Tag Archives: YA

Fave Five: New Queer YA Dark Academia

These are 2024-25 releases. For older titles, click here.

With Love & Mischief by Derek Milman

We Are Villains by Kacen Callender 

Lovely Dark and Deep by Elisa A. Bonnin 

The Girl You Know by Elle Gonzalez Rose

The Tournament by Rebecca Barrow

Bonus: These are all prose novels, but for a graphic novel, check out This Place Kills Me by Mariko Tamaki and Nicole Goux

Inside an Anthology: For the Rest of Us ed. by Dahlia Adler

Yesterday I had the privilege of releasing an anthology that’s been near and dear to my heart for years, and like all my anthologies, there are a whole bunch of queer stories! Read on for a peek into three of them, but first, here’s a little more about the collection, which released yesterday from Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins!

Fourteen acclaimed authors showcase the beautiful and diverse ways holidays are observed in this festive anthology. Keep the celebrations going all year long with this captivating and joyful read!

From Lunar New Year to Solstice, Día de Los Muertos to Juneteenth, and all the incredible days in between, it’s clear that Americans don’t just have one holiday. Edited by the esteemed Dahlia Adler and authored by creators who have lived these festive experiences firsthand, this joyful collection of stories shows that there isn’t one way to experience a holiday.

With stories by:

  • Dahlia Adler, Sydney Taylor Honor winner of Going Bicoastal
  • Candace Buford, author of Good as Gold
  • A. R. Capetta and Cory McCarthy, authors of the Once & Future series
  • Preeti Chhibber, author of Payal Mehta’s Romance Revenge Plot
  • Natasha Díaz, award-winning author of Color Me In
  • Kelly Loy Gilbert, Stonewall Book Award winning author of Picture Us in the Light
  • Kosoko Jackson, USA Today bestselling author of The Forest Demands Its Due
  • Aditi Khorana, award-winning author of Mirror in the Sky
  • Katherine Locke, award-winning author of This Rebel Heart
  • Abdi Nazemian, Stonewall Book Award–winning author of Only This Beautiful Moment
  • Laura Pohl, New York Times bestselling author of The Grimrose Girls
  • Sonora Reyes, Pura Belpré Honor winner of The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School
  • Karuna Riazi, contributor to The Grimoire of Grim Fates

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N

 

Continue reading Inside an Anthology: For the Rest of Us ed. by Dahlia Adler

Exclusive Cover Reveal We Could Be Anyone by Anna-Marie McLemore

Today on the site, I am so delighted to welcome back Anna-Marie McLemore to reveal the cover of their brand-new YA historical thriller, We Could Be Anyone, releasing May 26, 2026 from Feiwel & Friends! Here’s the story:

Lola and Lisandro are actors during Hollywood’s Golden Age, but you won’t see them on any silver screen. Instead, these siblings use their talents to scam the rich and famous out of their ill-begotten cash. They have their act down to a science: Lola plays the tragic ghost who haunts the mansions of the wealthy, and Lisandro plays the brave spiritualist who will help her soul find peace. For a small fee, of course.

The siblings have their sights set on their next target: The Coterie, the opulent estate of newspaper tycoon Bixby Fairfax and his famous mistress Blythe Bell. A score this big will allow them to move… well, anywhere but here. But this job requires them to do something they’ve never done before: switch roles. And as strange things keep happening at The Coterie… things that even Lola and Lisandro can’t explain.

As they are drawn deeper into The Coterie’s gleaming façade and tensions rise between brother and sister, one question looms over them. Will they be able to pull off their act? Or will this be their last performance?

And here’s the gorgeous cover, designed by L. Whitt with art by Andreea Dumuta!

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N

(c) Elliott McLemore

Anna-Marie McLemore (they/them) grew up hearing la llorona in the Santa Ana winds and now writes books as queer, Latine, and nonbinary as they are. They are the author of William C. Morris YA Debut Award finalist The Weight of FeathersWild BeautyBlanca & Roja, one of Time magazine’s 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time; Dark and Deepest Red; Lambda Literary Award Finalist LakeloreFlawless Girls; and National Book Award longlist selections When the Moon Was OursThe Mirror Season, and Self-Made Boys: A Great Gatsby Remix. Find them online at annamariemclemore.com.

Exclusive Cover Reveal: Load Game by Emilie Nantel

Today on the site I’m delighted to welcome Emilie Nantel to reveal the cover of her upcoming speculative bi f/f YA, Load Game, releasing September 18, 2025! Here’s the story:

Vera Young can time travel through her selfies.

For a disaster bi with a huge crush on her bestie Soph and an affinity for trouble, that new power is a cheat code for life. Consequences are a thing of the past.

Punched the sleazy quarterback and got suspended? Save game. Load game. Get out scot-free.

Want the satisfaction of getting revenge on the mean girls bullying you, but still want to be a good person? Humiliate them in front of everyone, rewind, and enjoy! It doesn’t count if it didn’t happen!

Whatever life throws at her, Vera’s got this.

But some things you can’t control, not even with all the time travel in the world: Riverview High’s rumor mill; a death that’s a fixed point in time; and the crumbling integrity of the space-time continuum, to name a few.

Turns out, there’s a lot of consequences to a no-consequences life.

For teen readers at an age of firsts of all kinds, where mistakes, what-ifs, grief and guilt are so challenging to cope with. Load Game deals with the hardships of youth in an honest, yet optimistic and lighthearted way.

And here’s the cool cover, designed by Rorrim Designs!

Buy it!

Emilie Nantel is the author of OPEN: A Tale of Love, Mermaids, Bassists, & Creepy Dudes, a queer polyamorous romcom for adults.

She honed her casual, witty voice through years writing fanfiction, and now brings her friends-to-lovers expertise to original stories of queer joy.

When she’s not writing, you can usually find her at home in Montreal, trying every art medium she can get her hands on, playing The Sims 4, or bringing various hot mess characters to life in tabletop roleplaying games.

Load Game is her first foray into Young Adult fiction.

Authors in Conversation: CL Montblanc and Jamie D’Amato

Today on the site I’m delighted to present a conversation between two YA debuts, Pride or Die author CL Montblanc and The Good Vampire’s Guide to Blood and Boyfriends author Jamie D’Amato! Pride or Die just released on April 15th (though as you’ll see, this conversation took place beforehand, and I opted out of editing that), while Vampire is still to come at the end of August, but you can get hyped for both right now!

CW from authors: Discussion of mental health topics/suicidal ideation.

JD: Hey there! First of all, I always love chatting with you, but I’m especially excited to be talking with you for LGBTQ Reads, which I’ve always admired as a resource, and which feels more important than ever in today’s climate.

CLM: Agreed. More so than anywhere else right now, this feels like the safest space for us to be talking about our two queer books. Promoting an LGBTQ title has been really challenging so far—I’ve already had pushback elsewhere for simply “having pronouns” while trying to talk about writing craft.

Continue reading Authors in Conversation: CL Montblanc and Jamie D’Amato

Exclusive Cover Reveal: This Wretched Beauty by Elle Grenier

Not to play favorites, but I have been waiting for this book since the dawn of time, so I am wildly excited to be revealing the cover today of This Wretched Beauty by Elle Grenier, a transfeminine YA remix of The Picture of Dorian Gray releasing from Feiwel & Friends in their Remixed Classics series on February 17, 2026! Here’s the story:

Happiness needs to be earned in the face of impossible odds, or there’s no beauty in it.

London, 1867. Dorian Gray is the heir to a title and their family’s estate, but they’ve never been given the chance to decide whether that’s actually what they want out of life. Forcibly estranged from their father by their manipulative grandfather, Dorian feels trapped in the life that has been decided for them.

Then one night they sneak out of their grandfather’s house, they meet a sweet and talented young painter named Basil, who immediately recognizes Dorian as his new muse. They agree to sit for Basil for a portrait, and Dorian is struck by the beauty and depth that Basil paints into their likeness—and they dare to begin hoping there might be more to life than being their grandfather’s perfect, empty-headed heir.

Dorian is further elated when Basil introduces them to the world of molly houses and drag performers—they’ve never seen such joyful variety of humanity and gender expression. But, as the barrier between the London she knows and the one she’s discovering begins to crumble, Dorian must face the fact that freedom and safety do not always come hand in hand.

The aftermath of this realization pulls Dorian into a terrible downward spiral, torn between guilt over their own actions and hatred for the suffocating expectations of society, prompting them to push away those closest to them, surrounding themself instead with vapid courtiers and decadent socialites. And as Dorian’s spiral of self-loathing deepens, something strange happens—Basil’s portrait of them begins to change. Their smile becomes a little sharper, the glint in their eyes a little colder.

Dorian will have to choose—embrace the wickedness within and allow themself to become what they were always meant to be, or dare to try for something far more fragile and dangerous: a life of their own making

And here’s the positively glowing cover, designed by L. Whitt with art by Syd Mills!

a young woman stands hunched over a dark desk in the bottom half of the picture. Her face is hidden behind shoulder-length golden-blonde hair with strawberry undertones. Her dress is long with pink and blue accents, but leaves her shoulders and upper back exposed. A white, smoke-like fog rises off her and into the painted portrait behind her, which holds a young figure in white with a malicious glint in their eye and a wicked smile. The frame is curved and wooden, and the backdrop of the portrait is an ominous purple smoke. At the bottom of the image is the title "This Wretched Beauty" in a large, elegant font, as well as the words "A Dorian Gray Remix" framed beneath it in a smaller, sleeker font. At the top of the page is the name "Elle Grenier" in the same font as "A Dorian Gray Remix."

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

(c) Graham Shonfield

Elle Grenier is a YA author, bookseller, and former theatre kid who lives in British Columbia on traditional Pocumtuc land with their fiancee and their three cats. They started writing at eight years old and never stopped, now striving to write the books they would’ve wanted to see in their teenage years. Elle studied English Literature at the University of Toronto and started their Masters before deciding to focus their attention on writing instead. When they aren’t writing, you can probably find Elle rewatching the same three shows online, playing around with Taylor Swift covers on their lyre, or lying by the nearest body of water. When they are writing, you’ll likely see them downing several cups of coffee next to a Shakespeare plush for motivation. This Wretched Beauty: A Dorian Gray Remix is their debut novel.

Fave Five: Queer YA Vampires, Part II

For Part I, click here.

A Vile Season by David Ferraro

This Ravenous Fate by Hayley Dennings

The Good Vampire’s Guide to Blood and Boyfriends by Jamie D’Amato

Honeybloods by I.S. Belle

Keep it in the Dark by Justin Arnold

Bonus: A new mention for Where Shadows Meet by Patrice Caldwell, as both the title and pub date changed since the last one (but it is now officially and newly out!)

Fave Five: Sapphic YA Romantasy

Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust

Where Shadows Meet by Patrice Caldwell

Brewed With Love by Shelly Page

Where Shadows Bloom by Catherine Bakewell

This Dark Heart by Zeena Gosrani

Bonus: Coming in 2026, What You Will by Rachael Lippincott

Exclusive Cover Reveal: America’s Not-So Sweetheart by Blair Hanson

Today on the site I’m delighted to reveal the cover of America’s Not-So Sweetheart by Blair Hanson, a gay YA Romance releasing June 17, 2025 from Page Street YA! Here’s the story:

Alec Braud is the most hated teen in America after winning Campfire Wars by backstabbing his showmance, Joaquin Delgado. So when Joaquin asks Alec to join him on a road trip in order to “queerify” classic movie kisses for an art project, Alec agrees in the hopes it might make get them back together and convince the world he’s not a bad guy IRL.

Alec spends the trip reading into Joaquin’s flirty behavior and things get even more complicated when Alec is invited to return to the next season of Campfire Wars. He’s been trying to prove to everyone (and Joaquin) that he’s not actually the worst. But Alec is torn again between a second chance with Joaquin and cold hard cash.

Can he turn down the chance to return to the small screen for what only might be love?

And here’s the killer cover, designed by Vienna Gambol with art by Otesanya

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Blair Hanson is a chemist and proud cat lover. He is also a YA author who wants to see more realistic representations of gay teens. He lives in New Jersey. America’s Not-So-Sweetheart is his debut novel.

Exclusive Cover Reveal: Love and Video Games by Zachary Sergi

Today on the site I’m thrilled to welcome back Zachary Sergi to reveal the cover of his next YA, Love and Video Games, releasing September 16th from Running Press Kids! Here’s the story:

Ready Player One meets Heartstopper in which a myth-loving video game player discovers there isn’t a cheat code to life–or love–while competing in a tournament with his handsome crush and gamer friends.

In the real world, Keegan Thomas is a gay, eighteen-year-old mythology nerd with undiagnosed chronic pain. But in the myth-inspired, online video game world of Pantheonic, he is the glorious and powerful K.Odyssia, slaying legions of enemies and completing quests for honor and glory along with his team, the Epic Hearts. Despite his closeness to his gamer friends–and the secret crush he has on his teammate, Alix–no one knows that he is struggling with the sudden onset of chronic pain in his lower back and fears it will hinder his ability to move to NYU in the fall.

When a quest in Pantheonic turns out to be a secret invitation to an in-person tournament in New York City, Keegan has to battle his fears of concealing and managing his pain so that his team can attend this once-in-a-lifetime event. Competing against six other teams, members of the Epic Hearts must work together to outwit and outplay the others to win the tournament and the hefty cash prize. But can Keegan as K.Odyssia be one of the heroes that Pantheonic needs while he’s laser-focused on his own epic battle? Will he be able to level up his relationship with Alix and lead his team to victory? It’s time for the games to begin!

And here’s the action-packed cover, illustrated by Yoshi Yoshitani and designed by Mary Boyer!

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Zachary Sergi is the queer author of Major Detours and nearly a dozen works of Interactive Fiction, including the Heroes Rise and Versus series. Zachary was raised in Manhattan, studied Creative Writing at Regis High School and the University of Pennsylvania, and now lives in Los Angeles with his husband, where he also writes for television. Learn more at zacharysergi.com or by following @zacharysergi (TikTok/Twitter) or @zacharysergiwriter (Instagram).