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Young Adult
The Lovers, the Liars, and Me by DeAndra Davis
Jaliya Powell has never had a real adventure, a real boyfriend, or spoken up for herself. She’s never even been kissed. Despite being valedictorian of her high school class, Jaliya is used to fading into the background.
But this summer will be different.
This summer, Jaliya is visiting her uncle and his family in Jamaica. Under the guise of one last vacation before college, she plans to find out more about her estranged mother, whose absence has remained an unspoken mystery. But things have changed in the seven years since Jaliya last visited. Her cousin has his own life and is reluctant to let Jaliya in, her childhood crush has only gotten hotter and more unavailable, and her aunt and uncle aren’t everything she remembered, either. Then she meets India, who’s vibrant, gorgeous, and free-spirited. And who makes Jaliya feel something she’s never felt before.
While searching for traces of her mother across the island, Jaliya finds herself entangled in complicated relationships, tricky secrets, and a passionate new love. As she navigates this perfectly complicated summer, Jaliya must choose between who she has always been or who she hopes to become.
Doe by Rebecca Barrow
Maris Larsen is the captain of the West Eaton High cheer team. She’s Coach’s favorite and the team worships her. Being on the team makes her feel special—powerful. When she’s leading the girls on the mat, Maris doesn’t have to think about her dead-end life in a dead-end town. She can forget about her depressed mother and absent father and the fact that her girlfriend doesn’t really love her. But when newcomer and Coach’s new golden girl, Genevieve Ray, joins the team, the only thing going right in Maris’s life is suddenly in jeopardy. A bitter rivalry develops between the two, but Maris is determined to take Genevieve down. The knife she needs to wield comes to Maris in her dreams.
While sleepwalking, Maris is visited by a monstrous, decaying beast in the shape of an enormous deer. Doe is an ancient, tired creature who has been wandering, trapped in her current form for decades. She cannot die, but she cannot go on living as she has. Only a girl related by blood to those who bound her in this form can free her, but those girls she loved died years ago—murdered in a fire.
But Maris is somehow linked to Doe’s beloved girls—linked by blood—and so she has the power to free Doe, to unleash her immense power. In Maris’s dreams, she and Doe form a bond, but Maris doesn’t know the creature from her dreams is real. Maris doesn’t understand the danger she’s in. She only knows Doe has promised her a way to win her battle with Genevieve. But for Maris to win, someone has to die, and the only real winner in the end will be Doe.
Good Luck, Babe! by Erin Baldwin
Fake dating isn’t just complicated–it’s competitive.
Reality TV enthusiasts Noelle and Yumi spent ten years attached at the hip—until the summer after junior year. One ill-fated night (and one awkward kiss) ended their friendship, and after a year of no contact, fate throws the girls back together when they’re offered a last-minute spot on their favorite show—an Amazing Race analog called The Adventureverse.
It’s a chance to put their superfan status to the test, a dream come true. Except for a few snags: It’s an all-couples season, filming starts in two days, and Noelle hasn’t spoken to her “girlfriend” in a year. But Noelle already has plans to use the prize money on her ailing father’s medical expenses. She would do anything for him—including fake date her ex-bestie on national television.
Can Noelle walk a tightrope between reality and TV while juggling a pretend relationship and true feelings? Or will she get sent home empty-handed and brokenhearted?
For the Greatest Good by Blair Hanson
After years of poor water quality, Gavin fears his town is one burst pipe away from losing access to safe drinking water forever. The awareness campaign he runs with his boyfriend, Kyler, and best friend, MacKenzie, has gotten them nowhere.
Demoralized, the teens try to find another solution. Gavin’s rich estranged father claims that privatizing their town’s water would get them better infrastructure, and his friend’s company CrispFlow could solve everything if the mayor, MacKenzie’s mother, would give them the bid. Wanting to believe his father, Gavin convinces his friends to help him rig the process in CrispFlow’s favor.
But as they learn more about what privatization would cost, Gavin will question if his father has Gavin and his town’s best interest at heart and what his community truly needs.
A Great and Powerful Tyranny by Victoria Carbol
Thia is the perfect granddaughter―how could she be anything else when a tragic accident left her the sole family to Grandma Winnie? But one stormy Kansas day, Thia accidentally uncovers clues that reveal her grandma has been lying to her: her mother was never a medical doctor, she was studying the supernatural and all she left behind was a strange mirror.
Angry with her grandma, Thia drives off in a rage but accidentally falls through the mirror into a terrifying land ruled by the cruel Mage King―and he might be the only one who can send her home.
With the aid of her newfound allies, Thia must confront her family’s legacy which is tied to the struggle to overthrow the Mage King, the undeniable connection between her and a cursed, heartless girl, and where, in the end, Thia truly belongs.
The Monsters We Made by Peyton June
Two friends must uncover the truth about the bloody reappearance of a cryptid in this queer, X-Files-inspired thriller from the author of Bad Creek.
To save her family’s struggling ranch, 18-year-old Claire fabricates a video of her hometown’s legendary alien cryptid, Old Lucky, that grabs the attention of paranormal vloggers Lenny and Evan. Lenny is plagued with doubts about their channel’s future, so catching Old Lucky might just be her chance at finding something real.
After Evan deserts Lenny, believing the investigation to be a hoax, Claire agrees to “help” Lenny uncover the history of Old Lucky―and preserve her deceit. But the more the girls are drawn together and the more clues they unearth, the more secrets rise to the surface. The cows are being mutilated, the ranch hand has disappeared, and the strange lights in the sky are back. Something inhuman lurks in Scarberry, where danger lives close to home. The Monsters We Made is an eerie and suspenseful exploration of one town’s dark history and the people who brought it back to life.
Nat & Cami’s Guide to Running an Undercover GSA by Karis Rogerson
Cami is a 15-year-old lesbian, one of the few out queer students at her conservative boarding school for international students in Italy. She just wants to focus on getting her paintings in a student gallery and kickstarting a vaunted art career—but first, she’ll have to survive the next two-and-a-half years of bullying. Seeking respite from her roommate’s cruelty one night, she hides out in a bathroom—only she’s not the only one there.
Nat is a senior, closeted even from herself, whose homophobic, missionary parents are pressuring her to win valedictorian. A year younger than her peers at 16, she’s still the head of her class, the fastest runner on the cross country team, and the captain of the girls’ soccer team, but her depression and insomnia keep her up all night. She takes refuge in the ground-floor bathroom where Cami shows up one night.
As they spend time together over the following nights and Cami shows Nat how poorly the school treats queer people, the two girls concoct a mildly hare-brained scheme: to create an undercover Genders & Sexualities Alliance (GSA) where queer students and allies can bond. They don’t expect so many kids to find a home with them.
And they certainly don’t expect to fall for each other.
Buy it: Amazon
Adult Fiction
Sourland by Ariel Delgado Dixon
Sapphire and her farm, Sourland, are fixtures of Northern California’s rugged wilderness, offering refuge to rejects, rebels, and outcasts—anyone willing to work and learn. But the haven Sapphire has built is fractured when she suddenly goes missing, her scorched truck abandoned on a mountain road.
Frankie, a disgraced ballerina and Sapphire’s former girlfriend and right-hand woman, returns to Sourland, claiming ownership of the farm. When she arrives, Frankie finds that Fizz—Sapphire’s most recent lover, an ex–baseball player with a preternatural green thumb—has already begun prepping Sourland for its biggest harvest yet.
As the two grapple for power, the farm’s fate hangs in the balance, and with it, the future Fizz and Frankie each covet for themselves. Past demons and scorned admirers remain hauntingly close, while the specter of Sapphire looms over the farm: in cryptic notes, in bud-tender gossip, in every blade of grass and whorl of smoke.
The Broken Hearts Agency by Clarence A. Haynes
Evelyn Kendricks is having a day. An overworked manager, she’s been dumped by her toxic boyfriend while struggling to cope with the recent ghost invasion that’s shocked the world. Devastated, she is mysteriously summoned to an eerie townhouse where she meets Linda Villaneuva, a private investigator who runs a secret mystical detective agency. She’s able to sense the emotions of others, especially those suffering from heartache.
Linda would like nothing more than to help her latest client, but she soon makes a gruesome discovery: People are losing their memories and wandering DC streets in a zombie-like daze. Their eyes, demon red. Their skin, blistered, burning… and no one understands why. Panic has begun to consume the city as more folks succumb, putting Evelyn and other residents at risk.
In the biggest case of her life, Linda follows a trail of clues to unearth an evil force far deadlier than anything she could’ve imagined. And all the while, she must reckon with the tragedies of her past and the price she’s paid for her supernatural gifts.
A Treason of Magic by Melissa Marr
Two young women. Heirs to altogether different hereditary burdens. Yet bound by a monstrous threat to their village.
Gabrielle is the first woman in Alveus to carry the mantle of Hunter, which comes with an obligation to kill the faery beasts murdering travelers in Brimmond Wood. Wary of the power she wields as guardian of her people, Gabrielle is summoned by her first love, a seductress who shattered her heart into pieces a decade ago.
Isabeau is the rarest of nobility―a lady duke. She is also afflicted by a curse that leaves her in a deep sleep between the gloaming and daylight. How can she begin her tenure as protector when she can’t keep her village safe from whatever stalks its darkest hours? For that, she needs the help of the Hunter.
Against her will, Gabrielle is falling in love all over again. But what new threats will arise when Gabrielle and Isabeau’s star-crossed destinies collide with the beast of Brimmond Wood?
Long Island Girls by Gabrielle Korn
The only thing Susan loves more than music is Eliza, and both keep breaking her heart.
The first time Susan and Eliza meet, it’s 2005, and Susan is barreling down the Long Island Expressway driving a group of friends to an indie rock show. Eliza is a surprise addition to the backseat, and she doesn’t quite fit in; she’s a little too pretty, and she doesn’t know anything about music, but Susan is drawn to her anyway. Their flying sparks lead to combustion when Susan recognizes Eliza as the girl from a nude photo boys have been sending around. They part ways, and Susan assumes that’s the end of it. Susan goes off to college and onto a career in Brooklyn’s indie music scene, where she navigates a toxic job at a small record label and learns hard lessons about who exactly has the privilege of making art under late-stage capitalism.
In 2015, in her twenties, Susan has a chance run-in with Eliza on a dating app, and they finally embark on a relationship. But Eliza is plagued by her traumatic past, which involves people Susan is still involved with, and that’s where it all falls apart again. Over the next few years, Susan’s career takes off, she helps dismantle a predatory work environment, and meets someone new who might actually be good for her. Yet she can’t stop thinking about Eliza. What might have been, if things had gone differently? And who might Susan become if she could only let Eliza go?
Little Wild by Laura Evans
Suffolk, 1937. As the English countryside swelters in a historic heat wave, preparations for a party at Snare House are in full swing. The Winthers’ only daughter, Joanie, is returning from a summer on the Continent, a flying visit before she leaves for university at Oxford. Only Margaret, longtime ward of the family and Joanie’s closest friend, knows the truth: Joanie won’t be going to Oxford. Instead, the two will be leaving the stultifying society they know to live together in London, as lovers.
Then the pair is discovered, and everything goes wrong. Banished to a cabin in the nearby woods, Margaret is alone with her estranged father. As summer curdles into autumn and magpies throng the forest, Margaret begins to lose herself. Her dreams turn dark and terrifying, and she wakes from them with dirt on the soles of her feet and scratches on her back. Everything suggests that a perverse power is awakening within her―perhaps the very one that led to her mother’s ostracism and eventual death. If she can harness it, Margaret may be able to secure an approximation of the love she’s always crave―but at what cost?
Skin Contact by Elisa Faison
A newly open marriage brings discovery, excitement, and upheaval to a young couple, and to the friends and lovers in their orbit.
Thirty years old and reeling from her mother’s recent death, Frances feels as if she’s lost her sense of purpose, her joy; her husband, Ben, will do anything to help her. So when she suggests that they open their marriage, he’s willing—and maybe even a little intrigued. They invite a young woman into their bedroom, create a joint dating profile, and go on dates with other exploring couples, with mixed but often exciting results. Over the next five years, they explore their sexualities, navigating through jealousy, betrayal, desire, and obsession—and the friends and lovers in their circle find themselves asking new questions about their own lives and relationships. When Ben finds himself falling in love with another woman, just as Frances realizes she’s ready to settle down and have a baby, they’re forced to confront the consequences of their experiment.
Down to Earth by Julia Turshen
Frankie doesn’t quite know what to make of Paige and her eight-year-old son Bobby, who’ve just moved to the Upstate New York town where she’s lived her whole life. Paige, seeking refuge from her previous relationship, is equally thrown: Does this eternally single, charming, gay vegetable farmer think she’s a citiot? And could the attraction she’s feeling toward her grow into something more?
The Call Room by Jacqueline Rose
First Year, First Heartbreak
Angela Quinn has worked her entire life for this moment—walking into the hospital in her white coat, finally a physician. She knew residency would be brutal: long hours, relentless emergencies, and nights where sleep is a distant memory. She was prepared for all of it.
What she wasn’t prepared for was Dr. Charlie McAdams.
Brilliant, magnetic, and just out of reach, the senior resident is everything Angela didn’t know she wanted—and everything she shouldn’t risk. Her long-distance boyfriend barely crosses her mind anymore, especially when Charlie is sneaking her warm cookies during midnight rounds or showing her secret corners of Portland she never knew existed.
With the support of her best friend, Angela navigates the chaos of her first year—demanding patients, overworked residents, and a growing attraction she can’t ignore. But Charlie has secrets of her own, and for reasons Angela can’t understand, refuses to cross the line.
Now Angela has to figure out where her heart truly belongs—because if she can’t, she risks losing herself, her career, and the one person she never expected to fall for.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N
Nemesis Mine by Amy Archer
Fake nemeses. It’s a dastardly plan that can’t go wrong… until love crashes the act.
Nobody is more surprised than Cyrus to learn that he’s no longer considered the greatest villain in the land of Athaca. Sure, he’s lying about the fact that his magical power is making flowers grow. And maybe lately he’s spent more time embroidering pillowcases than tormenting the locals. But that doesn’t mean he’s ready to be yesterday’s evil news.
Enter the hero Maximillian: the realm’s golden boy, complete with a blinding smile, chiseled abs, and an infuriating habit of spreading hope and joy. (Gross.) If Cyrus wants to be taken seriously, he’ll have to take this guy down.
But Maximillian isn’t quite as perfect as he seems. When he proposes a scheme to fake an epic rivalry and increase their fame, Cyrus can’t resist. Stage the battles, soak up the spotlight, share the spoils—it’s a villainously good marketing plan.
There’s just one hitch. Pretending to hate your nemesis becomes a lot harder when you start falling for them instead.
The Bloodweaver by C.N. Kuster
A divisive magic. A shattered family. A brewing war.
In a world where some can manipulate life with a single touch, siblings fight on rival sides, forced to reckon with the choices that led them there.
Three generations ago, ancient and mysterious beings introduced the world to the arcane art of Bloodweaving, which allows its practitioners to manipulate life with merely a touch. Now, Bloodweavers must hide in plain sight or risk being hunted by violent regime soldiers known as Breakers, who will stop at nothing to eradicate weaving once and for all.
Though his family’s vineyard has flourished thanks to Bloodweaving, Kerick DeLuvena has kept his powers a secret from everyone, including his beloved fellow triplets, Mel and Emiel. When a squad of Breakers arrives on the day of Emiel’s wedding, Kerick weaves himself a new face and flees to protect his family, setting out in search of the Ravel, a secret society of Bloodweavers who stand on the precipice of an uprising.
Meanwhile, Mel’s girlfriend is identified as a Bloodweaver and arrested. Devastated by so much loss, Mel hatches a plan to get captured in the same raid, hoping to protect her love at all costs, even if it means allying herself with the Breakers’ ruthless commander and serving the very force that tore her family apart.
As the consequences of the siblings’ diverging paths ripple across a divided and hostile world, both must eventually face the same question: Is Bloodweaving a miracle―or a curse?
Fish and Water by Gengoroh Tagame
FISH AND WATER is a new graphic novel from Eisner award-winning graphic novelist Gengoroh Tagame. He asks: What if The Odd Couple were Japanese, living in the middle of COVID, and just might be . . . gay?
Having met at a mutual friend’s wedding, Akira, a business sales administrator, and Koji, a freelance writer, quickly become close buddies. One day, during a visit with a farm client, Akira is offered a case of freshly picked cabbage. Since no one at his office wants it, and he is no cook, Akira decides to see if Koji (who loves to cook) might be interested. Koji accepts and invites Akira to join him. Lonely and in the midst of pandemic-related shutdowns, Akira welcomes the chance and one meal becomes many. Once they get past how to be COVID-cautious, they become quite relaxed with each other, creating an amusing but emotionally perplexing scenario. Eventually, Akira and Koji grapple with deciding if they are just friends, or something more.
Edge of Mercy by Allie Therin
In the gripping conclusion to Allie Therin’s slow burn urban fantasy MM romance series, an empath and an empath hunter face off as the fate of an alternate-universe Seattle—and their own future—hang in the balance.
Caught in the crosshairs of a deadly conspiracy, empath Reece Davies was forced to embrace his darker nature to protect the enemy he’d fallen for. Now, joining forces with others like him, drawn to chaos and vengeance by the corruption in his veins, Reece is being hunted…by the very man he saved.
Evan Grayson, a notorious empath hunter known as the Dead Man, was engineered to never falter from his mission—until he met Reece. Even corruption can’t cool their desire for each other, but with Reece’s dark side in control and all of Seattle at stake, Grayson must stop him, no matter the personal cost.
As the battle between the two enemies heats up, so does their forbidden attraction. But the danger is growing and closing in on them from all sides. Because Grayson isn’t the only one hunting the empaths—and they both may have finally met their match…
Fouled in Open Play by Pat Voss (24th)
It was supposed to be his redemption story when Caleb Thomas transferred to Southeastern State University. The talented yet closeted soccer player craved a fresh start after a tumultuous year, one he desperately wants to put behind him. After recovering from a leg break the previous summer, his outstanding performances transformed the conference bottom-feeder into a championship contender, bringing him closer to his dream of becoming a professional soccer player. His goal is in play until a surprise vinyl has him spinning out of bounds.
Caleb struggles to move past his breakup with Javi, whose best-selling album spills the secrets of their relationship. He tries to navigate a complicated relationship with a digital love interest, but underestimates its challenges in a homophobic college town. Even with every hidden conflict rising to the surface, Caleb’s stardom skyrockets, but secrets and betrayals threaten to derail his dream. It forces Caleb to confront his past and fight for his future, or risk missing his shot at his dream he promised to make a reality.
Outplayed by Love by Frankie Fyre (25th)
She’s the plant. Her boss is the problem.
Former TV star Paya Richardson lost everything when her best friend betrayed her. Accepting a role as a producer plant on TV’s hottest sapphic survival game show is her final shot at redemption. All she has to do is charm her way to the finish line keeping her secret intact. Only she didn’t expect the woman consuming her every thought to be playing too.
Spite is a hell of a drug, but so is her boss, Celeste Ashford.
CEO Celeste Ashford’s luxury magazine empire is crumbling. Joining a messy reality competition is the last thing she wants, but winning could secure the future she’s fought hard to build. When she spots Paya on the island, undeniable attraction turns into suspicion. If her assistant lied about this, what else is she hiding?
Stranded on an island where every lingering glance is a risk and each delicious touch is strategy, the professional boundaries they fought to maintain don’t stand a chance. With a million dollars on the line, the deeper they fall, the harder it becomes to decide which prize is worth fighting for. Who will plot, persist and prevail?
There can only be one winner.
Buy it: Amazon
Nonfiction
My Name Was Baby: An Intersex Memoir by Chris Arnone
From a rising intersex activist in the Midwest, a candid memoir about growing up different and an inspiring story of self-discovery and self-acceptance.
When Chris Arnone was born in Independence, Missouri, nobody could tell what sex he was. For the first few days of his life, until a chromosome test confirmed he was a boy, his parents called him Baby. From this first, literal “coming out,” it was clear he was different. His life was punctuated by a string of surgeries and trips to the ER, unrecognizable and confusing diagrams in sex ed class, and the need to preface every intimate encounter by explaining his medical history. But it wasn’t until he was thirty-seven that he discovered he didn’t have “birth defects”—he was intersex.
In this fresh and affirming memoir, Chris’s struggles with anxiety, confusion, and a painful journey toward self-acceptance will be familiar to LGBTQIA+ people everywhere. But he also offers a perspective that is largely untold: that of an intersex man, existing in the toxic masculine culture of the heartland; parents who were open and accepting of his differences; and doctors who (mostly) did no harm.
It is a deep and wide exploration of religion and politics, gender and sexuality, frat parties, burlesque shows, and Magic: The Gathering. Arnone boldly shows how the lives of intersex folks can be so different and yet so familiar to everyone, helping us all take one step closer to understanding and acceptance.
Peeing in an Empty Bottle by Roz Hernandez
Over 13,000 miles behind the wheel. Fifty standup comedy shows. One funny transgender lady on an epic summer adventure.
Roz Hernandez should be more famous. She thinks so, anyway. The problem is, she needs more of the right people to know who she is. And in a deeply divided country where transgender people are under constant attack, Roz—all 6’1″ of her, usually dressed in rhinestones, feathers, and platform boots—sometimes feels as though her very existence is too controversial for the masses.
When she found herself with an empty calendar and a refusal to put her dreams on hold, Roz decided to spend the summer of 2025 looking for the people who will truly get her, performing stand-up in the most magical places across America she can think of: gay bars. Oh, and since she couldn’t afford a private jet or even a tour bus, she was going to drive herself across the country to do it. Alone. What could go wrong?
