behavior during the show’s first season. Simon would rather never have to see Charlie again, but reluctantly agrees to stage a very public friendship during the short time before he moves. When Charlie has to leave town to deal with a family emergency, this means Simon comes along. Their road trip brings Simon to places he would never have willingly chosen to visit—and he finds he’s actually not having a terrible time.
The more he gets to know Charlie, the more Simon suspects he’s underestimated his former coworker. Simon also realizes that after seven years, Charlie might know him better than anyone ever has. Even stranger, Charlie seems to be starting to actually like him, despite knowing him so well. Still, Simon is about to move three thousand miles away, so whatever’s starting between him and Charlie can’t really amount to anything… right?
A Change of Pace by J.A. Stevens (3rd)
This sapphic historical romance brings “pride without prejudice” to Regency London.
Although cavalier with love, the famously rakeish Miss Georgina Pace is deeply concerned for the well being of others.
And so when she learns that dear innocent Mr. Coombes has been targeted by a corrupt gaming house, she will stop at nothing to protect him.
Miss Pace’s quest for justice leads her to the enigmatic Lady Mortimer, who offers assistance while keeping her cards close to her chest.
Will Miss Pace risk it all–including her heart?
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon (Audio)
Sebastian Metzger Solves a Sticky Situation by Kyle Lukoff and Kat Fajardo (10th)
This is the 11th book in the The Kids in Mrs. Z’s Class series
Meet the kids in Mrs. Z’s wacky and wonderful third grade class! Sebastian Metzger is overjoyed when he checks out a brand-new book on octopodes from the school library, but everything goes awry when the book gets ruined.
Sebastian Metzger loves learning new things, especially about animals. He’s actually been experiencing many new things recently: third grade marks his first year living as a boy. Some things don’t change, though. His imaginary friend, Jimothy the chipmunk, is always by his side!
When Sebastian spots a new book in the school library on octopodes, he just knows he has to check it out. The only problem is: this book is so new, the librarian hasn’t even prepared it to be checked out! Sebastian promises to take great care of it, and the librarian makes an exception.
But when his little sister accidentally ruins the book, Sebastian is devastated. Will Sebastian find a way to save the library book and redeem himself?
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N
Time-Tripping Over You by Brennon Lane (10th)
College freshman Silas Turner is a scientific anomaly. Thrown back in time uncontrollably, he’s forced into his pre-transition body for hours to days at a time, reliving random events in his past. Why? Every cell in his astrophysics major brain is straining to figure it out. But the “time trips” just keep on coming, disrupting Silas’s life, and he’s certain he’s a one-of-a-kind phenomenon—until brash, guitar-playing Jude Forrester barges into his life, exhibiting the same symptoms.
He claims a future version of Silas visited him, and that, according to future-Silas, they’re meant to help each other stop the time trips. If working together can really lead to finding a cure, Silas can handle Jude’s tortured-artist attitude; Jude can humor Silas’s nerdy obsession with the stars.
As they get closer to a solution, they grow closer to each other. But Jude is still grieving an old connection that broke his heart, and he can’t help but wonder if changing the past might save himself and Silas a lot of heartache. Amidst cataclysmic consequences, Silas and Jude must face the cosmic circumstances that brought them together if they hope to protect their timeline—and the future they seem destined to share.
These Shattered Spires by Cassidy Ellis Salter (10th)
Entombed beneath a tooth-filled sky, the world rots. At the heart of the decaying world is Fourspires Castle, home to arcanists from the four disciplines–bone, blood, botany, and stone.
The castle is thrown into chaos when the ruler of Fourspires is assassinated. To crown a new ruler, the arcanists and their human familiars must kill or be killed in a bloody fight to the top of the Fifth Tower. For the familiars, who are the arcanists’ servants and sources of power, this will mean certain death.
Amid the bloodshed, four rival familiars must work together . . . Taro, a bone witch still obsessed with her ex. Nixie, a botanical familiar determined to do anything for her freedom. Elliot, a cursed and vengeful blood familiar. And Alix, a banished stone familiar shrouded in secrets.
It’s a dangerous and deeply illegal quest, but if they want to survive, the four must ally long enough to battle reanimated skeletons, possessed plants, and undead nuns . . . if they don’t kill each other first.
Six Must Die by Victoria Wlosok (10th)
Twelve months ago, an escape room fire took everything from Steffi Zamekova. In just one hour, she lost it all: her popular blog, her close-knit inner circle, and her memories of the night that killed one of the group’s own… the charismatic (if infuriating) Matt Cesari.
On the anniversary of the bewildering tragedy, Steffi is still desperate to piece together what went wrong. So when she receives an ominous invitation in the mail summoning her to the new escape room across town, she seizes the chance for answers.
Reunited with her former friends, Steffi sees the game as a last chance to uncover the truth behind Matt’s death. But it’s soon clear that each participant has their own cagey reasons for accepting the challenge. And as tensions rise and the players are picked off one by one, it’s a race against the clock for Steffi to uncover their secrets and unlock her own memories before the game’s mastermind ensures that no one escapes the room alive.
Child of the Dragon by Ashley N.Y. Sheesley (10th)
Kat always thought her grandma’s stories of Rhaegynne — shapeshifting dragons — were just fairytales. But that all changes when her grandma is killed, and she learns that not only are they real, but she is one.
A prophecy and a curse set in motion ages ago have now turned Kat’s quiet senior year into chaos. What was supposed to be a gift becomes a tool for breaking a curse that forces others to serve tyrannical kings who will use them to wage war and destruction across Earth.
But hope . . . is more stubborn than a curse.
Fighting alongside friends new and old, Kat must learn to harness the heart of the dragon in order to break the curse, destroy the kings, and save the dragons. All before succumbing to the curse herself.
Honestly? It’ll be a breeze compared to calculus.
Buy it: Inked in Gray Press
How (Not) to Conjure a Boyfriend by Jordon Greene (10th)
Standing at the foot of my comatose crush’s hospital bed is not how I envisioned becoming Hayden’s partner. First I needed to find out if he’s even into the theys, then hopefully some flirting, a cute date up in the valley or at Taco Bell, a kiss. The normal cutesy stuff, but this? No! Hayden wasn’t supposed to get hurt, especially not a trauma-induced extended nap from slipping on a wet floor at my job. On top of that, one of the nurses told his family we’re dating. Sure, it might have been because that’s what I told her when I was trying to get to his room to see him…but it’s not true.
The wild part is his family believes it! They really think I’m the Hayden Marcus’s short little curly-haired enbyfriend. His partner! With one little lie, now they think he isn’t straight, and I’m terrified he actually is.
So now I’m having Thanksgiving with a family I barely know because, as far as they’re concerned, I’m “dating” their son. I can’t tell if this is a sign my love spell worked, or if I royally messed up and I’m being punished. I mean this family is amazing. It’s everything I wish I had, and honestly more. But it’s all based on a lie.
Oh, and as if all of that wasn’t bad enough, my comatose crush has an even cuter brother who I think I might be falling for…
Erase Me by Josh Silver (10th)
Seventeen-year-old Eli was in a near-fatal car crash. As the anniversary looms, his therapist and his family struggle to help him deal with the fallout. The accident has left him emotionally numb, with no memory of the months following the crash.
Desperate to feel something again, Eli discovers a black market for people’s memories. Erased memories that others can watch via a virtual reality simulation.
When he enters the story of a boy called Jack, he discovers a dark truth…a mind-blowing secret that sets him on a dangerous journey that could lead his heart back to where it belongs, or shatter his life forever.
Brighter Than Nine by June CL Tan (10th)
Rui has her life back together—or so it seems. Hailed as a hero, she’s finally on her way to becoming an important member of the Exorcist Guild. But she knows the Hybrid Revenants are still out there, and they’re planning something big. Something evil.
Zizi is trapped in the underworld. As his mortal body deteriorates, he realizes he can access the Fourth King’s memories, which may be the key to keeping the mortal realm safe. To save the girl he loves, he must defy fate—and escape Hell.
Yiran watches from the shadows, magicless once more. When he discovers a dark family secret that changes everything he thought he knew, his hunger for power tempts him toward a possible betrayal. And he must decide what he truly stands for—before it’s too late.
As the consequences of the past wreak havoc on the present, three lives bound by the threads of fate must weave a new destiny for themselves—and the realms.
A Lady for All Seasons by TJ Alexander (10th)
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman who has lost her fortune must be in need (not want) of a husband. Beautiful, cunning Verbena Montrose must marry to save herself and her odious family from abject poverty. Fortunately, what she lacks in a dowry, she makes up for in the currency of gossip.
When she hears an alarming rumor about her very dear, very queer friend Étienne that could ruin him, she comes to his aid with a proposal—for a marriage of convenience, that is. But when Verbena discovers that a mysterious and celebrated poet by the name of Flora Witcombe has been publishing verses that hint she is onto their scheme, Verbena has no choice but to pretend to be a poet herself to confront her in a local salon. And—unexpectedly—be charmed by her.
Flora, in turn, is terrified by and smitten with Verbena in equal measure. But she holds a secret of her own: he is also William Forsyth, a struggling novelist and fifth son of a minor noble family. And if circumstances don’t allow Flora to woo Verbena, perhaps William can. Faced with two suitors and a fiancé, Verbena, who has always had to be clever to survive in society, starts to realize she may need to think outside of society’s constraints to find true happiness.
Whidbey by T Kira Madden (10th)
Birdie Chang didn’t know anything about Whidbey Island when she chose it, only that it was about as far away as she could get from her own life. She’s a woman on the run, desperate for an escape from the headlines back home and the look of concern in her girlfriend’s eyes—and from Calvin Boyer, the man who abused her as a child and who’s now resurfaced. On her way, she has an unnerving encounter with a stranger on the ferry who offers her a proposition, a sinister solution, a plan for revenge.
But Birdie isn’t the only girl Calvin harmed back then. There’s also Linzie King, a former reality TV star who recently wrote all about it in her bestselling memoir. Though the two women have never met, their stories intertwine. Once Birdie arrives on Whidbey, she finally cracks the book’s spine, only to find too much she recognizes in its pages. Soon after, on the other side of the country, Calvin’s loving mother, Mary-Beth, receives a shocking phone call from the police: her only son has been murdered.
Calvin’s death sets into motion a series of events that sends each woman on a desperate search for answers. A complex whodunnit told from alternating points of view, Whidbey is searingly perceptive and astonishingly original. Exploring the long reach of violence and our flawed systems of incarceration and rehabilitation, this is a tense and provocative debut that’s sure to incite crucial questions about the pursuit of justice and who has real power over a story: the one who lives it, or the one who tells it?
Thirty Love by Tom Vellner (10th)
American tennis star Leo Chambers is determined to win the US Open by 30, the age when many players feel retirement looming. He’s just a year away from that dreaded birthday, but he can’t find his focus—considering he hasn’t told anyone he’s gay, he’s clashing with his strict coach (who also happens to be his dad), and he still can’t figure out how to beat his longtime nemesis on tour, Gabe Montoya, who, well, hits different. Gabe is playing better than ever, and Leo can’t seem to escape him—and maybe he doesn’t want to escape him.
Leo’s other obstacle is Sascha Volkov, a Russian legend who has such a powerful influence on the tennis world, he would destroy Leo’s career if he found out that he’s gay.
No distractions, Leo reminds himself. But when Gabe makes a shocking announcement, Leo is thrown off his game—in more ways than one. Ready? Play.
Shake Out the Ghosts by Al Hess (10th)
A brutal assault nine months ago left eccentric portrait artist Micah with facial scars and PTSD. He’s struggled to leave his apartment ever since, and he can’t let anyone in. Then his only sanctuary is disrupted by signs of a haunting.
Between the 80s synth pop and motivation messages scrawled on his bathroom mirror, Micah finds himself more charmed than frightened by who he believes to be Cosmo, the deceased previous resident of his apartment. But when Cosmo’s ghostly visits suddenly stop, Micah is determined to lure him back.
Meanwhile, sculpture artist Cosmo – dramatic, unconventional, and very much alive – is mourning his old self. His boyfriend’s a serial cheater, he’s continually passed over for a promotion at work, and he’s lost contact with his best friend. To make matters worse, his apartment is being haunted by the ghost of a bespectacled man with an eye socket of scars. It’s his last straw, and seeking a new start, Cosmo moves out.
In a chance meeting, Cosmo and Micah’s paths cross again, and tentative sparks fly. But the phantoms of their pasts still linger. In order to find a future where they can both be happy together, Micah and Cosmo need to confront their trauma once and for all.
Scoring Chance by A.J. Truman (10th)
Totally fake marriage. Very real feelings.
When my hockey teammate, the recently widowed Tanner Chance, loses his job, he and his four kids are left with no medical coverage.
So I suggest a wild idea: get married and put his family on my company’s insurance plan.
It’s supposed to be a marriage on paper only. But this being a small town, our nuptials accidentally go public. Now, we have to play house in order to make this scheme believable.
Suddenly, I’m trading my swanky highrise for a cramped split-level and refereeing sibling squabbles while attempting to make a meatloaf.
Goodbye bottomless mimosas. Hello bottomless piles of laundry.
I’m also sharing a bed with my closest friend, the one guy I promised myself I’d never cross a line with…and using all my willpower to keep that promise.
The more time I spend married to Tanner, the harder it is to remember what’s fake. Because every time he smiles at me, every time he calls me his husband, it feels a little too real.
If our ruse is exposed, I could lose not just my career, but the man and family I never knew I wanted.
Buy it: Amazon
Olivia Gray Will Not Fade Away by Ciera Burch (17th)
A middle schooler navigates the challenges of feeling invisible—literally and figuratively—as she comes to terms with her asexual identity.
Seventh grade has just started, but Olivia Gray already knows this year is different. Her brother ignores her for his crush, and all her friends talk about is who likes who, something Olivia has never cared about—even when Robbie, the most popular boy in school, asks her to the fall formal. After unknowingly rejecting him, Olivia goes viral on the social app KruShh. As the chatter about Robbie and dating grows, Olivia starts to feel left out to the point of feeling invisible—literally.
Seen only by her new librarian and a friendly kid named Jules, Olivia flickers in and out of sight whenever the topic of romance comes up. As she begins to realize she might be asexual, Olivia struggles to actually use the label because of the negative perception behind it. All she wants is to be normal, but can she really fit in without disappearing completely?
Clementine H. Hopeful Is Not a Hero by Noah Corey (17th)
Amid magic and monsters, a queer seventh-grader discovers a world where he can be himself but has to decide if he will fight for it…even if it means becoming the villain.
Clementine has always felt like the villain of his story. Most of the time, he’s a socially anxious kid who knows it’s not “normal” for a boy to wear pink shoes to school. While he’s there, his teachers won’t call him by the right name (even though Clementine is a boy’s name, if a boy has it), his classmates tease him about his obsessive love for spiders (even though they’re beautiful), and he’s the only one who can see the floating faces that haunt the surrounding woods.
But in the woods, everything is different. At night, he and his new friends Beetle, Cricket, and Anise spend hours in a play-pretend world that seems to be seeping into reality. Clementine has never had a friend like Beetle—a boy who breaks into his house and teaches him to howl at the moon, who dreams of being a hero and says the whole sky is beautiful while looking right at Clementine and not at the sky at all.
But Clementine wants to use the power fueling their adventures to make things better outside the forest—not later, when he’s grown up, but now. And when he discovers the source of the magic, Clementine has to decide: Does he become a hero with Beetle and protect a world that hates him? Or does he finally become the villain, ready to build a new world whatever the cost?
One Word, Six Letters by Adib Khorram (17th)
Two teen boys grapple with identity and accountability and set off a ripple effect within their community after a school assembly is disrupted by a shouted slur.
Freshmen Dayton and Farshid couldn’t be more different―or so it seems.
When Dayton takes a dare and shouts the f-slur at a visiting author during a school event, it sets off a chain reaction that forces both boys to face parts of themselves they’d rather ignore.
Dayton, grappling with the fallout of his actions, faces rejection from his friends, disappointment from his parents, and a growing awareness of the harm he’s caused. Meanwhile, Farshid is left to untangle his own feelings―about himself and about the quiet struggle of coming to terms with his queerness in a world steeped in heteronormativity.
As their lives unexpectedly intersect, Dayton and Farshid must reckon with what kind of men they want to become and whether they have the courage to defy toxic masculinity and societal expectations.
The Weight of One Pomegranate by Brynne Rebele-Henry (17th)
Seventeen-year-old Isadora is reeling after the sudden loss of her older sister, Eleni, to an undiagnosed heart condition. Her grieving parents can’t offer much support—her only reprieve is her close friend Ani, but lately the intensity of her feelings for Ani have been more confusing than comforting. Then Isadora discovers secret letters in Eleni’s belongings that suggest her artist sister was hiding more from her family than Isadora ever expected . . . including a long-term girlfriend, Ćazi.
Isadora travels to her uncle’s apartment in New York City, where Eleni lived, determined to unravel the threads of her sister’s life. As she searches for Ćazi, Isadora embraces her own sexuality and begins to fall in love. But can she learn to live when Eleni will never have the same chance?
SideQuested: Book 1 by K.B. Spangler and Alexandra Presser (17th)
Magic makes the world go round, but no one in Charlie Goldskin’s world knows precisely where magic comes from. This isn’t Charlie’s problem. She’s the adopted daughter of a woodcarver and is training to be a librarian. It’ll be a quiet life, but that’s fine with Charlie, as magic is summoned through conflict and she would like to avoid that, thank you very much!
Then her birth father shows up to take her from her village and bring her to the king’s court.
Prince Leopold is gifted in the noble arts of diplomacy and combat, but he’s never met anyone like Charlie. Falling in love with her wouldn’t be an issue, except he’s already engaged, and his fiancée is the daughter of a very powerful evil witch. Charlie, panicking, decides to break the news to Princess Robin…but then she finds love at first sight, too. To resolve this love triangle, the teens are sent on a quest to discover the source of magic! So much for Charlie’s plans for a quiet life…
Rears & Vices by E.M. Caro (17th)
It’s 1816. The wars with France and America are over. Everard Anderson de Anglada thought he’d be a hero by now, and that it would mean something. Instead, the twenty-year Royal Navy career man sails the peacetimes Great Lakes, demoted to captain of a tiny, ten-gun schooner. When Preston D’Arcy, Everard’s former Lieutenant and too-handsome ex-flame, forewarns him about a court-martial that they have no choice but to judge, Everard is begrudgingly grateful.
On the docket, however, is Vitaliy (Vitya) Gray, American. Everard has crossed paths with him before—not strictly as enemies. Vitya’s charges mean he’ll hang. With quick thinking and quite a lot of perjury, Everard delays the trial. It costs him—and D’Arcy—everything: for Vitya’s true identity is V. Varfolomey, infamous pirate fleet captain and anti-colonial weapons smuggler. At least three crowns want him dead.
Between hasty jailbreak, philosophical debates, and proposals (pirate marriage, no-strings), Everard finds himself, his heart, and even D’Arcy commandeered: all the way to the Gulf of México. There, piracy is nothing like he imagined, and Vitya is everything Everard ever truly wished to be: radical, respected, and unforgettable. As Everard struggles to find purpose in his new husband’s shadow—amidst sea battles, espionage, and betrayal—he must also reconcile the irresistible pulls of D’Arcy’s insistent affection and Vitya’s undemanding steadfastness.
Then, just as dangerous secrets and enemies come to light, Everard is offered the position of Vice-Admiral for the brand-new, revolutionary Galveston navy. Everard must then decide: fulfill at long last his desire for legacy… or stay beside the men with whom he’s fallen in love, and make a legacy of their own.
I Love You Don’t Die by Jade Song (17th)
For as far back as she can remember, Vicky has been fascinated and obsessed with death as the only inevitable thing in life. From living above a Chinatown funeral parlor to working at a celebrity start-up for bespoke urns, she has surrounded herself with death—in her home, in her work, and in her ever-growing collection of zhizha, paper creations meant to be burned for the dead, adorning the walls of her apartment. Yet, though living in Manhattan and working her dream job is all she ever wanted, she still struggles to have meaningful connections—or find any meaning at all—in her life. Too often she spends the day in bed, only drawn out from time to time by her best (and only) friend, Jen.
That changes when a dating app leads her into a throuple with an artist and a labor organizer, who offer exactly the kind of love she needs. For some time, it’s perfect, but no one understands better than Vicky that all things must end. As doubts grow over the love in her life, her friendship with Jen, and her professional success, the oddly comforting abstraction of death starts becoming something else altogether. With everything beginning to feel hollow and temporary, Vicky must decide how to keep moving forward. To try and hold on to what she has, or to once again do what she does best: destroy.
My Lover, the Rabbi by Wayne Koestenbaum (17th)
A psychosexual relationship between a rabbi and the man devoted to him goes off the rails.
The rabbi is, to the untrained eye, far from desirable. Lofty and disorderly, aging and constantly losing members of his flock, he is nonetheless the singular object of obsession for the self-abjecting narrator of My Lover, the Rabbi. From the start of their psychosexual affair, the two men torment, pleasure, and manipulate each other with ardor. When they’re apart, the narrator manically contemplates every element of the rabbi’s being: his alluring adopted son, his false erudition, his patrilineage, his broken-down Pontiac, his out-of-state husband (who the narrator has also slept with), and, maybe most of all, the universe between the rabbi’s legs. Spending time together in the narrator’s bed, in a tiny town near Hoboken, New Jersey, that our narrator is “devastated to admit is my personal address,” a tender, volatile intimacy brews and curdles. To sustain it, the narrator continues on an unrelenting, increasingly urgent quest to understand the mercurial, ardent rabbi’s mysterious past―that is, until he begins to question reality itself. In the process, conflicting truths about the rabbi emerge, with drastic consequences for both men and those around them.
I Am Agatha by Nancy Foley (17th)
Agatha, a bristly painter fleeing her own darkness, decamps to rural New Mexico to live the reclusive life of a small-town curmudgeon. It is there she meets Alice, a mild widow with a deepening case of dementia who keeps steady vigil at her daughter’s backyard grave. Despite Agatha’s rough edges and fierce aversion to sentimentality, she surprises herself by falling in love, and her well-worn convictions begin to upend.
As Alice’s condition worsens, Agatha hatches a plan for them to live together at her remote residence at Mesa Portales. But when Alice’s wayward son comes along with different ideas—and Alice suddenly goes missing—Agatha takes matters into her own hands with the help of a faithful thirteen-year-old-neighbor, a pair of shovels, and her trusty pickup, embarking on an unusual mission that calls into question whether some secrets are better kept buried.
Sharp, watchful, at once thrillingly perceptive and hidden from herself, Agatha is as imposing as the vast landscape her rustic adobe home overlooks. Loosely inspired by the life of Agnes Martin, I Am Agatha introduces us to this irascible, indelible character who learns—over a stretch of strange, singular days—new ways to fathom life, death, and her own heart.
The Perfect Match by Adiba Jaigirdar (19th)
All is fair in love and rivalry…
Dina is done. She’s burn out after years in corporate London and now is working in her family’s struggling Bangladeshi restaurant. The last thing she expects is to be roped into coaching a football team of disadvantaged amateur players – or to say yes.
Maya is back. She could have had a brilliant career, but it all went…well wrong. Now she’s back home, back in her childhood bedroom. Her only escape is agreeing to coach her old secondary school’s team.
It doesn’t take long for them to bump into each other again and for as long as anyone can remember, Dina and Maya were rivals. But will the very game that tore them apart bring them back together?
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | Blackwell’s
First to Finish by Rebecca J. Caffery (20th)
Race car driver Johannes Muller is on a hot streak this season and seems destined to claim the championship win … until his performance unexpectedly falters. Gone is his cool confidence – on the track he can barely qualify, let alone take home the trophy.
The team’s race engineer, Caleb Hughes, is determined to get his star driver back in pole position, but soon the sparks flying over the radio are more chemistry than competition.
In a sport where everyone gives it their all at all times, it’s not long before Johannes and Caleb realise that their racing line is leading them towards a collision they won’t be able to walk away from unscathed…
Buy it: Amazon
Charmed and Dangerous by Shelly Page (24th)
Magic lingers in the cozy town of Fair Glen, Illinois, and it’s up to the agents at the Bureau of Mystical Affairs to keep it in check. Monroe Bennett, a junior recruit at the Bureau, is ready to ace her first assignment: tracking down the source of a rogue love charm.
Protecting her charmed classmates, including the Bureau Director’s daughter Iris James, is top priority. But when Iris asks Monroe to fake date her to make her ex jealous, things get complicated.
Monroe believes in duty, not romance. Yet the more time she spends with Iris, the harder it is to ignore the very real sparks flying between them. Can Monroe protect herself from love long enough to solve this case, or will her growing feelings get in the way?
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N
Someone to Daydream About by Sydney Langford (24th)
Natalie is Demiromantic.
This is what dreams are made of.
Every teenager in America knows eighteen-year-old Felix Song, the lead singer of the most popular boy band since One Direction. Unfortunately, Natalie Nielsen is no exception. Though she thinks of him more as an annoying rich kid from her hometown than a heartthrob.
Uninterested in stardom, Natalie dreams of honoring her late dad’s legacy and making a positive impact on her beloved Deaf community by revamping her family’s run-down Deaf Center. The issue? She has no money. When Felix’s little sister’s hearing loss begins to accelerate, he gives Natalie a generous job offer that would help secure the Center’s future: but she must accompany him on tour this summer to teach him ASL.
What begins as a professional arrangement soon morphs into stolen kisses and late-night rendezvous. But as their connection deepens, so do the risks―and when their relationship suddenly takes center stage, it’s not only their hearts, but Felix’s career on the line. Amid relentless public scrutiny, contractual obligations, and meddling band members, Natalie must decide if their dreams can co-exist in the spotlight.
The Danger of Small Things by Caryl Lewis (24th)
The whole world rested on a single bee’s wings…until that last honeybee died, and the balance of the universe tipped. Now, famine and war rage across the land. People are no longer allowed to read or create art. They are forbidden to believe in the existence of love.
Like every other girl, Jess has been taken from her home to live in a government dormitory, where they are forced to pollinate crops by hand with brushes. But unlike the others, Jess knows how to read and paint—and she knows that brushes aren’t meant for pollinating.
Jess is her mother’s daughter, with a strong streak of rebellion that even the harshest punishment can’t stamp out. She knows there is something horribly wrong with this system built on the hard labor of young girls, a system that forces them to marry and have children as soon as they are able. With smuggled paints and brush in hand, can Jess inspire a revolution?
Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave (24th)
Erica and Laure meet on the steps of the Sacré-Coeur in Paris, 1978. Erica is a student, relishing her first summer abroad before beginning university at home in England. Laure is studying for her PhD at the Sorbonne, drinking and smoking far too much, and sleeping with a married woman. The moment the two women meet, the spark is undeniable, but their encounter turns into far more than a summer of love. It is the beginning of a relationship that will define their lives and every decision they have yet to make…
Erica and Laure’s love story spans decades, marriage, children, secret trysts, and the agonizing changes—both personal and political—that might mean they can be together, after all. But when life brings them within touching distance again, will they be brave enough to seize a future together?
The Beheading Game by Rebecca Lehmann (24th)
“Nobody was surprised at Anne’s conviction. The world loves to put a woman in her place.”
The Beheading Game begins in the hours after Anne Boleyn’s beheading, when she wakes to find herself unceremoniously laid to rest in a makeshift coffin, her head wrapped in linen at her knees. Discarded by King Henry VIII for being unable to give him a male heir and reviled by Cromwell for being too smart for her own good, she was ultimately executed based on trumped-up charges of adultery, incest, and high treason.
Anne escapes the Tower of London, sews her head back on, then sets out on a quest to kill Henry VIII before he can marry her own lady-in-waiting Jane Seymour. The stakes are high—if Jane gives birth to a rival heir, Anne’s daughter, Elizabeth, will lose her claim to the throne. Traveling the streets of London in the guise of a commoner, with the help of a prostitute who becomes a trusted friend (and perhaps something more), Anne soon realizes how little she knew about life in the real world.
Robbie McNeil’s Hit List by Brianna Heath (24th)
For this hitwoman, curiosity may be killer.
Contract killer Robbie McNeil never asks questions. Her mission is simple. Do the job. Get paid. Get back to running the karaoke bar she co-owns with her queerplatonic partner and fellow contract killer, Dee. And it works… Until their ambitious new theatrical venture breaks the bank.
When a mysterious new client hires Robbie for a hit, she takes the job, even though it’s sketchy as hell he won’t tell her anything but the target’s name. But hey, she didn’t build her reputation by being curious, and she desperately needs the cash.
Except something about this new target doesn’t add up. When he disappears with no record he ever existed, she chucks her no-questions-asked policy out the window, determined to figure out who this target really is. But the price for asking questions is high and might just cost Robbie everything she holds dear.
My Girlfriend is Not the Father by Dana Hawkins (25th)
After getting poked, prodded, and shot (just hormone injections!), Lucy Green is on the cusp of fulfilling a decade-long pact with her best friend to be his surrogate. Now, all she has to do is stay single, healthy, and keep down the prenatal vitamins.
A year ago, Jade Hudson’s wife went back on all her previous promises and declared that she wanted children with or without Jade. Forced out of her marriage, Jade is now rebooting her life in small town Minnesota, pouring all her energy into her new salon and prioritizing self-worth.
Sparks begin to fly between Lucy and Jade, but accepting new love feels a long way off. Neither can deny their growing feelings, but with both their lives verging on transformation, the timing could not be worse. Will they be able to ignore their feelings or can they look past their life developments and risk it all for a chance at love?
Buy it: Amazon
As Long As You Loathe Me by Swati Hegde (31st)
When a teen tries to get back at her ex-best friend for stealing her crush, she ends up unexpectedly rekindling their complicated friendship and discovers that it’s not just her pride on the line, it’s her heart too.
Bring down the cheerleader. Just don’t fall in love with her.
Meera Rao-George is done being the dorky high school senior crushing on her neighbor Sushant, who only has eyes for cheerleader Lucy Hughson—Meera’s ex-best friend. After countless attempts to get his attention, Meera decides it’s time for a bold move: the Date Sushant & Dethrone Lucy Plan.
Lucy Hughson appears to have it all: a loving boyfriend, top grades, and a designer wardrobe. But beneath the surface, she battles anxiety, struggles with her identity, and questions her feelings for Sushant compared to what she felt for someone from her past.
As Meera cozies up to Lucy to execute her plan, she realizes her heart’s at risk. Their friendship ended for a reason—a secret Lucy won’t confront. Now, she must reevaluate everything she thought she knew about herself, and what a real shot at love ultimately looks like.
The Celestial Seas by T.A. Chan (31st)
Ishara Ming is the sole survivor of a spacefaring whaler destroyed by the Ballena, a legendary sentient spacecraft that haunts the darkness between stars. The fatal encounter left her with a metal-plated arm, a faulty memory chip, and a burning need for revenge.
To take on the Ballena, Ishara assembles a crew of capable misfits. Among them is Quinn—her trusted first mate, the girl with wildfire eyes, and the only person who always stands by her side, even when everyone else thinks Ishara is a delusional captain who hallucinated the Ballena.
That is, until Augustus, a ship mech armed with his own mysterious reasons for vengeance, convinces Ishara to let him join the crew. He brings the one thing Ishara’s never had before: a tracking method tailored for finding the Ballena. Pulled between Quinn’s and Augustus’s gravitational forces, the pressure to issue increasingly risky orders, and the feeling that her past is rapidly catching up with her future, Ishara has to decide what—or who—she is fighting for before she loses another ship.
Our Immortal Bind by Christopher Hartland (31st)
To enter the afterlife, one must first pass through a door unlocked by the angel of death, but when the keys to those doors are stolen, the entire human race is rendered immortal.
With the world heading into global crisis and the very fabric of the universe at risk, Death tasks her son, the half-angel/half-human Orpheus, with the retrieval of the keys.
Orpheus soon encounters Evan, a warlock who lives in fear thanks to laws punishing the use of magic.
The Witchfinders are already pointing the blame for the immortality at the witches and warlocks of the world, so Evan agrees to help Orpheus in the hopes of fixing things before anti-magic rhetoric reaches an all-time high.
In a quest that pushes them both to their limits, what neither boy expects is to find there may be more to life, each other, and themselves than they ever thought possible.
Speak Now by Ash Perez (31st)
What would you do for a second chance at your first love?
Alex Perez is a culinary genius: she’s on the verge of becoming the youngest ever head chef at the famed Sempervirens restaurant, a fine dining treasure tucked away in a boutique hotel in the majestic Big Sur mountains. Her demanding schedule and perfectionist tendencies leave little room to think about romance. That is, until her ex-best friend Genevieve shows up at her restaurant—and gets engaged.
Twelve years ago, Alex was just a quiet transfer student with no friends until she met Genevieve Jones, an effervescent extrovert who took Alex under her wing. They remained inseparable through the rest of high school, until a fateful road trip changed everything, and they haven’t seen or spoken to each other since.
Now Genevieve’s longtime boyfriend Derek, a real estate mogul in the making, has brought her here not only to propose, but to offer sizable investment in the hotel…if they can host and cater the perfect fairytale wedding. Leaving Alex in an impossible situation: cater the wedding for the only woman she’s ever loved, or give up her dream job as a head chef.
A Good Person by Kirsten King (31st)
Lillian and Henry have been enjoying each other’s company, especially in bed. Even though Lillian’s best friend calls it a “situationship,” Lillian is determined to lock Henry down—and she has a plan. She’ll be the best, most accommodating version of herself until he falls in love with her. But when Henry blindsides Lillian with a breakup, Lillian exacts revenge by performing a drunken hex on him.
Lillian expects Henry to come crawling back to her. What she doesn’t quite anticipate is becoming a prime suspect in his murder case when he’s found dead. As Lillian grapples with the loss of her sort-of-boyfriend, she’s hit with another reckoning: That Henry had a long-term girlfriend he also left behind.
Desperate to control the narrative, clear her name, and assume her rightful place as Henry’s mourning girlfriend, Lillian’s pursuit of the truth will throw her into a dangerous tailspin.
