For Part II (with a link to Part I), click here.
The Siren’s Kiss by Leslie Vedder (YA)
When the Tides Held the Moon by Venessa Vida Kelley
Year of the Mer by L.D. Lewis
Endless Blue Beneath by Shannon K English
A Bone in His Teeth by Kellen Graves
Happy Jewish American Heritage Month! We’re celebrating as we do with books starring Jewish protagonists and/or by Jewish authors, and for more recs, check out previous years’ posts!
What does Shabbat mean to you?
Is it making a big meal with your relatives on Friday night?
Singing songs on Saturday morning?
Or maybe it’s seeing all your friends after services.
Shabbat can mean different things to different people, even for those who attend the same synagogue! This timeless story by award-winning author A. J. Sass explores the countless ways to celebrate the sabbath holiday through the wonderfully diverse fabric of Jewish life and experience.
Kicking off a picture book series of LGBTQ+ biographies is this inspiring story of the incomparable dancer Willi Ninja, Grandfather of Vogue and star of the film Paris Is Burning.
When little Willi Leake watched karate movies with his mother in their cozy Queens apartment, he’d slice the air with his arms like swords. He’d swish his hips like the models he saw in magazines and copy ancient pharaohs’ poses from Egyptian hieroglyphs. Bursting with energy, Willi would strut his way down the street, and his mother would tell him not to mind the puzzled looks he’d get. When she took him to the Apollo Theater to watch ballerinas twirling, Willi allowed himself to dream—and the more he dreamed, the more he danced. With an accessible text and dynamic illustrations, Joy Michael Ellison and Nabi H. Ali trace Willi’s path against the odds as he brings his signature moves to the dance style known as vogue and finds his spotlight at the Harlem drag balls where a performer known as Willi Ninja is born. Providing context, community, and comprehension of queer and trans culture for young history buffs, the lively narrative is followed by back matter delving into more details about Willi Ninja and what life was like during his time.
Love Galaxy by Sierra Branham
The Obake Code by Makana Yamamoto
Earthly Playing Field by Radhika Singh
What We Are Seeking by Cameron Reed
Radiant Star by Ann Leckie
Bonus: These are all Adult, but in YA, check out If All the Stars Go Dark by S.G. Prince and The Celestial Seas by T.A. Chan
Happy AAPI Heritage Month 2026! We’re celebrating as we do with books by authors of Asian and Pacific Islander descent, mostly starring AAPI characters! For even more recs, check out past posts.
Derrick Chan is shooting for a once-in-a-lifetime high-school basketball scholarship with his childhood best friend, JJ, by his side. But Derrick’s life is about more than just free throws since embracing his queer identity and love for drag (even if he’s not ready to share either with the whole world quite yet)!
Right now, he’s just trying to take his dad’s advice: don’t sweat the small stuff. This weekend, however, Derrick’s two worlds are colliding in a big way. At a career-defining basketball tournament, where scouts from elite schools are watching his every move, Derrick secretly plans to meet his drag idol, the magnificent Juana Fanta, at the Comic Con held in the very same hotel.
As the stakes skyrocket, team tensions bubble to the surface, including Derrick’s own growing feelings for JJ. But when Juana Fanta disappears from the con, Derrick and JJ must team up to find her before she misses her show-stopping live performance.
Can Derrick find a community that celebrates slam dunks on the court and dazzling drag in the spotlight? Can he really save Juana Fanta’s future—and his own—in one weekend?
‘s SKATING THE LINE, a sapphic hockey rom-com about two rival university hockey stars-turned-teammates who find out they may have more chemistry off the ice than on it, pitched for fans of HEATED RIVALRY, CLEAT CUTE, and Ashley Herring Blake, to Grace Vainisi at Avon Impulse, and to Mikaela Roasa at Harper Canada, in a significant deal, in a two-book deal, for publication in March 2027, by Maddy Belton at Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency (NA).
Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
The Witch King by H.E. Edgmon
Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White
To Our Untamed Core by Sonido Reyes
 Flyboy by Kasey LeBlanc
Bonus: These all have trans MCs, but for one with a cis MC and trans LI, check out The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried by Shaun David Hutchinson
Before she moved from Austin to Rhode Island, everybody knew Lacey as one half of an inseparable duo: Lacey-and-Grace, best friends since they were toddlers. Grace and her moms were practically family. But at school, being lumped together with overeager, worm-obsessed, crushes-on-everyone Grace meant Lacey never quite fit in—and that’s why at her new middle school, Lacey plans to reinvent herself. This time, she’s going to be cool. She’s going to be normal.
At first, everything seems to go as planned. Lacey makes new friends right away, she finds a rabbi to help her prepare for the bat mitzvah that got deprioritized by her parents in the chaos of the move, and she even gets cast in the lead role of the eighth-grade musical. Which is when things start to get stressful, because it turns out the students at her new school have a long-standing, unofficial tradition: No matter what the show is, in the final performance, the leads always kiss for real.
Lacey’s never kissed anyone before—she’s not even sure she’s ever had a crush. And in Bye, Bye, Birdie, there are a few different co-lead kiss possibilities for Lacey to choose from. There’s confident, cocky Andre. There’s sweet, friendly Jaden. And then there’s the other new girl at school: dryly funny, impossibly cool Violet.
But while her new friends and older sister create whiteboard wall charts and botched field trip schemes to help her decide, suddenly Lacey can’t stop thinking about Grace, who she was so sure she wanted to leave behind. When Grace comes back into her life, Lacey needs to decide if she’s brave enough to be who she really is, in front of the person who matters most.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | Black Pearl Books | Book People | Barnes & Noble
Continue reading Happy (Upcoming) Lesbian Visibility Day 2026!
Tragic by Dana Mele and Valentina Pinti (YA GN)
Thoughts Be Bloody by Auden Patrick
The King of Infinite Space by Lyndsay Faye
The Death I Gave Him by Em X. LiuÂ
Rottenheart by Kat Dunn
Bonus: These are all novels, but for a short story, check out “Elsinore” by Patrice Caldwell in That Way Madness Lies, ed. by Dahlia Adler
In honor of Earth Day, check out these Climate Fiction-related books and this conversation between authors Sim Kern and Cynthia Zhang on LGBTQ rep in books about Climate Change.
In dystopic Seattle, storms have devastated Earth’s population, a new virus is spreading, and the privileged live inside domes controlled by Aegis Corp. Healthcare is earned by hours accrued working in Aegis’s pharmaceutical factories. If you run short on hours, you’re sent to Harvest House for debt collection—a place from which no one returns.
After a storm killed seventeen-year old Fox LaRosa’s parents and left her disabled, Fox and her younger sister, Rabbit, join their fugitive aunt’s mercenary group Still Alive. Their mission is to restore the imbalance of medical access for post-storm survivors.
But when a med supply heist goes south, Rabbit is taken captive, and Still Alive refuses to rescue her. Fox must choose between duty and family, and leaves home to infiltrate Aegis’s interior domes where Rabbit is being held hostage. The more Fox learns about life in the domes, though, the more she realizes Still Alive isn’t as altruistic as they claim. In a world where everyone is out for themselves, Fox must rely on those she trusts least in order to reunite with her sister and expose those in power for who they really are.
