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).
Cinders by Cara Malone (f/f)
After by E. Davies (m/m series)
Firestorm by Radclyffe (f/f)
Hotshots by Annabeth Albert (m/m series)
Unbelievable You by Chelsea M. Cameron (f/f)
Bonus: Coming in 2025, All Fired Up by M.K. England (f/f)
Double Bonus: The firefighter hero of Burning it Down by C. Koehler (m/m) is sidelined for the book, so it’s not exactly a firefighter romance in the traditional sense, but.
Today’s post is sponsored by Kevin Martz in honor of the publication of Christmas at the Ski Resort, an enemies-to-lovers m/m YA Romance to keep you warm this holiday season! Click the graphic below to learn more and purchase! 
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Finding My Elf by David Valdes
Make My Wish Come True by Alyson Derrick and Rachael Lippincott
Flopping in a Winter Wonderland by Jason June
How to Excavate a Heart by Jake Maia Arlow
I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm by Mariama J. Lockington
Second Chances in New Port Stephen by TJ Alexander
Showmance by Chad Beguelin
Work For it by Talia Hibbert
Seasons of New Hope by Philip William Stover
The Barkeep and the Bro by AJ Truman
Today on the site I’m delighted to reveal the cover of JJ Clapton’s A Stage Over Ruthless Stars, a YA sci-fi with a dual POV (gay and aro) releasing February 1, 2025! (Links to the ebook are below, but it’ll be available in paperback upon release as well.) Here’s the story:
Aznan is a chronically ill high school drop out living on a space station with an illness that hates gravity. But he’s going to be a famous inventor… That’s if he can win the biggest tech competition in the system. Held at his space station’s circus, and judged by titans of industry, it’s one massive showcase to demonstrate his homemade tech in front of a live audience.
To win, he’ll need his ex-best friend’s help. Kairo hasn’t spoken to him in three years, not since he left school to join the circus as an aerialist, but Aznan can handle that. Oh, and the local favourites just turned up dead. That, not so much.
Everyone’s saying sabotage. Murder and riches.
A competition worth killing for.
And when a second team dies right in front of Aznan’s eyes, the official reassurances of glitches and accidents no longer hold. The body count is rising. The Grand Showcase is blasting closer. With nobody willing to stop the show, Aznan and Kairo must unearth the truth or risk their lives with one final act.
And here’s the cover, designed by the author!
Buy it: Amazon | Books2Read
JJ Clapton is a queer, autistic writer of science fiction and fantasy across multiple age ranges. Originally from London, she grew up retreating from life into the stories in her head. When she became sick with a chronic illness as a teen, she relied on the stories to help her escape. After more than half her life spent somewhere between housebound and bedbound, stories have been a constant companion and light even in the hardest of times. JJ loves to write stories in which characters like her exist and have adventures even if she doesn’t get to have many herself. Apart from being an avid reader, she loves craft, watching sports, and stimming to music. She now lives in Lanzarote where she enjoys meowing at all the local cats (of which there are many!). And has a lovely, vicious, cute little cat of her own called Rocky.
Playing for Keeps by Jennifer Dugan (YA)
Love and Sportsball by Meka James
Hoops & Heartstrings by Eliza Lintzski
Wake Up, Nat & Darcy by Kate Cochrane
How You Get the Girl by Anita Kelly
