Backhanded Compliments by Katie Chandler
Love All by Rachel Spangler
Break Point and Lucky Loser by Yolanda Wallace
Slammed by Lola Keeley
In Her Court by Tamsen Parker

Backhanded Compliments by Katie Chandler
Love All by Rachel Spangler
Break Point and Lucky Loser by Yolanda Wallace
Slammed by Lola Keeley
In Her Court by Tamsen Parker

Happy National Girls and Women in Sports Day! In celebration, here are a whole bunch of books that center queer girls and women in sports! (For even more recs, check out these past posts!)
All these months of staring at the wall?
All these months of feeling weak?
It’s ending—
I’m going back to fencing.
And then it’ll be
like nothing ever happened.
No one knows hard work and dedication like Valentina Camacho. And Vale’s thing is fencing. She’s the top athlete at her fencing gym. Or she was . . . until the accident.
After months away, Vale is finally cleared to fence again, but it’s much harder than before. Her body doesn’t move the way it used to, and worst of all is the new number one: Myrka. When she sweeps Vale aside with her perfect form and easy smile, Vale just can’t accept that. But the harder Vale fights to catch up, the more she realizes her injury isn’t the only thing holding her back. If she can’t leave her accident in the past, then what does she have to look forward to?
Continue reading Happy National Girls and Women in Sports Day 2025!
The Other Olympians: Fascism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports by Michael Waters
Out of Our League ed. by Dahlia Adler and Jennifer Iacopelli
Edge of Glory by Rachel Spangler
Gold by E.J. Noyes

Playing for Keeps by Jennifer Dugan (f/f YA)
The Prospects by KT Hoffman (m/m)
Unwritten Rules by KD Casey (m/m series)
Heart of the Game by Rachel Spangler (f/f)
You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian (m/m Histrom)

Bonus: These are all prose novels, but for a graphic novel series, check out Grand Slam Romance by Ollie Hicks and Emma Oosterhouse (f/f))
Happy National Girls and Women in Sports Day! In celebration of this day, here are a whole bunch of books that center queer girls and women in sports! (For even more recs, check out 2022‘s post!)
Valentina “Vale” Castillo-Green’s life revolves around soccer. Her friends, her future, and her father’s intense expectations are all wrapped up in the beautiful game. But after she incites a fight during playoffs with her long-time rival, Leticia Ortiz, everything she’s been working toward seems to disappear.
Embarrassed and desperate to be anywhere but home, Vale escapes to her beloved childhood soccer camp for a summer of relaxation and redemption…only to find out that she and the endlessly aggravating Leticia will be co-captaining a team that could play in front of college scouts. But the competition might be stiffer than expected, so unless they can get their rookie team’s act together, this second chance―and any hope of playing college soccer―will slip through Vale’s fingers. When the growing pressure, friendship friction, and her overbearing father push Vale to turn to Leticia for help, what starts off as a shaky alliance of necessity begins to blossom into something more through a shared love of soccer…and maybe each other.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound
Continue reading Happy National Girls and Women in Sports Day 2024!
Heart of the Game by Rachel Spangler (f/f)
Out on a Limb by AJ Truman (m/m)
Fearless by Shira Glassman (f/f)
Learned Behaviors by Jayce Ellis (m/m)
Falling Hard by Jae (f/f)

Love in the Stacks by Cara Malone
Back to September by Melissa Brayden
A Hidden Hope by Laura Ambrose
Full English by Rachel Spangler
Under the Mistletoe by Everly James

Here at LGBTQReads the sole non-donation income that keeps the site running does come from a certain website’s affiliate links, but don’t let that fool you into thinking we don’t love indies, especially the ones that carry small-press/self-pub queer books! To celebrate those very stores, here are a bunch of links to celebrate indie bookstore day the best way possible and get some amazing books in the process!
This will be an annual feature, so if a bookstore you love isn’t on this year’s list, it may be on next year’s! I obviously couldn’t feature every store or every book, but if this post sells a few books and even helps people find some signed copies of their faves, I feel good about it!
Note: I did not list a book as signed if the *listing* for the book did not say it, but many of these books were pulled from “Signed Books” lists on the sites. If you want a signed copy, double check!
YA
Adult
PB
MG/YA
Adult
Non-Fiction
YA
Adult
PB
MG
YA
Adult
YA
PB
MG
YA
Adult
YA
NA/Adult
YA
Adult
YA
Adult
YA
Adult
MG
YA
Adult
YA
YA
Adult
Poetry
MG/YA
Adult
MG/YA
NA/Adult
YA
PB
YA
NA/Adult
YA
Adult
PB
MG
YA
Adult
Nonfiction
Poetry
YA
Adult
YA
Adult