Fiction

*Upcoming

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Note: These are primarily realistic contemporary and historical novels erring on the side of literary fiction. Titles published before the year 2000 are located here.

For crime fiction, including mysteries and thrillers, click here.
For short story collections, click here.
For Romance, click here.
For SFF, click here.

Contemporary

Queer Female Protagonists

Radiant Fugitives by Nawaaz Ahmed
Swan Song by Lisa Alther – B
The Way Back List by Lily Anderson – B
Sirens & Muses by Antonia Angress – B
Right After the Weather by Carol Anshaw
Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield
*Private Rites by Julia Armfield
Mostly Dead Things by Kristen Arnett
With Teeth by Kristen Arnett
Pennance by Clare Ashton
The Evolution of Love by Lucy Jane Bledsoe
Pages for You by Sylvia Brownrigg
My Education by Susan Choi – B
It’s Been a Pleasure, Noni Blake by Claire Christian – B
Broughtupsy by Christina Cooke
*Blackcurrent by Kelly Cullen
*But How Are You, Really? by Ella Dawson – B+
In at the Deep End by Kate Davies
Nuclear Family by Kate Davies
Dykette by Jenny Fran Davis
Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn
Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn
Homebodies by Tembe Denton-Hurst
Blue Hunger by Viola Di Grado
All Inclusive by Farzana Doctor – B
Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan – B
Stir-Fry by Emma Donoghue
*Perfume & Pain by Anna Dorn
Sister Holiday Mysteries by Margot Douaihy
*Housemates by Emma Copley Eisenberg
Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekyuwasi
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
Temper by Layne Fargo – B
They Never Learn by Layne Fargo – B
Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg
Acts of Service by Lillian Fishman
Cottonmouths by Kelly J. Ford
Real Bad Things by Kelly Ford
City of Laughter by Temim Fruchter
Girlcrush by Florence Given – B
Jawbone by Meghan Greeley
*A Language of Limbs by Dylin Hardcastle
The Work Wife by Alison B. Hart
*April May June July by Alison B. Hart
We Do What We Do in the Dark by Michelle Hart
A Good Happy Girl by Marissa Higgins
*Sweetener by Marissa Higgins
Old Enough by Haley Jakobson – B
*Antiquity by Hanna Johannsson
Vow of Celibacy by Erin Judge – B
The First Bad Man by Miranda July – B
Upended by Amanda Kabak (Bks)
The Mathematics of Change by Amanda Kabak (Amz) – B
The Split by Laura Kay
*Exhibits by R.O. Kwon
Yerba Buena by Nina LaCour
*How it Works Out by Myriam LaCroix
Under the Rainbow by Celia Laskey
So Happy For You by Celia Laskey
The Last Place You Look by Kristen Lepionka (Amz) – B
The IHOP Papers by Ali Liebegott
Fiebre Tropical by Juliana Delgado Lopera
They Call Me Mad Dog!: A Story for Bitter, Lonely People by Erika Lopez
Lush Lives by J. Vanessa Lyon
Sugar Run by Mesha Maren
*Shae by Mesha Maren
All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Matthews
Tripping Arcadia by Kit Mayquist
The Summer We Got Free by Mia McKenzie
Skye Falling by Mia McKenzie
Jericho by Ann McMan
Kept Animals by Kate Milliken
*Oye by Melissa Mogollon
Polar Vortex by Shani Mootoo
In Case of Emergency by Courtney Moreno (Amz)
Young God by Katherine Faw Morris
Art is Everything by Yxta Maya Murray (Bks)
*The Italy Letters by Vi Khi Nao
Body Grammar by Jules Ohman
All Are Welcome by Liz Parker (Amz)
*Work Nights by Erica Peplin
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters – T
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid – B
Florida Woman by Deb Rogers
Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney – B
Herself When She’s Missing by Sarah Terez Rosenblum
*Please Stop Trying to Leave Me by Alana Saab
Rat Bohemia by Sarah Schulman
After Delores by Sarah Schulman
Maggie Terry by Sarah Schulman
She of the Mountains by Vivek Shraya
Violets by Kyung-Sook Shin
The Thornchapel series by Sierra Simone – B
Marriage of a Thousand Lies by S.J. Sindu
The Best Day of Our Lives by Madeline Kay Sneed
Chlorine by Jade Song
Big Girl by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan
Valencia by Michelle Tea
The Treehouse by Randi Triant
What Night Brings by Carla Trujillo
Love and Other Thought Experiments by Sophie Ward
The Spectacular by Zoe Whittall
The Daylight Gate by Jeanette Winterson
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
The Passion by Jeannette Winterson
Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell

Queer Male Protagonists

Call Me By Your Name and Find Me by André Aciman – B
The Sea Elephants by Shastri Akella
*I Might Be in Trouble by Daniel Aleman
A Minor Chorus by Billy Ray Belcourt
A Beautiful Crime by Christopher Bollen
The Secret Life of Albert Entwhistle by Matt Cain
Becoming Ted by Matt Cain
Edinburgh by Alexander Chee
*Other People’s Husbands by Alexander Chee
Doubting Thomas by Matthew Clark Davison
Burn it All Down by Nicolas DiDomizio
The Gay Best Friend by Nicolas DiDomizio
Bellies by Nicola Dinan
Greenland by David Santos Donaldson
Mr. Loverman by Bernardine Evaristo
*Masquerade by Mike Fu
The Bright Lands by John Fram
Confidence by Rafael Frumkin
First Time for Everything by Henry Fry
Countries of Origin by Javier Fuentes
*In Tongues by Thomas Grattan
What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell
Cleanness by Garth Greenwell
Less by Andrew Sean Greer
Going Dutch by James Gregor
Guapa by Saleem Haddad
*The Book of Luke by Lovell Holder
Dancer From the Dance by Andrew Holleran
Boys of Alabama by Genevieve Hudson
I’m the Guy You Hate by Isa K.
*The Bump by Sidney Karger
Big Gay Wedding by Byron Lane
Broken People by Sam Lansky
A Simple Scale by David Llewellyn
History of Violence by Édouard Louis
The Boy with a Bird in His Chest by Emme Lund
Perpetual West by Mesha Maren (Bks)
Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
*Evenings and Weekends by Oisín McKenna
Probation by Tom Mendicino
Small Joys by Elvin James Mensah (Amz)
The Magnificent Sons by Justin Myers
God in Pink by Hasan Namir
Some Hell by Patrick Nathan
The Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North
*When the Harvest Comes by Denne Michele Norris
How We Named the Stars by Andrés N. Ordorica
Devil’s Chew Toy by Rob Osler
After the Parade by Lori Ostlun
Yes, Daddy by Jonathan Parks-Ramage
*It’s Not the End of the World by Jonathan Parks-Ramage
Tell Me How to Be by Neel Patel
Black Deutschland by Darryl Pinckney
Seeing Strangers by Sebastian Plata
After the Blue Hour by John Rechy
Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowley
The Guncle and The Guncle Abroad by Steven Rowley
*Three Parties by Ziyad Saadi
Let’s Get Back to the Party by Zak Salih
*Hombrecito by Santiago Jose Sanchez
Blue Boy by Rakesh Satyal
*No God But Us by Babuq Sayed
Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai
The City of Devi by Manil Suri
Infidels by Abdellah Taïa
Real Life by Brandon Taylor
The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor
*Group Show by Brandon Taylor
*Anyone’s Ghost by August Thompson
The Knockout Queen by Rupi Thorpe
The Town of Babylon by Alejandro Valeja
Bath Haus by P.J. Vernon
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
This Cleaving and This Burning by J.A. Wainwright
Memorial by Bryan Washington
Family Meal by Bryan Washington
The Married Man by Edmund White
A Previous Life by Edmund White – B
The Humble Lover by Edmund White
How to Survive a Summer by Nick White
*Providence by Craig Willse
The History of Living Forever by Jake Wolff (Amz)
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara

Trans Female Protagonists

The Wrong End of the Telescope by Rabih Alameddine
Nevada by Imogen Binnie
Bellies by Nicola Dinan
By Way of Sorrow by Robyn Gigl
Miss Klaus by J.R. Hart
Tiny Pieces of Skull by Roz Kaveney
I’ve Got a Time Bomb by Sybil Lamb (Speculative)
*Love Story by Sul Mousavi
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
Little Fish by Casey Plett
Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars by Kai Cheng Thom
Summer Fun by Jeanne Thornton
*A/S/L? by Jeanne Thornton
Small Beauty by jia qin wilson-yang

Trans Male Protagonists

Ponyboy by Duncan Eliot
The Thirty Names of Night by Zeyn Joukhadar
Future Feeling by Joss Lake (Speculative)
*Rules for Ghosting by Shelly Jay Shore
Bad Boy by Elliot Wake

Non-Binary Protagonists

Behrouz Gets Lucky by Avery Cassell (Genderqueer)
All the Things We Don’t Talk About by Amy Feltman (Amz)
Endpapers by Jennifer Savran Kelly (Genderqueer)
Boys Weekend by Mattie Lubchansky (Transfemme)
Vanishing Monuments by John Elizabeth Stintzi (Non-Binary)
Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead (Two-Spirit)

Intersex Protagonists

Arcadia by Emmanuelle Bayamack-Tam
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
An Ordinary Wonder by Buki Papillon
Golden Boy by Abigail Tarttelin

Other Protagonists

Open Throat by Henry Hoke

Realistic Historical

For organization by time period, see here.

Female Protagonists

Shoot the Moon by Isa Arsen (1960s, DC) – B
*The Unbecoming of Margaret Wolf by Isa Arsen (1956)
The Tell Tale by Clare Ashton (1970s, Wales)
The Last Nude by Ellis Avery (1927, Paris)
Bittersweet by Nevada Barr (19th c. US)
Naamah by Sarah Blake (Biblical times)
The Companion by Kim Taylor Blakemore (1855, New Hampshire)
A Thin Bright Line by Lucy Jane Bledsoe (1960s, US)
Alcestis by Katharine Beutner (Ancient Greece)
White Houses by Amy Bloom (1930s, US)
The Best Bad Things by Katrina Carrasco (1887, US)
The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins (early 1800s, Jamaica and London)
The Savage Kind by John Copenhaver (1940s, Washington DC)
Lucky Red by Claudia Cravens (1877, Midwest US)
Plain Bad Heroines by Emily Danforth (1902 + modern, US)
Daughters of the Deer by Danielle Daniel (1600s, Algonquin Territory)
Cantoras by Carolina de Robertis (1977, Uruguay)
Wrath Goddess Sing by Maya Deane (Ancient Greece) – T
Life Mask by Emma Donoghue (18th c. London)
Willa & Hesper by Amy Feltman (19th c. Brooklyn and Eastern Europe)
Hild by Nicola Griffith (7th c. Britain)
The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave (1617, Norway)
The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith
Jobs for Girls with Artistic Flair by Jen Hinst-White (1980s, Long Island)
All of You Every Single One by Beatrice Hitchman (1910-46, Vienna)
Stray City by Chelsey Johnson (1990s, Portland)
Devotion by Hannah Kent (1836, Prussia)
Who is Vera Kelly? by Rosalie Knecht (1960s, NYC and Buenos Aires)
The Librarian of Burned Books by Brianna Lebuskes (1933, Berlin)
The Wife in the Attic by Rose Lerner (Regency England)
Undiscovered Country by Kelly O’Connor McNees (1930s NYC/DC/WV)(Amz)
The Cherokee Rose by Tiya Miles (early 19th c. US)
Patience & Sarah by Isabel Miller (1816-17, NE US)
Chelsea Girls by Eileen Myles (1960s-70s)
Outlawed by Anna North (1894, West US) (Amz)
Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta (1960s, Nigeria)
The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott (Cold War, USSR)
Nettleblack by Nat Reeve (1893, Wales)
Southland by Nina Revoyr (20th century LA)
Belladonna by Anbara Salam (1950s, CT)
The Perfume Thief by Timothy Schaffert (WWII, Paris)
After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz (early 20th c.) (Amz)
Secret Identity by Alex Segura (1975, NYC)
Mademoiselle Revolution by Zoe Sivak (Haitian and French Revolutions)
Sketchtasy by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore (1995, Boston)
Counting Lost Stars by Kim Van Alkemade (1940s Holland/1960s NYC)
*Girls Girls Girls by Shoshana von Blacke
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters (Victorian England)
Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters (Victorian England)
The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters (1922, London)
The Night Watch by Sarah Waters (1940s/WWII)
Swearing Off Stars by Danielle Wong (1920s, Oxford)(Amz)
*The Syndicate by Olivia Wolfgang-Smith (Turn of 20th c., NYC)
She Rises by Kate Worsley (1740)
Paper is White by Hilary Zaid (1990s, San Francisco)
Mislaid by Nell Zink (1960s, Virginia)