Tag Archives: Fools in Love

New Releases: December 2021

Read Between the Lines by Rachel Lacey (1st)

Books are Rosie Taft’s life. And ever since she took over her mother’s beloved Manhattan bookstore, they’ve become her home too. The only thing missing is her own real-life romance like the ones she loves to read about, and Rosie has an idea of who she might like to sweep her off her feet. She’s struck up a flirty online friendship with lesbian romance author Brie, and what could be more romantic than falling in love with her favorite author?

Jane Breslin works hard to keep her professional and personal lives neatly separated. By day, she works for the family property development business. By night, she puts her steamier side on paper under her pen name: Brie. Jane hasn’t had much luck with her own love life, but her online connection with a loyal reader makes Jane wonder if she could be the one.

When Rosie learns that her bookstore’s lease has been terminated by Jane’s company, romance moves to the back burner. Even though they’re at odds, there’s no denying the sparks that fly every time they’re together. When their online identities are revealed, will Jane be able to write her way to a happy ending, or is Rosie’s heart a closed book?

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Dark Tourist by Hasanthika Sirisena (3rd)

Dark tourism—visiting sites of war, violence, and other traumas experienced by others—takes different forms in Hasanthika Sirisena’s stunning excavation of the unexpected places (and ways) in which personal identity and the riptides of history meet. The 1961 plane crash that left a nuclear warhead buried near her North Carolina hometown, juxtaposed with reflections on her father’s stroke. A visit to Jaffna in Sri Lanka—the country of her birth, yet where she is unmistakably a foreigner—to view sites from the recent civil war, already layered over with the narratives of the victors. A fraught memory of her time as a young art student in Chicago that is uneasily foundational to her bisexual, queer identity today. The ways that life-changing impairments following a severe eye injury have shaped her thinking about disability and self-worth.

Deftly blending reportage, cultural criticism, and memoir, Sirisena pieces together facets of her own sometimes-fractured self to find wider resonances with the human universals of love, sex, family, and art—and with language’s ability to both fail and save us. Dark Tourist becomes then about finding a home, if not in the world, at least within the limitless expanse of the page.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

If This Gets Out by Cale Dietrich and Sophie Gonzales (7th)

54738255Eighteen-year-olds Ruben Montez and Zach Knight are two members of the boy-band Saturday, one of the biggest acts in America. Along with their bandmates, Angel Phan and Jon Braxton, the four are teen heartbreakers in front of the cameras and best friends backstage. But privately, cracks are starting to form: their once-easy rapport is straining under the pressures of fame, and Ruben confides in Zach that he’s feeling smothered by management’s pressure to stay in the closet.

On a whirlwind tour through Europe, with both an unrelenting schedule and minimal supervision, Ruben and Zach come to rely on each other more and more, and their already close friendship evolves into a romance. But when they decide they’re ready to tell their fans and live freely, Zach and Ruben start to truly realize that they will never have the support of their management. How can they hold tight to each other when the whole world seems to want to come between them?

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

The Coldest Touch by Isabel Sterling (7th)

53457146Elise Beaumont is cursed. With every touch, she experiences exactly how her loved ones will die. And after her brother’s death—a death she predicted but was unable to prevent—Elise is desperate to get rid of her terrible gift, no matter the cost.

Claire Montgomery also has a unique relationship with death, mostly because she’s already dead. Technically, anyway. Claire is a vampire, and she’s been assigned by the Veil to help Elise master her rare Death Oracle powers.

At first, Elise is reluctant to work with a vampire, but when she predicts a teacher’s imminent murder, she’s determined to stop the violent death, even if it means sacrificing her own future to secure Claire’s help.

The trouble is, Claire and Elise aren’t the only paranormals in town—a killer is stalking the streets, and Claire can’t seem to shake the pull she feels toward Elise, a romance that could upend the Veil’s mission. But as Elise and Claire grow closer, Elise begins to wonder—can she really trust someone tasked with securing her loyalty? Someone who could so easily kill her? Someone who might hold the key to unraveling her brother’s mysterious death?

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Tell Me How to Be by Neel Patel (7th)

49247150Renu Amin always seemed perfect: doting husband, beautiful house, healthy sons. But as the one-year anniversary of her husband’s death approaches, Renu is binge-watching soap operas and simmering with old resentments. She can’t stop wondering if, thirty-five years ago, she chose the wrong life. In Los Angeles, her son, Akash, has everything he ever wanted, but as he tries to kickstart his songwriting career and commit to his boyfriend, he is haunted by the painful memories he fled a decade ago. When his mother tells him she is selling the family home, Akash returns to Illinois, hoping to finally say goodbye and move on.

Together, Renu and Akash pack up the house, retreating further into the secrets that stand between them. Renu sends an innocent Facebook message to the man she almost married, sparking an emotional affair that calls into question everything she thought she knew about herself. Akash slips back into bad habits as he confronts his darkest secrets―including what really happened between him and the first boy who broke his heart. When their pasts catch up to them, Renu and Akash must decide between the lives they left behind and the ones they’ve since created, between making each other happy and setting themselves free.

By turns irreverent and tender, filled with the beats of ’90s R&B, Tell Me How to Be is about our earliest betrayals and the cost of reconciliation. But most of all, it is the love story of a mother and son each trying to figure out how to be in the world.

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Fools in Love ed. by Ashley Herring Blake and Rebecca Podos (7th)

Join fifteen bestselling, award-winning, and up-and-coming authors as they reimagine some of the most popular tropes in the romance genre. 

Fake relationships. Enemies to lovers. Love triangles and best friends, mistaken identities and missed connections. This collection of genre-bending and original stories celebrates how love always finds a way, featuring powerful flora, a superhero and his nemesis, a fantastical sled race through snow-capped mountains, a golf tournament, the wrong ride-share, and even the end of the world. With stories written by Rebecca Barrow, Ashley Herring Blake, Gloria Chao, Mason Deaver, Sara Farizan, Claire Kann, Malinda Lo, Hannah Moskowitz, Natasha Ngan, Rebecca Podos, Lilliam Rivera, Laura Silverman, Amy Spalding, Rebecca Kim Wells, and Julian Winters this collection is sure to sweep you off your feet.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Where the Rain Cannot Reach by Adesina Brown (7th)

Read a guest post by the author here.

59159558. sy475 Tair has never known what it means to belong. Abandoned at a young age and raised in the all-Elven valley of Mirte, the young Human defines herself by isolation, confined to her small, seemingly trustworthy family.

Abruptly, that family uproots her from Mirte and leads her on an inevitable but treacherous journey to Doman: the previous site of unspeakable Human atrocities and the current home of Dwarvenkind. Though Doman offers Tair new definitions of family and love, it also reveals to her that her very existence is founded in lies. Now, tasked with an awful responsibility to the Humans of Sossoa, Tair must decide where her loyalties lie and, in the process, discover who she wants to be… And who she has always been.

In their debut fantasy novel Where the Rain Cannot Reach, Adesina Brown constructs a world rich with new languages and nuanced considerations of gender and race, ultimately contemplating how, in freeing ourselves from power, we may find true belonging.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Murder Under Her Skin by Stephen Spotswood (7th)

This is the second book in the Pentecost and Parker mysteries

Murder Under Her Skin by Stephen Spotswood

New York, 1946: The last time Will Parker let a case get personal, she walked away with a broken face, a bruised ego, and the solemn promise never again to let her heart get in the way of her job. But she called Hart and Halloway’s Travelling Circus and Sideshow home for five years, and Ruby Donner, the circus’s tattooed ingenue, was her friend. To make matters worse the prime suspect is Valentin Kalishenko, the man who taught Will everything she knows about putting a knife where it needs to go.
To uncover the real killer and keep Kalishenko from a date with the electric chair, Will and Ms. Pentecost join the circus in sleepy Stoppard, Virginia, where the locals like their cocktails mild, the past buried, and big-city detectives not at all. The two swiftly find themselves lost in a funhouse of lies as Will begins to realize that her former circus compatriots aren’t playing it straight, and that her murdered friend might have been hiding a lot of secrets beneath all that ink.Dodging fistfights, firebombs, and flying lead, Will puts a lot more than her heart on the line in the search of the truth. Can she find it before someone stops her ticker for good?

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On the Rocks by Georgia Beers (14th)

58516306. sy475 No straight women. No parents of students. Nobody under thirty-five. Vanessa Martini makes no apologies for her dating checklist. She’s been up close to enough messy breakups to know what havoc they wreak in life. Just because people see her as fun and happy, and just because she loves her life in general, that doesn’t mean she can’t be careful. Or discerning. Or, okay, fine, super picky.

Grace Chapman is tired of being judged by her boss, by the husband she’s divorcing, by her parents. All she cares about now is her six-year-old son, Oliver. The divorce is making him act out in school, and she just needs to find a way to help him so they can start again. What she does not need is the silent judgment she gets from his teacher. His wildly attractive, super sexy, annoyingly gorgeous teacher.

Grace ticks all Vanessa’s Do Not Date boxes. Vanessa is yet one more person who disapproves of Grace. Of course, they’re never going to fall in love.

Buy it: Amazon | The Ripped Bodice

The Midnight Girls by Alicia Jasinska (28th)

It’s Karnawa season in the snow-cloaked Kingdom of Lechia, and from now until midnight when the church bells ring an end to Devil’s Tuesday time will be marked with wintry balls and glittery disguises, cavalcades of nightly torch-lit “kuligi” sleigh-parties.

Unbeknownst to the oblivious merrymakers, two monsters join the fun. Newfound friends and polar opposites, Zosia and Marynka seem destined to have a friendship that’s stronger even than magic. But that’s put to the test when they realize they both have their sights set on Lechia’s pure-hearted prince. If a monster consumes a pure heart she’ll gain immeasurable power and Marynka plans to bring the prince’s back to her grandmother in order to prove herself. While Zosia is determined to take his heart and its power for her own.

When neither will sacrifice their ambitions for the other, the festivities spiral into a magical contest with both girls vying to keep the hapless prince out of the other’s wicked grasp. But this isn’t some remote forest village, where a stray enchantment or two might go unnoticed, Warszów is the icy capital of a kingdom that enjoys watching monsters burn, and if Zosia and Marynka’s innocent disguises continue to slip, their escalating rivalry might cost them not just the love they might have for each other, but both their lives.

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If You Love Something by Jayce Ellis (28th)

As executive chef at one of the hottest restaurants in DC, DeShawn Franklin has almost everything he’s ever wanted. He’s well-known, his restaurant is Michelin starred and he can write his own ticket anywhere he wants. Until his grandmother calls him home and drops two bombshells:

1) She has cancer and she’s not seeking treatment.

2) She’s willing half her estate to DeShawn’s ex-husband, Malik.

Make that three bombshells. 

3) That whole divorce thing? It didn’t quite go through. DeShawn and Malik are still married.

And when DeShawn’s shady uncle contests Grandma’s will, there’s only one path back to justice: play it like he and Malik have reconciled. They need to act like a married couple just long enough to dispense with the lawsuit.

Once DeShawn is back in Malik’s orbit, it’s not hard to remember why they parted. All the reasons he walked away remain—but so do all the reasons he fell in love in the first place.

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Here’s to Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera (28th)

This is the sequel to What if it’s Us?

55424906. sy475 Ben has spent his first year of college working on his fantasy manuscript with his writing partner Mario, who is a great Spanish tutor, and an even better kisser. So why can’t he stop thinking about the fact that Arthur’s back in town two years after they called it quits?

Arthur is in New York for a dream internship on Broadway, with a boyfriend back at home that he couldn’t be happier with. But when he comes upon Ben cuddled up with a mystery boy, he starts to wonder if his feelings for Ben ever truly went away.

Even as the boys try to focus on their futures, they can’t seem to help running into each other in the present. Is the universe forcing them to question if they’re actually meant to be?

Possibly not. After all, things didn’t work the first time around.
Possibly yes. After all, the sparks are still flying.
Sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith and raise a glass.

Here’s to celebrating old friends!
Here’s to embracing new beginnings!
Here’s to believing in second chances!

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Inside an Anthology: Fools in Love ed. by Ashley Herring Blake and Rebecca Podos

Today’s edition of Inside and Anthology celebrates Fools in Love, ed. by Ashley Herring Blake and Rebecca Podos, and releasing tomorrow from Running Press! Here’s the info:

Join fifteen bestselling, award-winning, and up-and-coming authors as they reimagine some of the most popular tropes in the romance genre. 

Fake relationships. Enemies to lovers. Love triangles and best friends, mistaken identities and missed connections. This collection of genre-bending and original stories celebrates how love always finds a way, featuring powerful flora, a superhero and his nemesis, a fantastical sled race through snow-capped mountains, a golf tournament, the wrong ride-share, and even the end of the world. With stories written by Rebecca Barrow, Ashley Herring Blake, Gloria Chao, Mason Deaver, Sara Farizan, Claire Kann, Malinda Lo, Hannah Moskowitz, Natasha Ngan, Rebecca Podos, Lilliam Rivera, Laura Silverman, Amy Spalding, Rebecca Kim Wells, and Julian Winters this collection is sure to sweep you off your feet.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

And here are the authors of a bunch of the stories, sharing a bit about the story behind the story!

“Edges” by Ashley Herring Blake

“Edges” is an f/f story about a girl who feels everyone has left her behind–including the popular girl she’s currently making out with. Mac can’t believe that Clover–their schoo’s queer queen bee–could possibly actually truly like her. After all, her dad left her family for another one, her mom is hardly ever home, and her twin sister left town altogether for a performing arts boarding school. She’s inherently leavable. So when it becomes clear that Clover wants more than just hooking up, Mac has to decide if she’s willing to soften up her edges a bit for the girl of her dreams.

“Disaster” by Rebecca Podos

I know an homage to 90’s era disaster films might not be the most natural pairing for a romance trope anthology, but setting “Disaster” during a potential apocalypse in 1998 felt perfect for my trope, second-chance romance (and, possibly, a last-chance romance). It also gave me the opportunity to explore a time period before bisexuality was regularly spoken about, even within queer circles. My story about two ex-girlfriends trying to find their way back to one another at the maybe-end of the world takes place the year after America’s first openly bisexual state official came out, a few months before the bisexual pride flag was unveiled, and a year before the first Celebrate Bisexuality Day. Plus, I got to smuggle in Armageddon references (and watch the movie three times in a row, you know, for research).

“Bloom” by Rebecca Barrow

Listen: when it comes to romance, I am all about the yearning. And what kind of yearning is more exquisite than the kind that reaches across worlds, or universes, or time itself? Blame it on me watching too many mind-bending space movies late at night as a kid, or reading The Amber Spyglass and constantly thinking about benches in Oxford, or binge watching 12 Monkeys in distant pre-pandemic times, but when I had to pick a trope to write about, I couldn’t think of anything better. Maybe it’s the idea of exactly how great a love has to be for it to exist outside of the natural boundaries of our world. Maybe it’s just that there is something so deeply romantic about two people pining for something that shouldn’t be possible. Maybe it’s the bittersweet possibility that actually, love can’t conquer all. Except—sometimes it can. And sometimes, in my mind, all it takes is an extra bit of magic for that love to bloom.

“Silver and Gold” by Natasha Ngan

I’ve always loved wintry settings in books, there’s something just so cosy and romantic about them! Of course, being me, the setting in my story is a touch more dangerous than romantic. Rather than a pretty frosting of snow, it’s a life-threatening blizzard – and the two girls sheltering from it are in the midst of a deadly race. But the riskiest of situations can often be the most bonding, and that’s what we see in “Silver and Gold”, as rivals Mila and Ru are forced to confront their romantic past – and whether there’s space in their futures for each other. I had so much fun writing their story, and I hope you have as much fun reading it!

“My Best Friend’s Girl” by Sara Farizan

My story is about Alia who has always been there for her best friend, Hal, especially since she is the only one who knows he is a burgeoning superhero in Gateway City. She finds it increasingly more difficult to keep all of his superpowered secrets, especially from Hal’s new girlfriend Clara. There’s one secret Alia hasn’t told Hal yet either…

“Unfortunately, Blobs Do Not Eat Snacks” by Rebecca Kim Wells

“I knew a lot of authors would be fighting over the more popular romance tropes for this anthology, so I went with one of my favorite under-the-radar tropes, one so under the radar I didn’t even know what it was called! I think when I emailed Becca and Ashley about my trope preferences I called it “gets drunk/drugged/injured/delirious and confesses love, later does not remember/pretends they do not remember.” Which is a mouthful! ‘Kissing Under the Influence” is a lot snappier. I love the awkward interactions after characters accidentally give away things they didn’t intend to reveal, and my young adult fantasy novels are on the serious side, so I really wanted to play around and be goofy with my short story. The result is “Unfortunately, Blobs Do Not Eat Snacks,” which is weird and quirky and not much like my previous work at all. (Also, I love my title so much and still have a hard time believing they actually let me keep it.)”

“What Makes Us Heroes” by Julian Winters

Everyone knows I love writing about superheroes! But when I picked my trope—Hero vs. Villain—for Fools in Love, I honestly didn’t know what kind of romantic story I wanted to tell. Should I go explosive and action-packed like a Marvel movie? Dark and introspective like a DC comic? How could I turn a fresh twist on this epic trope?

And then 2020 happened. Specifically—June 2020.

The news was flooded with videos of violence. Protests. Of people trying to define who the heroes were and purposefully villainizing the ones fighting for a change. All I thought about were the teens ready to take action for their friends, family, themselves and how people were ready to villainize them for having a voice—including the ones who are supposed to love and protect them.

Suddenly, “What Makes Us Heroes” poured out of me. Shai and Kyan’s story came to life. I wanted a story about two superpowered boys navigating a world telling them what a hero should be and letting them define who a hero can be. How we can fall in love with the one person everyone thinks is “wrong” for us but is really the best thing we had all along.

The fact that I got to set it in a coffeeshop with a side of fake dating was a bonus!

As it happens, there are a few stories in the anthology that aren’t queer. (It happens.) A couple of those authors wrote blurbs too:

“Teed Up” by Gloria Chao”

“Teed Up” is loosely inspired by LPGA superstar Michelle Wie West, the first and thus far only female golfer to qualify for a USGA national men’s tournament (among many many other accolades). I myself am a terrible golfer, but I unfortunately have my share of experience dealing with large male egos in other domains. I wanted to explore the idea of being the only woman competing in a field of men in my short story for FOOLS IN LOVE, titled “Teed Up.” Sunny Chang, a star female golfer, is wary of any attention—both positive and negative—coming from a male competitor, which creates the perfect opportunity for an oblivious-to-lovers story. Even though most of the details are fictionalized, I had a lot of fun temporarily putting myself in Michelle’s superstar shoes!

“The Passover Date” by Laura Silverman

“The Passover Date rolls up everything I love into one story – Jewish cooking, fake dating, and nosey family members. I had so much fun writing this Jewish romance. My characters Rachel and Matthew are sweet and funny and adorably bumbling.

I hope readers will enjoy watching them fake date their way into something real.”

April Book Deal Announcements

Adult

Lecturer in creative writing at San Francisco State University and creator and teacher at The Lab: Writing Classes Matthew Clark Davison‘s DOUBTING THOMAS, chronicling a year in the life of a gay fourth grade teacher at a school serving Portland, Oregon’s progressive Obama-era elite; he is fired, even after being cleared of a false molestation accusation, just before a family tragedy makes him the guardian of his 12-year-old biracial nephew; digging into the disparity between ideals and reality, to Michael Nava at Amble, in a nice deal, in an exclusive submission, for publication in spring 2021 (world English).

Cornell University MFA graduate, poet, professor, and performer Ryka Aoki‘s LIGHT FROM UNCOMMON STARS, about three women trying to escape their pasts—a hell-damned violin legend and teacher, a young transgender runaway and aspiring musician, and a spaceship captain fleeing a faraway war—who find each other, and unexpected magic, in California’s San Gabriel Valley, to Lindsey Hall at Tor, in a pre-empt, in a two-book deal, by Meredith Kaffel Simonoff at DeFiore and Company (world English).

Gretchen Felker-Martin‘s MANHUNT, about trans women scavenging for estrogen in a post-apocalyptic world where a viral plague has transformed all cis men into feral monstrosities, fighting tooth and nail against a menace they’ll join if they miss a dose, and on the run from an authoritarian faction of cis women who see them as a dangerous liability, pitched as a trans woman’s response to Y: THE LAST MAN, plus another standalone horror novel, to Kelly Lonesome at Nightfire, in a very nice deal, in an exclusive submission, in a two-book deal, for publication in March 2022, by Connor Goldsmith at Fuse Literary (world).

Freya Marske‘s A MARVELLOUS LIGHT, a historical fantasy pitched as JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR. NORRELL meets WITCHMARK, about a young civil servant named as liaison to the secret magical bureaucracy of Britain who must work with his magician counterpart to unravel a dangerous conspiracy, while struggling with their unexpected attraction and a deadly curse, to Ruoxi Chen at Tor.com, in a three-book deal, for publication in 2021, by Diana Fox at Fox Literary (NA).

Brooklyn-based writer and VONA/Voices and Queer Art Mentorship alumna Emily Hashimoto’s A WORLD BETWEEN, in which a college fling between two women turns into a lifelong connection, to Lauren Hook at Feminist Press, for publication in September 2020, by Robert Guinsler at Sterling Lord Literistic (NA).

Lambda-nominated writer and critic Megan Milks’s MARGARET AND THE MYSTERY OF THE MISSING BODY, a genre-bending queer and trans coming-of-age story that combines a ’90s-era girl group mystery series with a haunted eating disorder treatment center and a surreal mutant body-world, and SLUG AND OTHER STORIES a reissue of their debut collection with new stories, to Lauren Hook at Feminist Press, in a two-book deal, by Rach Crawford at MacKenzie Wolf (world English).

Charlotte Anne Hamilton‘s OF TRUST & HEART, an #OwnVoices f/f 1920s historical in which a lesbian Scottish heiress, who must find a husband soon, falls for a singer at a speakeasy, to Lydia Sharp at Entangled Embrace, for publication in 2021 (world).

Children’s/Middle Grade

Rosiee Thor and Taylor Barton‘s Picture Book THE MEANING OF PRIDE, about the significance, beauty, and universality of the concept of pride, as celebrated by millions of queer people and their allies around the world, illustrated by Sam Kirk, to Erika Turner at Versify, for publication in spring 2022, by Saba Sulaiman at Talcott Notch Literary Services for the author, and by Nicolas Gomez and Michelle Collins at A Non-Agency for the illustrator (world).

Author of SEAFIRE Natalie Parker‘s Middle Grade THE DEVOURING WOLF, in which a young werewolf-to-be struggles to understand why she hasn’t yet transformed as expected, and to get to the bottom of the mystery and become the wolf she was always meant to be, she will have to unearth her community’s deepest secrets and face off against a terrifying creature from legend, to Chris Hernandez at Razorbill, in a very nice deal, in a two-book deal, for publication in fall 2021, by Lara Perkins at Andrea Brown Literary Agency (world English).

Founder and executive director of inQluded and 2019 SCBWI Emerging Voices winner medina’s THE ONE WHO LOVES YOU THE MOST, which follows a 12-year-old who lives at the intersection of multiple identities as they long to find their place in the world, but a school project, new trans and queer friends, and a YouTube channel helps them find purpose in their journey and find community, to Nick Thomas at Levine Querido, in a pre-empt, for publication in fall of 2021, by Marietta Zacker at Gallt and Zacker Literary Agency (NA and Dutch).

Young Adult

Aden Polydoros‘s YA THE CITY BEAUTIFUL, set against the backdrop of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, a queer Jewish Gothic fantasy that follows a young immigrant who is possessed by the dybbuk of his murdered best friend and is thrust into a deadly hunt for a serial killer, to Rebecca Kuss at Inkyard Press, in a nice deal, in a two-book deal, for publication in fall 2021, by Thao Le at Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency (world English).

Robin Gow‘s YA A MILLION QUIET REVOLUTIONS, a love story in verse between two transgender boys who come out to each other the weekend before their senior year; together, they explore their identities and search history for the often untold stories of queer people like them, to Trisha de Guzman at Farrar, Straus Children’s, in a good deal, at auction, in a two-book deal, for publication in winter 2022, by Jordan Hamessley at New Leaf Literary & Media (NA).

Adrienne Tooley‘s SOFI AND THE BONE SONG, after losing everything to an undeserving rival, a young musician sets out to expose that her rival’s newfound musical abilities stem from an illegal use of magic—but what she discovers will rock everything she knows about her family, music, and the girl she thought was her enemy, to Sarah McCabe at Simon Pulse, for publication in spring 2022, by Jim McCarthy at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret (world).

Emery Lee’s MEET CUTE DIARY, about a trans teen who must decide if he’s dedicated to romantic formulas or open to unpredictable love after an internet troll-attack on his trans romance blog compels him and a fan to start fake-dating to salvage the blog’s reputation, to Alexandra Cooper at Quill Tree, for publication in summer 2021, by Beth Phelan at Gallt and Zacker Literary Agency (world English).

Kevin van Whye‘s NATE PLUS ONE, a teenage boy dreads the idea of attending his wealthy aunt’s wedding retreat in South Africa, until his crush, an indie rock musician, volunteers to be his plus-one; an #OwnVoices gay love story pitched as What if It’s Us meets Crazy Rich Asians, to Polo Orozco at Random House Children’s, for publication in spring 2022, by Robert Guinsler at Sterling Lord Literistic (world English).

Cara Davis-Araux, Candice Montgomery, and Adrianne Russell‘s ALL SIGNS POINT TO YES, an anthology of love stories for each of the star signs that will showcase BIPOC characters and celebrate the myriad facets of love, from meet-cutes to the lesser-explored love expressed by aromantic people, to Natashya Wilson at Inkyard Press, for publication in winter 2022, by Jim McCarthy at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret (world).

Hannah Blumenreich‘s FULL-COURT CRUSH, about a basketball player whose team is being shut down, and her bookish girlfriend who is struggling alone with her chronically depressed mother; together, they learn how to navigate the troubles of life and 11th grade, to Kiara Valdez at First Second, in a significant deal, at auction, in a two-book deal, for publication in 2023, by Linda Camacho at Gallt and Zacker Literary Agency (NA).

Aaron Aceves‘s THIS IS WHY THEY HATE US, a debut about a bisexual Latino teen from East L.A. who is determined to get over his crush on his best friend by summer’s end and winds up discovering hilarious, heartfelt truths about friendship, family, and himself, to Jennifer Ung at Simon Pulse, for publication in spring 2022, by Tina Dubois at ICM (NA).

Lambda Literary Award-winning author Rebecca Podos and Stonewall honoree Ashley Herring Blake‘s FOOLS IN LOVE, a YA romance anthology offering up fresh takes on classic romance tropes in multiple genres, featuring Rebecca Barrow, Gloria Chao, Sara Farizan, Claire Kann, Hannah Moskowitz, Lilliam Rivera, Laura Silverman, Amy Spalding, Rebecca Kim Wells, Natasha Ngan, Julian Winters, and more, to Britny Brooks at Running Press Kids, for publication in December 2021, by Eric Smith at P.S. Literary Agency (world).

Author of HAVE A LITTLE FAITH IN ME Sonia Hartl’s THE LOST GIRLS, about a girl who sets out for revenge against the undead ex-boyfriend who turned her into a vampire decades ago, then starts to fall for his mortal girlfriend, to Ashley Hearn at Page Street, for publication in fall 2021, by Rebecca Podos at Rees Literary Agency (world).

Jonny Garza Villa’s FIFTEEN HUNDRED MILES FROM THE SUN, an #OwnVoices debut pitched as SIMON VS. THE HOMO SAPIENS AGENDA meets One Day at a Time, about a Texas high school senior who accidentally comes out to the world on social media and must now juggle the joy of first love and fear of his socially conservative father finding out before he’s ready, to Carmen Johnson at Skyscape, at auction, by Claire Draper at The Bent Agency (world).

Nonfiction

Author of PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award and Lambda Literary Award-nominated essay collection MINE Sarah Viren‘s AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHADOWS, a dual narrative memoir about her coming-of-age and coming out in mid-’90s Florida under the tutelage of a conspiracy theorist high school teacher and her wife’s Title IX investigation as the result of false accusations leveled by a professional rival, as covered in the author’s viral New York Times Magazine essay, to Sally Howe at Scribner, in a pre-empt, by Matt McGowan at Frances Goldin Literary Agency (world English).