Tag Archives: Contrarian Publishing

Exclusive Cover Reveal: In Your Starlight by Marina Baker

Today on the site I’m delighted to reveal the cover of In Your Starlight by Marina Baker, a lesbian romcom releasing December 15, 2026 from Contrarian Publishing! Here’s the story:

Engaged to the supposed love of her life and starring in a major motion picture, Regan Marshall was supposed to have it all. But her rising star falls abruptly when her fiancé’s cheating scandal breaks and his fans turn on her, crash landing her into Chester Ridge, the small hometown that she hasn’t visited properly in years. And everything is the same yet so, so different.

When her childhood best friend gets engaged, he asks Regan to be his best man. On one condition: Regan must play nice with their former best friend, Maia Fischer. Maia, who now runs her grandfather’s bakery. Maia, who she had a falling out with the night of high school graduation. Maia, who Regan has been running away from ever since.

Forced into their friend’s wedding party together, Regan and Maia slowly begin mending fences and discover there might even be something more between them. But when Hollywood begins calling Regan’s name again, she must decide whether to risk everything she’s been building in Chester Ridge or to let go of the string pulling her back toward the big screen.

And here’s the dreamy cover by Emily Nolan!

The book cover for In Your Starlight by Marina Baker, depicting a hand-painted scene of the outside of a cozy bakery at sunset, inside of which a young Latina baker and a young white actress are embracing, about to kiss. Outside the bakery paparazzi are gathered on the cobblestone sidewalk to take their photo.

Buy it: Amazon

Marina Baker has lived in Ventura, California their entire life, and they have been writing for the majority of that time. She is a lesbian interested in telling sapphic love stories, as she believes the romance genre could use more queer love stories. Queer love and queer joy are such a light in the stories that people tell, and she is honored to be a part of LGBTQ+ storytelling. Their hope is that young queer people can look to their writing as a source of comfort, just as they have.

Inside an Anthology: Blood, Sweat & Queers ed. by Margaret Hall and Jamie Ryu

Today on the site I’m delighted to crack open the lid on the coffin of Blood, Sweat, & Queers ed. by Margaret Hall and Jamie Ryu, a collection of LGBTQ+ vampiric love stories releasing October 7, 2025 from Contrarian Publishing with a portion of proceeds going to the Trevor Project! Here’s the gist:

CRACK OPEN THE COFFIN AND UNLEASH THE VAMPIRE.

An ancient beast stirs in the shale beneath an oil rig. A dancer languish in a lakeside cottage. A man swipes right, hunting flesh with a predator’s patience. A woman reels from government-sanctioned body horrors.

All queer. All ravenous. All vampires.

Vampires have always been vessels of longing, craving not only blood, but sex, power, and the sanctity of the taboo. And what hunger is more righteously denied, more persistently policed, than queer love? Like the vampire, the queer spirit endures, unkillable and unashamed.

With a foreword by vampire scholar Margaret Hall, Blood, Sweat & Queers presents decadent tales of queer love from eight LGBTQ+ authors, all intertwined with the eternal allure of the vampire— stories of desire unbound, of passion unending, and hunger that threatens to consume everything in its path. Crack open the coffin, if you dare.

And here’s some insight into the stories from its illustrious contributors!

Continue reading Inside an Anthology: Blood, Sweat & Queers ed. by Margaret Hall and Jamie Ryu