Tag Archives: Foz Meadows

New Releases: July 2022

This Way Out by Tufayel Ahmed (1st)

Amar can’t wait to tell everyone his wonderful news: he’s found The One, and he’s getting married. But it turns out announcing his engagement on a group chat might not have been the best way to let his strict Muslim Bangladeshi family know that his happy-ever-after partner is a man―and a white man at that.

Amar expected a reaction from his four siblings, but his bombshell sends shockwaves throughout the community and begins to fracture their family unit, already fragile from the death of their mother. Suddenly Amar is questioning everything he once believed in: his faith, his culture, his family, his mother’s love―and even his relationship with Joshua. Amar was sure he knew what love meant, but was he just plain wrong?

He’s never thought of his relationship with Joshua as a love story―they just fit together, like two halves of a whole. But if they can reconcile their differences with Amar’s culture, could there be hope for his relationship with his family too? And could this whole disaster turn into a love story after all?

Buy it: Amazon | IndieBound

Florida Woman by Deb Rogers (5th)

Jamie is a Florida Woman. She grew up on the beach, thrives in humidity, has weathered more hurricanes than she can count, and now, after going viral for an outrageous crime she never meant to commit in the first place, she has the requisite headline to her name. But when the chance comes for her to escape viral infamy and imminent jail time by taking a community service placement at Atlas, a shelter for rescued monkeys, it seems like just the fresh start Jamie needs to finally get her life back on track — until it’s not.

Something sinister stirs in the palmetto woods surrounding her cabin, and secrets lurk among the three beguiling women who run the shelter and affectionately take Jamie under their wing for the summer. She hears the distant screams of monkeys each night; the staff perform cryptic, lakeside sacrifices to honor Atlas; and the land, which has long been abandoned by citrus farmers and theme park developers alike, now proves to be dangerously, relentlessly untamed.

As Jamie ventures deeper into the offbeat world and rituals of Atlas, her summer is soon set to inspire an even stranger Florida headline than she ever could’ve imagined.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Jazzed by Jill Dearman (5th)

Academic geniuses Wilhelmina “Will” Reinhardt and Dorothy “Dolly” Raab become roommates at Barnard in the early 1920s, a time when college for women was a rarity.

Socially awkward Will, grieving her mother’s death, is fascinated by Dolly, a beautiful, charming rebel with an insatiable taste for adrenaline. Both musicians come alive at Harlem jazz clubs and Prohibition-era speakeasies.

Dazzled by the world they are discovering together, their romance ignites. But while Will is obsessed with Dolly, Dolly is obsessed with crime. The power dynamics keep shifting as Will agrees to commit petty crimes with Dolly in exchange for sexual favors.

When the University and their rich families unite to split them up, passions escalate. To strike back at those who deny them the right to be together, they are they plot another crime: murder.

A gender-swapped take on the infamous “Leopold and Loeb” case, Jazzed is part historical fiction, part true crime. Juxtaposing the thrilling scientific breakthroughs in quantum physics and artistic explosion of the Harlem Renaissance with the pseudoscience of eugenics and anti-immigration fervor that also defined the era, the novel mirrors today’s polarized world and moves with the fast-paced rhythm of jazz itself.

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The Society for Soulless Girls by Laura Steven (7th)

The Society for Soulless GirlsTen years ago, four students lost their lives in the infamous North Tower murders at the elite Carvell College of Arts, forcing Carvell to close its doors.

Now Carvell is reopening, and fearless student Lottie is determined to find out what really happened. But when her roommate, Alice, stumbles upon a sinister soul-splitting ritual hidden in Carvell’s haunted library, the North Tower claims another victim.

Can Lottie uncover the truth before the North Tower strikes again? Can Alice reverse the ritual before her monstrous alter ego consumes her? And can they stop flirting for literally fifteen seconds in order to do this?

Buy it: Waterstones | Book Depository

If You’re a Kid Like Gavin by Gavin Grimm (text), Kyle Lukoff (text), and J. Yang (illustration) (12th)

When you’re a kid like Gavin Grimm, you know yourself best. And Gavin knew that he was a boy—even if others saw him as a girl. But when his school took away his right to something as simple as using the boy’s restroom, Gavin knew he had a big decision to make.

Because there are always more choices than the ones others give you.

Gavin chose to correct others when they got his pronouns wrong. He asked to be respected. He stood up for himself. Gavin proved that his school had violated his constitutional rights and had the Supreme Court uphold his case—bringing about a historic win for trans rights. There are many kids out there, some just like Gavin Grimm, and they might even be you.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield (12th)

58724816Leah is changed. A marine biologist, she left for a routine expedition months earlier, only this time her submarine sank to the sea floor. When she finally surfaces and returns home, her wife Miri knows that something is wrong. Barely eating and lost in her thoughts, Leah rotates between rooms in their apartment, running the taps morning and night. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded, Leah has carried part of it with her, onto dry land and into their home. As Miri searches for answers, desperate to understand what happened below the water, she must face the possibility that the woman she loves is slipping from her grasp.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers (12th)

This is the second book in the Monk and Robot series.

40864030. sy475 After touring the rural areas of Panga, Sibling Dex (a Tea Monk of some renown) and Mosscap (a robot sent on a quest to determine what humanity really needs) turn their attention to the villages and cities of the little moon they call home.
They hope to find the answers they seek, while making new friends, learning new concepts, and experiencing the entropic nature of the universe. Becky Chambers’s new series continues to ask: in a world where people have what they want, does having more even matter?

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

The Last Lavender Sister by Melissa Brayden (12th)

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.

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August Kitko and the Mechas from Space by Alex White (12th)

58340716Jazz pianist Gus Kitko expected to spend his final moments on Earth playing piano at the greatest goodbye party of all time, and maybe kissing rockstar Ardent Violet, before the last of humanity is wiped out forever by the Vanguards–ultra-powerful robots from the dark heart of space, hell-bent on destroying humanity for reasons none can divine.

But when the Vanguards arrive, the unthinkable happens–the mecha that should be killing Gus instead saves him. Suddenly, Gus’s swan song becomes humanity’s encore, as he is chosen to join a small group of traitorous Vanguards and their pilots dedicated to saving humanity.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

The Romance Recipe by Ruby Barrett (12th)

58314356Amy Chambers: restaurant owner, micromanager, control freak. 

Amy will do anything to revive her ailing restaurant, including hiring a former reality-show finalist with good connections and a lot to prove. But her hopes that Sophie’s skills and celebrity status would bring her restaurant back from the brink of failure are beginning to wane…

Sophie Brunet: grump in the kitchen/sunshine in the streets, took thirty years to figure out she was queer. 

Sophie just wants to cook. She doesn’t want to constantly post on social media for her dead-in-the-water reality TV career, she doesn’t want to deal with Amy’s take-charge personality and she doesn’t want to think about what her attraction to her boss might mean…

Then, an opportunity: a new foodie TV show might provide the exposure they need. An uneasy truce is fine for starters, but making their dreams come true means making some personal and painful sacrifices and soon, there’s more than just the restaurant at stake.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

They Drown Our Daughters by Katrina Monroe (12th)

59204547If you can hear the call of the water,

It’s already far too late.

They say Cape Disappointment is haunted. That’s why tourists used to flock there in droves. They’d visit the rocky shoreline under the old lighthouse’s watchful eye and fish shells from the water as they pretended to spot dark shapes in the surf. Now the tourists are long gone, and when Meredith Strand and her young daughter return to Meredith’s childhood home after an acrimonious split from her wife, the Cape seems more haunted by regret than any malevolent force.

But her mother, suffering from early stages of Alzheimer’s, is convinced the ghost stories are real. Not only is there something in the water, but it’s watching them. Waiting for them. Reaching out to Meredith’s daughter the way it has to every woman in their line for generations―and if Meredith isn’t careful, all three women, bound by blood and heartbreak, will be lost one by one to the ocean’s mournful call.

Part queer modern gothic, part ghost story, They Drown Our Daughters explores the depths of motherhood, identity, and the lengths a woman will go to hold on to both.

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Sirens & Muses by Antonia Angress (12th)

It’s 2011: America is in a deep recession and Occupy Wall Street is escalating. But at the elite Wrynn College of Art, students paint and sculpt in a rarified bubble. Louisa Arceneaux is a thoughtful, observant nineteen-year-old when she transfers to Wrynn as a scholarship student, but she soon finds herself adrift in an environment that prizes novelty over beauty. Complicating matters is Louisa’s unexpected attraction to her charismatic roommate, Karina Piontek, the preternaturally gifted but mercurial daughter of wealthy art collectors. Gradually, Louisa and Karina are drawn into an intense sensual and artistic relationship, one that forces them to confront their deepest desires and fears. But Karina also can’t shake her fascination with Preston Utley, a senior and anti-capitalist Internet provocateur, who is publicly feuding with visiting professor and political painter Robert Berger—a once-controversial figurehead seeking to regain relevance.

When Preston concocts an explosive hoax, the fates of all four artists are upended as each is unexpectedly thrust into the cutthroat New York art world. Now, all must struggle to find new identities in art, in society, and amongst each other. In the process, they must either find their most authentic terms of life—of success, failure, and joy—or risk losing themselves altogether.

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Big Girl by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan (12th)

Growing up in a rapidly changing Harlem, eight-year-old Malaya hates when her mother drags her to Weight Watchers meetings; she’d rather paint alone in her bedroom or enjoy forbidden street foods with her father. For Malaya, the pressures of her predominantly white Upper East Side prep school are relentless, as are the expectations passed down from her painfully proper mother and sharp-tongued grandmother. As she comes of age in the 1990s, she finds solace in the music of Biggie Smalls and Aaliyah, but her weight continues to climb—until a family tragedy forces her to face the source of her hunger, ultimately shattering her inherited stigmas surrounding women’s bodies, and embracing her own desire. Written with vibrant lyricism shot through with tenderness, Big Girl announces Sullivan as an urgent and vital voice in contemporary fiction.

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Other Names for Love by Taymour Soomro (12th)

At age sixteen, Fahad hopes to spend the summer with his mother in London. His father, Rafik, has other plans: hauling his son to Abad, the family’s feudal estate in upcountry, Pakistan. Rafik wants to toughen up his sensitive boy, to teach him about power, duty, family―to make him a man. He enlists Ali, a local teenager, in this project, hoping his presence will prove instructive.

Instead, over the course of one hot, indolent season, attraction blooms between the two boys, and Fahad finds himself seduced by the wildness of the land and its inhabitants: the people, who revere and revile his father in turn; cousin Mousey, who lives alone with a man he calls his manager; and most of all, Ali, who threatens to unearth all that is hidden.

Decades later, Fahad is living abroad when he receives a call from his mother summoning him home. His return will force him to face the past. Taymour Soomro’s Other Names for Love is a tale of masculinity, inheritance, and desire set against the backdrop of a country’s troubled history, told with uncommon urgency and beauty.

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Gods of Want by K-Ming Chang (12th)

57485174Startling stories that center the bodies, memories, myths, and relationships of Asian American women, from the National Book Award “5 Under 35” honoree and author of Bestiary

In “Auntland,” a steady stream of aunts adjust to American life by sneaking surreptitious kisses from women at temple, buying tubs of vanilla ice cream to prepare for citizenship tests, and hatching plans to name their daughter “Dog.” In “The Chorus of Dead Cousins,” ghost-cousins cross space, seas, and skies to haunt their live-cousin, wife to a storm-chaser. In “Xífù,” a mother-in-law tortures a wife in increasingly unsuccessful attempts to rid the house of her. In “Mariela,” two girls explore one another’s bodies for the first time in the belly of a plastic shark while in “Virginia Slims,” a woman from a cigarette ad comes to life. And in “Resident Aliens,” a former slaughterhouse serves as a residence to a series of widows, each harboring her own calamitous secrets.

With each tale, K-Ming Chang gives us her own take on a surrealism that mixes myth and migration, corporeality and ghostliness, queerness and the quotidian. Stunningly told in her feminist fabulist style, these are uncanny stories peeling back greater questions of power and memory.

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The You I See by Danny Freeman (12th)

60631183What happens when two gay boys meet at a fundamentalist church
and talk about tits?

Brandon’s family are long-time members. In fact, his dad is the
preacher. Alex’s skeptical parents reluctantly attend after repeated
invitations from a colleague of Alex’s father. Alex and Brandon feel an immediate and undeniable attraction to one another, though both of them are confused about their own and each other’s feelings.

They soon develop an affectionate, endearing friendship, mostly by
balancing out each other’s opposite personalities and quoting their
favorite lines from The Princess Bride until they nearly wet
themselves. Brandon is loud, impulsive, irreverent, and foul-mouthed.

Alex is quiet, thoughtful, shy, and considerably more precocious than
Brandon.

With the support of Alex’s unconventional and affirming parents,
Alex and Brandon navigate the challenges of being gay teenagers in
Houston in the early 1990s. They face obstacles, setbacks,
misunderstandings, and outright homophobia but remain resolutely
committed to their unique friendship and budding romance.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Every Rose by Lily Seabrooke (18th)

Every Rose (Taste of Port Andrea) by [Lily Seabrooke]The pivotal moment in Misha’s career is here and once again, it’s Zoe Archer who’s in her way.

After taking over luxury restaurant Rose Bloom while the owner is abroad, Misha’s skill running a restaurant is tested when Port Andrea’s most infamous cutthroat restaurateur Persephone Jacobs opens a competing restaurant directly across from her and declares war on Rose Bloom.

And worse? The competition is headed by her long-time rival, Zoe Archer.

Zoe is willing to do whatever it takes to get Misha out of Port Andrea—even working with the feared and dreaded Dragon Queen, Persephone Jacobs. But when Jacobs’s methods get too underhanded, Zoe’s forced to face the unthinkable:

Maybe she needs to work with the person she hates the most.

Buy it: Amazon

The Language of Seabirds by Will Taylor (19th)

Jeremy is not excited about the prospect of spending the summer with his dad and his uncle in a seaside cabin in Oregon. It’s the first summer after his parents’ divorce, and he hasn’t exactly been seeking alone time with his dad. He doesn’t have a choice, though, so he goes… and on his first day takes a walk on the beach and finds himself intrigued by a boy his age running by. Eventually, he and Runner Boy (Evan) meet — and what starts out as friendship blooms into something neither boy is expecting… and also something both boys have been secretly hoping for.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Youngblood by Sasha Laurens (19th)

58183492Kat Finn and her mother can barely make ends meet living among humans. Like all vampires, they must drink Hema, an expensive synthetic blood substitute, to survive, as nearly all of humanity has been infected by a virus that’s fatal to vampires. Kat isn’t looking forward to an immortal life of barely scraping by, but when she learns she’s been accepted to the Harcote School, a prestigious prep school that’s secretly vampires-only, she knows her fortune is about to change.

Taylor Sanger has grown up in the wealthy vampire world, but she’s tired of its backward, conservative values—especially when it comes to sexuality, since she’s an out-and-proud lesbian. She only has to suffer through a two more years of Harcote before she’s free. But when she discovers her new roommate is Kat Finn, she’s horrified. Because she and Kat used to be best friends, a long time ago, and it didn’t end well.

When Taylor stumbles upon the dead body of a vampire, and Kat makes a shocking discovery in the school’s archives, the two realize that there are deep secrets at Harcote—secrets that link them to the most powerful figures in Vampirdom and to the synthetic blood they all rely on.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Baby Teeth by Meg Grehan (19th)

58065655. sy475 The blood
Feeds the hunger
That threatens everything

It starts when Claudia offers her a yellow rose.
Immy has been in love before – many times, across many lifetimes. But never as deeply, as intensely as this. Claudia smells like paint and peppermint tea. She wears her hair in a plait, and has a green thumb, and Immy is utterly besotted. Claudia has never been in love like this either. But then, this is her first time with a vampire. But a love like this can’t last. The forbidden thirst for blood runs deep in Immy. And within her mind clamour the voices, of all the others she has been, their desires, and their wrongs.

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What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher (19th)

What Moves the Dead by [T. Kingfisher]When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruritania.

What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.

Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.

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The Comedienne’s Guide to Pride by Hayli Thomson (19th)

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

Dark Earth by Rebecca Stott (19th)

59426770In Dark Ages Britain, sisters Isla and Blue live in the shadows of the Ghost City, the abandoned ruins of the once-glorious, mile-wide Roman settlement Londinium on the north bank of the Thames. The native Britons and the new migrants from the East who scratch out a living in small wooden camps in its hinterland fear that the crumbling stone ruins are haunted by vengeful spirits.

But the small island they call home is also a place of exile for Isla, Blue, and their father, a legendary blacksmith accused of using dark magic to make his firetongue swords. The local warlord, Osric, has put the Great Smith under close guard and ruled that he make his magnificent swords only for him so that he can use them to build alliances and extend his kingdom.

For years, the sisters have been running wild, Blue communing with animals and plants and Isla secretly learning her father’s trade, which is forbidden to women. But when their father suddenly dies, they find themselves facing enslavement by Osric and his cruel, power-hungry son Vort. Their only option is to escape to the Ghost City, where they discover an underworld of rebel women living secretly amid the ruins. As Blue and Isla settle into their new life, they find both refuge and community with the women around them. But it is all too fragile. With the ruins collapsing all around them, Blue and Isla realize they can’t elude the men who hunt them forever. If they are to survive, they will need to use all their skill and ingenuity—as well as the magic of their foremothers—to fight back.

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Young Men in Love ed. by Joe Glass and Matt Miner (19th)

60227280Haphazard pirates, wayward ghosts, dashing knights, rampaging kaiju (and down-to-earth regular joes!) are all assembled here to amaze and delight you in a wildly unique anthology celebrating love between men, from an astounding array of comics creators who know exactly how it feels.

Featuring stories and art from SINA GRACE, NED BARNETT, ANTHONY OLIVEIRA, CHARLES PULLIAM-MOORE, NICK ROBLES, IAN MCGINTY, and many more, YOUNG MEN IN LOVE is a heartwarming, uplifting, and vibrant return to the glory days of romance comics!

Buy it: Amazon | IndieBound

Blackwater by Jeannette Arroyo and Ren Graham (19th)

40651788. sx318 Riverdale meets Stranger Things in this debut queer YA graphic novel, developed from a hit webcomic. Set in the haunted town of Blackwater, Maine, two boys fall for each other as they dig for clues to a paranormal mystery.

Tony Price is a popular high school track star and occasional delinquent aching for his dad’s attention and approval. Eli Hirsch is a quiet boy with a chronic autoimmune disorder that has ravaged his health and social life. What happens when these two become unlikely friends (and a whole lot more . . .) in the spooky town of Blackwater, Maine? Werewolf curses, unsavory interactions with the quarterback of the football team, a ghostly fisherman haunting the harbor, and tons of high school drama.

Co-illustrated by both creators, who alternate drawing chapters in their own styles, Blackwater combines the spookiness of Anya’s Ghost with the irreverent humor of Nimona.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

The Work Wife by Alison B. Hart (19th)

Zanne Klein never planned to be a personal assistant to Hollywood royalty Ted and Holly Stabler. But a decade in at thirty-eight, that’s exactly how she spends her days, earning six figures to make sure the movie mogul and his family have everything they could ever dream of and more.

However, today is no ordinary day at the Stabler estate. Tonight, everyone who’s anyone will be there for the Hollywood event of the season, and if the party’s a success, that chief of staff job Zanne’s been chasing may soon be hers. Which means she can buy a house, give her girlfriend the life she deserves, pay off her student loans.

Nothing’s going to get in Zanne’s way—not disgruntled staff, not a nosy reporter, not even a runaway hostess. But when Ted’s former business partner, Phoebe Lee, unexpectedly shows up right before go time, Zanne suddenly has a catastrophe unfolding before her—one with explosive consequences. As the truth comes out and Zanne realizes how deeply entangled she’s become in the Stablers’ world, she must decide if the sacrifices she’s made for the job are worth the moral price she has to pay.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Can’t Resist Her by Kianna Alexander (19th)

After years away from home, Summer Graves is back in Austin, Texas, to accept a new teaching position. Of all the changes to the old neighborhood, the most dispiriting one is the slated demolition of the high school her grandmother founded. There’s no way she can let developers destroy her memories and her family legacy. But the challenge stirs memories of another kind.

On the architectural team revitalizing the neighborhood, hometown girl Aiko Holt is all about progress. Then she sees Summer again. Some things never change.

Neither can forget the kiss they shared at their senior-year dance. Neither can back down from her unwavering beliefs about what’s right for the neighborhood.

For now, the only thing Summer and Aiko are willing to give in to is a heat that still burns. But can two women with so much passion―for what once was and what could be―agree to disagree long enough to fall in love?

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Heat Wave by TJ Klune (19th)

This is the third and final book in the Extraordinaries series

58724800Nick, Seth, Gibby, and Jazz are back in action bringing justice, protection, and disaster energy to the people of Nova City.

An unexpected hero returns to Nova City and crash lands into Nick’s home, upturning his life, his family, and his understanding of what it means to be a hero.

Buy it:  Amazon | IndieBound

Vicious Creatures by Ashton Noone (19th)

59602449Ava Montgomery never wanted to return home. She fled Wildwood fourteen years ago after the discovery of Adam Albright’s body in the forest shattered her young life. But when a violent divorce sends her running back to her parents’ house with her troubled daughter Marjorie in tow, Ava discovers that not much has changed in the small Oregon town where she grew up.

It doesn’t take long for Ava to fall back in with her old crowd, most of whom stayed in town after high school. Each one of her childhood friends found fame and fortune after they graduated, including Victoria Gallagher—Ava’s high school best friend and ex-lover, now unhappily married to a wealthy husband from one of the founding families of Wildwood.

Meanwhile, Ava’s daughter becomes intrigued by the forest, fascinated by an urban legend about its secret power—and her curious questions bring Ava’s long-repressed memories of the traumatic events surrounding Adam’s death back to the fore. And then, when the body of a missing child is found in those same woods, that dark past begins to repeat itself.

After a knife is left on Ava’s doorstep and a threatening message appears on her front door, she wonders if her friends have something to do with the newest crime. They never told anyone how much they really know about what happened to Adam on the night he died; does one of them want to drive her out of Wildwood to keep that secret? As Marjorie becomes obsessed with the infamous murder, and old friendships and feuds reignite, Ava is drawn back into the forest to confront her own role in its violent history—before her daughter becomes its next prey.

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Infamous by Lex Croucher (21st)

60443879. sy475 22-year-old aspiring writer Edith ‘Eddie’ Miller and her best friend Rose have always done everything together-climbing trees, throwing grapes at boys, sneaking bottles of wine, practicing kissing . . .

But following their debutante ball Rose is suddenly talking about marriage, and Eddie is horrified.

When Eddie meets charming, renowned poet Nash Nicholson, he invites her to his crumbling Gothic estate in the countryside. The entourage of eccentric artists indulging in pure hedonism is exactly what Eddie needs in order to forget Rose and finish her novel.

But Eddie might discover the world of famous literary icons isn’t all poems and pleasure . . .

Buy it: Waterstones | Book Depository

Seeing Strangers by Sebastian J. Plata (26th)

Life is going well for Greg Kelly. He’s married to the handsome and kind Cristian, a Spanish-born artist who is also a talented cook. Greg’s work as a translator for an IT startup allows them to live comfortably in a stylish Bushwick two bedroom and enjoy just about all NYC has to offer―including sleeping with other men, since Greg and Cristian’s marriage has been open for the past few years. This arrangement has been particularly appealing to Greg and his exceptional sexual appetite. Now approaching their mid-thirties, fatherhood calls and they enlist a friend to act as surrogate.

In order to focus on building a family, Greg and Cristian decide to close up the marriage when the baby arrives. Greg is going to miss his hookups, but at least he has the summer for one last hurrah. He methodically plans his hookups via Grindr and Tinder, carefully coordinates train routes for quick lunchtime hookups, and scouts potential candidates anywhere, anytime, like an old time Hollywood casting director.

As their baby’s due date draws closer, anxiety sets in over Greg’s impending parental responsibilities, the loss of his sexual freedom, and even his marriage to Cristian. But before he can sort out his feelings, a spurned hook-up reappears―Russell, an arrogant tv producer, who had wanted a relationship with Greg. And the problem is, Russell just won’t go away, infiltrating himself into Greg’s life in the worst ways possible, threatening his marriage and sanity. Greg is left asking, what does it mean to find happiness but still crave more?

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The Witchery by S. Isabelle (26th)

Cover for The WitcheryHaelsford, Florida, is a hellmouth. Or at least, that’s what Logan, a new witch struggling to control her powers, thinks when she arrives at Mesmortes Coven Academy. She is immediately taken under the wing of the infamous Red Three: Iris, a deathwitch, who wants nothing more than to break the town’s curse; Thalia, the talented greenwitch, on the run from her religious family and a past that still haunts her; and Jailah, one of the most extraordinary witches at the academy whose thirst for power may lead her down a dark path.

With the Haunting Season approaching, Wolves will soon rise from the swamp to kill, and the humans and witches must work together to survive the yearly onslaught. However, the history between humans and witches is long and bloodied, with the current truce hard-won and hanging in the balance. And this year, the stakes couldn’t be higher as two boys from Hammersmitt School prepare to make their first sacrifices to the witches in exchange for protection. But when students start turning up dead, Iris, Thalia, Jailah, and Logan realize they’ll have to harness their powers and stop the Wolves themselves. Yet old dangers lie in wait, and the cost to break the curse may be greater than any witch or human could ever know…

Buy it: Amazon | IndieBound

A Strange and Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows (26th)

58724793When Lord Velasin vin Aaro of Ralia is summoned home, he doesn’t expect to be offered a diplomatic marriage to a daughter of the ruling family of Qi-Katai in neighboring Tithena—in fact, he dreads the very thought of such a marriage. But when an ugly confrontation reveals Velasin’s preference for men to the Tithenai envoy, the envoy proposes a very un-Ralian solution: that Velasin marry the lord of Qi-Katai’s son instead.

Caethari Aeduria has known for years that marriage lay in his future; he just didn’t think it would happen with the Ralian man intended for his sister. When Velasin arrives in Qi-Katai, it soon becomes clear that an unknown faction is set against their union, while Velasin himself is wrestling with more than culture shock. As the danger escalates, Caethari and Velasin must learn to trust each other in order to survive—and maybe even make their arranged marriage a loving one in the process.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Beating Heart Baby by Lio Min (26th)

58724791Santi has only had his heart broken one time, and it was all his fault. When he accidentally leaked his internet best friend Memo’s song, and it became an overnight hit, Memo disappeared—leaving their song’s cult fame, and Santi, behind.

Three years later, Santi arrives in Los Angeles with a mission: get over the ghost of Memo. Thankfully, his new school and its wildly-talented Sunshower marching band welcome him with open arms. All except for his section leader, the prickly, proud, musical prodigy Suwa. But when Santi realizes Suwa is trans, then Suwa realizes Santi takes his identity in stride, both boys begin to let their guards down. Santi learns Suwa’s surliness masks a painful, still raw history of his own, and as they open up to each other, their friendship quickly takes on the red-hot blush of a mutual crush.

Just as Santi is feeling settled in this new life, with a growing found family and a head-over-heels relationship with Suwa, he begins to put together the pieces of an impossible truth—that he knows both more and less of Suwa’s story than he’s been told. Their fragile fresh start threatens to rip apart at the seams again when Suwa is offered the chance to step into the spotlight he’s owed but has always denied himself. Now, Santi and Suwa must finally reckon with their dreams, their pasts—and their futures, together or apart.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

The Half Life of Valery K by Natasha Pulley (26th)

58532153In 1963, in a Siberian gulag, former nuclear specialist Valery Kolkhanov has mastered what it takes to survive: the right connections to the guards for access to food and cigarettes, the right pair of warm boots to avoid frostbite, and the right attitude toward the small pleasures of life so he won’t go insane. But on one ordinary day, all that changes: Valery’s university mentor steps in and sweeps Valery from the frozen prison camp to a mysterious unnamed town that houses a set of nuclear reactors and is surrounded by a forest so damaged it looks like the trees have rusted from within.

In City 40, Valery is Dr. Kolkhanov once more, and he’s expected to serve out his prison term studying the effect of radiation on local animals. But as Valery begins his work, he is struck by the questions his research raises: why is there so much radiation in this area? What, exactly, is being hidden from the thousands who live in the town? And if he keeps looking for answers, will he live to serve out his sentence?

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

April 2021 Deal Announcements

Adult Fiction

2021 Tin House Scholar Luke Dani Blue’s PRETEND IT’S MY BODY, a collection of stories exploring dysphorias of gender and reality, trans teen psychics and tornado survivors, con artists and runaways, mothers who are daughters and daughters who are sons, ultimately asking if there’s a real self, and if so, what does it look like, to Lauren Rosemary Hook at Feminist Press, by Adam Schear at DeFiore and Company (world English).

London Writers Award winner and activist Henry Fry’s FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING, about a shy 20-something who, discovering his boyfriend will never give him what he wants (monogamy), moves into an East London “commune” and, with the help of his madcap flatmates and inscrutable therapist, sets out in search of his most authentic self, exploring the exuberance of queer life with many missteps along the way, to Jesse Shuman at Ballantine, and Bhavna Chauhan at Doubleday Canada, at auction, in a two-book deal, by Hayley Steed at Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency (NA).

Iowa MFA candidate Jenny Fran Davis’s DYKETTE, following a young aspiring writer and her partner over the course of a dysfunctional 10-day getaway with two other queer couples; exploring the nuanced contradictions of intimacy, jealousy, and desire, to Ruby Rose Lee at Holt, in a pre-empt, in a two-book deal, by Miriam Altshuler at DeFiore and Company (world).

Author of SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT Meryl Wilsner‘s MISTAKES WERE MADE, pitched as a raunch-com in which a college senior has a one night stand with a stranger, who she later learns is her friend’s mom, to Vicki Lame at Griffin, for publication in fall 2022, by Patrice Caldwell at New Leaf Literary & Media (NA).

Hugo Award-winning blogger Foz Meadows‘s A STRANGE AND STUBBORN ENDURANCE, a m/m epic fantasy romance about a closeted young nobleman preparing for a political arranged marriage to a foreign princess — but when his sexuality is revealed, he’s offered marriage to her brother the prince instead, to Claire Eddy at Tor, in a good deal, in a pre-empt, in a two-book deal, for publication in summer 2022, by Hannah Bowman at Liza Dawson Associates (world English).

Cartoonist and Associate Editor of The Nib Matt Lubchansky‘s BOYS WEEKEND, part autobiographical fiction, part satire, and part SF horror, following Sammie, who a year after they come out as trans must navigate a bachelor party weekend on El Campo, a hedonistic floating wonderland in international waters, while a murderous cult tries to take over the island, to Anna Kaufman at Pantheon, by Kate McKean at Howard Morhaim Literary Agency (world).

Iowa MFA candidate Jenny Fran Davis‘s DYKETTE, following a young aspiring writer and her partner over the course of a dysfunctional 10-day getaway with two other queer couples; exploring the nuanced contradictions of intimacy, jealousy, and desire, to Ruby Rose Lee at Holt, in a pre-empt, in a two-book deal, by Miriam Altshuler at DeFiore and Company (world).

Courtney Kae‘s debut IN THE EVENT OF LOVE, a queer rom-com that finds an L.A. event planner back in her rustic mountain hometown over the holidays for a career-saving gig, where she discovers that the sexy lumberjane owner of the tree farm she’s there to revive is the same girl who broke her heart seven years ago, to Elizabeth Trout at Kensington, in a two-book deal, by Claire Friedman at Inkwell Management.

Author of A LITTLE LIFE Hanya Yanagihara’s TO PARADISE, spanning three centuries and three different versions of the American experiment, about lovers, family, loss, and the elusive promise of utopia; opening in 1893 in an alternate version of America, where New York is part of the Free States, where people may live and love whomever they please (or so it seems) and the fragile young scion of a distinguished family resists betrothal to a worthy suitor, drawn to a charming music teacher of no means; in a 1993 Manhattan besieged by the AIDS epidemic, a young Hawaiian man lives with his much older, wealthier partner, hiding his troubled childhood and the fate of his father; and in 2093, in a world riven by plagues and governed by totalitarian rule, a powerful scientist’s damaged granddaughter tries to navigate life without him—and solve the mystery of her husband’s disappearances, to Doubleday, for publication in January 2022, by Anna Stein at ICM (US).

Season Vining‘s PENNY FOR YOUR HEART, an LGBTQ+ #OwnVoices rom-com in which two childhood friends who were separated by fear and discrimination reunite and struggle to find the authentic love they’ve long been missing, to Nikki Babri at Tule, in a three-book deal, by Amy Brewer at Metamorphosis Literary Agency.

Children’s Fiction

Nicole Melleby and A.J. Sass’s CAMP QUILTBAG*, in which a 12-year-old and 13-year-old attend a queer summer camp for very different reasons and make a pact to help one another find their footing at camp, all while navigating crushes, their queer identities, and a competition pitting cabin against cabin, to Krestyna Lypen at Algonquin Young Readers, for publication in spring 2023, by Jim McCarthy at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret for Melleby, and Jordan Hamessley at New Leaf Literary & Media for Sass (world).

Young Adult Fiction

Author of the forthcoming MAY THE BEST MAN WIN Z.R. Ellor’s ACTING THE PART, in which a teenage actor questioning their gender identity starts a fake relationship with a costar to convince their showrunners to give their on-screen f/f couple a happy ending, to Stephanie Guerdan at Harper Teen, at auction, for publication in fall 2022, by Kaitlyn Johnson at Belcastro Agency (world English).

Molly Horton Booth and Stephanie Kate Strohm‘s TWELFTH GRADE NIGHT and KING CHEER, the first two books in the Arden High series, set at a modern-day high school where magic and fairies are real, the LGBTQ themes of the original plays are more than subtext, and the drama is quite literally Shakespearean, illustrated by Jamie Green, to Kieran Viola at Disney-Hyperion, with Rachel Stark editing, in a two-book deal, for publication in fall 2022, by Alexander Slater at Trident Media Group for Booth, Molly Ker Hawn at The Bent Agency for Strohm, and Chad Beckerman at The CAT Agency for the illustrator (world).

Sarah Rees Brennan‘s FENCE: DISARMED, the second original novel based on the graphic novel series created by C.S. Pacat and Johanna The Mad, following the boys of Kings Row to a training camp in Europe where they face elite fencers, ex-boyfriends, expulsion, and an infamous character, to Mary-Kate Gaudet at Little, Brown Children’s, for publication in summer 2021, by Suzie Townsend at New Leaf Literary & Media (world).

Non-Fiction

Author of BLACK WAVE, MODERN TAROT, and AGAINST MEMOIR Michelle Tea‘s KNOCKING MYSELF UP, following the author’s journey to get pregnant as a 40-year-old, single, queer, uninsured woman, venturing into the very straight world of prospective motherhood and artificial reproductive technologies, and the often hidden and taboo truths of women’s bodies, bringing her wild, transgressive community along for the ride, to Peter Kispert at Dey Street Books, in a six-figure deal, at auction, by Alison Lewis at Zoe Pagnamenta Agency (world English).

Coauthor of AVA GARDNER: A LIFE IN MOVIES Anthony Uzarowski‘s FRIENDS OF DOROTHY: A CELEBRATION OF LGBTQ+ ICONS, about larger-than-life characters who over the decades inspired LGBTQ+ people, creating controversy, challenging conventions, and sometimes putting their own lives on the line in order for new generations to live in a more equal and accepting world, illustrated by Alejandro Mogollo, to Kevin Stevens at Imagine Publishing, in a nice deal, for publication in 2023, by Lee Sobel at Lee Sobel Literary Agency (world).

Journalist Jessie Stephens‘s HEARTSICK, using interwoven narratives of a diverse group of three people—a middle aged married woman who falls in love with someone who is not her husband, a 20-something queer woman who moves to London and starts dating the wrong person, and a young man who has never been in a relationship before and falls head over heels as you can only do in first love—whose lives are altered by major heartbreak, to explore the devastation of love, our need for connection, and how relationships transform us, to Serena Jones at Holt, at auction, for publication in spring 2022, by Daniel Lazar at Writers House, on behalf of Macmillan Australia (NA). (Previously published in Australia.)

*Deals originally published in Publishers Marketplace (c) 2021.

Happy Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week!

Happy Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week! Running from February 21st-27th, this week we’re celebrating aromantic rep, so check out these titles! (Representation is included/highlighted with each title, where I know it.) As usual, all links are affiliate and earn a percentage of income for the site, so please use them if you can!

Please note this roundup only features titles that were not previously featured in other Aro Awareness Week Roundups, so make sure you check last year’s post for more!

Books to Read Now

This Golden Flame by Emily Victoria

(MC is aroace)

Orphaned and forced to serve her country’s ruling group of scribes, Karis wants nothing more than to find her brother, long ago shipped away. But family bonds don’t matter to the Scriptorium, whose sole focus is unlocking the magic of an ancient automaton army.

In her search for her brother, Karis does the seemingly impossible—she awakens a hidden automaton. Intelligent, with a conscience of his own, Alix has no idea why he was made. Or why his father—their nation’s greatest traitor—once tried to destroy the automatons.

Suddenly, the Scriptorium isn’t just trying to control Karis; it’s hunting her. Together with Alix, Karis must find her brother…and the secret that’s held her country in its power for centuries.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Common Bonds: A Speculative Aromantic Anthology  ed. by Claudie Arseneault, C.T. Callahan, B.R. Sanders, and RoAnna Sylver

Common Bonds is an upcoming anthology of speculative short stories and poetry featuring aromantic characters. At the heart of this collection are the bonds that impact our lives from beginning to end: platonic relationships. Within this anthology, a cursed seamstress finds comfort in the presence of a witch, teams of demon hunters work with their rival to save one of their own, a peculiar scholar gets attached to those he was meant to study, and queerplatonic shopkeepers guide their pupil as they explore their relationship needs and desires. Through nineteen stories and poems, Common Bonds explores the ways platonic relationships enrich our lives.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Goddess of the Hunt by Shelby Eileen

A poetry collection about the mythic life of Artemis, Greek Goddess of the hunt. Told through the perspective of Artemis herself with the contributions of a few other Greek Goddesses. This collection reimagines and follows Artemis navigating her lifelong vow of chastity and, rather than suffering through it, owning it as a facet of her aromanticism and asexuality. Immerse yourself in a cultivated tempest of poems illustrating Artemis as a warrior, whose shoulders have known an excessive weight of responsibility, and who always fights to remain her authentic self among people who would change her.

Buy it: Amazon

Not Even Bones by Rebecca Schaeffer

(The MC of this trilogy is aroace)

Dexter meets This Savage Song in this dark fantasy about a girl who sells magical body parts on the black market — until she’s betrayed.

Nita doesn’t murder supernatural beings and sell their body parts on the internet–her mother does that. Nita just dissects the bodies after they’ve been “acquired.” Until her mom brings home a live specimen and Nita decides she wants out; dissecting a scared teenage boy is a step too far. But when she decides to save her mother’s victim, she ends up sold in his place–because Nita herself isn’t exactly “human.” She has the ability to alter her biology, a talent that is priceless on the black market. Now on the other side of the bars, if she wants to escape, Nita must ask herself if she’s willing to become the worst kind of monster.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Take Me to Your Nerdy Leader by Hailey Gonzales

(MC is aromantic heterosexual)

Paige has always been scared to be herself. The real Paige- the nerdy Paige- who just wants to have real friends, talk about anime, lose her virginity, and share her art- doesn’t exist at school or to her friends. Only quiet Paige does.

Her new school in Bowden is full of opportunity. There’s Revolution Recognition where she can share her art. There’s confident and enigmatic Shawn who she just feels drawn to. The anime club poster is only icing on the cake. She sees her chance! If only she can reach out and take it. And the cute boy she keeps running into is definitely on her radar.

Buy it: Amazon

East Flows the River by Michelle Kan

A Maiden, a Fox, and a long journey home.

Ties that bridge rivers, dreams that touch Heaven, and the magic of the places we call Home.

(In which a Heavenly Maiden and a Fox Spirit search for the places they belong.)

An Aromantic Chinese Fairytale.

Buy it: Amazon

Dithered Hearts by Chace Verity

(One MC is aromantic pansexual)

A gender-confused farmer desperate to reclaim her farm and escape her stepparents’ abuse. A closeted prince more interested in helping his people than finding a bride. A fairy godfather with a ton of secrets and no powers. In this diverse fairy tale, everyone is searching for a happy ending.

The masquerade ball to find Prince Longhollow’s future bride might be Cynthia Lynah’s best chance at getting her family farm back. If she can marry him, she’ll have all the money and power she needs. Her newly discovered fairy godfather is ready to help her, but his magic can’t do anything to stop her heart from falling for two women she shouldn’t be attracted to–her stepsisters. In the midst of her flirtations, she causes her fairy godfather to lose his magic and stirs trouble for the prince desperate to save his nation from a famine.

Everyone gets a chance to be the hero of their story, but happy endings seem impossible when they need more than magic to make them happen.

Buy it: Amazon

Books to Preorder

Create My Own Perfection by E.H. Timms (April 2)

(MC is aroace)

“It’s not every day you get to put the fear of Medusa into a god.”

Emma Stone, medusa, is the groundskeeper for Olson College of Extensive Education, a place where everyone is welcome, from the mythical to the magical. When her selkie best friend loses her skin in Fresher’s week, the race is on to find it before someone uses it against her.

The search brings Emma face to face with her oldest enemy – and forces her to confront the worst nightmares of her past.

Buy it: iBooks | Kobo | B&N

Firebreak by Nicole Kornher-Stace (May 4)

(MC is aroace)

Like everyone else she knows, Mallory is an orphan of the corporate war. As a child, she lost her parents, her home, and her entire building in an airstrike. As an adult, she lives in a cramped hotel room with eight other people, all of them working multiple jobs to try to afford water and make ends meet. And the job she’s best at is streaming a popular VR war game. The best part of the game isn’t killing enemy combatants, though—it’s catching in-game glimpses of SpecOps operatives, celebrity supersoldiers grown and owned by Stellaxis, the corporation that runs the America she lives in.

Until a chance encounter with a SpecOps operative in the game leads Mal to a horrifying discovery: the real-life operatives weren’t created by Stellaxis. They were kids, just like her, who lost everything in the war, and were stolen and augmented and tortured into becoming supersoldiers. The world worships them, but the world believes a lie.

The company controls every part of their lives, and defying them puts everything at risk—her water ration, her livelihood, her connectivity, her friends, her life—but she can’t just sit on the knowledge. She has to do something—even if doing something will bring the wrath of the most powerful company in the world down upon her.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Fire Becomes Her by Rosiee Thor (January 1, 2022)

(MC is demiromantic)

With only a drop, one can light the night sky with fireworks . . . or burn a building to the ground. The few flare families on top — the so-called “elite” — hoard the magical resource for themselves, and seventeen-year-old Ingrid Ellis wants her fair share.

Ingrid doesn’t have a family fortune, monetary or magical, but at least she has a plan: Rise to the top on the arm of Linden Holt, heir to a hefty political legacy and the largest fortune of flare in all of Candesce. Her only obstacle is Linden’s father, Senator Walden Holt, who refuses to acknowledge their relationship.

When Senator Holt announces his run for president, however, Ingrid uses the situation to her advantage. She strikes a deal to spy on Gwendolyn Meyers, the Holts’s opposition, in exchange for the senator’s approval. But the more Ingrid learns about the world around her, the more she questions where her true allegiances lie.

Suddenly, Ingrid finds herself at an impasse: Will she stand with the Holts, who have the power and influence to give Ingrid everything she so desperately desires? Or will she forge her own path with Gwendolyn in hopes of building a better future for everyone?

Buy it: Amazon | IndieBound

Happy Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week!

Happy Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week! This year, the celebration lasts from February 16th-22nd, and here are a whole bunch of books to help you enjoy it! (Representation is included/highlighted with each title, where I know it.)

But before you even get there, I must mention the most important resource you’ve gotta know if you’re looking for aromantic fiction, which is the Aro Ace Database by author Claudie Arseneault (who, yes, does have a book on this list too). Check it out and never go hungry for aro fiction again! And now, onto the books!

Books to Read Now

Baker Thief by Claudie Arseneault

(Claire is bisexual aromantic.)

Baker Thief_coverAdèle has only one goal: catch the purple-haired thief who broke into her home and stole her exocore, thus proving herself to her new police team. Little does she know, her thief is also the local baker.

Claire owns the Croissant-toi, but while her days are filled with pastries and customers, her nights are dedicated to stealing exocores. These new red gems are heralded as the energy of the future, but she knows the truth: they are made of witches’ souls.

When her twin—a powerful witch and prime exocore material—disappears, Claire redoubles in her efforts to investigate. She keeps running into Adèle, however, and whether or not she can save her sister might depend on their conflicted, unstable, but deepening relationship.

Buy it: Author Website

The Black Veins by Ashia Monet

43927569In a world where magic thrives in secret city corners, a group of magicians embark on a road trip—and it’s the “no-love-interest”, found family adventure you’ve been searching for.

Sixteen-year-old Blythe is one of seven Guardians: magicians powerful enough to cause worldwide panic with a snap of their fingers. But Blythe spends her days pouring latte art at her family’s coffee shop, so why should she care about having apocalyptic abilities?

She’s given a reason when magician anarchists crash into said coffee shop and kidnap her family.

Heartbroken but determined, Blythe knows she can’t save them alone. A war is brewing between two magician governments and tensions are too high. So, she packs up her family’s bright yellow Volkswagen, puts on a playlist, and embarks on a road trip across the United States to enlist the help of six strangers whose abilities are unparalleled—the other Guardians.

Buy it: Amazon | B&N | Indigo | Apple Books

Tarnished Are the Stars by Rosiee Thor

(Nathaniel is aroace.)

43319680A secret beats inside Anna Thatcher’s chest: an illegal clockwork heart. Anna works cog by cog — donning the moniker Technician — to supply black market medical technology to the sick and injured, against the Commissioner’s tyrannical laws.

Nathaniel Fremont, the Commissioner’s son, has never had to fear the law. Determined to earn his father’s respect, Nathaniel sets out to capture the Technician. But the more he learns about the outlaw, the more he questions whether his father’s elusive affection is worth chasing at all.

Their game of cat and mouse takes an abrupt turn when Eliza, a skilled assassin and spy, arrives. Her mission is to learn the Commissioner’s secrets at any cost — even if it means betraying her own heart.

When these uneasy allies discover the most dangerous secret of all, they must work together despite their differences and put an end to a deadly epidemic — before the Commissioner ends them first.

Buy it: B&N | Amazon | Indiebound

Immoral Code by Lillian Clark

40062683

For Nari, aka Narioka Diane, aka hacker digital alter ego “d0l0s,” it’s college and then a career at “one of the big ones,” like Google or Apple. Keagan, her sweet, sensitive boyfriend, is happy to follow her wherever she may lead. Reese is an ace/aro visual artist with plans to travel the world. Santiago is off to Stanford on a diving scholarship, with very real Olympic hopes. And Bellamy? Physics genius Bellamy is admitted to MIT—but the student loan she’d been counting on is denied when it turns out her estranged father—one Robert Foster—is loaded.

Nari isn’t about to let her friend’s dreams be squashed by a deadbeat billionaire, so she hatches a plan to steal just enough from Foster to allow Bellamy to achieve her goals.

Buy it: Amazon | B&N | Indiebound

The Last 8 by Laura Pohl

(Clover is aromantic bisexual.)

36349389

Clover Martinez has always been a survivor, which is the only reason she isn’t among the dead when aliens invade and destroy Earth as she knows it.

When Clover hears an inexplicable radio message, she’s shocked to learn there are other survivors—and that they’re all at the former Area 51. When she arrives, she’s greeted by a band of misfits who call themselves The Last Teenagers on Earth.

Only they aren’t the ragtag group of heroes Clover was expecting. The group seems more interested in hiding than fighting back, and Clover starts to wonder if she was better off alone. But then she finds a hidden spaceship, and she doesn’t know what to believe…or who to trust.

Buy it: Amazon | B&N | Indiebound

Their Troublesome Crush by Xan West

Their_20Troublesome_20Crush_20cover_20final_20large_20jpeg

In this queer polyamorous m/f romance novella, two metamours realize they have crushes on each other while planning their shared partner’s birthday party together. 

Ernest, a Jewish autistic demiromantic queer fat trans man submissive, and Nora, a Jewish disabled queer fat femme cis woman switch, have to contend with an age gap, a desire not to mess up their lovely polyamorous dynamic as metamours, the fact that Ernest has never been attracted to a cis person before, and the reality that they are romantically attracted to each other, all while planning their dominant’s birthday party and trying to do a really good job.

Buy it: Amazon | Gumroad

Shadows You Left by Taylor Brooke and Jude Sierra

(One of the leads is demiromantic.)

41071966The white picket fence.
The happily-ever-after.
That life was never meant for him.
For years he’s been bouncing from city to city—from one cage fight to another.
That’s his outlet. That’s pain Erik can control.
But in Seattle, everything changed.
River’s an artist.
He’s a pretty boy.
He does yoga.
Someone so soft shouldn’t be intrigued by Erik’s rough edges.

RIVER

His life was quiet. He had a simple routine.
Designing tattoos, avoiding drama. Well, mostly.
Then Erik comes along—scarred and dangerous, shrouded in mystery.
A mystery River can’t resist trying to solve.
Maybe a secret as dark as his own.
Neither of them expected a relationship so complicated, so intense.
Neither of them expected…each other.
Erik and River are both trying to escape a shadowed past.
But the thing about shadows is: the faster you run, the faster they chase you.

Buy it: Amazon | B&N | Indiebound

Red Skies Falling by Alex London

(Kylee is aroace.)

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In this thrilling sequel to Black Wings Beating, twins Kylee and Brysen are separated by the expanse of Uztar, but are preparing for the same war – or so they think.

Kylee is ensconsed in the Sky Castle, training with Mem Uku to master the Hollow Tongue and the Ghost Eagle. But political intrigue abounds and court drama seems to seep through the castle’s stones like blood from a broken feather. Meanwhile, Brysen is still in the Six Villages, preparing for an attack by the Kartami. The Villages have become Uztar’s first line of defense, and refugees are flooding in from the plains. But their arrival lays bare the villagers darkest instincts. As Brysen navigates the growing turmoil, he must also grapple with a newfound gift, a burgeoning crush on a mysterious boy, and a shocking betrayal.

The two will meet again on the battlefield, fighting the same war from different sides―or so they think. The Ghost Eagle has its own plans.

Buy it: Amazon | B&N | Indiebound

Syncopation by Anna Zabo

(One of the leads is aromantic pansexual.)

37648566Twisted Wishes front man Ray Van Zeller is in one hell of a tight spot. After a heated confrontation with his bandmate goes viral, Ray is hit with a PR nightmare the fledgling band so doesn’t need. But his problems only multiply when they snag a talented new drummer—insufferably sexy Zavier Demos, the high school crush Ray barely survived.

Zavier’s kept a casual eye on Twisted Wishes for years, and lately, he likes what he sees. What he doesn’t like is how out of control Ray seems—something Zavier’s aching to correct after their first pulse-pounding encounter. If Ray’s up for the challenge.

Despite the prospect of a glorious sexual encore, Ray is reluctant to trust Zavier with his band—or his heart. And Zavier has always had big dreams; this gig was supposed to be temporary. But touring together has opened their eyes to new passions and new possibilities, making them rethink their commitments, both to the band and to each other.

Buy it: B&N | Amazon

The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee

35430702Felicity Montague is through with pretending she prefers society parties to books about bone setting—or that she’s not smarter than most people she knows, or that she cares about anything more than her dream of becoming a doctor.

A year after an accidentally whirlwind tour of Europe, which she spent evading highwaymen and pirates with her brother Monty, Felicity has returned to England with two goals in mind—avoid the marriage proposal of Callum Doyle, a lovestruck suitor from Edinburgh; and enroll in medical school. However, her intellect and passion will never be enough in the eyes of the administrators, who see men as the sole guardians of science.

But then a small window of hope opens. Doctor Alexander Platt, an eccentric physician that Felicity idolizes, is looking for research assistants, and Felicity is sure that someone as forward thinking as her hero would be willing to take her on. However, Platt is in Germany, preparing to wed Felicity’s estranged childhood friend Johanna. Not only is Felicity reluctant to opening old wounds, she also has no money to make the trip.

Luckily, a mysterious young woman is willing to pay Felicity’s way, so long as she’s allowed to travel with Felicity disguised as her maid. In spite of her suspicions, Felicity agrees, but once the girl’s true motives are revealed, Felicity becomes part of a perilous quest that will lead her from the German countryside to the promenades of Zurich to secrets lurking beneath the Atlantic.

Buy it: B&N | Amazon | Indiebound

Hullmetal Girls by Emily Skrutskie

(Aisha is aroace.)

33382313Aisha Un-Haad would do anything for her family. When her brother contracts a plague, she knows her janitor’s salary isn’t enough to fund his treatment. So she volunteers to become a Scela, a mechanically enhanced soldier sworn to protect and serve the governing body of the Fleet, the collective of starships they call home. If Aisha can survive the harrowing modifications and earn an elite place in the Scela ranks, she may be able to save her brother.

Key Tanaka awakens in a Scela body with only hazy memories of her life before. She knows she’s from the privileged end of the Fleet, but she has no recollection of why she chose to give up a life of luxury to become a hulking cyborg soldier. If she can make it through the training, she might have a shot at recovering her missing past.

In a unit of new recruits vying for top placement, Aisha’s and Key’s paths collide, and the two must learn to work together–a tall order for girls from opposite ends of the Fleet. But a rebellion is stirring, pitting those who yearn for independence from the Fleet against a government struggling to maintain unity.

With violence brewing and dark secrets surfacing, Aisha and Key find themselves questioning their loyalties. They will have to put aside their differences, though, if they want to keep humanity from tearing itself apart.

Buy it: B&N | Amazon | Indiebound

Switchback by Danika Stone

(Vale is aroace.)

Ashton Hamid knows everything about gaming. His D&D battles are epic; the video game tournaments he organizes, multi-day tests of endurance with players around the world. Real life, however, is a different matter. So when he and his best friend—outspoken “A” student (and social outcast) Vale Shumway—head out on a camping trip to Waterton Lakes National Park with their Phys. Ed. class, Ash figures it’ll be two days of bug bites, bad food, and inside jokes.

Instead, the two friends find themselves in a fight for survival.

An unexpected October snowstorm separates Ash and Vale from the rest of their class. By the time the teens realize they’ve missed the trail, they have wandered deep into the Canadian Rockies. Lost in the wilderness and hunted by deadly predators, their only hope is to work together. But with Vale’s limited supplies and Ash’s inexperience, can the best friends stay alive long enough to find their way back to civilization?

Buy it: Amazon | B&N | Indiebound

The Lifeline Signal by RoAnna Sylver

Parole is still burning. And now the day everyone has been waiting for is finally here: it’s collapsed. A lucky few managed to escape with their lives. But while their city burned, the world outside suffered its own devastating disaster. The Tartarus Zone is a deadly wasteland a thousand miles wide, filled with toxic storms, ghostly horrors, and just as many Eyes in the Sky as ever. Somehow, this new nightmare is connected to Parole. And it’s spreading.

Now Parole’s only hope lies in the hands of three teenagers reunited by their long-lost friend Gabriel – in their dreams. Growing up outside Parole, Shiloh Cole always had to keep xir energetic powers a secret, except from xir parents, Parole’s strategist-hero Garrett, and Tartarus expert Maureen. When Parole collapsed, all contact was lost. Now, connected by Gabriel and their colliding pasts, xie joins collapse survivor Annie and the enigmatic, charismatic Chance on a desperate cross-country race, carrying a disc of xir mother’s vital plans, whose encrypted contents may be Parole’s salvation. First they’ll board the FireRunner, a ship full of familiar faces that now sails through Tartarus’ poison storms. Together, they’ll survive Tartarus’ hazards, send a lifeline to lost Parole – and uncover the mystery connecting every one of them.

The world outside Parole isn’t the one they remember, and it didn’t want them back. But they’ll save it just the same. It’s what heroes do.

Buy it: Amazon

Sea Foam and Silence by Lynn E. O’Connacht

Be careful what you wish for…

She warned of the pain. She did.
But no warning can prepare you.
Nothing can.

How could I have known
What it is like on the dry sand?
We just watched.

It’s hard, not being able to ask
Questions, though I have learned some speech
With my hands. ˆ_ˆ

I miss my sisters.

I have made friends here.
I have laughed with them,
Learned with them, played with them.
I love them.

She said I would die if he loves someone else.
Will I die? At the beginning I wanted to. It hurts
So much. Life isn’t easy, will never be easy, but…
I don’t want to become sea foam.

Buy it: Amazon | B&N | Indiebound

We Go Forward by Alison Evans

(Christie is aroace.)

Christie travels to run, to forget. She has no place to call home, but desperately wishes she did.

Roslyn has never been overseas and fears getting stuck in one place. If she’s never left Melbourne, how does she know that’s home?

A crossing of paths in Berlin, wine, and wifi leads to the two traveling together, and as they travel the two find some things they were looking for, and maybe something they weren’t…

Buy it: Amazon | B&N | Indiebound

An Accident of Stars by Foz Meadows

(Gwen is aro and allosexual.)

When Saffron Coulter stumbles through a hole in reality, she finds herself trapped in Kena, a magical realm on the brink of civil war.

There, her fate becomes intertwined with that of three very different women: Zech, the fast-thinking acolyte of a cunning, powerful exile; Viya, the spoiled, runaway consort of the empire-building ruler, Vex Leoden; and Gwen, an Earth-born worldwalker whose greatest regret is putting Leoden on the throne. But Leoden has allies, too, chief among them the Vex’Mara Kadeja, a dangerous ex-priestess who shares his dreams of conquest.

Pursued by Leoden and aided by the Shavaktiin, a secretive order of storytellers and mystics, the rebels flee to Veksh, a neighboring matriarchy ruled by the fearsome Council of Queens. Saffron is out of her world and out of her depth, but the further she travels, the more she finds herself bound to her friends with ties of blood and magic.

Can one girl – an accidental worldwalker – really be the key to saving Kena? Or will she just die trying?

Buy it: Amazon | B&N | Indiebound

The Ice Princess’s Fair Illusion by Lynn E. O’Connacht

(Edel is aroace.)

All Marian wants is for society to accept that she’s just not interested in… whatever society thinks she ought to be interested in. A princess with a reputation for insults and snide remarks, she’s afraid to show anyone who she would be if people would let her. In a fit of temper at her refusal to marry, her father creates her worst nightmare: she is to be wed to the first beggar who arrives at the gates.

Edel was visiting purely for diplomatic reasons, aiming to ensure her daughter inherits a strong and peaceful kingdom. She sees something in Marian that is achingly familiar and when Edel hears the king’s proclamation, only one thing is on her mind: to protect Marian from the fate that had befallen Edel herself.

Their lives threaded together by magic, Edel and Marian will have to find their way in the world in this queerplatonic, sapphic verse novel retelling of King Thrushbeard.

Buy it: Amazon | B&N

Books to Preorder

The First 7 by Laura Pohl (March 3)

Aromantic bisexual Clover Martinez and The Last Teenagers on Earth are busy exploring the galaxy after leaving earth behind…even if they can’t help but be a little homesick.

So when their ship receives a distress signal from their former planet, they hope against hope that it means other survivors. But as soon as they arrive, they realize something’s deeply wrong: strange crystal formations have popped up everywhere and there’s some sort of barrier keeping them from leaving.

Seeking the origin of the formations and the reason for the barrier, the group discovers a colony of survivors hidden in the mountains. But the survivors aren’t who they seem…

Preorder: Amazon | B&N | Indiebound

Loveless by Alice Oseman (April 2)

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Georgia feels loveless – in the romantic sense, anyway. She’s eighteen, never been in a relationship, or even had a crush on a single person in her whole life. She thinks she’s an anomaly, people call her weird, and she feels a little broken. But she still adores romance – weddings, fan fiction, and happily ever afters. She knows she’ll find her person one day … right?

After a disastrous summer, Georgia is now at university, hundreds of miles from home. She is more determined than ever to find love – and her annoying roommate, Rooney, is a bit of a love expert, so perhaps she can help.

But maybe Georgia just doesn’t feel that way about guys. Or girls. Or anyone at all. Maybe that’s okay. Maybe she can find happiness without falling in love. And maybe Rooney is a little more loveless than she first appears.

Preorder: Book Depository

Liar’s Guide to the Night Sky by Brianna Shrum (November 3)

(Jacob is aromantic pansexual.)

It’s no one’s fault that Hallie Jacob is alone. That her grandpa got sick half a world away and so her parents yanked her to Colorado the last semester of her senior year. That career-wise, she’s specialized in fighting fire, and now she’s surrounded by ice, snow, and a thousand cousins she’s half-banned from hanging around with. But that’s what’s happened. That’s what her December looks like.

On one big family weekend in the freaking tundra, Hallie sneaks off with those cousins to an abandoned ski slope. But they get caught in a random mudslide, and what started as a Secret Bonfire Party goes in a Potential Donner Party direction real fast. With several cousins in desperate need of medical attention, Hallie goes for help, and Jonah joins her. Jonah Ramirez is her troubled cousin’s extremely off-limits (absurdly hot) best friend who’s back on winter break from college.

Facing paralyzing temperatures, sharp-toothed animals strong enough to survive a climate with hardly any water or air, and weather phenomena so wicked they’ll wreck a mountain before you can blink, Jonah and Hallie have no choice but to trust each other. And THAT may be more impossible, even, than making it out alive.

Preorder: Amazon

Books to Add to Your TBR

Common Bonds ed. by Claudie Arseneault, C.T. Callahan, B.R. Sanders, and RoAnna Sylver

Common Bonds is an upcoming anthology of speculative short stories and poetry featuring aromantic characters. At the heart of this collection are the bonds that impact our lives from beginning to end: platonic relationships. Within this anthology, a cursed seamstress finds comfort in the presence of a witch, teams of demon hunters work with their rival to save one of their own, a peculiar scholar gets attached to those he was meant to study, and queerplatonic shopkeepers guide their pupil as they explore their relationship needs and desires. Through nineteen stories and poems, Common Bonds explores the ways platonic relationships enrich our lives.

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Features/Posts on the Site:

From Flash to Epic: Ten Aromantic Stories Recommended by Claudie Arseneault

I am delighted to be here on LGBTQ Reads to perform one of my favourite activities: recommend aromantic fiction. This post contains recs for stories featuring at least one major aromantic characters, and I’ve read and enjoyed all of them. But since I like to spice things up a bit, all of these stories are presented in length order, covering a range from flash fiction to epic fantasy novels. Pick your favourite length, and enjoy!

  • Lemon & Salt by Claudie Arseneault

Flash fiction | Link | Spectrum Lit

Two aromantic spectrum singers renegotiate the shape of their queerplatonic partnership through an unique concert.

Why read it? It feels wrong to start with my own story, but if you’re looking for a free and quick read online featuring aromantic representation, this is a great place to start.

  • Backgame by Lev Mirov

Short story | Myriad Lands Volume II | Guardbridge Books

An aro-ace necromancer resurrects their best friend, a trans man, allowing them to continue both their friendship and their games.

Why read it? This is a powerful piece about the importance of friendship, second chances, and death. It’s also set in a fantasy Middle East city, and provides much needed rep for non-white aromantic characters.

Want more? I also recommended two aromantic short stories over at The Future Fire that are available online for free.

  • The Faerie Godmother’s Apprentice Wore Green by Nicky Kyle

Novelette (ish) | Link | LT3 Press

Louisa is a village girl dreading her coming wedding, but thankfully a dragon’s assault is delaying it. When Dea, an aro-ace dragon hunter, comes to town, Louisa’s life takes a strange new turn.

Why read it? Faerie Godmother twists fantasy tropes of dragons and princesses in new and interesting ways while developing a deep relationship between a lesbian and an aromantic women. This is *almost* the length of a novella.

  • The Trouble by Daria Defore

Novella | Link | LT3 Press

When Danny Kim, lead singer of a small indie band, discovers that his accounting TA is none other than the man he rudely hit on at his last show, he is mortified. Yet it doesn’t stop him from reaching out to Jiyoon, and Danny soon juggles music, classes, and his deepening relationship.

Why read it? Danny’s aromanticism is clearly established and not the source of tension through the story. Both leads are Korean-American, and the story has some adorable domestic scenes mixed in with the sex. And hey, it’s my only contemporary rec! (I read more SFF, if you couldn’t tell)

  • A Promise Broken by Lynn E. O’Connacht

Short Novel | Link | The Kraken Collective

Four-year-old Eiryn is dealing with the grief from her mother’s death, but she still wants to make everyone around her happy. Her aro-ace uncle, Arén, might not be the best parent, but he’s determined to protect her from accusations of upsetting the world’s balance.

Why read it? This is a quiet and powerful story that favours characters over plot, has incredible worldbuilding, and an absolutely lovely cast. Read also for the aromantic character who’s happy with his single life.

  • Good Angel by A. M. Bauslid

Novel | Link | Self-published

As a new angel, Iofiel must attend the angel-demon university. When she meets Archie, an imp bullied by his peers, she decides to change major for demon classes… and might have inadvertently triggered the Apocalypse in the process.

Why Read it? Beyond the delightful characters and queer universe? Iofiel frequently questions her asexuality and aromanticism throughout the story, and I cannot remember seeing another questioning ace or aro character on page.

  • The Lifeline Signal by RoAnna Sylver

Long Novel | Chameleon Moon Book 2 | Self-published

Three teenagers must cross a ghost-stricken wasteland on a motorcycle to deliver life-saving data to an airship and its crew.

Why Read it? For the absolute amazingness of Anh “Annie” Minh Le and her adaptive outfit: armour that doubles as braces for her hypermobility, an helmet to help manage sensory overload, and a jacket with shifting studs that can allow for more expression when she becomes non-verbal. You’ll need to read Chameleon Moon to fully appreciate The Lifeline Signal, but both are incredible work of positive queer and disabled representation.

  • An Accident of Stars by Foz Meadows

Long Novel | Link | Angry Robot

When Saffron steps through a strange portal, she finds herself in the middle of political upheavals she can barely grasp. Thankfully, she has another world walker from Earth by her side: Gwen Vere, who is both aromantic and in a polyamorous relationship.

Why read it? Besides the neatly-woven tale of fantasy epic? An Accident of Stars depicts an older aromantic character confident about herself, who has built a family, and shows great care for Saffron and others.

Bonus Webcomics

Is prose a difficult medium for you? Several online webcomics also include aromantic representation and are available for free! Funnily enough, both of my recs have to do with fey.

Mistland is a fairly new webcomic by Laya Rose, one of my favourite artist out there, about “Es, a half fey girl from a small New Zealand town, suddenly gets caught up in the world of the sidhe – which are a whole lot closer than she realised.” The cast is almost exclusively arospec and acespec women!

Ignition Zero is a completed webcomic by Noel Arthur Heimpel, about a group of queer friends defending their fey companions, Ivory, and getting mixed up in fey and spirits! One of the main character is an aromantic man and in a queerplatonic relationship!

And there you go! Ten wildly different stories with aromantic characters for you to enjoy. I hope everyone can find something to their taste in there, and if you know other good stories with aromantic representation (especially contemporary!) please don’t hesitate to share with us!

*****

Claudie Arseneault is an asexual and aromantic-spectrum writer hailing from the very-French Québec City. Claudie is best known for the Aromantic and Asexual Characters in SFF Database and for her body of work, which features several ace and aro characters. Her latest novel, City of Strife, is the first of a political fantasy trilogy released in February. Find out more on her website!