Today on the site I’m delighted to give a peek into Being Aro, the brand-new YA anthology edited by Madeline Dyer and Rosiee Thor containing stories featuring aromantic rep across a variety of genres! Here’s the gist:
Explore expansive aromantic love and connection in stories across genres
These twelve stories showcase aromantic people breaking generational curses, finding acceptance, and protecting the vulnerable while highlighting the infinite ways people find connection and love without romance.
A high school matchmaker learns a lesson about love. A rebellious spaceship pilot defies his culture’s compulsory coupling. A boy magically transforms banned romance novels into living dragons. A teen immune to romance, and the zombie virus, fights to survive the apocalypse. Being Aro is full of stories throughout real and imagined worlds that cross genres and disrupt the status quo.
Today on the site I’m delighted to reveal the cover of When Life Gives You Corpses by Lene D. Buttner, a charmingly monstrous YA releasing March 23, 2027 from Wednesday Books! Here’s the story:
In this delightfully cozy and creepy YA romp, a cave monster masquerading as a search-and-recovery guide intends to find and eat a lost wizard—but catches feelings for him instead, perfect for fans of TJ Klune and Andrew Joseph White.
Theory has a monstrous secret. He isn’t an ordinary search-and-recovery guide at Fiendworld, the world’s premier magical-sinkhole-turned-amusement-park; he’s a cursed, human-eating mantis. But not to worry—he has an excellent solution for his particular diet. Whenever he’s asked to retrieve the corpse of a lost adventurer, he simply snacks on a finger or two. No harm done.
That is, until he’s given his latest assignment: recover the body of park management’s missing son. Great. Yet another foolish wizard who got lost adventuring, and this time the direct descendant of the very person who cursed Theory in the first place. Worse, when Theory reluctantly sets off on the search, he’s shocked to find the wizard somehow still alive.
Nim—the wizard in question—has no desire to be rescued. He’s on a mission to the bottom of the sinkhole, and refuses to return to the surface before he gets there. He may be a subpar wizard, as his parents constantly remind him, but he’s got a positive attitude, an enchanted backpack, and now a mysterious rescue worker to recruit to his cause! Even though said worker is quite rude and seems to be getting Nim into more danger rather than out of it.
To survive, Theory and Nim must brave man-eating fish, walls of tentacles, and devastating secrets: both their own, and ones the park desperately tries to keep hidden. Along the way, they may just discover that they’re stronger together than apart.
And here’s the glorious cover, designed by Anto Marr and illustrated by the author themself!
LENE D. BUTTNER lives in London, surrounded by various fluffy and non-fluffy pets. When they’re not writing, they work in Computer Animation, where they spend their time exploding things and simulating toilet paper. They love everything scifi and fantasy and are yet to run out of book ideas featuring misunderstood, snarky monsters.
Today on the site I’m delighted to welcome Leslie Vedder to reveal the cover of her upcoming Sapphic YA Fantasy, The Siren’s Kiss, releasing September 1st from Amulet/Abrams! Here’s the story:
Perfect for fans of Daughter of the Pirate King and Our Flag Means Death comes a swashbuckling YA queer romantasy about a mermaid and a pirate who reluctantly join forces to find the Sea Witch.
Dead Shot Rayleigh has spent the last three years bound to a cursed ship after crossing the sea god Red-Handed Roger. Her only hope for freedom is to find his long-ago stolen heart—which means taking on his sworn enemy, the Sea Witch.
But Rayleigh’s not the only one with a score to settle… Fiery mermaid Maren is also searching for the Sea Witch, determined to bargain for the soul of her lost brother.
When Rayleigh and Maren’s separate missions bring them together, sparks fly, and all their plans go up in flames. Now they’ll have to join forces to survive.
Find the Sea Witch. Steal the heart. And don’t fall for your enemy, no matter how irresistible she is. How hard can it be?
And here’s the gorgeous cover, designed by Micah Fleming with art by Gilded Ruin!
Leslie Vedder (she/her) is a queer ace author who loves books with girl adventurers and heroes! She grew up on fantasy books, anime, fanfiction and the Lord of the Rings movies, and her debut YA The Bone Spindle was an indie bestseller. She lives in Colorado with her wife and her spoiled house cat Fox Mulder, who believes the treats are out there.
Today on the site, I’m delighted to welcome Karis Rogerson to reveal the cover of her debut f/f YA Romance, Nat & Cami’s Guide to Running an Undercover GSA, which releases June 23rd! Here’s the story:
Casey McQuiston meets Heartstopper in this sapphic young adult romance.
Cami is a 15-year-old lesbian, one of the few out queer students at her conservative boarding school for international students in Italy. She just wants to focus on getting her paintings in a student gallery and kickstarting a vaunted art career—but first, she’ll have to survive the next two-and-a-half years of bullying. Seeking respite from her roommate’s cruelty one night, she hides out in a bathroom—only she’s not the only one there.
Nat is a senior, closeted even from herself, whose homophobic, missionary parents are pressuring her to win valedictorian. A year younger than her peers at 16, she’s still the head of her class, the fastest runner on the cross country team, and the captain of the girls’ soccer team, but her depression and insomnia keep her up all night. She takes refuge in the ground-floor bathroom where Cami shows up one night.
As they spend time together over the following nights and Cami shows Nat how poorly the school treats queer people, the two girls concoct a mildly hare-brained scheme: to create an undercover Genders & Sexualities Alliance (GSA) where queer students and allies can bond. They don’t expect so many kids to find a home with them.
And they certainly don’t expect to fall for each other.
And here’s the adorable cover, illustrated by Olya and designed by Ihor at GetCovers!
Karis Rogerson (she/her) is a writer, reader, and podcaster who was born in the South Carolina Midlands, raised in Northeastern Italy, schooled in the German Black Forest and Kentucky Bluegrass, and now lives in Brooklyn, on Lenni Lenape land. She has an MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults from VCFA and is represented by Eric Smith at Neighborhood Literary. Karis writes queer romance for all ages, as well as poetry, personal essays, and select journalism. NAT & CAMI’S GUIDE TO RUNNING AN UNDERCOVER GSA, her debut novel, releases June 23, 2026. She’s a co-host of the podcast The Write Way of Life and host of Publishers Brunch (with Karis0, and you can find more at https://www.karisrogerson.com.
Today on the site I’m delighted to welcome back queer YA icon Lee Wind to reveal the cover of his upcoming YA, A Different Kind of Enemy, which releases May 19th from Interlude Press/Duet Books! Here’s the story:
Perfect for YA fans of Heartstopper and Red, White & Royal Blue, A Different Kind of Enemy is the sequel to the Gay teen globe-trotting adventure Kirkus Reviews called “Thrilling. Positively thrilling.”
An anomaly in space has stopped in Earth’s path in a way not accounted for by astronomical physics. Is it aliens? With only six days before inevitable contact, newly married teen spies Nicolas “Nico” Hall and Samuel “Sam” Solomon are enlisted to investigate—each young man sworn to secrecy even from the other.
Nico is in the field looking for answers and tracking a mysterious Person of Interest. Sam is working first contact scenarios on the thirteenth floor of a Manhattan building that doesn’t officially have a thirteenth floor. And they’re both wondering if the rules of love change if it’s the end of the world.
As humanity slips into the grip of alien invasion panic, Nico and Sam realize they’re going to have to work together to save the world—and their marriage.
And here’s the gorgeously bold cover by CB Messer!
LEEWIND is not currently a spy. Mind you, he never was a spy. But he did spend fourteen years undercover (what most people call “in the closet”). So now he writes the books that would have changed his life as a Gay Jewish kid and teen. Lee is the award-winning author of nonfiction for ages eleven and up (No Way, They Were Gay? and The Gender Binary Is a Big Lie ), picture books (including Like That Eleanor and Love of the Half-Eaten Peach ), and YA novels (Queer as a Five-Dollar Bill and A Different Kind of Brave ). To help go on the offense against book banning, Lee cocreated the national campaign We Are Stronger than Censorship, which buys and donates two books to offset every one book challenge. He also runs the popular blog I’m Here. I’m Queer. What the Hell Do I Read? —words his teenage self only dreamed of saying. Visit Lee online at leewind.org.
Today on the site I’m delighted to welcome back Marieke Nijkamp, Dutch author of so many books but most notably, today, of This is Where it Ends, an uber-bestselling YA thriller whose 10th anniversary edition just released yesterday. As it happens, Marieke is one of my best friends dating back to before either of us were published, so it’s been a particular joy to be on board for this journey! Before we get to our chat, here’s the gist of This is Where it Ends: 10th Anniversary Edition:
The tenth anniversary edition of the #1 New York Times bestseller about a high school held hostage, and four teens―each with their own reason to fear the boy with the gun. Featuring printed edges, updated author’s note, and exclusive material.
10:00am: The principal of Opportunity, Alabama’s High School finishes her speech, welcoming the entire student body to a new semester and encouraging them to excel and achieve.
10:02am: The students get up to leave the auditorium for their next class.
10:03am: The auditorium doors won’t open.
10:05am: Someone starts shooting.
Told over the span of 54 harrowing minutes, terror reigns as one student’s calculated revenge turns into the ultimate game of survival.
Today on the site I’m delighted to welcome Sophia Hannan to reveal the cover of her debut, We Were Never Here, a lesbian YA Horror releasing July 28, 2026 from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers! Here’s the story:
In July, Georgia Perry and Jules Park—secret girlfriends, covert art thieves, and cohosts of a popular YouTube ghost hunting show—step into a haunted house to steal a priceless painting. A few short hours later, there’s a knife in Jules’s chest and Georgia is waking up in a pool of blood with no memory of how she got there.
Now it’s October, and Georgia is underwater. She hasn’t been to class in weeks, she’s avoiding her old crew and only friends like the plague. But when the three remaining thieves get a call from the man who paid a hefty sum to keep them out of jail, demanding that they return to finish the job, Georgia has no choice but to return to her old life.
As the estranged friends scramble to steal the painting with no cover story and no leader, they quickly realize that something is very, very wrong, and it’s not just the suffocating memory of Jules or the prying eyes of their viewers. Between the strange shadows that begin to trail them and the nightmares plaguing Georgia’s sleep, only one thing is certain: Something followed them home from De Lys manor, and it will do anything to keep them from going back.
And here’s the gorgeously chilling cover, designed by Laura Eckes with art by Elizabeth Wakou!
Sophia Hannan is a Canadian author of YA fiction. When she’s not writing about ghosts and the girls they haunt, she can be found studying English literature and forcing her friends to watch horror movies with her. We Were Never Here is her debut novel.
Explore expansive aromantic love and connection in stories across genres
LENE D. BUTTNER lives in London, surrounded by various fluffy and non-fluffy pets. When they’re not writing, they work in Computer Animation, where they spend their time exploding things and simulating toilet paper. They love everything scifi and fantasy and are yet to run out of book ideas featuring misunderstood, snarky monsters.
Leslie Vedder (she/her) is a queer ace author who loves books with girl adventurers and heroes! She grew up on fantasy books, anime, fanfiction and the Lord of the Rings movies, and her debut YA The Bone Spindle was an indie bestseller. She lives in Colorado with her wife and her spoiled house cat Fox Mulder, who believes the treats are out there.
LEE WIND is not currently a spy. Mind you, he never was a spy. But he did spend fourteen years undercover (what most people call “in the closet”). So now he writes the books that would have changed his life as a Gay Jewish kid and teen. Lee is the award-winning author of nonfiction for ages eleven and up (No Way, They Were Gay? and The Gender Binary Is a Big Lie ), picture books (including Like That Eleanor and Love of the Half-Eaten Peach ), and YA novels (Queer as a Five-Dollar Bill and A Different Kind of Brave ). To help go on the offense against book banning, Lee cocreated the national campaign We Are Stronger than Censorship, which buys and donates two books to offset every one book challenge. He also runs the popular blog I’m Here. I’m Queer. What the Hell Do I Read? —words his teenage self only dreamed of saying. Visit Lee online at leewind.org.
