Patrick Hulse | LGBTQ Reads

Today on the site, I’m delighted to welcome back Nicole Melleby to reveal the cover of her upcoming Middle Grade, Brady Mason’s Perfect Fit, releasing January 13th, 2026 from Little, Brown! Here’s the story:

ANNIE meets Vogue’s Anna Wintour in this middle grade novel about a sports-obsessed foster kid who, through a twist of fate, reunites with her glamorous birth mom.

Brady Mason couldn’t care less about fashion. She likes what she knows: baseball, comfortable clothes, and pork roll with egg and cheese. When Brady’s friends notice that she looks strangely like fashion editor Elena Lavigne, they start the rumor that Brady is Elena’s long-lost daughter. They’ll make a few TikTok videos, get some fun buzz online about their similarities, and that will be the end of it.

But when a DNA test confirms that Brady is Elena’s long-lost daughter, she’s summoned to Manhattan to live with her. The only problem: Elena’s high-fashion life clashes with Brady’s tomboy antics, and Elena doesn’t know how to be a mother any more than Brady knows how to be a daughter. But the more time passes, the more Brady sees what they have in common, and she starts wondering…if she and Elena are both searching for a family, could the two of them be the right fit?

Balancing humor and heart, here is a winning story of hard-fought growth and found family.

And here’s the delightful cover, designed by Patrick Hulse with art by Svetla Radivoeva!

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Nicole Melleby, a Jersey native, is the author of highly praised middle-grade books, including the Lambda Literary finalist Hurricane Season and ALA Notable Children’s book How to Become a Planet. She is currently on the faculty of the Hamline University MFA for Writing for Children and Young Adults, and lives with her wife and their cats, whose needs for attention oddly align with Nicole’s writing schedule.

Today on the site I’m delighted to welcome back L.C. Rosen for the cover reveal of, well, not his next YA, because he’s that prolific, but his next standalone YA Romance, You’ve Goth My Heart, which releases September 9, 2025 from Little, Brown & Co.! Here’s the story:

When Gray gets a wrong number text, he’s pretty sure it’s a serial killer—or, worse, his ex—on the other end of the line. But being anonymous actually helps them open up to each other, and Gray finds himself hopeful that this could be his dream goth crush. All they have to do is meet—on Halloween, the night of Sleepy Hollow’s big house-decorating contest, and the perfect opportunity for Gray to show his mystery texter his true feelings. But between Gray’s closeted ex coming back into the picture, a cute but obnoxious new goth kid vying to win the contest, and a serial killer lurking around, killing local gay teens, Gray’s prospects are looking grim. Come Halloween, he’ll either get his dream guy or die trying…

And here’s the Gothtastic cover, designed by Patrick Hulse with art by Colin Verdi!

A note from author L.C. Rosen:

I’m so thrilled and honored that LGBTQReads is revealing this beautiful cover!! Colin Verdi, the artist, is a genius who has done so many of my covers and they are always so perfect.

The original title for this one was You’ve Goth Mail (but my publisher rightly pointed out that teens do not know what AOL is, and the movie is quite old, so we changed it) and it’s an homage to those silly ‘anonymously falling in love while also competing!’ stories that we all love, but I’ve made it gay, goth and pagan! I’m known for my Jewish rep, and identify as culturally Jewish, but I’ve been a practicing Pagan since I was 18, and have organized various pagan conferences and headed pagan groups, so getting to finally put this representation out there is wonderful to me; ritual magick, calling corners, and a scrying all feature prominently. As do, of course, some fierce goth looks (my editor is currently trying to get me to share some photos of me from my own goth days but strangely they all seem to have vanished, we’ll see if any show up by the time the book is out). I’m so excited for you all to read it.

Preorder it now, and you’ll get it just in time for spooky season!

Buy it: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Lev Rosen writes books for people of all ages, including the Evander Mills series, which began with the Macavity Award winning Lavender House (Anthony finalist, Lambda finalist, Best Book of the Year from Buzzfeed, Library Journal, Amazon, Bookpage, and others) and continued with The Bell in the Fog, (Publisher’s Weekly Editor’s Choice, Best Book of the year from Amazon, CrimeReads and Autostraddle). His most recent YA novels are Emmett (Best Book of the year from Kirkus and Amazon), Lion’s Legacy (Best Book of the year from Booklist and the New York Public Library) and Camp (Best Book of the year from Forbes, Elle, and The Today Show and others). The third Evander Mills mystery, Rough Pages, will be out in fall 2024. He lives in NYC with his husband and a very small cat. You can find him online at LevACRosen.com and @LevACRosen

Queering up your shelf, one rec at a time!