These are all Adult fiction; YA will be posted separately.
My Government Means to Kill Me by Rasheed Newson
Disco Witches of Fire Island by Blair Fell
Swimming in the Dark by Tomasz Jedrowski
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
Rent Boy by Gary Indiana
Bonus: For books that cover multiple decades including the 80s, check out Tramps Like Us by Joe Westmoreland, A Language of Limbs by Dylin Hardcastle, and No Other World by Rahul Mehta
Sophie Black has clawed her way up from coffee runs to project manager at a top Seattle ad agency. She’s laser-focused on her career—until the CEO’s daughter, Ella Northwood, joins the team. Forced to work together on a high-stakes campaign, sparks fly as Sophie’s scrappy determination clashes with Ella’s polished privilege. But there’s more to both women than meets the eye, and, over late nights in the office, their assumptions about each other start to crumble.
When an impromptu hot tub session leads to a steamy night neither can forget, everything changes. The ice-cold chip on Sophie’s shoulder finally starts to melt, while Ella hopes that for the first time, someone might see beneath her trust-fund facade. But as the temperature in the office soars, a shocking revelation threatens to derail everything. Now Sophie and Ella must decide if their feelings are worth fighting for…
Buy it: Amazon
Continue reading Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Romances: January-June 2025
Today’s gift guide is for the DnD lovers out there! It’s a combination of books actually featuring DnD (or similar games, especially if they’re fictional) and books with DnD vibes (a popular rec Ask!), and even a preorder option if you want to bring some future joy to a fan!
This is the first in a series; the second is out as well.
Middle school is a dungeon… At least, that’s how Jess sees it.
Luckily, she and her best friend Olivia know how to escape into the sprawling worlds of their own imaginations. The two friends have always loved making up stories, first with little kid games of make-believe, and more recently with the fantasy roleplaying game, Dungeons & Dragons. When they play, Olivia runs the game as Dungeon Master and Jess is the solo party member, playing a take-no-prisoners, lone-wolf fighter of her own design named Sir Corius.
But when Olivia wants to add new players to their group, Jess finds herself struggling to share their game—and her best friend. Will their epic campaign withstand all this change, or has their adventure—and their friendship—finally come to an end?
For Part I, click here.
The Summer Love Strategy by Ray Stoeve (YA)
Make Room for Love by Darcy Liao
Double Exposure by Chelsea Cameron
Mer Made by S.T. Lynn
Not Like Before by Lily Seabrooke and Jacqueline Ramsden
Bonus: Just Happy to Be Here by Naomi Kanakia (YA) isn’t really a Romance by genre, but it does have a sweet f/f Romance develop in the story
Due to the delightfully large volume of titles, Romances will be getting their own post later this week!
At forty, Peter, an asylum lawyer in New York City, is overworked and isolated. He spends his days immersed in the struggles of immigrants only to return to an empty apartment and occasional hook-ups with a man who wants more than Peter can give. But when the asylum case of a young gay man pierces Peter’s numbness, the event that he has avoided for twenty years returns to haunt him.
Ann, his mother, who runs a women’s retreat center she founded after leaving his father, is wounded by the estrangement from Peter but cherishes the world she has built. She long ago banished from her mind the decision that divided her from her son. But as Peter’s case plunges him further into the fraught memory of his first love and the night of violence that changed his life forever, he and his mother must confront the secret that tore them apart.
Continue reading Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Adult Fiction: January-June 2025
Rules for Ghosting by Shelly Jay Shore (Paranormal)
The Key by Jo Morgan Sloan (Contemporary)
Second Chances in New Port Stephen by TJ Alexander (Contemporary)
What it Looks Like by Matthew J. Metzger (Contemporary)
Coffee Boy (Contemporary) and Peter Darling (Fantasy) by Austin Chant
Bonus: Coming in 2025, check out A Hex for Hunger by Alistair Reeves (Fantasy) and A Gentleman’s Gentleman by TJ Alexander (Historical)
A nonbinary child is whisked off on a spellbinding adventure for their birthday in this dazzling tale of friendship, community, and self-love.
It’s Robin’s eighth birthday and it seems like everyone has forgotten. But things take a sudden turn when the Cat-Headed Wanderer shows up and sweeps Robin away to a magical party in a fantastical treehouse. It’s a joyful celebration full of song, dance, and newfound friends, but Robin soon realizes there’s another reason they’ve been brought there. To uncover that reason, all Robin needs to do is walk through the half-open door in the back—but what lies beyond?
This post is sponsored by Athlete is Agender, ed. by Katherine Locke and Nicole Melleby (the team that brought you This is Our Rainbow), a nonfiction Middle Grade anthology releasing from Christy Ottaviano Books on May 13, 2025!
Athlete is agender. Athlete can mean anyone. This incredible collection revels in the achievements of strong, passionate, and determined queer athletes across every age, level, and field of sports.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N
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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?
Continue reading Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Middle Grade Fiction: January-June 2025
World AIDS Day falls on December 1st.
It’s 1989 in New York City, and for three teens, the world is changing.
Reza is an Iranian boy who has just moved to the city with his mother to live with his stepfather and stepbrother. He’s terrified that someone will guess the truth he can barely acknowledge about himself. Reza knows he’s gay, but all he knows of gay life are the media’s images of men dying of AIDS.
Judy is an aspiring fashion designer who worships her uncle Stephen, a gay man with AIDS who devotes his time to activism as a member of ACT UP. Judy has never imagined finding romance…until she falls for Reza and they start dating.
Art is Judy’s best friend, their school’s only out and proud teen. He’ll never be who his conservative parents want him to be, so he rebels by documenting the AIDS crisis through his photographs.
As Reza and Art grow closer, Reza struggles to find a way out of his deception that won’t break Judy’s heart—and destroy the most meaningful friendship he’s ever known.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N
In 1986, Tommy Gaye is in love with his best friend, budding teen poet Renaldo Calabasas. But at the height of the AIDS crisis and amidst the homophobia running rampant across America, Tommy can never share his feelings. Then, one terrible night, Renaldo is struck by lightning. And he emerges from the storm a very different boy.
In 2044, Heron High student Pris Devrees jolts awake after having a strange nightmare about a boy named Tommy and a house in the neighborhood the locals affectionally call “The Murder House.” When she ventures to the house to better understand her vivid dreams, she happens upon an old self-help book that she soon realizes is a guide to trans-dimensional travel.
As bodies and minds merge across the astral plane, Pris, Tommy, and their friends race to save Renaldo from a dangerous demon, while uncovering potent realities about love, sexuality, and friendship.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound
‘s THE OPEN ERA, pitched as Challengers meets Red, White, & Royal Blue, about the first openly gay male tennis player to compete in a Grand Slam who must battle his mental health, media attention, and a handsome new rival during an electric two weeks at the US Open, to Kristine Swartz at Berkley, in a pre-empt, in a two-book deal, for publication in summer 2026, by Michael Bourret at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret (world).
