Tag Archives: Courtney Gould

YA eBooks on Sale for Under $4

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The Star Host by F.T. Lukens

Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee

How to Be Remy Cameron by Julian Winters

Annie On My Mind by Nancy Garden

The Camino Club by Kevin Craig

Grrrls on the Side by Carrie Pack

All Out ed. by Saundra Mitchell

If This Gets Out by Cale Dietrich and Sophie Gonzales

Home Field Advantage by Dahlia Adler

The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould

Jack of Hearts (and other parts) by L.C. Rosen

And They Lived… by Steven Salvatore

Afterlove by Tanya Byrne

Want to win one? Leave a comment below about which title you’d like to enter for a chance to win one on Kindle! (Valid only where the sales are.)

New Releases: June 20, 2023

Ode to My First Car by Robin Gow

Ode to My First CarIt’s a few months before senior year and Claire Kemp, a closeted bisexual, is finally starting to admit she might be falling in love with her best friend, Sophia, who she’s known since they were four.

Trying to pay off the fine from the crash that totals Lars, her beloved car, Claire takes a job at the local nursing home up the street from her house. There she meets Lena, an eighty-eight-year-old lesbian woman who tells her stories about what it was like growing up gay in the 1950s and ’60s.

As Claire spends more time with Lena and grows more confident of her identity, another girl, Pen, comes into the picture, and Claire is caught between two loves–one familiar and well-worn, the other new and untested.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Where Echoes Die by Courtney Gould

Where Echoes DieBeck Birsching has been adrift since the death of her mother, a brilliant but troubled investigative reporter. She finds herself unable to stop herself from slipping into memories of happier days, clamoring for a time when things were normal. So when a mysterious letter in her mother’s handwriting arrives in the mail with the words Come and find me, pointing to a town called Backravel, Beck hopes that it may hold the answers.

But when Beck and her sister Riley arrive in Backravel, Arizona it’s clear that there’s something off about the town. There are no cars, no cemeteries, no churches. The town is a mix of dilapidated military structures and new, shiny buildings, all overseen by the town’s gleaming treatment center high on a plateau. No one seems to remember when they got there, and the only people who seem to know more than they’re letting on is the town’s enigmatic leader and his daughter, Avery.

As the sisters search for answers about their mother, Beck and Avery become more drawn together, and their unexpected connection brings up emotions Beck has buried since her mother’s death. Beck is desperate to hold onto the way things used to be, and when she starts losing herself in Backravel and its connection to her mother, will there be a way for Beck to pull herself out?

In her sophomore novel Courtney Gould draws readers into the haunting town of Backravel and explores grief, the weight of not letting go of the past, first love, and the bonds between sisters, mothers and daughters.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight by Kalynn Bayron

Cover for You're Not Supposed to Die TonightCharity Curtis has the summer job of her dreams, playing the “final girl” at Camp Mirror Lake. Guests pay to be scared in this full-contact terror game, as Charity and her summer crew recreate scenes from a classic slasher film, Curse of Camp Mirror Lake. The more realistic the fear, the better for business.

But the last weekend of the season, Charity’s co-workers begin disappearing. And when one ends up dead, Charity’s role as the final girl suddenly becomes all too real. If Charity and her girlfriend Bezi hope to survive the night, they’ll need figure out what this killer is after. Is there is more to the story of Mirror Lake and its dangerous past than Charity ever suspected?

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

The Wicked Unseen by Gigi Griffis

62296532To say sixteen-year-old Audre doesn’t fit in would be the understatement of the century. She’s a city kid who’s found herself in a rural town. The only girl at school who’d rather kiss a girl than a boy. Not to mention that the whole town believes there’s a secret Satanic cult conducting rituals in the nearby woods–and Audre is a born skeptic.

When the preacher’s daughter and Audre’s secret crush, Elle, goes missing on Halloween weekend, the town is quick to point fingers–in Audre’s direction. While they harass Audre’s family for being newcomers and nonbelievers, Audre realizes she might be the only person here who can find her friend.

The deeper she goes, though, the weirder it gets. What happened to Elle–and is the evil this town is hiding really what Audre thinks it is?

Buy it: Amazon | IndieBound

Does Love Always Win? by Diane Billas

Sam “Shorty” Daniels has a plan for her senior year, but her romantic life being a hot mess was not part of the agenda. Shorty quickly discovers she’s not attracted to her newest boyfriend and fellow marching band member Zack, despite her many hours of daydreaming of what it would be like to date him. Their previous flirting had been so intense that those feelings have to come back again, right?

When Shorty’s asked to show the snarky new girl around high school, Shorty’s instantly intrigued by Kristy’s wit, and they bond over their love of writing. They quickly become inseparable, and Shorty has a breakthrough moment realizing why none of her other relationships worked out.

Just as Shorty is about to break up with Zack, her bitter ex-boyfriend Bryan threatens to out her to the entire school and Shorty’s conservative parents. Will Shorty be able to overcome Bryan’s ridiculous blackmail scheme and get her dream girl?

Buy it: Amazon

Mage and the Endless Unknown by SJ Miller

Peek through the leaves, beyond the clouded mountains, and you will find a garden with a strange attendant and an even stranger purpose. A young mage, asleep in a meadow, wakes to delights and fanciful spells that open a door to unknown wonder. Then, they eagerly step through to find only horror and death. There is no swashbuckling adventure in store; this world means them cold and deadly harm, and they’ll need all their resilience, wit, and magic to push it back.

Gaze through fascinating silent windows into a terrifying dimension and follow the wordless Mage and their companions as they travel a shadowy fantastical land of monsters. Will they survive this endlessly curious mystery, or will the unforgiving darkness swallow them whole?

Buy it: Amazon

Old Enough by Haley Jakobson

Savannah “Sav” Henry is almost the person she wants to be, or at least she’s getting closer. It’s the second semester of her sophomore year. She’s finally come out as bisexual, is making friends with the other queers in her dorm, and has just about recovered from her disastrous first queer “situationship.” She is cautiously optimistic that her life is about to begin.

But when she learns that Izzie, her best friend from childhood, has gotten engaged, Sav faces a crisis of confidence. Things with Izzie haven’t been the same since what happened between Sav and Izzie’s older brother when they were sixteen. Now, with the wedding around the corner, Sav is forced to reckon with trauma she thought she could put behind her.

On top of it all, Sav can’t stop thinking about Wes from her Gender Studies class—sweet, funny Wes, with their long eyelashes and green backpack. There’s something different here—with Wes and with her new friends (who delight in teasing her about this face-burning crush); it feels, terrifyingly, like they might truly see her in a way no one has before.

Buy it: Amazon | IndieBound

The Spare Room by Andrea Bartz

Kelly Doyle’s new life in Philadelphia has turned into a nightmare: She’s friendless and jobless, and the lockdown has her trapped in a tiny apartment with the man she gave up everything for, who’s just called off their wedding. The only bright spot in her life is her newly rekindled friendship with her childhood friend, Sabrina—now a glamorous bestselling author with a handsome, high-powered husband.

When they offer Kelly an escape hatch, volunteering the spare room of their remote Virginia mansion, she jumps at the chance to run away from her old life. There, she finds she loves living with them…and, much to her surprise, that she’s falling for both her enchanting hosts. Even more shocking: They say they share Kelly’s feelings and want to open up their marriage for her.

At first, the arrangement is blissful. But as their relationship deepens, Kelly begins to notice the cracks. The stories about their romantic past keep changing, and the more details she uncovers, the more things don’t add up. It’s only a matter of time before Kelly discovers the terrifying truth: They’ve done all this before…and the last woman is missing. Cut off from the world and in way over her head, Kelly must risk everything to uncover the couple’s secrets—before she becomes their next guest to disappear.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Can’t Let Her Go by Kianna Alexander

Can't Let Her GoPeaches Monroe and Jamie Hunt are core members of their Texas friend squad and have so much in common. They’re successful at their careers in personal care. They take Austin’s “Keep It Weird” vibe to heart, each leaning into their own unique talents and sense of style. And they’re both ready to go on to even bigger things. Is pushing past the boundaries of friendship into something deeper one of them? The red-hot fantasy is there…but so is real life.

Jamie’s college dreams will take her far from her hometown. She’s already road-tripping to possibilities from San Antonio to Houston. And Peaches has obligations of her own. Not only is she planning to expand her business, but she’s taking care of her family after her mother’s passing, leaving her overwhelmed and under pressure.

No matter how perfect Jamie and Peaches are for each other, is this the right time for romance? Finding their true selves comes first. Only then can they hope to pursue a future of lasting love—together.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

The Shadow Cabinet by Juno Dawson

This is the sequel to Her Majesty’s Royal Coven

Niamh Kelly is dead. Her troubled twin, Ciara, now masquerades as the benevolent witch as Her Majesty’s Royal Coven prepares to crown her High Preistess.

Suffering from amnesia, Ciara can’t remember what she’s done–but if she wants to survive, she must fool Niamh’s adopted family and friends; the coven; and the murky Shadow Cabinet–a secret group of mundane civil servants who are already suspicious of witches. While she tries to rebuild her past, she realizes none of her past has forgotten her, including her former lover, renegade warlock Dabney Hale.

On the other end of the continent, Leonie Jackman is in search of Hale, rumored to be seeking a dark object of ultimate power somehow connected to the upper echelons of the British government. If the witches can’t figure out Hale’s machinations, and fast, all of witchkind will be in grave danger–along with the fate of all (wo)mankind.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

The Infinite Miles by Hannah Fergesen

To save the future, she must return to the beginning

Three years after her best friend Peggy went missing, Harper Starling is lost. Lost in her dead-end job, lost in her grief. All she has are regrets and reruns of her favorite science fiction show, Infinite Voyage.

Then Peggy returns and demands to be taken to the Argonaut, the fictional main character of Infinite Voyage. But the Argonaut is just that … fictional. Until the TV hero himself appears and spirits Harper away from her former best friend. Traveling through time, he explains that Peggy used to travel with him but is now under the thrall of an alien enemy known as the Incarnate — one that has destroyed countless solar systems.

Then he leaves Harper in 1971.

Stranded in the past, Harper must find a way to end the Incarnate’s thrall … without the help of the Argonaut. But the cosmos are nothing like the technicolor stars of the TV show she loves, and if Harper can’t find it in herself to believe — in the Argonaut, in Peggy, and most of all, in herself — she’ll be the Incarnate’s next casualty, along with the rest of the universe.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca

After a recent string of disappearances in a small Connecticut town, a grieving widower with a grim secret is drawn into a dangerous ritual of dark magic by a powerful and mysterious older gentleman named Heart Crowley. Meanwhile, a member of local law enforcement tasked with uncovering the culprit responsible for the bizarre disappearances soon begins to learn of a current of unbridled hatred simmering beneath the guise of the town’s idyllic community—a hatred that will eventually burst and forever change the lives of those who once found peace in the quiet town of Henley’s Edge.

Buy it: BookshopAmazon

Don’t Forget the Girl by Rebecca McKanna

We never remember the dead girls. We never forget the killers.

Twelve years ago, 18-year-old University of Iowa freshman Abby Hartmann disappeared. Now, Jon Allan Blue, the serial killer suspected of her murder, is about to be executed. Abby’s best friends, Bree and Chelsea, watch as Abby’s memory is unearthed and overshadowed by Blue and his flashier crimes. The friends, estranged in the wake of Abby’s disappearance, and suffering from years of unvoiced resentments, must reunite when a high-profile podcast dedicates its next season to Blue’s murders.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

The Longest Summer by Alexandrine Ogundimu

Being queer in a small town? Bad. Your employer believing you stole ten thousand dollars? Worse.

Abboton, IN has kept hard-partying Victor Adewale in the closet for his entire life. So he makes a deal with his stern Nigerian father: Clean up his act, hold down a job, and the dad will pay for him to attend grad school in New York. Easy enough, until $10,000 goes missing from Victor’s Hot Topic-esque mall store under his watch, leaving him the prime suspect. Meanwhile, Victor’s secret ex-boyfriend Kyle sets him up with fellow mallrat Amory. A bisexual love triangle forms when it becomes clear Victor and Kyle aren’t over each other. But as Victor grows increasingly certain that Kyle is responsible for the theft, their relationship gets way more complicated. Desperate, Victor turns to his dangerous friend Henshaw, who offers shady alternative methods of getting the money he needs. But Henshaw’s got secrets of his own that might destroy them all.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Lucky Red by Claudia Cravens

It’s the spring of 1877 and sixteen-year-old Bridget is already disillusioned. She’s exhausted from caring for her ne’er-do-well alcoholic father, but when he’s killed by a snakebite as they cross the Kansas prairie, she knows she has only her wits to keep her alive. She arrives penniless in Dodge City, and, thanks to the allure of her bright red hair and country-girl beauty, is soon recruited to work at the Buffalo Queen, the only brothel in town run by women. Bridget takes to brothel life, appreciating the good food, good pay, and good friendships she forms with her fellow “sporting women.”

Then Spartan Lee, the legendary female gunfighter in the region, rides into town, and Bridget falls in love. Hard. Before long, though, a series of shocking double-crosses shatter the Buffalo Queen’s tenuous peace and safety. Desperate for vengeance and autonomy, Bridget resolves to claim her own destiny.

Buy it: BookshopAmazon

Mrs. S by K Patrick

In an elite English boarding school where the girls kiss the marble statue of the famous dead author who used to walk the halls, a butch antipodean outsider arrives to take up the antiquated role of “matron.” Within this landscape of immense privilege, where difference is met with hostility, the matron finds herself unsure of her role, her accent and her body.

That is until she meets Mrs. S, the headmaster’s wife, a woman who is her polar opposite—an assured, authoritative paragon of femininity. Over the course of a long, restless summer, their unspoken yearning blooms into an illicit affair of electric intensity. But, as the summer fades, a choice must be made.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Tar Hollow Trans: Essays ed. by Stacy Jane Grover

“I’ve lived a completely ordinary life, so much that I don’t know how to write a transgender or queer or Appalachian story, because I don’t feel like I’ve lived one. … Though, in searching for ways to write myself in my stories, maybe I can find power in this ordinariness.”

Raised in southeast Ohio, Stacy Jane Grover would not describe her upbringing as “Appalachian.” Appalachia existed farther afield―more rural, more country than the landscape of her hometown.

Grover returned to the places of her childhood to reconcile her identity and experience with the culture and the people who had raised her. She began to reflect on her memories and discovered that group identities like Appalachian and transgender are linked by more than just the stinging brand of social otherness.

In Tar Hollow Trans, Grover explores her transgender experience through common Appalachian cultural traditions. In “Dead Furrows,” a death vigil and funeral leads to an investigation of Appalachian funerary rituals and their failure to help Grover cope with the grief of being denied her transness. “Homeplace” threads family interactions with farm animals and Grover’s coming out journey, illuminating the disturbing parallels between the American Veterinary Association’s guidelines for ethical euthanasia and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s guidelines for transgender care.

Together, her essays write transgender experience into broader cultural narratives beyond transition and interrogate the failures of concepts such as memory, metaphor, heritage, and tradition. Tar Hollow Trans investigates the ways the labels of transgender and Appalachian have been created and understood and reckons with the ways the ever-becoming transgender self, like a stigmatized region, can find new spaces of growth.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

 

Happy Lesbian Visibility Day 2023!

Happy Lesbian Visibility Day! Today we’re celebrating books explicitly starring lesbians, so come find some new great picks for your shelf! (Note: this post only includes books that were not featured in past posts. For even more visibly lesbian goodness, check out posts from past years, too!)

Books to Read Now

Out of Character by Jenna Miller

If you asked seventeen-year-old Cass Williams to describe herself, she’d happily tell you she’s fat, queer, and obsessed with the Tide Wars books. What she won’t tell you—or anyone in her life—is that she’s part of an online Tide Wars roleplay community. Sure, it’s nerdy as hell, but when she’s behind the screen writing scenes as Captain Aresha, she doesn’t have to think about her mother who walked out or how unexpectedly stressful it is dating resident cool girl Taylor Cooper.

But secretly retreating to her online life is starting to catch up with Cass. For one, no one in her real life knows her secret roleplay addiction is the reason her grades have taken a big hit. Also? Cass has started catching feelings for Rowan Davies, her internet bestie…and Taylor might be catching on.

As Cass’s lies continue to build, so does her anxiety. Roleplaying used to be the one place she could escape to, but this double life and offline-online love triangle have only made things worse. Cass must decide what to do—be honest and risk losing her safe space or keep it a secret and put everything else on the line.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

The Comedienne’s Guide to Pride by Hayli Thomson

58724672Taylor Parker has always been a funny girl―but when she is accepted as a finalist for a diverse writers’ internship at Saturday Night Live, it turns her life upside down. If she wants a shot at winning in a little more than a month, Taylor will have to come out about both of her secrets: She wants to be a comedian . . . and she’s a lesbian.

With a mom who gave up a career in comedy to raise her, and a comedian dad who left for a younger woman, working in comedy is a sore subject in Taylor’s house. To keep her secret under wraps, she sneaks out to do improv and hides her sketches under the bed, and to distract from her anxiety about the competition, Taylor frequents Salem’s Museum of Witchcraft to pine for Abigail Williams from the back row.

It’s at the Museum of Witchcraft where Taylor falls deeper in love with the girl who plays Abigail Williams―Charlotte Grey, an out and proud lesbian at Nathaniel Hawthorne High. Charlotte radiates so much confidence in her acting and queerness that Taylor can’t resist her. So when Charlotte reaches out for help on a school project, Taylor readily agrees. As they spend more time together, Taylor sees what living her truth and pursuing her dreams could bring her, but Charlotte can’t understand why someone as funny as Taylor wouldn’t go all out to make the most of her opportunities. To live up to her own comedy dreams and become the person she wants to be, Taylor will have to find the confidence to tell everyone exactly who she is and what she wants.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Forget Me Not by Alyson Derrick

What would you do if you forgot the love of your life ever even existed?

Stevie and Nora had a love. A secret, epic, once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. They also had a plan: to leave their small, ultra-conservative town and families behind after graduation and move to California, where they could finally stop hiding that love.

But then Stevie has a terrible fall. And when she comes to, she can remember nothing of the last two years—not California, not coming to terms with her sexuality, not even Nora. Suddenly, Stevie finds herself in a life she doesn’t quite understand, one where she’s estranged from her parents, drifting away from her friends, lying about the hours she works, dating a boy she can’t remember crushing on, and headed towards a future that isn’t at all what her fifteen-year-old self would have envisioned.

And Nora finds herself…forgotten. Can the two beat the odds a second time and find their way back together when “together” itself is just a lost memory?

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Bianca Torre is Afraid of Everything by Justine Pucella Winans

Bianca Torre is Afraid of EverythingSixteen-year-old Bianca Torre is an avid birder undergoing a gender identity crisis and grappling with an ever-growing list of fears.

Some, like Fear #6: Initiating Conversation, keep them constrained, forcing them to watch birds from the telescope in their bedroom. And, occasionally, their neighbors. When their gaze wanders from the birds to one particular window across the street, Bianca witnesses a creepy plague-masked murderer take their neighbor’s life.

Worse, the death is ruled a suicide, forcing Bianca to make a choice—succumb to their long list of fears (including #3 Murder and #55 Breaking into a Dead Guy’s Apartment), or investigate what happened.

Bianca enlists the help of their friend Anderson Coleman, but the two have more knowledge of anime than true crime. As Bianca and Anderson dig deeper into the murder with a little help from Bianca’s crush and fellow birding aficionado, Elaine Yee (#13 Beautiful People, #11 Parents Discovering They’re a Raging Lesbian), the trio uncover a conspiracy much larger—and weirder—than imagined. But when the killer catches wind of the investigation, Bianca’s #1 fear of public speaking doesn’t sound so bad under the threat of being silenced for good.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Life is Strange: Steph’s Story by Rosiee Thor

Setting the stage for her appearance in Life is Strange: True Colors, this official Steph Gingrich novel sheds light on the Drugstore Makeup years and the story of how Steph crash-landed in Haven Springs, Colorado.

Steph Gingrich has finally run out of couches to surf. Now she’s back at her dad’s place in Seattle to figure out what she wants to do with the rest of her life.

When running an RPG session for her local gamer café, Steph meets Izzie. Izzie is electric: a punk, a girl who likes girls, and a hella good guitarist. Steph finds the punk life is exactly what she needs, she loves the music, the art and the fashion, but most of all she likes the girl. Entranced, she offers to drum for Izzie, forming the band Drugstore Makeup.

A hit in more ways than one, Drugstore Makeup compete in a battle of the bands before deciding to tour the offbeat punk venues of America. But Steph and Izzie soon find themselves on different wavelengths, unable to communicate, and wanting different things.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

A Life Worth Living by Monica McCallan

A Life Worth Living by [Monica McCallan]Nora Gallagher can begrudgingly admit that she and Gray Ferris are both stellar Philadelphia real estate agents, but that’s the beginning and the end of the similarities between them.

Nora’s life has been in a self-imposed holding pattern for half a decade. Depending on people in her personal life only leads to disappointment, and she has no plans of making that mistake again.

Gray Ferris is extroversion personified. Bubbly. Conversational. Vibrant. She’s trying to make the best of life, even if it hasn’t always gone her way.

When the two women begin to learn that maybe they’re not as different as they think, they may finally figure out the most important thing they have in common when it comes to finding a life worth living.

Buy it: Amazon

Dreaming in Color by Uvile Ximba

In her debut novel, Dreaming in Color, Uvile Ximba explores with subtlety, humor, and probing insight the connections between the joyful reclaiming of pleasure and the healing of buried traumas.

As students at university in Makhanda, South Africa during the #RUReferenceList campaign, Langa and her lover Khwezi have a passionate and complex relationship. Puzzling gaps in her memory haunt Langa, yet her dreams are vivid with colors and symbols that hint at a nightmare of forgotten violations and losses. So many secrets—and Langa has had enough of secrets and silences. Who can she turn to? Her mother? Her grandmother? Khwezi? Or herself?

Dreaming in Color is Langa’s story of coming out to herself, of discerning the history behind the closed door of conscious memory.

Buy it: Interlink Press | Amazon

Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne

Can't Spell Treason Without Tea: A Cozy Fantasy Steeped with Love (Tomes & Tea Cozy Fantasies Book 1) by [Rebecca Thorne]All Reyna and Kianthe want is to open a bookshop that serves tea. Worn wooden floors, plants on every table, firelight drifting between the rafters… all complemented by love and good company. Thing is, Reyna works as one of the Queen’s private guards, and Kianthe is the most powerful mage in existence. Leaving their lives isn’t so easy.

But after an assassin takes Reyna hostage, she decides she’s thoroughly done risking her life for a self-centered queen. Meanwhile, Kianthe has been waiting for a chance to flee responsibility–all the better that her girlfriend is on board. Together, they settle in Tawney, a town nestled in the icy tundra of dragon country, and open the shop of their dreams.

What follows is a cozy tale of mishaps, mysteries, and a murderous queen throwing the realm’s biggest temper tantrum. In a story brimming with hurt/comfort and quiet fireside conversations, these two women will discover just what they mean to each other… and the world.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

The Last Lavender Sister by Melissa Brayden

59079941. sy475 When your parents name you and your three siblings after flowers, the world is stacked against you. At least, that’s how Aster Lavender feels. The youngest daughter, Aster always keeps her head down and lets her siblings stand in the spotlight. She sells her gourmet doughnuts from Hole in One, the small drive-through stand in sleepy Homer’s Bluff, Kansas, and daydreams about seeing the big beautiful world. Love is never going to happen, especially when the only other lesbians in town are already married to each other.

Beautiful Brynn Garrett arrives to fill in for Homer Bluff’s only veterinarian, and suddenly every pet in town is sick. Brynn’s older, smarter, and way out of Aster’s league. Plus, she’s only in town temporarily and definitely running from something. Aster didn’t plan for a connection so strong it knocks the wind right out of her, but Brynn makes her feel like anything but a wallflower.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Rooting for You by Roz Alexander

Rooting for You (Clover Hill Romance Book 3) by [Roz Alexander]Botanist Fisch’s life in Clover Hill is small. Getting physical distance from her tense relationship with her mother was supposed to give her room to breathe. Instead, she’s created a new cage for herself, spending most of her time isolated and working on other people’s projects instead of her own dreams. Admitting she’s lonely is the first step. Doing something about it seems much harder.

When traveling photojournalist Jaeeun Kupperman comes to town, it’s a wake-up call like no other. Jaeeun’s hot, talented, sweet, and the proud cat parent of one perfect angel named Dan. Faster than Dan can take down a dandelion, the two butch women are mutually smitten. But the sun is setting as both of them search for their next assignments and Fisch realizes it’s past time to branch out just as Jaeeun considers planting roots.

They might both be eager to sow the seeds of love, but will they be brave enough to keep it growing? Or will Jaeeun leave Fisch in her rearview mirror when the golden hour is over?

Buy it: Amazon

Everyone in this Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin

Gilda, a twenty-something, atheist, animal-loving lesbian, cannot stop ruminating about death. Desperate for relief from her panicky mind and alienated from her repressive family, she responds to a flyer for free therapy at a local Catholic church, and finds herself being greeted by Father Jeff, who assumes she’s there for a job interview. Too embarrassed to correct him, Gilda is abruptly hired to replace the recently deceased receptionist Grace.

In between trying to memorize the lines to Catholic mass, hiding the fact that she has a new girlfriend, and erecting a dirty dish tower in her crumbling apartment, Gilda strikes up an email correspondence with Grace’s old friend. She can’t bear to ignore the kindly old woman, who has been trying to reach her friend through the church inbox, but she also can’t bring herself to break the bad news. Desperate, she begins impersonating Grace via email. But when the police discover suspicious circumstances surrounding Grace’s death, Gilda may have to finally reveal the truth of her mortifying existence.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Barring Complications by Blythe Rippon

Barring Complications (The Love and Law Series Book 1) by [Blythe Rippon]It’s an open secret that the newest justice on the Supreme Court is a lesbian. So when the Court decides to hear a case about gay marriage, Justice Victoria Willoughby must navigate the press, sway at least one of her conservative colleagues, and confront her own fraught feelings about coming out. ­­

Just when she decides she’s up to the challenge,­­ she learns that the very brilliant, very out Genevieve Fornier will be lead counsel on the case.

Genevieve isn’t sure which is causing her more sleepless nights: the prospect of losing the case, or the thought of who will be sitting on the bench when she argues it.

Buy it: Ylva | Amazon

Solo Dance by Li Kotomi, trans. by Arthur Reiji Morris

This novel was originally published in Japanese.

58987876. sy475 Cho Norie, twenty-seven and originally from Taiwan, is working an office job in Tokyo. While her colleagues worry about the economy, life-insurance policies, marriage, and children, she is forced to keep her unconventional life hidden―including her sexuality and the violent attack that prompted her move to Japan. There is also her unusual fascination with death: she knows from personal experience how devastating death can be, but for her it is also creative fuel.

Solo Dance depicts the painful coming of age of a gay person in Taiwan and corporate Japan. This striking debut is an intimate and powerful account of a search for hope after trauma.

Buy it: Amazon

A Game of Hearts and Heists by Ruby Roe

Two enemies, one goal: steal each other’s hearts.

Scarlett Grey, disgraced assassin, is determined to get revenge.

Quinn Adams, medic turned-poisoner for hire, is her deadliest rival.

For years, they’ve stolen each other’s clients, sabotaged each other’s business, and occasionally… slept together.

When the Magician Queen offers an irresistible deal, Scarlett and Quinn are forced to work together. But this is not a simple job.

With an impossible heist ahead, they’re going to have to trust each other…

And that’s not easy when they both have secrets to hide.

Harder still when those secrets will betray the ones they love.

Now neither woman is sure if it’s a heist they want to win or a heart.

Two women, two deadly professions, and a romance that could be their downfall.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Preorder the Sequel on Amazon

Capturing Tess by Anna Stone

Capturing Tess by [Anna Stone]Tess Bennett has never dared to dream of a better life. With no family and working a dead-end diner job to make ends meet, she’s just another twenty-something struggling to get by.

Until she’s kidnapped one night by a mysterious older woman. Ava is seductive, commanding, beautiful as sin. She takes Tess to her secluded island mansion, insisting it’s to keep her safe.

Ava provides her with every luxury she could ever dream of, but all Tess wants is answers. In a gilded cage, she must place her trust in a woman as cold and distant as she is irresistible. A forbidden kiss is all it takes for the spark between them to ignite.

Her protector, torn between a promise and desire…

A long time ago, Ava Vidal made a vow. She intends to keep it. Rescuing Tess was only the beginning. Now, Ava must keep her safe from those who mean her deadly harm.

But what’s even harder is keeping her hands off the woman she swore to protect. Especially with Tess determined to tempt her. She thinks she can handle Ava’s twisted tastes. With every tantalizing moment spent in Tess’s presence, Ava’s iron will unravels.

A secret that binds their hearts…

But the truths Ava hides could shatter them both. Because their lives have always been connected. As danger looms, can the two women risk everything for each other?

Buy it: Amazon

Wrong Number, Right Woman by Jae

Wrong Number, Right Woman (Unexpected Love Book 3) by [Jae]A single text message can change everything!

Flirting has never been Denny’s strong suit, but so what if she’s too shy to ask women out? She’s content with her simple life, working as a cashier and helping her sister raise her niece. But then she gets a wrong-number text message from a stranger named Eliza, asking her of all people for dating advice! Eliza is Denny’s total opposite: witty, outgoing—and straight. Despite their differences, the accidental text sparks an unlikely friendship. Soon, Eliza—self-proclaimed queen of disastrous first dates—would rather banter back and forth with Denny than to keep trying her luck at online dating.

When they meet in person, there’s an instant connection. But what Eliza is feeling can’t be attraction, right? It doesn’t mean a thing that she’s starting to wish the guys she dates would be more like Denny. Or does it? Can the wrong number lead to the right woman after all?

Buy it: Amazon

Buy the new short story sequel, Lucky Yellow Shoes!

From Fan to Forever by Tiana Warner

Talented A-lister Cate Whitney is the gorgeous middle-aged movie star almost every lesbian has a crush on.

Rachel Janssen, an introverted medical physics student, is no exception. So when her celebrity crush starts filming near her Vancouver apartment, she can’t believe her luck.

A chance encounter with Cate leads to a little swooning, small-talk, and a shock offer to help the star as a science consultant on her Marie Curie film. And, wait, could Cate actually be flirting with Rachel?

However, as the chemistry sizzles between them, Rachel struggles with the harsh reality of being linked to a famous actress. Paparazzi keep dragging her into the spotlight when all she wants is to be taken seriously in her medical career.

Is falling for a superstar too much to handle? Even if sexy Cate Whitney is the one everyone wants? Even if she’s everything Rachel needs?

Buy it: Amazon

The Family Outing by Jessi Hempel

Jessi Hempel was raised in a seemingly picture-perfect, middle-class American family. But the truth was far from perfect. Her father was constantly away from home, traveling for work, while her stay-at-home mother became increasingly lonely and erratic. Growing up, Jessi and her two siblings struggled to make sense of their family, their world, their changing bodies, and the emotional turmoil each was experiencing. And each, in their own way, was hiding their true self from the world.

By the time Jessi reached adulthood, everyone in her family had come out: Jessi as gay, her sister as bisexual, her father as gay, her brother as transgender, and her mother as a survivor of a traumatic experience with an alleged serial killer. Yet coming out was just the beginning, starting a chain reaction of other personal revelations and reckonings that caused each of them to question their place in the world in new and ultimately liberating ways.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Prelude by Brynne Rebele-Henry

Prelude delineates the gay female experience through a poetic reconstruction of the girlhood of Catherine of Siena, a Catholic saint who lived in 1300s Italy and disobeyed her parents by refusing marriage to devote her life to God. Through a historical lens, Brynne Rebele-Henry examines the erasure of gay women’s lives and offers a perspective of medieval queer girlhood while considering themes such as violence, desire, and the lesbian body.

Buy it: Amazon

To Preorder

Changing Spaces by Karmen Lee (May 2, 2023)

Changing Spaces (Clover Hill Romance Book 8) by [Karmen Lee]Star has spent the past five years making Clover Hill’s Anisse & Clover Diner her home away from home. She’s turned her job there into a fulfilling career and has never felt more content. If her dating life is a little lackluster, well, that’s just how it’ll have to be. But when ownership of the diner changes hands from mother to daughter, Star finds herself scrambling to keep up…and to keep far away from the attractive woman who’s now at the helm.

Anisse moved back home to reconnect with her roots after too many years in the city, and she’s excited to bring the diner her family founded into the current decade. Unfortunately, she might have more to worry about than just reinventing the recipes she grew up with. Star, the gorgeous manager whose cooperation she needs to make the refreshed Anisse & Clover a success, hardly gives her the time of day.

But once Star and Anisse are pushed into sitting down together, their mutual attraction is undeniable. Going from coworkers to dating would be tricky, but neither of them wants to walk away from what might be the relationship they’ve always wanted.

Can these two women navigate their burgeoning connection, or will too many changes too fast leave both of them singed beyond repair?

Buy it: Amazon

Homebodies by Tembe Denton-Hurst (May 2, 2023)

62558851Mickey Hayward dreams of writing stories that matter. She has a flashy media job that makes her feel successful and a devoted girlfriend who takes care of her when she comes home exhausted and demoralized. It’s not all A-list parties and steamy romance, but Mickey’s on her way, and it’s far from the messy life she left behind in Maryland. Despite being overlooked and mistreated at work, it seems like she might finally get the chance to prove herself–until she finds out she’s being replaced.

Distraught and enraged, Mickey fires back with a detailed letter outlining the racism and sexism she’s endured as a Black woman in media, certain it will change the world for the better. But when her letter is met with overwhelming silence, Mickey is sent into a tailspin of self-doubt. Forced to reckon with just how fragile her life is–including the uncertainty of her relationship–she flees to the last place she ever dreamed she would run to, her hometown, desperate for a break from her troubles.

Back home, Mickey is seduced by the simplicity of her old life–and the flirtation of a former flame–but her life in New York refuses to be forgotten. When a media scandal catapults Mickey’s forgotten letter into the public zeitgeist, suddenly everyone wants to hear what Mickey has to say. It’s what she’s always wanted–isn’t it?

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come by Jen St. Jude (May 9, 2023)

If Tomorrow Never ComesAvery Byrne has secrets. She’s queer; she’s in love with her best friend, Cass; and she’s suffering from undiagnosed clinical depression. But on the morning Avery plans to jump into the river near her college campus, the world discovers there are only nine days left to live: an asteroid is headed for Earth, and no one can stop it.

Trying to spare her family and Cass additional pain, Avery does her best to make it through just nine more days. As time runs out and secrets slowly come to light, Avery would do anything to save the ones she loves. But most importantly, she learns to save herself. Speak her truth. Seek the support she needs. Find hope again in the tomorrows she has left.

If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come is a celebration of queer love, a gripping speculative narrative, and an urgent, conversation-starting book about depression, mental health, and shame.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

This is the Way the World Ends by Jen Wilde (May 9, 2023)

As an autistic scholarship student at the prestigious Webber Academy in New York City, Waverly is used to masking to fit in—in more ways than one. While her classmates are the children of the one percent, Waverly is getting by on tutoring gigs and the generosity of the school’s charming and enigmatic dean. So when her tutoring student and resident “it girl” asks Waverly to attend the school’s annual fundraising Masquerade disguised as her, Waverly jumps at the chance—especially once she finds out that Ash, the dean’s daughter and her secret ex-girlfriend, will be there.

The Masquerade is everything Waverly dreamed of, complete with extravagant gowns, wealthy parents writing checks, and flowing champagne. Most importantly, there’s Ash. All Waverly wants to do is shed her mask and be with her, but the evening takes a sinister turn when Waverly stumbles into a secret meeting between the dean and the school’s top donors—and witnesses a brutal murder. This gala is harboring far more malevolent plots than just opening parents’ pocketbooks. Before she can escape or contact the authorities, a mysterious global blackout puts the entire party on lockdown. Waverly’s fairy tale has turned into a nightmare, and she, Ash, and her friends must navigate through a dizzying maze of freight elevators, secret passageways, and back rooms if they’re going to survive the night.

And even if they manage to escape the Masquerade, with technology wiped out all over the planet, what kind of world will they find waiting for them beyond the doors?

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich by Deya Muniz (May 9, 2023)

Lady Camembert wants to live life on her own terms, without marriage. Well, without marrying a man, that is. But the law of the land is that women cannot inherit. So when her father passes away, she does the only thing she can: She disguises herself as a man and moves to the capital city of the Kingdom of Fromage to start over as Count Camembert.

But it’s hard to keep a low profile when the beautiful Princess Brie, with her fierce activism and great sense of fashion, catches her attention. Camembert can’t resist getting to know the princess, but as the two grow closer, will she able to keep her secret?

A romantic comedy about mistaken identity, true love, and lots of grilled cheese.

Buy it: BookshopAmazon

The Rules of Us by Jennifer Nissley (May 9, 2023)

Jillian and Henry are the kind of couple who do everything together. They take the same classes, have the same hobbies, and applied for the same super-competitive scholarship so they can go to the same dream college. They even come out as gay to each other on the same night, after junior prom, prompting a sudden breakup that threatens their intertwined identities and carefully designed future. Jillian knows the only way to keep everything on track is to approach their breakup with the same precision and planning as their scholarship application. They will still be “Jillian and Henry”—even if they’re broken up.

Except they hadn’t planned on Henry meeting the boy of his dreams or Jillian obsessing over a cool girl at school. Jillian is desperate to hold on to her best friend when so much else is changing. But as she and Henry explore what—and who—they really want, it becomes harder to hold on to the careful definitions she has always lived her life by. Stuck somewhere between who she was with Henry and who she might be on her own, Jillian has to face what she can’t control and let go of the rules holding her back.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Graveyard of Lost Children by Katrina Monroe (May 9, 2023)

At four months old, Olivia Dahl was almost murdered. Driven by haunting visions, her mother became obsessed with the idea that Olivia was a changeling, and that the only way to get her real baby back was to make a trade with the “dead women” living at the bottom of the well. Now Olivia is ready to give birth to a daughter of her own…and for the first time, she hears the women whispering.

Everyone tells Olivia she should be happy. She should be glowing, but the birth of her daughter only fills Olivia with dread. As Olivia’s body starts giving out, slowly deteriorating as the baby eats and eats and eats, she begins to fear that the baby isn’t her daughter at all and, despite her best efforts, history is repeating itself.

Soon images of a black-haired woman plague Olivia’s nightmares, drawing her back to the well that almost claimed her life―tying mother and daughter together in a desperate cycle of fear and violence that must be broken if Olivia has any hope of saving her child…or herself.

Buy it: BookshopAmazon

Dykette by Jenny Fran Davis (May 16, 2023)

DyketteSasha and Jesse are professionally creative, erotically adventurous, and passionately dysfunctional twentysomethings making a life together in Brooklyn. When a pair of older, richer lesbians—prominent news host Jules Todd and her psychotherapist partner, Miranda—invites Sasha and Jesse to their country home for the holidays, they’re quick to accept. Even if the trip includes a third couple—Jesse’s best friend, Lou, and their cool-girl flame, Darcy—whose It-queer clout Sasha ridicules yet desperately wants.

As the late December afternoons blur together in a haze of debaucherous homecooked feasts and sweaty sauna confessions, so too do the guests’ secret and shifting motivations. When Jesse and Darcy collaborate an ill-fated livestream performance, a complex web of infatuation and jealousy emerges, sending Sasha down a spiral of destructive rage that threatens each couple’s future.

Unfolding over ten heady days, Dykette is an unforgettable love story at the crossroads of queer nonconformity and seductive normativity. With propulsive plotting and sexy, wickedly entertaining prose, Jenny Fran Davis captures the vagaries of desire and the many devastating places in which we seek recognition.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

From Here by Luma Mufleh (May 16, 2023)

In her coming-of-age memoir, refugee advocate Luma Mufleh writes of her tumultuous journey to reconcile her identity as a gay Muslim woman and a proud Arab-turned-American refugee.

With no word for “gay” in Arabic, Luma may not have known what to call the feelings she had growing up in Jordan during the 1980’s, but she knew well enough to keep them secret. It was clear that not only would her family have trouble accepting who she was, but trapped in a religious society, she could also be killed if anyone discovered she was gay. Luma spent her teenage years increasingly desperate to find a way out. After two suicide attempts, she finally realizes that to survive, she must leave the Middle East for good. While attending college in the United States, Luma endures the agonizing process of applying for political asylum, which ensures her safety—but causes her family to break ties with her.

Suddenly becoming a refugee in America is a rude awakening. Disowned, depressed, and broke, Luma must rely on the grace of both friends and strangers as she builds a tenuous new life finally embracing her full self. Slowly, she forges a new path forward with both her biological and chosen families, eventually founding Fugees Family, a nonprofit dedicated to the education and support of refugee children in the United States.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Lesbian Love Story by Amelia Possanza (May 30, 2023)

When Amelia Possanza moved to Brooklyn to build a life of her own, she found herself surrounded by queer stories: she read them on landmark placards, overheard them on the pool deck when she joined the world’s largest LGBTQ swim team, and even watched them on TV in her cockroach-infested apartment. These stories inspired her to seek out lesbians throughout history who could become her role models, in romance and in life.

Centered around seven love stories for the ages, this is Possanza’s journey into the archives to recover the personal histories of lesbians in the twentieth century: who they were, how they loved, why their stories were destroyed, and where their memories echo and live on. Possanza’s hunt takes readers from a drag king show in Bushwick to the home of activists in Harlem and then across the ocean to Hadrian’s Library, where she searches for traces of Sappho in the ruins. Along the way, she discovers her own love—for swimming, for community, for New York City—and adds her record to the archive.

At the heart of this riveting, inventive history, Possanza asks: How could lesbian love help us reimagine care and community? What would our world look like if we replaced its foundation of misogyny with something new, with something distinctly lesbian?

Buy it: BookshopAmazon

Where Echoes Die by Courtney Gould (June 20, 2023)

Where Echoes DieBeck Birsching has been adrift since the death of her mother, a brilliant but troubled investigative reporter. She finds herself unable to stop herself from slipping into memories of happier days, clamoring for a time when things were normal. So when a mysterious letter in her mother’s handwriting arrives in the mail with the words Come and find me, pointing to a town called Backravel, Beck hopes that it may hold the answers.

But when Beck and her sister Riley arrive in Backravel, Arizona it’s clear that there’s something off about the town. There are no cars, no cemeteries, no churches. The town is a mix of dilapidated military structures and new, shiny buildings, all overseen by the town’s gleaming treatment center high on a plateau. No one seems to remember when they got there, and the only people who seem to know more than they’re letting on is the town’s enigmatic leader and his daughter, Avery.

As the sisters search for answers about their mother, Beck and Avery become more drawn together, and their unexpected connection brings up emotions Beck has buried since her mother’s death. Beck is desperate to hold onto the way things used to be, and when she starts losing herself in Backravel and its connection to her mother, will there be a way for Beck to pull herself out?

In her sophomore novel Courtney Gould draws readers into the haunting town of Backravel and explores grief, the weight of not letting go of the past, first love, and the bonds between sisters, mothers and daughters.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

The Splinter in the Sky by Kemi Ashing-Giwa (July 11, 2023)

The dust may have just settled in the failed war of conquest between the Holy Vaalbaran Empire and the Ominirish Republic, but the last Emperor’s surrender means little to a lowly scribe like Enitan. All she wants is to quit her day job and expand her fledgling tea business. But when her lover is assassinated and her sibling is abducted by Imperial soldiers, Enitan abandons her idyllic plans and weaves her tea tray up through the heart of the Vaalbaran capital. There, she will learn just how far she is willing to go to exact vengeance, free her sibling, and perhaps even secure her homeland’s freedom.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Wound by Oksana Vasyakina (September 5, 2023)

From one of Russia’s most exciting new voices, Wound follows a young lesbian poet on a journey from Moscow to her hometown in Siberia, where she has promised to bury her mother’s ashes. Woven throughout this fascinating travel narrative are harrowing and at times sublime memories of her childhood and her sexual and artistic awakening. As she carefully documents her grief and interrogates her past, the narrator of Oksana Vasyakina’s autobiographical novel meditates on queerness, death, and love and finds new words for understanding her relationship with her mother, her country, her sexuality, and her identity as an artist.

A sensual, whip-smart account of the complicated dynamics of queer life in present-day Siberia and Moscow, Wound is also in conversation with feminist thinkers and artists, including Susan Sontag, Louise Bourgeois, and Monique Wittig, locating Vasyakina’s work in a rich and exciting international literary tradition.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

We Met in a Bar by Claire Forsythe (October 10, 2023)

Wealthy nightclub owner Erica turns undercover bartender on a mission to catch a thief. The ridiculous idea seemed comical when her brother proposed it. After all, Erica has never worked a day in her life. But when her pushy mother plays matchmaker with yet another woman Erica isn’t interested in, she escapes on a train to London, to a club she hasn’t set foot in since inheriting it. There she meets no strings, no commitments Charlie, who couldn’t be further from Erica’s type. Erica has never met anyone who gets under her skin so much, and that’s surely a bad thing, right?

Charlie lives for the thrill of the chase. She loves women a little too much to imagine herself settling down. The very thought of a relationship is a terrifying prospect. It doesn’t matter anyway because she’s never met anyone who has held her interest for anything longer than a quick fling. All that changes when she meets the mysterious new bartender at her local club. Getting to know the obnoxious yet beautiful woman is a challenge she can’t resist. She just hadn’t bargained on her heart getting involved.

Buy it: Amazon

Greasepaint by Hannah Levene (October 10, 2023)

Set against a backdrop of 1950s New York, this experimental novel follows an ensemble cast of all-singing, all-dancing butch dykes and Yiddish anarchists through eternal Friday nights, around the table, and at the bar. 

In one of many bars, Frankie Gold sings while Sammy Silver plays piano after a day job at the anarchist newspaper. The Butch Piano Players Union meets in the corner next to the jukebox. Laur smokes on the back steps, sweaty thigh to thigh with Vic. Frankie’s childhood sweetheart, Lily, turns up at yet another bar to see a second Sammy play every Friday night. And before all that, there’s always dinner at Marg’s. Fabulated out of oral histories, anthologies, as well as the fiction of the butch-femme bar scene and Yiddish anarchist tradition, Greasepaint is a rollicking whirlwind of music and politics―the currents of community embodied and held inside the bar.

Buy it: Amazon

Leather, Lace, and Locs by Anne Shade (November 14)

Melissa Hart is a shy, mousy introvert, afraid to step out of her comfort zone until she dons a mask and leather as the dominatrix persona Mistress Heart. Living a double life, she develops an intimate relationship with a mysterious client who chips away the wall separating Ms. Hart from Mistress Heart to show Melissa the woman she really is.

Golden Hughes had one goal, to turn her passion for dance into a professional career. Then tragedy strikes and Golden sets her dreams aside for a regular job and steady paycheck. Now that she has everything she needs, her passion for dance is reignited in burlesque performance, putting her in the path of two unique and sexy women.

Zoe Grant has spent most of her adult life putting her wants and needs on the back burner to focus on raising her daughter, her career as a beautician, and expanding her family’s natural hair care products business. When a woman running from a painful past comes to the salon for a life-changing haircut, Zoe finds what she wants and needs in the most unexpected way.

Three friends, each on their own path, discover love could lead to happily ever after.

Buy it: BookshopAmazon

Ugly Sweater Christmas by Shannon O’Connor (December 6, 2023)

Ugly Sweater Christmas: A Lesbian Friends to Lovers Holiday Rom-Com (The Holidays with You) by [Shannon O'Connor]Emma and Jess have been best friends forever, despite how different they are. This year Jess’ life starts falling apart, starting with losing her job, her apartment and her girlfriend. But leave it to Emma to make this the best Christmas ever. Starting with an ugly sweater Christmas party. But when they both end up under the mistletoe, dared to kiss, and sparks begin to fly, who knows what will happen?

Determined to turn things around for her best friend, Emma tries to show Jess there’s still magic in Christmas. As the two move in together, go job hunting and find the magic of Christmas, they start to see each other in a new light. But will they open their hearts and their mouths to tell the other the truth? Or will they pretend their feelings aren’t real and lose what could be the best Christmas ever?

Buy it: Amazon

Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend by Emma R. Alban (January 9, 2024)

Gwen has a brilliant beyond brilliant idea.

It’s 1857, and anxious debutante Beth has just one season to snag a wealthy husband, or she and her mother will be out on the street. But playing the blushing ingenue makes Beth’s skin crawl and she’d rather be anywhere but here.

Gwen, on the other hand, is on her fourth season and counting, with absolutely no intention of finding a husband, possibly ever. She figures she has plenty of security as the only daughter of a rakish earl, from whom she’s gotten all her flair, fun, and less-than-proper party games.

“Let’s get them together,” she says.

It doesn’t take long for Gwen to hatch her latest scheme: rather than surrender Beth to courtship, they should set up Gwen’s father and Beth’s newly widowed mother. Let them get married instead.

“It’ll be easy” she says.

There’s just…one, teeny, tiny problem. Their parents kind of seem to hate each other.

But no worries. Beth and Gwen are more than up to the challenge of a little twenty-year-old heartbreak. How hard can parent-trapping widowed ex-lovers be?

Of course, just as their plan begins to unfold, a handsome, wealthy viscount starts calling on Beth, offering up the perfect, secure marriage.

Beth’s not mature enough for this…

Now Gwen must face the prospect of sharing Beth with someone else, forever. And Beth must reckon with the fact that she’s caught feelings, hard, and they’re definitely not for her potential fiancé.

That’s the trouble with matchmaking: sometimes you accidentally fall in love with your best friend in the process.

Buy it: Amazon

Add to Your TBR

Happy Lesbian Visibility Day 2022!

This post only includes books that were not featured in past posts. For even more visibly lesbian goodness, check out posts from 2021, 2020, and 2019, too!

Books to Read Now

D’Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding by Chencia C. Higgins

56918560. sy475 Instant I Do could be Kris Zavala’s big break. She’s right on the cusp of really making it as an influencer, so a stint on reality TV is the perfect chance to elevate her brand. And $100,000 wouldn’t hurt, either.

D’Vaughn Miller is just trying to break out of her shell. She’s sort of neglected to come out to her mom for years, so a big splashy fake wedding is just the excuse she needs.

All they have to do is convince their friends and family they’re getting married in six weeks. If anyone guesses they’re not for real, they’re out. Selling their chemistry on camera is surprisingly easy, and it’s still there when no one else is watching, which is an unexpected bonus. Winning this competition is going to be a piece of wedding cake.

But each week of the competition brings new challenges, and soon the prize money’s not the only thing at stake. A reality show isn’t the best place to create a solid foundation, and their fake wedding might just derail their relationship before it even starts.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Continue reading Happy Lesbian Visibility Day 2022!

New Releases: August 2021

All Are Welcome by Liz Parker (1st)

58187215. sy475 Tiny McAllister never thought she’d get married. Not because she didn’t want to, but because she didn’t think girls from Connecticut married other girls. Yet here she is with Caroline, the love of her life, at their destination wedding on the Bermuda coast. In attendance―their respective families and a few choice friends. The conflict-phobic Tiny hopes for a beautiful weekend with her bride-to-be. But as the weekend unfolds, it starts to feel like there’s a skeleton in every closet of the resort.

From Tiny’s family members, who find the world is changing at an uncomfortable speed, to Caroline’s parents, who are engaged in conspiratorial whispers, to their friends, who packed secrets of their own―nobody seems entirely forthcoming. Not to mention the conspicuous no-show and a tempting visit from the past. What the celebration really needs now is a monsoon to help stir up all the long-held secrets, simmering discontent, and hidden agendas.

All Tiny wanted was to get married, but if she can make it through this squall of a wedding, she might just leave with more than a wife.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

You’ll Be Fine by Jen Michalski (2nd)

After Alex’s mother dies of an accidental overdose, Alex takes leave from her job as a writer for a lifestyle magazine to return home to Maryland and join her brother Owen, a study in failure to launch, in sorting out their mother’s whimsical, often self-destructive, life. While home, Alex plans to profile Juliette Sprigg, an Eastern Shore restaurant owner and celebrity chef in the making who Alex secretly dated in high school. And when Alex enlists the help of Carolyn, the editor of the local newspaper, in finding a photographer for the article’s photo shoot, Alex struggles with the deepening, tender relationship that blossoms between them as well. To complicate matters, Alex and Owen’s “Aunt” Johanna, who has transitioned to a woman, offers to come from Seattle to help with arrangements, and all hell breaks loose when she announces she is actually Alex and Owen’s long-estranged father. Can Alex accept her mother and father for who they are, rather than who she hoped they would be? And can Alex apply the same philosophy to herself?

Buy it: NineStar Press

The Perfume Thief by Timothy Schaffert (3rd)

Clementine is a seventy-two year-old reformed con artist with a penchant for impeccably tailored suits. Her life of crime has led her from the uber-wealthy perfume junkies of belle epoque Manhattan, to the scented butterflies of Costa Rica, to the spice markets of Marrakech, and finally the bordellos of Paris, where she settles down in 1930 and opens a shop bottling her favorite extracts for the ladies of the cabarets.

Now it’s 1941 and Clem’s favorite haunt, Madame Boulette’s, is crawling with Nazis, while Clem’s people–the outsiders, the artists, and the hustlers who used to call it home–are disappearing. Clem’s first instinct is to go to ground–it’s a frigid Paris winter and she’s too old to put up a fight. But when the cabaret’s prize songbird, Zoe St. Angel, recruits Clem to steal the recipe book of a now-missing famous Parisian perfumer, she can’t say no. Her mark is Oskar Voss, a Francophile Nazi bureaucrat, who wants the book and Clem’s expertise to himself. Hoping to buy the time and trust she needs to pull off her scheme, Clem decides to tell Voss the real story of the life and loves she came to Paris to escape. But Clem doesn’t have much practice telling the truth and it turns out to be more dangerous than she could have imagined.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N | Indiebound

Radiant Fugitives by Nawaaz Ahmed (3rd)

Working as a political activist in the early days of the Obama presidency, Seema still struggles with her father’s long-ago decision to exile her from the family after she came out as lesbian, forcing her to construct a new life in the West. Now, nine months pregnant and estranged from the father of her unborn son, Seema seeks reconciliation with the family that once renounced her: her ailing mother, Nafeesa, traveling alone to California from Chennai, and her devoutly religious sister, Tahera, an OB-GYN living in Texas with her husband and children.

Pushed apart and drawn together in equal measure by their often conflicting beliefs, Seema, Tahera, and Nafeesa must confront the complex yearnings in their relationships with one another—and within their innermost selves—as the events that transpire over the course of one fateful week unearth an accumulated lifetime of love, betrayal, and misunderstandings.

Told from the point of view of Seema’s child at the moment of his birth and infused with the poetry of Wordsworth, Keats, and the Quran, Radiant Fugitives is an operatic debut from a bold new voice, exploring the tensions between ideology and practicality, hope and tradition, forgiveness and retribution for one family navigating a shifting political landscape.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould (3rd)

Courtney Gould’s thrilling debut The Dead and the Dark is about the things that lurk in dark corners, the parts of you that can’t remain hidden, and about finding home in places―and people―you didn’t expect.

The Dark has been waiting for far too long, and it won’t stay hidden any longer.

Something is wrong in Snakebite, Oregon. Teenagers are disappearing, some turning up dead, the weather isn’t normal, and all fingers seem to point to TV’s most popular ghost hunters who have just returned to town. Logan Ortiz-Woodley, daughter of TV’s ParaSpectors, has never been to Snakebite before, but the moment she and her dads arrive, she starts to get the feeling that there’s more secrets buried here than they originally let on.

Ashley Barton’s boyfriend was the first teen to go missing, and she’s felt his presence ever since. But now that the Ortiz-Woodleys are in town, his ghost is following her and the only person Ashley can trust is the mysterious Logan. When Ashley and Logan team up to figure out who—or what—is haunting Snakebite, their investigation reveals truths about the town, their families, and themselves that neither of them are ready for. As the danger intensifies, they realize that their growing feelings for each other could be a light in the darkness.

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I Kissed a Girl by Jennet Alexander (3rd)

Noa Birnbaum has just gotten a job as a makeup assistant on a movie, thanks to her roommate. She’s thrilled when she learns that Lilah Silver will be the star—she’s had a crush on the leading lady for a while. But when she meets Lilah at the studio, Noa is unimpressed – Lilah is distant and shallow, and Noa isn’t in any hurry to get to know her.

Lilah Silver is tired of being in B-rate movies and has finally landed a leading role—in a sci-fi creature feature. Worried that no one will take her seriously, she’s hidden herself behind her pageant queen persona. Lilah is awed by Noa’s self-confidence and style, but how can she convince Noa she’s not a snobby scream queen when she can’t find the right words without a script in her hands?

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Like Other Girls by Britta Lundin (3rd)

After getting kicked off the basketball team for a fight that was absolutely totally not her fault (okay maybe a little her fault), Mara is dying to find a new sport to play to prove to her coach that she can be a team player. A lifelong football fan, Mara decides to hit the gridiron with her brother, Noah, and best friend, Quinn-and she turns out to be a natural. But joining the team sets off a chain of events in her small Oregon town-and within her family-that she never could have predicted.

Inspired by what they see as Mara’s political statement, four other girls join the team. Now Mara’s lumped in as one of the girls-one of the girls who can’t throw, can’t kick, and doesn’t know a fullback from a linebacker. Complicating matters is the fact that Valentina, Mara’s crush, is one of the new players, as is Carly, Mara’s nemesis-the girl Mara fought with when she was kicked off the basketball team. What results is a coming-of-age story that is at once tear-jerking and funny, thought-provoking and real, as Mara’s preconceived notions about gender, sports, sexuality, and friendship are turned upside down.

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Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So (August 3rd)

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A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee (3rd)

Felicity Morrow is back at Dalloway School.

Perched in the Catskill mountains, the centuries-old, ivy-covered campus was home until the tragic death of her girlfriend. Now, after a year away, she’s returned to graduate. She even has her old room in Godwin House, the exclusive dormitory rumored to be haunted by the spirits of five Dalloway students—girls some say were witches. The Dalloway Five all died mysteriously, one after another, right on Godwin grounds.

Witchcraft is woven into Dalloway’s history. The school doesn’t talk about it, but the students do. In secret rooms and shadowy corners, girls convene. And before her girlfriend died, Felicity was drawn to the dark. She’s determined to leave that behind her now; all Felicity wants is to focus on her senior thesis and graduate. But it’s hard when Dalloway’s occult history is everywhere. And when the new girl won’t let her forget.

It’s Ellis Haley’s first year at Dalloway, and she’s already amassed a loyal following. A prodigy novelist at seventeen, Ellis is a so-called “method writer.” She’s eccentric and brilliant, and Felicity can’t shake the pull she feels to her. So when Ellis asks Felicity for help researching the Dalloway Five for her second book, Felicity can’t say no. Given her history with the arcane, Felicity is the perfect resource.

And when history begins to repeat itself, Felicity will have to face the darkness in Dalloway–and in herself.

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Fresh by Margot Wood (3rd)

A hilarious and vulnerable coming-of-age story about the thrilling new experiences––and missteps––of a girl’s freshman year of college

Some students enter their freshman year of college knowing exactly what they want to do with their lives. Elliot McHugh is not one of those people. But picking a major is the last thing on Elliot’s mind when she’s too busy experiencing all that college has to offer—from dancing all night at off-campus parties, to testing her RA Rose’s patience, to making new friends, to having the best sex one can have on a twin-sized dorm room bed. But she may not be ready for the fallout when reality hits. When the sex she’s having isn’t that great. When finals creep up and smack her right in the face. Or when her roommate’s boyfriend turns out to be the biggest a-hole. Elliot may make epic mistakes, but if she’s honest with herself (and with you, dear reader), she may just find the person she wants to be. And maybe even fall in love in the process . . . Well, maybe.

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Chemistry Lessons by Jae (4th)

58517427Kylie and Regan have been best friends since kindergarten, supporting each other through thick and thin.

While everyone thinks they would be perfect for each other, they insist there’s no chemistry between them—and Regan should know since she’s a chemistry teacher.

To prove it, they agree to a little chemistry experiment: they’ll go on three dates with each other.

So what if their gazes start to linger and accidental touches no longer feel platonic? They chalk it up to the romantic atmosphere—until a friendly good night kiss turns passionate.

Can their friendship go back to the way it was before? Do they even want it to? Or will they risk losing what they have for a chance at love?

Buy it: Amazon | Ylva

Fake It by Lily Seabrooke (6th)

Fake It by [Lily Seabrooke]Avery Lindt finally opened her dream restaurant—and there’s no customers. She’s staying optimistic, though: she’s confident she can fake it till she makes it, roll with the punches, and find a way to save her luxury restaurant, Paramour.

But it gets harder when she gets restaurant mogul and star chef Mike Wallace angry, and finds herself on the other end of a campaign to shut down Paramour.

Celebrity chef Holly Mason’s show is in trouble: people are bored with her routine of helping struggling restaurants. Worse, her ex-boyfriend Mike Wallace is making backdoor deals trying to steal the starring role.

Luckily, Holly’s agent Tay has a solution: ditch her show plans for the season, throw their lot in with luxury restaurant Paramour against Mike Wallace’s racketeering operation of a restaurant partnership. The cherry on top? A fake relationship between Holly and Avery to stir up drama.

It would already be a mess if Holly and Avery weren’t already struggling to hold back their attraction for one another. Despite their promise not to date, the lines between acting and reality get awfully blurry sometimes.

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The King of Infinite Space by Lyndsey Faye (10th)

55881109Meet Ben Dane: brilliant, devastating, devoted, honest to a fault (truly, a fault). His Broadway theater baron father is dead–but by purpose or accident? The question rips him apart.

Unable to face alone his mother’s ghastly remarriage to his uncle, Ben turns to his dearest friend, Horatio Patel, whom he hasn’t seen since their relationship changed forever from platonic to something…other. Loyal to a fault (truly, a fault), Horatio is on the first flight to NYC when he finds himself next to a sly tailor who portends inevitable disaster. And who seems ominously like an architect of mayhem himself.

Meanwhile, Ben’s ex-fiancé Lia, sundered her from her loved ones thanks to her addiction recovery and torn from her art, has been drawn into the fold of three florists from New Orleans–seemingly ageless sisters who teach her the language of flowers, and whose magical bouquets hold both curses and cures. For a price.

On one explosive night these kinetic forces will collide, and the only possible outcome is death. But in the masterful hands of Lyndsay Faye, the story we all know has abundant surprises in store. Impish, captivating, and achingly romantic, this is Hamlet as you’ve never seen it before.

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Cheer Up!: Love and Pompoms by Crystal Frasier, Val Wise, and Oscar O. Jupiter (10th)

Annie is a smart, antisocial lesbian starting her senior year of high school who’s under pressure to join the cheerleader squad to make friends and round out her college applications. Her former friend BeeBee is a people-pleaser—a trans girl who must keep her parents happy with her grades and social life to keep their support of her transition. Through the rigors of squad training and amped up social pressures (not to mention micro aggressions and other queer youth problems), the two girls rekindle a friendship they thought they’d lost and discover there may be other, sweeter feelings springing up between them.

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The Reality of Us by Vanessa North (10th)

The reality of Alden…
Arrogant. Aloof. Argumentative. Antagonistic. Angry. Alden Kaufman is many things, and none of them are nice. Trauma has left him deeply scarred and incapable of easy friendships. He doesn’t know how to let anyone past his walls, and he doesn’t think it’s worth the trouble.

The reality of Kit…
Everybody’s best friend, nobody’s boyfriend. In spite of a lifestyle that doesn’t invite attachments, Kit Taylor gets along with everyone he meets—except Alden. He can’t entice his prickly co-worker out of his shell, and has given up on trying.

The Reality of Us…
Two men at odds with themselves and each other embark on what should be a simple team-building exercise, but nothing goes as planned. Unexpected intimacy and a freak accident leave Kit and Alden dependent on each other long after they leave the mountain behind. Now they have a choice—to continue as they’ve been, or trust a shaky new reality together.

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Kiss the Scars on the Back of My Neck by Joe Okwonko (10th)

55101556. sy475 The eclectic stories in this collection are bound by the threads of desire in its many forms, above all, the desire for love and a place of safety in a world where being Black and gay can thwart the fulfillment of that longing. The characters are complex, driven, difficult, and even, at times, unsympathetic, but always compelling. In other words: fully rounded human beings living complicated lives.

A proud Black woman who escaped her rural, impoverished town returns after the collapse of her marriage and faces the scorn of those she left behind. A middle-aged gay man finds his loneliness temporarily relieved by the arrival of a stray cat. An unhappily married woman becomes enmeshed in her bisexual husband’s attempt to create a ménage à trois with a much younger man. A 16-year-old boy discovers the power of his sexuality when he embarks upon a dangerous seduction. Two Black men, one mature and rich, the other young and struggling, are drawn into a contentious affair by their shared love of opera. The legendary blues singer Glady Bentley crashes up against the barriers of race and gender when she gets caught up in a police raid.

Kiss the Scars on the Back of My Neck is a masterful collection of stories by a gifted writer who has fully hit his stride.

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Sink or Swim by Tash McAdam (17th)

Sixteen-year-old shy, socially awkward trans teen Bass reluctantly skips school and goes on a boat trip with his adventure-seeking girlfriend, Rosie. When a sudden storm smashes their boat on a rocky shore off a deserted island, Bass and Rosie struggle to make it to safety. Bruised and battling hypothermia, the pair have to seek shelter and work together to survive until they can be rescued. After a horrible night, Rosie, an experienced climber, decides to scale a steep cliff to find help. She falls and injures herself badly. Now Bass has to find the strength and courage to swim around a dangerous headland and make his way back to civilization before it’s too late.

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Simply the Best by Karin Kallmaker (17th)

Simply the Best… Giselle Otero needs a win in her life, and being personal assistant to Helene Jolie, the socialite founder of SimplytheBest.com, is finally it. The hours are long, and keeping Helene happy is more than a full-time job. That Helene seems to find Giselle’s company pleasing in ways beyond work is dizzying.

Simply the Worst… An unfortunate lapse in judgment has bumped New York reporter Alice Cabot from Science to Style. Even worse, she’s exiled to New Mexico to complete a series of in-depth and upbeat features on Helene Jolie and her company’s meteoric success. She knows she’s going to hate every last thing about this assignment, starting with the assistant who’ll be her corporate babysitter.

Simply Irresistible… Tasked with keeping the inquisitive reporter in check, Giselle is eager to prove her worth to the demanding, charismatic Helene. Even if that means spending every day arguing with a big mouth, big city know-it-all whose probing questions lead to sleepless nights―and awakened desires.

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After the Dragons by Cynthia Zhang (19th)

57544433Dragons were fire and terror to the Western world, but in the East they brought life-giving rain…

Now, no longer hailed as gods and struggling in the overheated pollution of Beijing, only the Eastern dragons survive. As drought plagues the aquatic creatures, a mysterious disease—shaolong, or “burnt lung”—afflicts the city’s human inhabitants.

Jaded college student Xiang Kaifei scours Beijing streets for abandoned dragons, distracting himself from his diagnosis. Elijah Ahmed, a biracial American medical researcher, is drawn to Beijing by the memory of his grandmother and her death by shaolong. Interest in Beijing’s dragons leads Kai and Eli into an unlikely partnership. With the resources of Kai’s dragon rescue and Eli’s immunology research, can the pair find a cure for shaolong and safety for the dragons? Eli and Kai must confront old ghosts and hard truths if there is any hope for themselves or the dragons they love.

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Child in the Valley by Gordy Sauer (24th)

Seventeen-year-old Joshua Gaines is the orphaned foster son of a failed doctor on the run from his father’s debt. In 1849, he travels to Independence, Missouri and falls in with the mysterious, four-fingered Renard, and his companion, formerly-enslaved Free Ray. Joshua offers his medical expertise to their party, and together they embark on the fifteen-hundred mile overland journey to Gold Rush California.

Following the hardship, disease, and death on the trail, the company abandons panning the river in favor of robbery and murder. Engulfed by violence, the young doctor-turned-marauder must reckon with his own morality, his growing desire for the men around him, and the brutality that has haunted him all his life.

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Both Sides Now by Peyton Thomas (24th)

There’s only one thing standing between Finch Kelly and a full-blown case of high school senioritis: the National Speech & Debate Tournament. Taking home the gold would not only be the pinnacle of Finch’s debating career, but the perfect way to launch himself into his next chapter: college in Washington, DC, and a history-making career as the first trans congressman. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, for starters, Finch could develop a teeny tiny crush on his very attractive, very taken, and very gay debate partner, Jonah. Never mind that Finch has never considered whether he’s interested in more than just girls.

And that dream of college in DC? Finch hasn’t exactly been accepted anywhere yet, let alone received the full-ride scholarship he’ll need to make this dream a reality.

Worst of all, though, is this year’s topic for Nationals: transgender rights. If he wants to cinch the gold, and get into college, Finch might have to argue against his own humanity.

People say there are two sides to every argument. But, as Finch is about to discover, some things—like who you are and who you love—are not up for debate.

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The Second Rebel by Linden A. Lewis (24th)

This is the second book in the First Sister trilogy

Astrid has reclaimed her name and her voice, and now seeks to bring down the Sisterhood from within. Throwing herself into the lioness’ den, Astrid must confront and challenge the Aunts who run the Gean religious institution, but she quickly discovers that the business of politics is far deadlier than she ever expected.

Meanwhile, on an outlaw colony station deep in space, Hiro val Akira seeks to bring a dangerous ally into the rebellion. Whispers of a digital woman fuel Hiro’s search, but they are not the only person looking for this link to the mysterious race of Synthetics.

Lito sol Lucious continues to grow into his role as a lead revolutionary and is tasked with rescuing an Aster operative from deep within an Icarii prison. With danger around every corner, Lito, his partner Ofiera, and the newly freed operative must flee in order to keep dangerous secrets out of enemy hands.

Back on Venus, Lito’s sister Lucinia must carry on after her brother’s disappearance and accusation of treason by Icarii authorities. Despite being under the thumb of Souji val Akira, Lucinia manages to keep her nose clean…that is until an Aster revolutionary shows up with news about her brother’s fate, and an opportunity to join the fight.

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Edie in Between by Laura Sibson (24th)


It’s been one year since Edie’s mother died. But her ghost has never left.

According to her GG, it’s tradition that the dead of the Mitchell family linger with the living. It’s just as much a part of a Mitchell’s life as brewing cordials or talking to plants. But Edie, whose pain over losing her mother is still fresh, has no interest in her family’s legacy as local “witches.”

When her mother’s teenage journal tumbles into her life, her family’s mystical inheritance becomes once and for all too hard to ignore. It takes Edie on a scavenger hunt to find objects that once belonged to her mother, each one imbued with a different memory. Every time she touches one of these talismans, it whisks her to another entry inside the journal—where she watches her teenage mom mourn, love, and hope just as Edie herself is now doing. Maybe, just maybe, Edie hopes, if she finds every one of these objects, she can finally make peace with her loss and put the past to rest for good. But this journey to stake her independence from her family may actually show Edie who she truly is…and the beautiful gifts that come with being just a little different.

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On Home by Becca Spence Dobias (24th)

When tragedy strikes, Cassidy, a cam girl living in Southern California, must return to the small West Virginia town she left behind. Cassidy likes her job getting naked for men on camera, though she prefers sex with women. She never came out to her family or friends back in her home state―not about her sexuality and certainly not about her sex work. Now, she must figure out how to hold on to the life she’s built for herself while picking up the pieces of her fractured family.

As Cassidy’s story unfolds, we glimpse into the lives of the strong, complicated women who came before her: Jane, the sheltered daughter of farmers, escapes West Virginia for Washington, DC to work as a Government Girl for the FBI during World War II, until a fateful mistake threatens her future. Paloma, a Fulbright Scholar, journeys to newly Westernized Prague―only to fall for an idealistic but safe man from West Virginia.

Though worlds and generations apart, all three search for meaning as they face impending motherhood and the pull to return home to rural Appalachia.

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Sips of Her by Karmen Lee (25th)

Sips of Her (Coffee Shops of Love Book 2) by [Karmen Lee]Julie Kim’s life was supposed to be simple. Falling for the gorgeous barista with the enigmatic smile was not part of the plan.

Cameran Davis loves love and her coffee shop, Love & Lattes, reflects that. But, she’s starting to wonder if maybe happily ever after isn’t in the cards.

A surprise run-in culminates in a ruse leading to acknowledging feelings and steamy nights. When things get real, will they fight for a chance at happiness or go their separate ways?

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In the Watchful City by S. Qiouyi Lu (31st)

In the Watchful CityThe city of Ora is watching.

Anima is an extrasensory human tasked with surveilling and protecting Ora’s citizens via a complex living network called the Gleaming. Although ær world is restricted to what æ can see and experience through the Gleaming, Anima takes pride and comfort in keeping Ora safe from harm.

When a mysterious outsider enters the city carrying a cabinet of curiosities from around with the world with a story attached to each item, Anima’s world expands beyond the borders of Ora to places—and possibilities—æ never before imagined to exist. But such knowledge leaves Anima with a question that throws into doubt ær entire purpose: What good is a city if it can’t protect its people?

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For the Love of April French by Penny Aimes (31st)

April French doesn’t do relationships and she never asks for more.

A long-standing regular at kink club Frankie’s, she’s kind of seen it all. As a trans woman, she’s used to being the scenic rest stop for others on their way to a happily-ever-after. She knows how desire works, and she keeps hers carefully boxed up to take out on weekends only.

After all, you can’t be let down if you never ask.

Then Dennis Martin walks into Frankie’s, fresh from Seattle and looking a little lost. April just meant to be friendly, but one flirtatious drink turns into one hot night.

When Dennis asks for her number, she gives it to him.

When he asks for her trust, well…that’s a little harder.

And when the desire she thought she had such a firm grip on comes alive with Dennis, April finds herself wanting passion, purpose and commitment.

But when their relationship moves from complicated to impossible, April will have to decide how much she’s willing to want.

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Red X by David Demchuk (31st)

Red XMen are disappearing from Toronto’s gay village. They’re the marginalized, the vulnerable. One by one, stalked and vanished, they leave behind small circles of baffled, frightened friends. Against the shifting backdrop of homophobia throughout the decades, from the HIV/AIDS crisis and riots against raids to gentrification and police brutality, the survivors face inaction from the law and disinterest from society at large. But as the missing grow in number, those left behind begin to realize that whoever or whatever is taking these men has been doing so for longer than is humanly possible.

Woven into their stories is David Demchuk’s own personal history, a life lived in fear and in thrall to horror, a passion that boils over into obsession. As he tries to make sense of the relationship between queerness and horror, what it means for gay men to disappear, and how the isolation of the LGBTQ+ community has left them profoundly exposed to monsters that move easily among them, fact and fiction collide and reality begins to unravel.

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Walk Between Worlds by Samara Breger (31st)

58360576. sy475 On what should be the biggest night of her life, everything suddenly goes horribly wrong. First, her king denies her the promotion she rightfully earned, as well as the knighthood that goes along with it. And then, when Scratch is wallowing somewhere near the fetid rock bottom, she and her best friend, the flamboyant and carefree Sergeant James Ursus, are arrested for orchestrating the abduction of Princess Frances and sentenced to death. On the whole, things could be better.

Luckily, help comes in the form of the mysterious Shae siblings―Vel and Umbrella―who inform the doomed pair that the issue of the missing Princess is far more complicated than it appears. After a daring escape, the four embark on an ill-advised rescue mission through a forest filled with beasts, bandits, and mysterious fair folk, bringing nothing with them but a kitchen knife and the vague outline of a plan. Their destination is the Between, a sacred and shadowy fae-guarded place that promises to deliver Scratch and James to the princess―if they manage to survive.

But Scratch didn’t rise above her humble childhood in the Royal City slums by accepting things at face value. It’s clear that the enigmatic Shaes are hiding something, but what do they know? Who are they working with? And why, in the name of all the divine constellations in the scrambled sky, can’t Scratch stop staring at Brella?

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December 2020 Deal Announcements

Adult Fiction

Rachel Lacey‘s READ BETWEEN THE LINES, pitched as an #OwnVoices sapphic retelling of You’ve Got Mail, featuring a bisexual bookstore owner and a property developing corporate executive with more than one secret, to Lauren Plude at Montlake, in an exclusive submission, in a two-book deal, by Sarah Younger at Nancy Yost Literary Agency (world).

Katharine Schellman‘s LAST CALL AT THE NIGHTINGALE, an #OwnVoices queer murder mystery set in 1920s New York, where a seamstress escapes drudgery at a speakeasy, but when she discovers a body behind the club, she finds herself caught between the dangers of New York’s underground and the world of the city’s wealthy and careless, where money can hide any sin and the lives of the poor are considered disposable—including her own, to Nettie Finn at Minotaur, in a two-book deal, for publication in summer 2022, by Whitney Ross at Irene Goodman Agency (NA).

2020 National Book Foundation 5 under 35 honoree and author of BESTIARY K-Ming Chang‘s RESIDENT ALIENS, a short story collection that evokes the splendor and peculiar nature of families, the grotesque and wondrous parts of the body, and the wild and poignant battles of queer love, to Nicole Counts at One World, by Julia Kardon at HG Literary.

Ally Wilkes‘s ALL THE WHITE SPACES, set in the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration, in which a trans man narrates the fate of an expedition as something unnamed and terrible picks off his shipmates one by one, against the backdrop of the pitch-black polar night, to Lara Jones at Emily Bestler Books, in a good deal, in a pre-empt, in a two-book deal, for publication in spring 2022, by Oliver Munson at A.M. Heath (NA).

Helena Greer‘s MY FIRST NOELLE, pitched as a queer and Jewish Hallmark-style holiday rom-com about a free-spirited bisexual artist who’s forced to return home when she inherits her family’s Christmas tree farm, and has an unexpected romance with the farm’s grumpy butch manager, to Amy Pierpont and Sam Brody at Forever, in a two-book deal, for publication in winter 2022, by Rebecca Podos at Rees Literary Agency (world).

Winner of the 60th Gunzo New Writer’s Award for Excellence in 2017 Li Kotomi‘s SOLO DANCE, depicting the painful coming-of-age of a gay woman in Taiwan and the salaryman’s world in Japan; an account of a person’s search for hope after trauma and depression, to Judith Uyterlinde at World Editions (Netherlands), in a nice deal, in a pre-empt, for publication in fall 2022, by Li Kangqin at New River Literary (world English).

Three-time Pushcart prize winner and Stegner fellow Lydia Conklin’s RAINBOW RAINBOW, a collection of stories exploring the complex inner lives of queer, trans, and nonbinary characters, pitched as appealing to fans of Garth Greenwell, Jenny Zhang, and Katherine Dunn, to Leigh Newman at Catapult, for publication in June 2022, by Samantha Shea at Georges Borchardt.

Center for Fiction First Novel Prize nominee Celia Laskey’s THE BRIDESMAID, exploring contemporary female friendship, platonic queer-straight dynamics, and the absurdity of the wedding industrial complex; and UNDER THE RAINBOW, her debut novel, to Cicely Aspinall at HQ, at auction, in a two-book deal, by Jennifer Helinek at Trident Media Group, on behalf of Alexa Stark.

Children’s Fiction

Hazel Newlevant‘s QUEER AND HOW WE GOT HERE, in which the author blends their personal story of coming out with explorations of important moments from queer history to draw a parallel between the growth of a community and the growth of the author’s personal identity, to Andrea Colvin at Little, Brown Children’s, in an exclusive submission, for publication in early 2024, by Tanya McKinnon at McKinnon Literary (world).

Will Taylor‘s THE LANGUAGE OF SEABIRDS, in which a 12-year-old boy confined to two weeks at a beach house with his freshly divorced father meets a local boy and his world is flipped as he struggles find some way to share the truths flooding his heart—things he’s never spoken to anyone, not even himself, to David Levithan at Scholastic, for publication in summer 2022, by Brent Taylor at TriadaUS Literary Agency (world).

Detroit-based illustrator and designer Oli Franey’s MONSTER CRUSH, pitched as BEETLE AND THE HOLLOWBONES meets Teen Wolf, in which a 16-year-old closes herself off from the world after her parents split, until she meets a girl; as the two of them fight off school bullies, the girl accidentally reveals her ability to transform into a monstrous beast, and reveals the world of monsters, to Brett Israel at Dark Horse, for publication in 2023, by Claire Draper at The Bent Agency (world English).

Young Adult Fiction

Epic Reads founder Margot Wood‘s FRESH, a queer coming-of-age story that follows a freshman at Emerson College as she navigates the highs and lows of her first year away from home, to Maggie Lehrman at Abrams Children’s, at auction, for publication in fall 2021, by Joanna Volpe at New Leaf Literary & Media (world English).

Author of THE DEAD AND THE DARK Courtney Gould’s ECHO SUNSET, following two sisters who, after their mother dies, learn about her mysterious ties to an isolated Arizona town; when they decide to investigate, nothing and no one is who they seem, including the daughter of the town’s enigmatic leader, to Jennie Conway at Wednesday Books, for publication in 2022, by Claire Friedman and Jessica Mileo at Inkwell Management (NA).

Illustrator and comic artist on Tapas The Kao’s MAGICAL BOY, in which a trans man just trying to get through high school as his true self has his life turned upside down when he discovers that he is descended from a long line of magical girls tasked with defending humanity from a dark, ancient evil; with a sassy feline sidekick and loyal group of friends by his side, he must take on his destiny, save the world, and become the first magical boy, to Michael Moccio at Scholastic, for publication in fall 2021, by Liz Parker at Verve Talent & Literary (world).

Author of the #murdertrending series and GET EVEN Gretchen McNeil‘s DIG TWO GRAVES, pitched as a YA Strangers on a Train with a queer twist in which a school pariah meets her new best friend at summer camp where they jokingly fantasize about killing each other’s bullies, until those fantasies become disturbing realities and she finds herself blackmailed into committing murder, to Kieran Viola at Disney-Hyperion, in a two-book deal, by Ginger Clark at Curtis Brown (world).

Author of ACE OF SHADES Amanda Foody and author of THE DEVOURING GRAY Christine Lynn Herman‘s ALL OF US VILLAINS, set in a blood-soaked city, where seven families compete every generation in a tournament to the death for control of high magic; one powerful, villainous family has won nearly every tournament, but this year, thanks to a salacious tell-all book, each of the other families has the means to win, to Melissa Frain at Tor Teen, with Ali Fisher editing, in a major deal, at auction, in a two-book deal, for publication in fall 2021 and 2022, by Whitney Ross at Irene Goodman Agency for Foody, and by Kelly Sonnack at Andrea Brown Literary Agency for Herman (world English).

Naz Kutub‘s THE LOOPHOLE, pitched as a speculative SIMON VS. THE HOMO SAPIENS AGENDA with a focus on identity, found family, and friendship, following a queer Indian Muslim boy traveling the world for a second chance at love after a possibly magical heiress grants him three wishes, to Claire Stetzer at Bloomsbury Children’s, in a very nice deal, in a pre-empt, in a two-book deal, for publication in spring 2022, by Natalie Lakosil at Bradford Literary Agency (world).

Cayla Keenan’s RAVENSONG, the first in a contemporary fantasy duology with Northeastern Gothic vibes, in which a 17-year-old girl is one third of a war goddess triad, sworn to slay demons with her sisters and guard the gate to hell in their coastal town, yet is stuck in high school, counting down the days until her 18th birthday, when her powers fully unlock—until she meets a girl with secrets of her own who’ll force her to choose between duty and love, to Amanda Ramirez at Simon & Schuster Children’s, in a pre-empt, in a two-book deal, for publication in spring 2023, by Patrice Caldwell at New Leaf Literary & Media (NA).

Dahlia Adler ed.’s AT THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT, a collection of classic fairy tales reimagined by authors Melissa Albert, Tracy Deonn, Hafsah Faizal, Brigid Kemmerer, Stacey Lee, Darcie Little Badger, Malinda Lo, Alex London, Anna-Marie McLemore, Rebecca Podos, Rory Power, Meredith Russo, Justin Reynolds, and Randy Ribay, to Sarah Barley at Flatiron Books, for publication in fall 2022, by Patricia Nelson at Marsal Lyon Literary Agency (world).

Andrea Mosqueda’s debut JUST YOUR LOCAL BISEXUAL DISASTER, following a self-described romantic disaster, a bisexual Chicana living in the Rio Grande Valley, as she tries to figure out whom she wants to ask to be her escort at her little sister’s upcoming quinceanera: her charming ex-boyfriend twice over, her first crush and gorgeous best friend, or the mysterious new girl with the romantic baggage?, to Kat Brzozowski at Feiwel and Friends, for publication in 2022, by Lauren Macleod at The Strothman Agency (world English).

Saundra Mitchell’s OUT THERE, the future-set third and final anthology in a series that began with the historical ALL OUT and contemporary OUT NOW; its contributors include Kayla Ancrum, Kalynn Bayron, Z Brewer, Mason Deaver, Alechia Dow, ZR Ellor, Leah Johnson, Naomi Kanakia, Claire Kann, Alex London, Jim McCarthy, Abdi Nazemian, Emma K. Ohland, AJ Sass, Nita Tyndall, and two slots to be filled through an open call, to Natashya Wilson at Inkyard Press, for publication in spring 2022, by Jim McCarthy at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret (world).

Non-Fiction

Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year finalist for his poetry collection TONGUES OF FIRE Sean Hewitt‘s ALL DOWN DARKNESS WIDE, an excavation of the year following his partner’s suicide attempt, a confrontation with the specters of shame, and a love letter to queer literature that illuminates a path ahead, to Caroline Sydney at Penguin Press, in a pre-empt, by Adam Eaglin at The Cheney Agency on behalf of Matthew Marland at Rogers, Coleridge & White (NA).

Cultural historian, performer, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in English at the University of Cambridge, and BBC New Generation Thinker Diarmuid Hester’s NOTHING EVER JUST DISAPPEARS: A NEW HISTORY OF QUEER CULTURE THROUGH ITS SPACES, a history of queer identity from the late 1800s to the present, following seven artists and writers whose lives and work are inextricable from a sense of place, including E.M. Forster, Josephine Baker, Claude Cahun, James Baldwin, and Derek Jarman; interweaving their stories with the author’s own experiences as a queer person, arguing for the centrality of place in the formation of identity, culture, and politics, while showing all that is lost when queer spaces are forgotten, to Maria Bedford at Allen Lane, at auction, for publication in November 2022, by Matthew Marland at Rogers, Coleridge & White (world English).

Sibling duo, journalist, and archivist Alison Nastasi and PJ Nastasi’s QUEER ICONS AND THEIR CATS, a celebration of LGBTQ+ icons past and present, and their furry feline friends, to Bridget Watson Payne at Chronicle, with Natalie Butterfield editing, for publication in May 2021 (world).

Fave Five: Ghostly Queer YA

Missing, Presumed Dead by Emma Berquist

The Dark Beneath the Ice by Amelinda Bérubé

Rules for Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall

Shallow Graves by Kali Wallace

Now Entering Addamsville by Francesca Zappia

Bonus: If you’ve read Shadowshaper, definitely check out Ghost Girl in the Corner by Daniel José Older, which is a related Sapphic ghostly novella.

Double Bonus: If you like to keep an eye on upcoming titles, definitely make sure Ghost Wood Song by Erica Waters (2020) and The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould (2021) are on your radar!