This post is sponsored by Dana Hawkins and the release of My Girlfriend is Not the Father on March 25th!
A funny, steamy, heart-warming story about navigating whatever plan life may throw at you—regardless of the timing.
Buy it: Amazon
Continue reading New Releases: March 2026
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The Batcat series by Meggie Ramm – a ridiculously cute graphic novel series both my kids (under 10) love, with a nonbinary grump of a main character who’s simultaneously a bat and a cat, a song in book 1 that my family randomly bursts out with, delightful illustrations, and a very cool quick guide in the back of each one to elements of graphic novels so kids can understand what goes into them and even how to make their own.
Give a loved one celebrating the Festival of Lights the joy of queer Jewish literature!
Atara loves to wear her crown – to the library, to the dentist, even to her swim lessons. It gives her confidence, and shows the world that she is a girl, not a boy, like everyone thought at first. But when Atara reads the story of Queen Esther, on the Jewish holiday of Purim – she realises that you don’t need a costume to express who you really are…
Happy Jewish American Heritage Month! We’re celebrating as we do with books starring Jewish protagonists, and for more recs, check out previous years’ posts!
Atara loves to wear her crown – to the library, to the dentist, even to her swim lessons. It gives her confidence, and shows the world that she is a girl, not a boy, like everyone thought at first. But when Atara reads the story of Queen Esther, on the Jewish holiday of Purim – she realises that you don’t need a costume to express who you really are…
This post is sponsored by Dana Hawkins and So Not My Type! Click on the graphic for more info!
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Covid lockdown is over, but A’s world feels smaller than ever. Coming out as trans didn’t exactly go well, and most days, he barely leaves his bedroom, let alone the house. But the low point of A’s life isn’t online school, missing his bar mitzvah, or the fact that his parents monitor his phone like hawks—it’s the weekly Save Our Sons and Daughters meetings his parents all but drag him to.
At SOSAD, A and his friends Sal and Yarrow sit by while their parents deadname them and wring their hands over a nonexistent “transgender craze.” After all, sitting in suffocating silence has to be better than getting sent away for “advanced treatment,” never to be heard from again.
When Yarrow vanishes after a particularly confrontational meeting, A discovers that SOSAD doesn’t just feel soul-sucking…it’s run by an actual demon who feeds off the pain and misery of kids like him. And it’s not just SOSAD—the entire world is beset by demons dining on what seems like an endless buffet of pain and bigotry.
But how is one trans kid who hasn’t even chosen a name supposed to save his friend, let alone the world? And is a world that seems hellbent on rejecting him even worth saving at all?
This post is sponsored by Athlete is Agender, ed. by Katherine Locke and Nicole Melleby (the team that brought you This is Our Rainbow), a nonfiction Middle Grade anthology releasing from Christy Ottaviano Books on May 13, 2025!
Athlete is agender. Athlete can mean anyone. This incredible collection revels in the achievements of strong, passionate, and determined queer athletes across every age, level, and field of sports.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N
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Covid lockdown is over, but A’s world feels smaller than ever. Coming out as trans didn’t exactly go well, and most days, he barely leaves his bedroom, let alone the house. But the low point of A’s life isn’t online school, missing his bar mitzvah, or the fact that his parents monitor his phone like hawks—it’s the weekly Save Our Sons and Daughters meetings his parents all but drag him to.
At SOSAD, A and his friends Sal and Yarrow sit by while their parents deadname them and wring their hands over a nonexistent “transgender craze.” After all, sitting in suffocating silence has to be better than getting sent away for “advanced treatment,” never to be heard from again.
When Yarrow vanishes after a particularly confrontational meeting, A discovers that SOSAD doesn’t just feel soul-sucking…it’s run by an actual demon who feeds off the pain and misery of kids like him. And it’s not just SOSAD—the entire world is beset by demons dining on what seems like an endless buffet of pain and bigotry.
But how is one trans kid who hasn’t even chosen a name supposed to save his friend, let alone the world? And is a world that seems hellbent on rejecting him even worth saving at all?
Continue reading Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Middle Grade Fiction: January-June 2025
Camp Twisted Pine by Ciera Burch
Too Bright to See by Kyle Lukoff
Deephaven Mystery series by Ethan M. Aldridge
A Touch of Ruckus by Ash Van Otterloo
The Otherwoods by Justine Pucella Winans
Bonus: These are all prose novels, but for graphic novels, check out Beetle and the Hollowbones by Aliza Layne and Artie and the Wolf Moon by Olivia Stephens
Steinbeck fellow and University of Miami MFA graduate Bobuq Sayed’s NO GOD BUT US, following two gay Afghan men from wildly different walks of life whose paths converge in Istanbul; grappling with themes of queerness, faith, imperialism, authoritarianism, and the sacrifices we make for our families, both born and chosen, to Ezra Kupor at Harper, at auction, by Maria Cardona at Aevitas Creative Management UK (NA).
Marquette University professor of English B. Pladek’s DRY LAND, set at the cusp of America’s involvement in World War I, when a young queer forester discovers an uncanny gift for growing plants, seemingly from nothing, to Dennis Lloyd at University of Wisconsin Press, for publication in fall 2023, by Brenna English-Loeb at Transatlantic Literary Agency (world English).
Mark Waddell’s THE BODY IN THE BACK GARDEN, a queer cozy following a young investigative journalist as he inherits his estranged aunt’s estate in a coastal Canadian village, which includes a dead body behind the house that he is forced to investigate with a very handsome Mountie, to Faith Black Ross at Crooked Lane, for publication in fall 2023, by Melissa Edwards at Stonesong (world).
Ghassan Zeineddine’s DEARBORN, a collection of tragicomic stories that examines the diverse range and complexities of the Arab American community in Dearborn, Michigan, over several decades, exploring themes of identity, generational conflicts, war trauma, migration, sexuality, queerness, notions of home and belonging, and more, to Elizabeth DeMeo at Tin House Books, for publication in fall 2023.
Emily Hamilton’s THE STARS TOO FONDLY, a debut queer space odyssey—part sci-fi, part sapphic rom-com—following four friends who break into a storied spaceship with a mysterious past and accidentally blast off to a planet lightyears away, with a hologram of the ship’s previous captain as their only guide (and an improbable, impossible love interest); about found family, interdimensional travel, and the galaxy-saving power of love, to Nate Lanman at Voyager, in a very nice deal, at auction, by Roma Panganiban at Janklow & Nesbit (NA).
2021 Lambda Literary Fellow Craig Wilse’s PROVIDENCE, pitched as reminiscent of Patricia Highsmith, in which an introverted queer English professor falls for an enigmatic sophomore who lures him into his web of chaos and deceit, to Claire Wachtel at Union Square & Co, in a nice deal, in an exclusive submission, for publication in spring 2024, by Robert Guinsler at Sterling Lord Literistic (world English).
NYT-bestselling and Lambda Literary Award-winning author TJ Klune’s four original untitled novels about queer love and family, set in curious and enchanting worlds, to Ali Fisher at Tor, in a major deal, in a seven-figure deal, in an exclusive submission, in a four-book deal, by Deidre Knight at The Knight Agency (world English).
Clementine Taylor’s SOMETHING ABOUT HER, following two young women at the University of Edinburgh and the romantic connection that grows between them as they navigate the pressures of school and family, pitched in the vein of Sally Rooney and Emma Cline, to Gabriella Mongelli at Putnam, by Millie Hoskins at United Agents (world).
Korean author Hwang Jungeun and translator Janet Hong’s SAVAGE ALICE, about a tormented drag queen—pitched as a Korean Hedwig—who leaves Seoul and returns to their small countryside hometown and must survive the bullying, marginalization, and tortured life in order to survive; and EVERY YEAR, to Chad Post at Open Letter, in a pre-empt, in an exclusive submission, in a two-book deal, for publication in January 2023 and 2024, by Barbara Zitwer at Barbara Zitwer Agency (world English).
Short fiction writer, poet, essayist, and reviewer Jarrod Campbell’s THE REASON I’M HERE, a collection of fictions featuring queer protagonists in their attempts to navigate memories and their consequences, morality, and the silences within relationships; pitched as influenced by Tennessee Williams, John Cheever, and Andrew Holleran, to James Reich at Stalking Horse Press, in a nice deal, for publication in June 2023 (NA and UK).
Pushcart-nominated NYU MFA alum Cleo Qian’s LET’S GO LET’S GO LET’S GO, a debut slipstream short story collection exploring the alienated, technology-mediated lives of young Asian and Asian American women, restless with fear, desire, queer longing, and escapist compulsions, who are far from the dutiful, docile stereotypes, to Alyssa Ogi at Tin House Books, for publication in summer 2023, by Annie Hwang at Ayesha Pande Literary (NA).
Rob Costello’s THE DANCING BEARS: QUEER FABLES FOR THE END TIMES, a collection of eleven dark speculative tales featuring queer characters dealing with queer themes, to Steve Berman at Lethe Press, in an exclusive submission, for publication in March 2024, by Marie Lamba at Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency (world English).
Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award SJ Sindu’s THE GOTH HOUSE EXPERIMENT, a tragicomic collection of character-driven stories ranging from the fantastical to the all-too-real, following an array of loners and artists—a boy with wings, a poet haunted by the ghost of Oscar Wilde, a queer beer brewer, a viral influencer—as they struggle to overcome grief in the wake of divorce, the pandemic, and other significant life changes, to Mark Doten at Soho Press, in an exclusive submission, by Erin Harris at Folio Literary Management (NA).
Newbery Award Honoree, National Book Award finalist, and two-time Stonewall Award-winning author Kyle Lukoff’s THE GOLEM OF REFUSE, about a Jewish trans youth fighting evil–human and otherwise–with his friends and community, followed by an untitled middle grade novel, to Ellen Cormier at Dial, in a good deal, in an exclusive submission, in a two-book deal, for publication in summer 2024, by Saba Sulaiman at Talcott Notch Literary Services (world).
Author of THE SKY BLUES and the forthcoming If I See You Again Tomorrow Robbie Couch’s YOU AGAIN, after the death of his best friend leaves him heartbroken and adrift, a gay teen enters an immersive study aimed at boosting his ability to forge bonds with classmates; just as researchers begin to help him form new relationships (and maybe even fall in love), he finds himself wondering if his friend is really gone for good… or if he’s losing his grip on reality, to Alexa Pastor at Simon & Schuster Children’s, in a very nice deal, in an exclusive submission, in a two-book deal, for publication in summer 2024, by Moe Ferrara at BookEnds (world English).
M.E. Corey’s OUT OF BLUE COMES GREEN, in which a transgender teen wants what every other teenage boy wants—a girlfriend and a successful rock band—but when a new girl assumes the teen is a boy and asks him out, he accepts without correcting her; what could possibly go wrong?, to Tamara Grasty at Page Street, in a nice deal, for publication in winter 2024, by Tina Schwartz at The Purcell Agency (world).
Alex Dingley’s ANCESTREE, pitched as Crimson Peak meets The Green Knight, a queer YA horror graphic novel in which a young prince finds out the unsavory truth about his royal lineage when he becomes haunted by a dark creature lurking in the woods surrounding his family’s castle, to Michelle Nguyen at Oni Press, with Desiree Rodriguez editing, for publication in 2025, by Britt Siess at Britt Siess Creative Management (world).
Author of the forthcoming titles HAZEL HILL IS GONNA WIN THIS ONE and NOAH FRYE GETS CRUSHED Maggie Horne’s STAY HERE WITH ME, pitched as a cross between SOME GIRLS DO and Netflix’s The Half of It, a queer love story that centers on two best friends (and recent exes, after one of them came out as gay) who find themselves developing feelings for the same girl, to Rachel Diebel at Feiwel and Friends, at auction, for publication in fall 2024, by Claire Friedman at Inkwell Management (NA).
Author of the forthcoming FUNERAL GIRL Emma K. Ohland’s HERE GOES NOTHING, pitched as a femme queer update of Much Ado About Nothing that finds across-the-street neighbors endlessly feuding and just maybe falling in love, sparking questions for one about her asexual identity, her place in their friend group, and her plans for the future, to Amy Fitzgerald at Carolrhoda Lab, for publication in fall 2024, by Jim McCarthy at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret (world).
Louangie Bou-Montes’s debut DON’T FEAR THE REAPER, pitched as CEMETERY BOYS meets UNDEAD GIRL GANG, in which the 16-year-old, Afro-Latinx son of the local mortician accidentally reanimates the dead body of the boy he had more than friendly feelings for and has to uncover the truth about his family’s necromantic abilities to keep him alive for good, to Carolina Ortiz at Harper Children’s, in a pre-empt, for publication in fall 2024, by Saritza Hernandez at Andrea Brown Literary Agency.
Educator in the kink and queer communities Lee Harrington’s BECOME YOUR OWN BELOVED: A GUIDE TO DELIGHTING IN SELF-CONNECTION, sharing how readers can ease the pain of loneliness, heal longtime emotional wounds, and celebrate themselves as complete beings in and of themselves, embracing an all-inclusive approach to appeal to readers of any gender, age, race, sexual orientation, economic status, and disability, to Elena Vega at Twin Flame, for publication in February 2023 (world).
BDSM educator, Lambda Literary fellow, creator of the Image Comics series SFSX, and host of the eponymous podcast Tina Horn’s WHY ARE PEOPLE INTO THAT, a queer feminist exploration of kink, blending cultural criticism and personal narrative to examine how we conceptualize sex, pleasure, gender, fantasy, and power—and how we can reimagine those concepts for a more liberated future, to Carrie Napolitano at Hachette Books, by Sarah Bolling at The Gernert Company (NA).
Photographer ed.’s QUEERING APPALACHIA’S VISUAL HISTORY, an anthology of contemporary images and writing by artists currently living in or from Appalachia who identify as queer, to Abby Freeland at University Press of Kentucky, in a nice deal, for publication in fall 2024.
Performer, co-executive producer of HBOMax’s Legendary, and member of the House of Xtravaganza Sydney Baloue’s UNDENIABLE: A HISTORY OF VOGUING, BALLROOM AND HOW IT CHANGED MY LIFE (AND THE WORLD), the untold history of ballroom—a transformative social space of competition, experiment, and creativity in gender, sexuality, and culture—a driving force in the Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ community and, eventually, of profound influence to wider American society, as told through the intimate story of how voguing helped the author to realize and embrace his identity as a transgender man, to Angela Ledgerwood at Sugar23, with Libby Burton at Crown editing, at auction, by Alice Whitwham at The Cheney Agency (NA).
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
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
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.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound
Ten 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
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
Leah 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
This is the second book in the Monk and Robot series.
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.Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound
When your parents name you and your three siblings after flowers, the world is stacked against you. At least, that’s how Aster Lavender feels. The youngest daughter, Aster always keeps her head down and lets her siblings stand in the spotlight. She sells her gourmet doughnuts from Hole in One, the small drive-through stand in sleepy Homer’s Bluff, Kansas, and daydreams about seeing the big beautiful world. Love is never going to happen, especially when the only other lesbians in town are already married to each other.
Beautiful Brynn Garrett arrives to fill in for Homer Bluff’s only veterinarian, and suddenly every pet in town is sick. Brynn’s older, smarter, and way out of Aster’s league. Plus, she’s only in town temporarily and definitely running from something. Aster didn’t plan for a connection so strong it knocks the wind right out of her, but Brynn makes her feel like anything but a wallflower.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound
Jazz 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
Amy 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
If 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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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.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound
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.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound
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.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound
Startling 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.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound
What 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 (Taste of Port Andrea) by [Lily Seabrooke]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41lHThM1N9L.jpg)
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
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
Kat 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.
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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]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51PWwrEc3eL.jpg)
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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Taylor 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.
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In 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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Haphazard 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!
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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.
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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.
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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?
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This is the third and final book in the Extraordinaries series
Nick, 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.
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Ava 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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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 . . .
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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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Haelsford, 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…
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When 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.
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Santi 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.
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In 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?
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