All posts by Dahlia Adler

Cover Reveal

Exclusive Cover Reveal: America’s Not-So Sweetheart by Blair Hanson

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Today on the site I’m delighted to reveal the cover of America’s Not-So Sweetheart by Blair Hanson, a gay YA Romance releasing June 17, 2025 from Page Street YA! Here’s the story:

Alec Braud is the most hated teen in America after winning Campfire Wars by backstabbing his showmance, Joaquin Delgado. So when Joaquin asks Alec to join him on a road trip in order to “queerify” classic movie kisses for an art project, Alec agrees in the hopes it might make get them back together and convince the world he’s not a bad guy IRL.

Alec spends the trip reading into Joaquin’s flirty behavior and things get even more complicated when Alec is invited to return to the next season of Campfire Wars. He’s been trying to prove to everyone (and Joaquin) that he’s not actually the worst. But Alec is torn again between a second chance with Joaquin and cold hard cash.

Can he turn down the chance to return to the small screen for what only might be love?

And here’s the killer cover, designed by Vienna Gambol with art by Otesanya! 

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Blair Hanson is a chemist and proud cat lover. He is also a YA author who wants to see more realistic representations of gay teens. He lives in New Jersey. America’s Not-So-Sweetheart is his debut novel.

Authors in Conversation

Authors in Conversation: Linda Epstein, Ally Malinenko & Liz Parker, Co-Authors of The Other March Sisters

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Today on the site I’m thrilled to be hosting Linda Epstein, Ally Malinenko, and Liz Parker, the three coauthors behind the queerified Little Women reimagining The Other March Sisters, which releases February 25th from Kensington! Here’s the story:

The Other March Sisters by Linda Epstein, Ally Malinenko, and Liz Parker

Four sisters, each as different as can be. Through the eyes and words of Jo, their characters and destinies became known to millions. Meg, pretty and conventional. Jo, stubborn, tomboyish, and ambitious. Beth, shy and good-natured, a mortal angel readily accepting her fate. And Amy, elegant, frivolous, and shallow. But Jo, for all her insight, could not always know what was in her sisters’ thoughts, or in their hearts.

With Jo away in New York to pursue her literary ambitions, Meg, Beth, and Amy follow their own paths. Meg, newly married with young twins, struggles to find the contentment that Marmee assured her would come with domesticity. Unhappy and unfulfilled, she turns to her garden, finding there not just a hobby but a calling that will allow her to help other women in turn.

Beth knows her time is limited. Still, part of her longs to break out of her suffocating cocoon at home, however briefly. A new acquaintance turns into something more, offering unexpected, quiet joy.

Amy, traveling in Europe while she pursues her goal of becoming an artist, is keenly aware of the expectation that she will save the family by marrying well. Through the course of her journey, she discovers how she can remain true to herself, true to her art, and true to the love that was always meant to be.

Purposefully leaving Jo off the page, authors Liz Parker, Ally Malinenko, and Linda Epstein draw inspiration from Alcott’s real-life sisters, giving the other March women room to reveal themselves through conversations, private correspondence, and intimate moments—coming alive in ways that might surprise even daring, unconventional Jo.

Buy it: Bookshop | B&N | Amazon

And now our fabulous authors will take it from here!

Continue reading Authors in Conversation: Linda Epstein, Ally Malinenko & Liz Parker, Co-Authors of The Other March Sisters →

Book Spotlight

Sydney Taylor Book Award Blog Tour: Night Owls by A.R. Vishny

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I know, I know – we do not do blog tour stops at LGBTQReads, and that’s still true. But as a 2024 Sydney Taylor Honor Book awardee, I was asked to be a host for this year’s tour, and when I found out I would be featuring a queer book I happen to have absolutely loved, and processed the fact that we both got our Sidney Taylor stickers on queer books, I decided I get to break the rules, just this once. And so, I’m thrilled to be talking to A.R. Vishny today about Night Owls, Sydney Taylor Book Award and National Jewish Book Award winner for Young Adult. (Also, full disclosure: I judged this year’s NJBA for YA, so if you’re wondering how much I loved it, the answer is “Enough to help it when the top prize and then write the blurb for it.”)

Before we get into it with the author, though, here’s a bit more on the book:

Night Owls by A.R. Vishny

Clara loves rules. Rules are what have kept her and her sister, Molly, alive—or, rather, undead—for over a century. Work their historic movie theater by day. Shift into an owl under the cover of night. Feed on men in secret. And never fall in love.

Molly is in love. And she’s tired of keeping her girlfriend, Anat, a secret. If Clara won’t agree to bend their rules a little, then she will bend them herself.

Boaz is cursed. He can’t walk two city blocks without being cornered by something undead. At least at work at the theater, he gets to flirt with Clara, wishing she would like him back.

When Anat vanishes and New York’s monstrous underworld emerges from the shadows, Clara suspects Boaz, their annoyingly cute box office attendant, might be behind it all.

But if they are to find Anat, they will need to work together to face demons and the hungers they would sooner bury. Clara will have to break all her rules—of love, of life, and of death itself—before her rules break everyone she loves.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

And now, check out my chat with A.R. Vishny!

Continue reading Sydney Taylor Book Award Blog Tour: Night Owls by A.R. Vishny →

Fave Five

Fave Five: Queer Football Books

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Like Other Girls by Britta Lundin (YA)

Home Field Advantage by Dahlia Adler (YA)

Rush by Nyrae Dawn (NA)

The Team by Tal Bauer (m/m series)

The Yards Between Us by R.K. Russell (memoir)

Bonus: Coming in May, check out One of the Boys by Victoria Zeller (YA)

Inside an Anthology

Inside an Anthology: Why on Earth ed. by Rosiee Thor and Vania Stoyanova

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Today on the site we’re headed inside Why On Earth, a YA sci-fi anthology edited by Vania Stoyanova and Rosiee Thor that just released from Page Street on Tuesday! Here’s the story: 

What starts as a simple rescue mission for a crew of teen aliens to recover one of their own soon becomes an interstellar encounter no one will forget.

Captain Iona is organizing an impromptu retrieval for her brother, an undercover alien posing as a movie star. But her efforts go awry when a technical malfunction turns her heroic rescue into an unintentional invasion. With tales of disguised extraterrestrials stuck in theme parks, starship engineers hitchhiking to get home, and myth-inspired intergalactic sibling reunions, each story in this multi-author anthology explores the universal desire to be loved and understood, no matter where you come from. After all…aliens are just like us.

Edited by beloved YA author Rosiee Thor and YA talk show host Vania Stoyanova, the anthology crosses genre bounds to bring in tropes from romance and contemporary adventure with stories from Alex Brown, Beth Revis, Emily Lloyd-Jones, Eric Smith, Julian Winters, Laura Pohl, Maya Gittelman, M. K. England, Rebecca Kim Wells, and S. J. Whitby.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

And here’s a peek inside its queer stories from some of the contributors!

Continue reading Inside an Anthology: Why on Earth ed. by Rosiee Thor and Vania Stoyanova →

Happy Holigays

Happy National Girls and Women in Sports Day 2025!

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Happy National Girls and Women in Sports Day! In celebration, here are a whole bunch of books that center queer girls and women in sports! (For even more recs, check out these past posts!)

Middle Grade

It’s All or Nothing, Vale by Andrea Beatriz Arango

All these months of staring at the wall?
All these months of feeling weak?
It’s ending—
I’m going back to fencing.
And then it’ll be
like nothing ever happened.

No one knows hard work and dedication like Valentina Camacho. And Vale’s thing is fencing. She’s the top athlete at her fencing gym. Or she was . . . until the accident.

After months away, Vale is finally cleared to fence again, but it’s much harder than before. Her body doesn’t move the way it used to, and worst of all is the new number one: Myrka. When she sweeps Vale aside with her perfect form and easy smile, Vale just can’t accept that. But the harder Vale fights to catch up, the more she realizes her injury isn’t the only thing holding her back. If she can’t leave her accident in the past, then what does she have to look forward to?

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Continue reading Happy National Girls and Women in Sports Day 2025! →

New Releases

New Releases: February 2025

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This post is sponsored by Dana Hawkins and So Not My Type! Click on the graphic for more info!

Scrappy determination clashes with polished privilege. Let the games begin.

***

A World Worth Saving by Kyle Lukoff (4th)

Covid lockdown is over, but A’s world feels smaller than ever. Coming out as trans didn’t exactly go well, and most days, he barely leaves his bedroom, let alone the house. But the low point of A’s life isn’t online school, missing his bar mitzvah, or the fact that his parents monitor his phone like hawks—it’s the weekly Save Our Sons and Daughters meetings his parents all but drag him to.

At SOSAD, A and his friends Sal and Yarrow sit by while their parents deadname them and wring their hands over a nonexistent “transgender craze.” After all, sitting in suffocating silence has to be better than getting sent away for “advanced treatment,” never to be heard from again.

When Yarrow vanishes after a particularly confrontational meeting, A discovers that SOSAD doesn’t just feel soul-sucking…it’s run by an actual demon who feeds off the pain and misery of kids like him. And it’s not just SOSAD—the entire world is beset by demons dining on what seems like an endless buffet of pain and bigotry.

But how is one trans kid who hasn’t even chosen a name supposed to save his friend, let alone the world? And is a world that seems hellbent on rejecting him even worth saving at all?

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Continue reading New Releases: February 2025 →

Happy Holigays

Happy Black History Month 2025!

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Happy Black History Month! Like the other eleven months, it’s an excellent time to buy queer books by Black authors! For even more recs, check out previous years’ posts!

Middle Grade

Camp Twisted Pine by Ciera Burch

Eleven-year-old Naomi loves all things outdoors—birds and beetles, bats and bunnies—in theory. She explores nature in the best possible way: the cold, hard facts in books. So when her parents’ announcement of their impending divorce comes hand in hand with sending Naomi and her younger twin brothers to summer camp while they figure things out, it’s salt in the wound for Naomi and her avoidance of hands-on experience.

Camp Twisted Pine could be worse. The counselors are nice, and Naomi likes her cabinmates, especially Jackie, whose blunt personality and frank dislike of the camp draws Naomi in quickly. Jackie is also hard of hearing and uses a hearing aid, and the girls quickly develop a routine of sign language lessons in their free time, which Naomi sees as a welcome break when all the s’mores-making and nature walks get to be a bit much.

But the campers aren’t the only ones who roam the grounds of Camp Twisted Pine. When people start to go missing, including Jackie, Naomi has to find a way to save everyone—and herself. Her practical knowledge of the outdoors may still be rudimentary at best, but she has years of studying and the scientific method to fall back on. Can Naomi identify and stop the dangerous predator before it’s too late?

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Continue reading Happy Black History Month 2025! →

Cover Reveal

Exclusive Cover Reveal: Learning Curves by Alison Cochrun

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Today on the site I’m delighted to welcome Alison Cochrun, author ofsome of my personal favorite queer Romances, to reveal the cover of Learning Curves , her next f/f Romance, which releases September 2, 2025 from Atria Books! Here’s the story:

Thirty-five-year-old Seattleite Sadie Wells needs an escape. She’s desperate to escape her monotonous routines, the family business that has consumed her entire life, and the unexpected gay panic that has her questioning everything she thought she knew about herself. So when her injured sister offers Sadie her place on a tour along Portugal’s Camino de Santiago, she decides this is the perfect chance to get away from it all.

After three glasses of wine on the plane and some turbulence convince Sadie she won’t even survive the flight, she confesses all her secrets to her seatmate, Mal. The problem: the plane doesn’t crash, and it turns out Mal is on her Camino tour. Worst of all, Sadie learns that she is on a tour specifically for queer women, and that her two-hundred-mile trek will be a journey of self-discovery, whether she wants it to be or not.

Fascinated by the woman who drunkenly came out to her on the plane, Mal offers to help Sadie relive the queer adolescence she missed out on as they walk the Camino. As Sadie develops her newfound confidence, Mal grapples with a complicated loss and unexpected inheritance. But as their relationship blurs the lines between reality and practice, they both must decide if they will forever part at the end of the tour or chart a new course together.

And here’s the gorgeous cover, designed and illustrated by Sarah Horgan!

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

(c) Ben & Katie Wire!

Alison Cochrun is a former high school English teacher and a current writer of queer love stories, including The Charm Offensive, Here We Go Again, Kiss Her Once for Me, and Learning Curves. She lives outside of Portland, Oregon, with her wife, her son, and two very needy dogs. You can find her online at AlisonCochrun.com or on Instagram as @AlisonCochrun.

Deal Announcements

January 2025 Deal Announcements

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Adult Fiction

Candas Jane Dorsey‘s (AT THE) FREAK SHOW, a literary speculative novel exploring the fluidity of gender identity by telling the life story of a non-binary rock star who was the lone survivor of an operation to separate conjoined twins at birth, to University of Calgary Press (world English).

Continue reading January 2025 Deal Announcements →