Happy Black History Month! Like the other eleven months, it’s an excellent time to buy queer books by Black authors! For even more recs, check out previous years’ posts!
Books to Read Now
Alex Wise vs. the End of the World by Terry J. Benton-Walker
But none of this could prepare Alex for the actual end of the world. Too bad that is exactly what’s coming, after the definitely-real Shadow Man kidnaps Mags and she is possessed by the ancient spirit of Death—one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Luckily (depending on who you ask), Alex is possessed as well by a powerful god who imbues Alex with their powers in an effort to stop the Horsemen…if he can figure out how to use them. So begins an epic battle between good and evil: Alex, Loren, a grumpy demi-god, and Alex’s fourth grade teacher vs. Death, Pestilence, Famine, War, and the waves of chaos and destruction they bring to LA and soon the rest of the globe. Just your average summer vacation.
Alex is more used to being left behind than leading the way, but now he’s the only one who can save his sister—and the world. That is, if he can unlock his new powers and and see himself as the hero he is.
So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole
Faron Vincent can channel the power of the gods. Five years ago, she used her divine magic to liberate her island from its enemies, the dragon-riding Langley Empire. But now, at seventeen, Faron is all powered up with no wars to fight. She’s a legend to her people and a nuisance to her neighbors.
When she’s forced to attend an international peace summit, Faron expects that she will perform tricks like a trained pet and then go home. She doesn’t expect her older sister, Elara, forming an unprecedented bond with an enemy dragon—or the gods claiming the only way to break that bond is to kill her sister.
As Faron’s desperation to find another solution takes her down a dark path, and Elara discovers the shocking secrets at the heart of the Langley Empire, both must make difficult choices that will shape each other’s lives, as well as the fate of their world.
Escaping Mr. Rochester by L.L. McKinney
What if the real villain of Jane Eyre was actually Mr. Rochester? In this fresh reimagining of Charlotte Bronte’s classic novel by acclaimed author L.L. McKinney, Jane Eyre and Bertha Mason—Mr. Rochester’s wife, whom he’s imprisoned within the house for years—must save each other from the horrifying machinations of Mr. Rochester in this intrigue-filled, empowering Black queer young adult romance.
Jane Eyre has no interest in a husband. Eager to make her own way in the world, she accepts the governess position at Thornfield Hall.
Though her new employer, Edward Rochester, has a charming air—not to mention a handsome face—Jane discovers that his smile can sharpen in an instant. Plagued by Edward’s mercurial mood and the strange wails that echo through the corridors, Jane grows suspicious of the secrets hidden within Thornfield Hall—unaware of the true horrors lurking above her very head.
On the topmost floor, Bertha Mason is trapped in more ways than one. After her whirlwind marriage to Edward turned into a nightmare, he locked her away as revenge for withholding her inheritance. Now his patience grows thin in the face of Bertha’s resilience and Jane’s persistent questions, and both young women are in more danger than they realize.
When their only chance at safety—and perhaps something more—is in each other’s arms, can they find and keep one another safe before Edward’s dark machinations close in around them?
Infinity Alchemist by Kacen Callender
Only an elite few are legally permitted to study the science of magic―so when Ash is rejected by Lancaster College of Alchemic Science, he takes a job as the school’s groundskeeper instead, forced to learn alchemy in secret.
When he’s discovered by the condescending and brilliant apprentice Ramsay Thorne, Ash is sure he’s about to be arrested―but instead of calling the reds, Ramsay surprises Ash by making him an offer: Ramsay will keep Ash’s secret if he helps her find the legendary Book of Source, a sacred text that gives its reader extraordinary power.
As Ash and Ramsay work together and their feelings for each other grow, Ash discovers their mission is more dangerous than he imagined, pitting them against influential and powerful alchemists―Ash’s estranged father included. Ash’s journey takes him through the cities and wilds across New Anglia, forcing him to discover his own definition of true power and how far he and other alchemists will go to seize it.
Salt the Water by Candice Iloh
Cerulean and their friends went into senior year—the first year of normal school after the pandemic—with a plan: keep their heads down in class, save money, and get the hell out of the Bronx once they graduate. If teachers are going to force them to read Huckleberry Finn, then they can’t blame kids for “lighting out for the territory.” Cerulean is convinced that there must be somewhere better than the Bronx and is focused on learning how to grow and make food so they can all be self-sufficient when they finally make their break.
But burned-out, unsympathetic teachers and a very badly timed workplace accident for Cerulean’s father send Cerulean crashing back to Earth and suddenly it seems impossible for them to see beyond the neighborhood.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon
Songs of Irie by Asha Ashanti Bromfield
It’s 1976 and Jamaica is on fire. The country is on the eve of important elections and the warring political parties have made the divisions between the poor and the wealthy even wider. And Irie and Jilly come from very different backgrounds: Irie is from the heart of Kingston, where fighting in the streets is common. Jilly is from the hills, where mansions nestled within lush gardens remain safe behind gates. But the two bond through a shared love of Reggae music, spending time together at Irie’s father’s record store, listening to so-called rebel music that opens Jilly’s mind to a sound and a way of thinking she’s never heard before.
As tensions build in the streets, so do tensions between the two girls. A budding romance between them complicates things further as the push and pull between their two lives becomes impossible to bear. For Irie, fighting—with her words and her voice—is her only option. Blood is shed on the streets in front of her every day. She has no choice. But Jilly can always choose to escape.
Can their bond survive this impossible divide?
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon
The Forest Demands its Due by Kosoko Jackson
Regent Academy has a long and storied history in the small, sleepy town of Winslow, Vermont. But so does the vast, dense forest that surrounds its campus. While the prestigious school is known for molding teens into world leaders, its history is far more nefarious—and far more entangled with the forest—than anyone could begin to suspect.
Seventeen-year-old Douglas Jones wants nothing to do with Regent’s king-making; he’s just trying to forget his past and survive his present. But then a student is killed and, by the next day, no one remembers him ever exiting, except for Douglas and the groundskeeper’s son, Everett Everley. As Douglas begins to research what he finds to be a centuries-long curse in the town, he and Everett awaken a horror hidden within the forest. And to save the town, and the school, the forest wants more blood as payment. The question is, will Douglas and Everett be able to pay the debt?
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N | IndieBound
Monstrous by Jessica Lewis
Don’t go outside past dark. Come straight home after church. And above all—never, ever, go into Red Wood.
These are the rules Latavia’s aunt tells her as soon as she arrives in Sanctum, Alabama for the summer. Weird, but Latavia isn’t here to solve any scary small town mysteries; she’s here for six weeks and six weeks only, and then she’s off to college and won’t look back. Still, Sanctum has its perks—mainly, the cute girl who works at the local ice cream shop.
But Latavia can’t ignore how strange her aunt’s tiny town is. The residents are suspicious of her and at times hostile, and it’s clear she’s some kind of outsider. That’s proven when Latavia is dragged out of her house in the dead of night, into the forbidden Red Wood, and presented as a human sacrifice to an ancient monster.
Latavia won’t be eaten without a fight. She’ll do whatever she has to do to survive—even if that includes making a deal with the monster, endangering her crush and family, and even risk turning into a monster herself.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound
Brooms by Jasmine Walls (text) and Teo DuVall (art)
It’s 1930s Mississippi. Magic is permitted only in certain circumstances, and by certain people. Unsanctioned broom racing is banned. But for those who need the money, or the thrills…it’s there to be found.
Meet Billie Mae, captain of the Night Storms racing team, and Loretta, her best friend and second-in-command. They’re determined to make enough money to move out west to a state that allows Black folks to legally use magic and take part in national races.
Cheng-Kwan – doing her best to handle the delicate and dangerous double act of being the perfect “son” to her parents, and being true to herself while racing.
Mattie and Emma — Choctaw and Black — the youngest of the group and trying to dodge government officials who want to send them and their newly-surfaced powers away to boarding school.
And Luella, in love with Billie Mae. Her powers were sealed away years ago after she fought back against the government. She’ll do anything to prevent the same fate for her cousins.
Lush Lives by J. Vanessa Lyon
For Glory Hopkins, inheriting her Aunt Lucille’s Harlem brownstone feels more like a curse than a blessing. As a restless artist struggling to find gallery representation, Glory doesn’t have the money, time, or patience to look after the aging house of an aunt she barely knew. But when she stumbles into Parkie de Groot, a savvy, ambitious auction house appraiser on the verge of a coveted promotion, her unexpected inheritance begins to look more promising. Glory and Parkie form an unlikely alliance and work to unearth the origins of a rare manuscript hidden in the brownstone’s trove. In doing so, they uncover not only the well-kept secrets of Lucille’s life but also the complex relationships between Harlem and its distinguished residents.
Undeniable as their connection may be, complications arise that threaten to tear apart their newly forged relationship. Between Parkie’s struggle to overcome the heartache of past romances and professional problems that threaten to end her rising career, and Glory’s unbridled and all-consuming drive, they begin to keep secrets from each other. The deeper they dig into the mysteries of the Harlem brownstone, the more fraught their relationship becomes.
And Then He Sang a Lullaby by Ani Kayode
August is a God-fearing track star who leaves Enugu City to attend university and escape his overbearing sisters. He carries the weight of their lofty expectations, the shame of facing himself, and the haunting memory of a mother he never knew. It’s his first semester and pressures aside, August is making friends, doing well in his classes. He even almost has a girlfriend. There’s only one problem: he can’t stop thinking about Segun, an openly gay student who works at a local cybercafé. Segun carries his own burdens and has been wounded in too many ways. When he meets August, their connection is undeniable, but Segun is reluctant to open himself up to August. He wants to love and be loved by a man who is comfortable in his own skin, who will see and hold and love Segun, exactly as he is.
Despite their differences, August and Segun forge a tender intimacy that defies the violence around them. But there is only so long Segun can stand being loved behind closed doors, while August lives a life beyond the world they’ve created together. And when a new, sweeping anti-gay law is passed, August and Segun must find a way for their love to survive in a Nigeria that was always determined to eradicate them.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon
Leather, Lace, and Locs by Anne Shade
Melissa Hart is a shy, mousy introvert, afraid to step out of her comfort zone until she dons a mask and leather as the dominatrix persona Mistress Heart. Living a double life, she develops an intimate relationship with a mysterious client who chips away the wall separating Ms. Hart from Mistress Heart to show Melissa the woman she really is.
Golden Hughes had one goal, to turn her passion for dance into a professional career. Then tragedy strikes and Golden sets her dreams aside for a regular job and steady paycheck. Now that she has everything she needs, her passion for dance is reignited in burlesque performance, putting her in the path of two unique and sexy women.
Zoe Grant has spent most of her adult life putting her wants and needs on the back burner to focus on raising her daughter, her career as a beautician, and expanding her family’s natural hair care products business. When a woman running from a painful past comes to the salon for a life-changing haircut, Zoe finds what she wants and needs in the most unexpected way.
Three friends, each on their own path, discover love could lead to happily ever after.
Buy it: Amazon
Thank You for Sharing by Rachel Runya Katz
Daniel Rosenberg and Liyah Cohen-Jackson’s last conversation―fourteen years ago at summer camp―ended their friendship. Until they find themselves seated next to each other on a plane, and bitterly pick up right where they left off. At least they can go their separate ways again after landing…
That is, until Daniel’s marketing firm gets hired by the Chicago museum where Liyah works as a junior curator, and they’re forced to collaborate with potential career changing promotions on the line.
With every meeting and post-work social gathering with colleagues, the tension (and chemistry) between Daniel and Liyah builds until they’re forced to confront why they broke apart years ago at camp. But as they find comfort in their shared experiences as Jews of color and fumble towards friendship, can they ignore their growing feelings for each other?
With sexy charm and undeniable wit, Rachel Runya Katz’s sparkling debut, Thank You For Sharing, proves that if you’re open to love, anything is possible.
Broughtupsy by Christina Cooke
Tired of not having a place to land, twenty-year-old Akúa flies from Canada to her native Jamaica to reconnect with her estranged sister. Their younger brother Bryson has recently passed from sickle cell anemia—the same disease that took their mother ten years prior—and Akúa carries his remains in a small wooden box with the hopes of reassembling her family.
Over the span of two fateful weeks, Akúa and Tamika visit significant places from their childhood—the home they grew up in, their mother’s grave, a favorite beach—where Akúa slowly spreads Bryson’s ashes. But time spent with her sister only clarifies how different they are, and how years of living abroad haves distanced Akúa from her home culture. “Am I Jamaican?” she asks herself again and again. But beneath these haunting doubts lies her anger and resentment at being abandoned by her own blood. “Why didn’t you stay with me?” she wants to ask Tamika.
Wandering through Kingston with her brother’s ashes in tow, Akúa meets Jayda, a brash young woman who shows her a different side of the city. As the two grow closer, Akúa confronts the difficult reality of being gay in a deeply religious family, and what being a gay woman in Jamaica actually means.
Stars in Your Eyes by Kacen Callender
Logan Gray is the stereotypical bad boy of Hollywood—a talented but troubled actor who the public loves to hate. Mattie Cole is an up‑and‑coming golden boy, adored by all but plagued by insecurities.
When Mattie is cast as the love interest in Logan’s newest film, the two are persuaded into a fake‑dating scheme to bring positive publicity to the project. But as the two actors get to know their new characters, real feelings start to develop. And while both need the movie to be a success for their own reasons, neither thought opposites would really attract.
But as the public scrutiny intensifies and old wounds resurface, will they have the courage to chase their own happily ever after?
Family Meal by Bryan Washington
Cam is living in Los Angeles and falling apart after the love of his life has died. Kai’s ghost won’t leave Cam alone; his spectral visits wild, tender, unexpected, and explosive. When Cam returns to his hometown of Houston, he crashes back into the orbit of his former best friend, TJ, and TJ’s family bakery. TJ’s not sure how to navigate this changed Cam, impenetrably cool and self-destructing, or their charged estrangement. Can they find a way past all that has been said – and left unsaid – to save each other?
When secrets and wounds become so insurmountable that they devour us from within, hope and sustenance and friendship can come from the most unlikely source. Spanning Los Angeles, Houston, and Osaka, Family Meal is a story about how the people who know us the longest can hurt us the most, but how they also set the standard for love.
Just Like Her by Fiona Zedde
Delphine’s life is made up of secrets. About her job, her sexual identity, and even her past.
She coasts along on a tide of half-truths until a familiar “straight” woman splashes deeper into her world, threatening her tenuous peace of mind.
This woman wants to be everything Delphine has never had before – a confidant, a seductress, a trusted lover. By giving in to this siren, is Delphine setting herself up for heartbreak?
Buy it: Amazon
Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt: A Memoir in Verse by Brontez Purnell
In Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt, Brontez Purnell―the bard of the underloved and overlooked―turns his gaze inward. A storyteller with a musical eye for the absurdity of his own existence, he is peerless in his ability to find the levity within the stormiest of crises. Here, in his first collection of genre-defying verse, Purnell reflects on his peripatetic life, whose ups and downs have nothing on the turmoil within. “The most high-risk homosexual behavior I engage in,” Purnell writes, “is simply existing.”
The thirty-eight autobiographical pieces pulsing in Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt find Purnell at his no-holds-barred best. He remembers a vicious brawl he participated in at a poetry conference and reckons with packaging his trauma for TV writers’ rooms; wrestles with the curses, and gifts, passed down from generations of family members; and chronicles, with breathless verve, a list of hell-raising misadventures and sexcapades. Through it all, he muses on everything from love and loneliness to capitalism and Blackness to jogging and the ethics of art, always with unpredictable clarity and movement.
Off-Time Jive by A.Z. Louise
Set during an alternate Harlem Renaissance where new forms of magic created by Black joy strain against the white establishment, Bessie Knox is an investigator of magical mysteries. When her old colleagues at the Bronx Academy of Magic start turning up dead, Knox’s weakened abilities are pushed to their limits, but if she can’t solve the case, she’ll be next.
Buy it: Neon Hemlock
Bless the Blood: a Cancer Memoir by Walela Nehanda
A searing debut YA poetry and essay collection about a Black cancer patient who faces medical racism after being diagnosed with leukemia in their early twenties, for fans of Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals and Laurie Halse Anderson’s Shout.
When Walela is diagnosed at twenty-three with advanced stage blood cancer, they’re suddenly thrust into the unsympathetic world of tubes and pills, doctors who don’t use their correct pronouns, and hordes of “well-meaning” but patronizing people offering unsolicited advice as they navigate rocky personal relationships and share their story online.
But this experience also deepens their relationship to their ancestors, providing added support from another realm. Walela’s diagnosis becomes a catalyst for their self-realization. As they fill out forms in the insurance office in downtown Los Angeles or travel to therapy in wealthier neighborhoods, they begin to understand that cancer is where all forms of their oppression intersect: Disabled. Fat. Black. Queer. Nonbinary.
In Bless the Blood: A Cancer Memoir, the author details a galvanizing account of their survival despite the U.S. medical system, and of the struggle to face death unafraid.
How to Live Free in a Dangerous World by Shayla Lawson
In their new book, Shayla Lawson reveals how traveling can itself be a political act, when it can be a dangerous world to be Black, femme, nonbinary, and disabled. With their signature prose, at turns bold, muscular, and luminous, Shayla Lawson travels the world to explore deeper meanings held within love, time, and the self.
Through encounters with a gorgeous gondolier in Venice, an ex-husband in the Netherlands, and a lost love on New Year’s Eve in Mexico City, Lawson’s travels bring unexpected wisdom about life in and out of love. They learn the strength of friendships and the dangers of beauty during a narrow escape in Egypt. They examine Blackness in post-dictatorship Zimbabwe, then take us on a secretive tour of Black freedom movements in Portugal.
Through a deeply insightful journey, Lawson leads readers from a castle in France to a hula hoop competition in Jamaica to a traditional theater in Tokyo to a Prince concert in Minnesota and, finally, to finding liberation on a beach in Bermuda, exploring each location—and their deepest emotions—to the fullest. In the end, they discover how the trials of marriage, grief, and missed connections can lead to self-transformation and unimagined new freedoms.
Books to Preorder
The Poisons We Drink by Bethany Baptiste (March 5, 2024)
Love potions is a dangerous business. Brewing has painful, debilitating side effects, and getting caught means death or a prison sentence. But what Venus is most afraid of is the dark, sentient magic within her.
Then an enemy’s iron bullet kills her mother, Venus’s life implodes. Keeping her reckless little sister Janus safe is now her responsibility. When the powerful Grand Witcher, the ruthless head of her coven, offers Venus the chance to punish her mother’s killer, she has to pay a steep price for revenge. The cost? Brew poisonous potions to enslave D.C.’s most influential politicians.
As Venus crawls deeper into the corrupt underbelly of her city, the line between magic and power blurs, and it’s hard to tell who to trust…Herself included.
These Letters End in Tears by Musih Tedji Xaviere (March 12, 2024)
Bessem notices Fatima for the first time on the soccer field—muscular and focused, she’s the only woman playing and seems completely at ease. When Fatima chases a rogue ball in her direction, Bessem freezes, mesmerized by the athlete’s charm and beauty. One playful wink from Fatima, and Bessem knows her life will never be the same.
In Cameroon, a country where same-sex relationships are punishable by law, the odds are stacked against Bessem and Fatima from the start. And when Fatima’s older brother, a staunch Muslim, finds out about their affair, he intervenes by physically assaulting them, an incident that precedes a police raid at the only gay bar in town. After spending days in jail, Fatima goes missing without a trace, and Bessem is left with only rumors of her whereabouts. Has Fatima been sentenced to an unknown prison? Has she been banished from her community, or married off, as some have suggested? Or something even more sinister?
Thirteen years later, Bessem is now a university professor leading a relatively quiet life, occasionally and secretly dating other women. However, she has never forgotten Fatima. After spotting a mutual friend for the first time in years—the last person who may have seen Fatima—Bessem embarks on a winding search for her lost love.
Where Sleeping Girls Lie by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé (March 19, 2024)
It’s like I keep stumbling into a dark room, searching for the switch to make things bright again…
Sade Hussein is starting her third year of high school, this time at the prestigious Alfred Nobel Academy boarding school after being home-schooled all her life. Misfortune has been a constant companion all her life, but even Sade doesn’t expect her new roommate, Elizabeth, to disappear after Sade’s first night. Or for people to think she had something to do with it.
With rumors swirling around her, Sade catches the attention of the girls collectively known as the ‘Unholy Trinity’ and they bring her into their fold. Between learning more about them—especially Persephone, who Sade is inexplicably drawn to—and playing catchup in class, Sade already has so much on her plate. But when it seems people don’t care enough about what happened to Elizabeth to really investigate, it’s up to she and Elizabeth’s best friend to solve it.
And then a student is found dead.
As they keep trying to figure out what’s going on, Sade realizes there’s more to Alfred Nobel Academy and its students than she thought. Secrets lurk around every corner and beneath every surface…secrets that rival even her own.
Icarus by K. Ancrum (March 26, 2024)
Icarus Gallagher is a thief.
He steals priceless art and replaces it with his father’s impeccable forgeries. For years, one man—the wealthy Mr. Black—has been their target, revenge for his role in the death of Icarus’s mother. To keep their secret, Icarus adheres to his own strict rules to keep people, and feelings, at bay: Don’t let anyone close. Don’t let anyone touch you. And, above all, don’t get caught.
Until one night, he does. Not by Mr. Black, but by his mysterious son, Helios, now living under house arrest in the Black mansion. Instead of turning Icarus in, Helios bargains for something even more dangerous—a friendship that breaks every single one of Icarus’s rules.
As reluctance and distrust become closeness and something more, they uncover the bars of the gilded cage that has trapped both of their families for years. One Icarus is determined to escape. But his father’s thirst for revenge shows no sign of fading, and soon it may force Icarus to choose: the escape he’s dreamed of, or the boy he’s come to love. Reaching for both could be his greatest triumph—or it could be his downfall.
Dead Girls Walking by Sami Ellis (March 26, 2024)
Temple Baker knows that evil runs in her blood. Her father is the North Point Killer, an infamous serial killer known for how he marked each of his victims with a brand. He was convicted for murdering 20 people and was the talk of countless true crime blogs for years. Some say he was possessed by a demon. Some say that they never found all his victims. Some say that even though he’s now behind bars, people are still dying in the woods. Despite everything though, Temple never believed that her dad killed her mom. But when he confesses to that crime while on death row, she has no choice but to return to his old hunting grounds to try see if she can find a body and prove it.
Turns out, the farm that was once her father’s hunting grounds and her home has been turned into an overnight camp for queer, horror-obsessed girls. So Temple poses as a camp counselor to go digging in the woods. While she’s not used to hanging out with girls her own age and feels ambivalent at best about these true crime enthusiasts, she tries her best to fit in and keep her true identity hidden.
But when a girl turns up dead in the woods, she fears that one of her father’s “fans” might be mimicking his crimes. As Temple tries to uncover the truth and keep the campers safe, she comes to realize that there may be something stranger and more sinister at work—and that her father may not have been the only monster in these woods.
Marley’s Pride by Joëlle Retener and DeAnn Wiley (April 2, 2024)
Marley is a little nonbinary kid with big anxieties. Crowds? Pass. Loud noises? No, thanks. When their Zaza is up for an award at Pride, they want to go to the parade for the first time with their beloved grandparent. But can Marley overcome their fears? Highlighting the joyful experiences of a queer family of color finding community at Pride, this story features endmatter about the history of Pride, a glossary of LGBTQ+ terms, and a list of resources.
Buy it: Bookshop
Something Kindred by Ciara Burch (April 2, 2024)
Welcome to Coldwater. Come for the ghosts, stay for the drama.
Jericka Walker had planned to spend the summer before senior year soaking up the sun with her best friend on the Jersey Shore. Instead she finds herself in Coldwater, Maryland, a small town where her estranged grandmother lives—a grandmother she knows only two things about: her name and the fact that she left Jericka’s mother and uncle when they were children. But now Jericka’s grandmother is dying, and her mother has dragged Jericka along to say goodbye.
As Jericka attempts to form a connection with a woman she’s never known, and adjusts to life in a town where everything closes before dinner, she meets Kat, a girl eager to leave Coldwater and more exciting than a person has any right to be. But Coldwater has a few secrets of its own. As Jericka wrestles with the ghosts of her family’s past, she begins to question everything she thought she knew about her mother, her childhood, and the lines between the living and the dead.
Blood Justice by Terry J. Benton-Walker (April 23, 2024)
This is the sequel to Blood Debts
Cristina and Clement Trudeau have conjured the impossible: justice.
They took back their family’s stolen throne to lead New Orleans’ magical community into the brighter future they all deserve.
But when Cris and Clem restored their family power, Valentina Savant lost everything. Her beloved grandparents are gone and her sovereignty has been revoked―she will never be Queen. Unless, of course, someone dethrones the Trudeaus again. And lucky for her, she’s not the only one trying to take them down.
Cris and Clem have enemies coming at them from all directions: Hateful anti-magic protesters sabotage their reign at every turn. A ruthless detective with a personal vendetta against magical crime is hot on their tail just as Cris has discovered her thirst for revenge. And a brutal god, hunting from the shadows, is summoned by the very power Clem needs to protect the boy he loves.
Cris’s hunger for vengeance and Clem’s desire for love could prove to be their family’s downfall, all while new murders, shocking disappearances, and impossible alliances are changing the game forever.
Welcome back to New Orleans, where gods walk among us and justice isn’t served, it’s taken.
Thirsty by Jas Hammonds (May 14, 2024)
It’s the summer before college and eighteen-year-old Blake Brenner and her girlfriend, Ella, have one goal: join the mysterious and exclusive Serena Society. The sorority promises status and lifelong connections to a network of powerful, trailblazing women of color. Ella’s acceptance is a sure thing—she’s the daughter of a Serena alum. Blake, however, has a lot more to prove.
As a former loner from a working-class background, Blake lacks Ella’s pedigree and confidence. Luckily, she finds courage at the bottom of a liquor bottle. When she drinks, she’s bold, funny, and unstoppable—and the Serenas love it. But as pledging intensifies, so does Blake’s drinking, until it’s seeping into every corner of her life. Ella assures Blake that she’s fine; partying hard is what it takes to make the cut . . .
But success has never felt so much like drowning. With her future hanging in the balance and her past dragging her down, Blake must decide how far she’s willing to go to achieve her glittering dreams of success—and how much of herself she’s willing to lose in the process.
The 7-10 Split by Karmen Lee (May 21, 2024)
This is how love rolls…
For teacher Ava Williams, some subjects are not up for debate. Like history—specifically, the one she has with Grace Jones, bowling pro and local celeb. Who is now, for no identifiable reason, teaching at the same small-town Georgia high school as Ava. Once upon a time, they were thick as thieves, best friends, rivals who pushed each other, and total bowling nerds. Then they shared a kiss, sweet and confusing…and after that, they split and nothing was ever the same.
Ava is pretty sure she has every reason to hate Grace. Especially when the school’s soggy potato of a principal announces—finally—that the students can have the bowling team Ava has been pushing for, for years…only to hand it to Grace.
Now they’re expected to be partners and lead their new bowling team to victory in six months. And with that, their rivalry is back. Fierce, ultracompetitive…and with an undeniable attraction that pushes, pulls and crashes together. It’s history. It’s chemistry. And it’s just a matter of time before it explodes…one way or the other.
Second Night Stand by Karelia and Fay Stetz-Waters (May 21, 2024)
Izzy Wells—aka burlesque superstar Blue Lenox—doesn’t have time for anything more than a hookup. She has a theater to renovate, and turning it into a safe space for queer performers costs money. Money she doesn’t have. With the mortgage overdue, the only way she’ll save the theater is to win the prize money from the Great American Talent show. And if that means forgetting about the beautiful Black ballerina she spent one night with in order to focus on the competition, so be it.
Lillian Jackson has sacrificed everything for ballet, including a personal life. She has one goal now: win the ridiculous Great American Talent show or have the all-Black ballet company she heads shut down forever. It should be easy to focus, except Blue, the first woman to leave Lillian wanting more, is on the show too.
The chemistry between them is hot, and they agree that after the show, they’ll enjoy one more night together. A second-night stand. But that promise only lasts three challenges. Even more distracting than sleeping together again, are the feelings they’re starting to develop. There’s no way Lillian can fit Izzy into her life, and Izzy knows better than to fall for another star. But if they can make it through the show with their hearts and dreams intact, will winning take on a whole new meaning?
A Little Kissing Between Friends by Chencia C. Higgins (May 28, 2024)
Music producer on the rise Cyn Tha Starr knows what she likes, from her sickening beats in the studio to the flirty femmes she fools around with. Her ever-rotating roster has never been a problem until her latest fling clashes with Jucee, her best friend and the most popular dancer at strip club Sanity.
It makes Cyn see Jucee in a different light. One with far fewer boundaries and a lot more kissing.
Juleesa Jones makes great money dancing the early shift and spends most evenings with her son, her Sanity family or at Cyn’s house. Relationships are not high on the priority list—until she’s forced to admit that maybe friendship isn’t the only thing she wants from her bestie.
But hooking up with your ride-or-die is risky. Jucee isn’t just Cyn’s best friend—Jucee is her muse. When Cyn lays down her beats, it’s Jucee she imagines in the club throwing it back to every note. If they aren’t careful, this could crash and burn…but isn’t real love worth it?
Blessings by Chukwuebuka Ibeh (June 4, 2024)
Obiefuna has always been the black sheep of his family—sensitive where his father, Anozie, is pragmatic, a dancer where his brother, Ekene, is a natural athlete. But when an intimate connection blossoms between Obiefuna and a boy from a nearby village, happiness is fleeting once his father catches them together and banishes him to boarding school.
Obiefuna finds and hides who he truly is as he navigates his new school’s strict hierarchy and unpredictable violence. Back home, his mother Uzoamaka must contend with the absence of her beloved son, her husband’s cryptic reasons for sending him away, and the hard truths that they’ve all been hiding from. As Nigeria teeters on the brink of criminalizing same-sex relationships, Obiefuna’s life, or the life he wants to live, becomes even further out of a reach and more dangerous than ever before.
Trailer Park Prince by Andre L. Bradley (June 11, 2024)
A decade ago, a rift tore open the Kaydan sky, pulling twin princes, Noan and Jormon, plus thousands of their people, from their home world and dumping them in the American South. In the years since, they’ve grown used to the drones policing their every move and to hiding the magic-like abilities that set them apart. But they’ll never get used to the crosses burning outside their trailer—an occasional reminder that Kaydans don’t belong.
Forced to attend a human high school in the name of integration, a band-aid on an increasingly fraught diplomatic situation, the brothers are hesitant but hopeful. Jormon is excited about pursuing the feelings he has for Dirk, a human-raised Kaydan, away from his traditional father’s watchful eye. And Noan, blamed for the Kaydans’ displacement, is looking for somewhere—anywhere—to fit in.
But the halls of Toombs County High are as inhospitable as the rest of the country, and Jormon and Noan quickly find they’re as unwanted in class as they are on this planet. When tragedy strikes and violence breaks out, Jormon and Noan find themselves at the forefront of a battle for the existence of their people. Their bonds tested, the twins face gut-wrenching choices, forcing them to confront who they really are, what they truly want, and what it takes to survive.
When asked to lead in the face of oppression, will they walk away or fight fire with fire?
Sleep Like Death by Kalynn Bayron (June 25, 2024)
Princess Eve was raised with one purpose: to destroy the Knight, an evil sorcerer who terrorizes Queens Bridge with his wicked magic. Her own unique magic–the ability to conjure weapons from nature–makes her a worthy adversary. Far too many of subjects of Queens Bridge have been devastated by the Knight’s trickery.
As she approaches her seventeenth birthday, Eve is ready to battle. But her mother, Queen Regina, has been acting bizarrely, talking to a strange mirror alone every night. Then a young man claiming to be the Knight’s messenger appears and shares a shocking truth about Eve’s past. Unsure of who to trust or what to do next, Eve must find the courage to do what she’s always done: fight. But will it be enough to save her family and her queendom?
Prince of the Palisades by Julian Winters (August 20, 2024)
When roguish Prince Jadon of Îles de la Rêverie travels to America to clean up his image after a horribly public break up gone viral, romance is absolutely NOT on the agenda. Carefully planned photo ops with puppies? Yes. Public appearances at a Santa Monica art gallery? Absolutely. A pink-haired, film-obsessed hottie from the private school where he’s currently enrolled? Uhhhh . . .
Together with his entourage—a bitingly witty royal guard, Rêverie’s future Queen and Jadon’s sarcastic and supportive older sister, and a quirky Royal Liaison—Jadon’s on a mission to turn things around and show his parents, and his country, that he’s more than just a royal screw-up.
But falling for a not-so-royal American boy? Well, it might be a fairytale romance come true . . . or it could be another disaster headline in the making. Stick around and find out.
The Dating Countdown by N.G. Peltier (September 3, 2024)
Remi Daniels knows what she wants. Maxine King. She screwed up when they were teenagers allowing them to part on bad terms, but now that Maxine is divorced and back on the island their chemistry can’t be denied. And Remi is ready to pick up right where they left off.
Maxine King has only ever fooled around with one woman, Remi Daniels and being back in each other’s orbits they can’t seem to keep their hands off each other. Maxine has enough to deal with in her daily life: her daughter and trying to prove herself at work. She can’t add lusting after Remi to that list. To prove that their relationship can be more than just sex, Maxine suggests they keep things casual and go on 10 friend dates. After all if they can do that it would mean they’re serious about each other right?
But their dates keep getting reset as they keep breaking their pact. Remi’s getting restless because not making it to the 10 days by their imposed deadline means failure which sucks because each date just shows her how much more she wants Maxine. As the two women try to navigate this budding relationship the both have to combat their fears: Maxine’s of falling for a woman and Remi’s of worrying that Maxine will reject her at the end of their deal.
Buy it: Amazon
Till the Last Beat of My Heart by Louangie Bou-Montes (September 10, 2024)
Cemetery Boys meets The Taking of Jake Livingston in Till the Last Beat of My Heart, a speculative young adult romance by debut author Louangie Bou-Montes where the sixteen-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.
When you grow up in a funeral home, death is just another part of life. But for Jaxon Santiago-Noble, it’s also part of his family’s legacy. Most dead bodies in Jaxon’s town wind up at his house; his mom is the local mortician, after all. He doesn’t usually pay them much mind, but when Christian Reyes is brought in after a car accident, his world is turned upside down.
There are a lot of things Jaxon wishes he could have said to his once best friend and first crush—and this might be his last chance. But what was only supposed to be a short visit downstairs to the mortuary for a final goodbye turns into an accidental resurrection. If inadvertently reanimating the boy who got away wasn’t enough, Jaxon isn’t sure he’s done a great job since he didn’t know he could do it in the first place.
As Jaxon exhumes his late father’s past to uncover the truth about his abilities, the more he learns about his necromancy, the more he realizes that Christian’s running on borrowed time—and it is almost out. Navigating dark, mysterious magics and family secrets, Jaxon realizes that stepping into an inherited power may also mean opening up old family wounds if he wants keep the boy who he may have more than friendly feelings for alive for good.
Whenever You’re Ready by Rachel Runya Katz (September 10, 2024)
Nia and Jade had been inseparable ever since their best friend, Michal, introduced them at her tenth birthday party. But now it’s been three years since Michal died of cancer— since the brutal fight Nia and Jade had in the weeks after— and they’re barely on speaking terms.
Until Nia reads a letter Michal wrote for her 29th birthday, asking her and Jade to go on the southern Jewish history road trip they’d planned before she died. To add to the complications, Michal’s then-boyfriend and Jade’s twin brother, Jonah, joins the trip. Despite the years apart and Jade and Jonah’s strained relationship, any awkwardness quickly disappears as it becomes clear how much Nia and Jade have missed each other.
Unfortunately, old issues soon arise. Nia has been in love with Jade since they were teenagers, and Jade has been so committed to their friendship that she never let herself consider something more. As the stops pass, tensions mount, running high until Nia and Jade are forced to confront what happened three years ago, their feelings for one another, and even their respective relationships with Jonah.
Love and Sportsball by Meka James (September 24, 2024)
Scoring was the easy part…
Hard work has Khadijah Upton starting her dream job as an athletic trainer for the Atlanta Cannons. Then an evening of celebratory letting loose turns into a one-night stand with a beautiful stranger. It’s a reckless, wildly sexy encounter that Khadijah intends to forget…until her first day on the job lands her face-to-face with Shae Harris again.
Shae is a major player in every sense of the word, and Khadijah doesn’t plan to be the latest in a long line of “Harris Honeys.” Personal and professional just don’t mix. But Shae, who’s all about living life to the fullest, keeps tempting Khadijah to blur the boundaries. And the more Shae reveals about herself, the harder it is for Khadijah to resist her.
In the bedroom, their tension sizzles. On the court, it’s a liability. But unless Khadijah’s willing to really let Shae in, it won’t be just the team championship on the line, but a body-and-soul connection that rewrites all the rules.
Where Shadows Meet by Patrice Caldwell (January 28, 2025)
You have no idea what I’ve done for love. Just as you have no idea what you may one day do.
Once long ago, a girl named Favre sacrificed her wings for love. Thana, the young goddess she so willingly gave them up for, sacrificed that same love for power. But everything has a cost.
Favre never got over the loss of her wings. And Thana’s choices led to a life of eternal night, and later, their destruction. Favre has bided her time ever since, waiting for the chance to resurrect the girl she loves who turned her into the creature she hates.
Now, a thousand years later, Leyla, the crown princess of the malichora―an ancient race that survives on human blood ―must travel to the Island of the Dead when her best friend is captured during an attack on her nation’s capital. Along with Najja, a fierce, beautiful seer, and the last person she expected to help her, Leyla forges down a dangerous path, intent on saving her friend. But nothing is as it seems. The closer she gets to her goal, the more she risks awakening an ancient evil and destroying everything she holds dear.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon
Books to Add to Your TBR
- Wrangled and Entangled by Kosoko Jackson
- If We Were a Movie by Zakiya N. Jamal
- There’s Always Next Year by George M. Johnson and Leah Johnson
- Good Mourning by Circe Moskowitz
Tara just wants to be treated like any other girl at Ainsley Academy.
Sebastian Wight is cursed. As a boy with the forbidden ability to traverse the lands of the dead, he must not only harness his newfound powers to fight the monster that stalks him, but also to navigate a creepy world of hunting ghosts and ghouls with his eccentric classmates.
Rob Costello (he/him) writes contemporary and speculative fiction with a queer bent for and about young people. He’s the author of the forthcoming short story collection The Dancing Bears: Queer Fables for the End Times (Lethe Press, 2024). His stories have appeared in The Dark, The NoSleep Podcast, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Hunger Mountain, Stone Canoe, Narrative, and Rural Voices: 15 Authors Challenge Assumptions About Small-Town America (Candlewick, 2020). An alumnus of the Millay Colony of the Arts, Rob holds an MFA in writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and has served on the faculty of the Highlights Foundation since 2014. He lives in upstate New York with his husband and their four-legged overlords.
It’s a few months before senior year and Claire Kemp, a closeted bisexual, is finally starting to admit she might be falling in love with her best friend, Sophia, who she’s known since they were four.
Beck Birsching has been adrift since the death of her mother, a brilliant but troubled investigative reporter. She finds herself unable to stop herself from slipping into memories of happier days, clamoring for a time when things were normal. So when a mysterious letter in her mother’s handwriting arrives in the mail with the words Come and find me, pointing to a town called Backravel, Beck hopes that it may hold the answers.
Charity Curtis has the summer job of her dreams, playing the “final girl” at Camp Mirror Lake. Guests pay to be scared in this full-contact terror game, as Charity and her summer crew recreate scenes from a classic slasher film, Curse of Camp Mirror Lake. The more realistic the fear, the better for business.
To say sixteen-year-old Audre doesn’t fit in would be the understatement of the century. She’s a city kid who’s found herself in a rural town. The only girl at school who’d rather kiss a girl than a boy. Not to mention that the whole town believes there’s a secret Satanic cult conducting rituals in the nearby woods–and Audre is a born skeptic.
Sam “Shorty” Daniels has a plan for her senior year, but her romantic life being a hot mess was not part of the agenda. Shorty quickly discovers she’s not attracted to her newest boyfriend and fellow marching band member Zack, despite her many hours of daydreaming of what it would be like to date him. Their previous flirting had been so intense that those feelings have to come back again, right?
Peek through the leaves, beyond the clouded mountains, and you will find a garden with a strange attendant and an even stranger purpose. A young mage, asleep in a meadow, wakes to delights and fanciful spells that open a door to unknown wonder. Then, they eagerly step through to find only horror and death. There is no swashbuckling adventure in store; this world means them cold and deadly harm, and they’ll need all their resilience, wit, and magic to push it back.
Savannah “Sav” Henry is almost the person she wants to be, or at least she’s getting closer. It’s the second semester of her sophomore year. She’s finally come out as bisexual, is making friends with the other queers in her dorm, and has just about recovered from her disastrous first queer “situationship.” She is cautiously optimistic that her life is about to begin.
Kelly Doyle’s new life in Philadelphia has turned into a nightmare: She’s friendless and jobless, and the lockdown has her trapped in a tiny apartment with the man she gave up everything for, who’s just called off their wedding. The only bright spot in her life is her newly rekindled friendship with her childhood friend, Sabrina—now a glamorous bestselling author with a handsome, high-powered husband.
Peaches Monroe and Jamie Hunt are core members of their Texas friend squad and have so much in common. They’re successful at their careers in personal care. They take Austin’s “Keep It Weird” vibe to heart, each leaning into their own unique talents and sense of style. And they’re both ready to go on to even bigger things. Is pushing past the boundaries of friendship into something deeper one of them? The red-hot fantasy is there…but so is real life.
Niamh Kelly is dead. Her troubled twin, Ciara, now masquerades as the benevolent witch as Her Majesty’s Royal Coven prepares to crown her High Preistess.
To save the future, she must return to the beginning
After a recent string of disappearances in a small Connecticut town, a grieving widower with a grim secret is drawn into a dangerous ritual of dark magic by a powerful and mysterious older gentleman named Heart Crowley. Meanwhile, a member of local law enforcement tasked with uncovering the culprit responsible for the bizarre disappearances soon begins to learn of a current of unbridled hatred simmering beneath the guise of the town’s idyllic community—a hatred that will eventually burst and forever change the lives of those who once found peace in the quiet town of Henley’s Edge.
We never remember the dead girls. We never forget the killers.
Being queer in a small town? Bad. Your employer believing you stole ten thousand dollars? Worse.
It’s the spring of 1877 and sixteen-year-old Bridget is already disillusioned. She’s exhausted from caring for her ne’er-do-well alcoholic father, but when he’s killed by a snakebite as they cross the Kansas prairie, she knows she has only her wits to keep her alive. She arrives penniless in Dodge City, and, thanks to the allure of her bright red hair and country-girl beauty, is soon recruited to work at the Buffalo Queen, the only brothel in town run by women. Bridget takes to brothel life, appreciating the good food, good pay, and good friendships she forms with her fellow “sporting women.”
In an elite English boarding school where the girls kiss the marble statue of the famous dead author who used to walk the halls, a butch antipodean outsider arrives to take up the antiquated role of “matron.” Within this landscape of immense privilege, where difference is met with hostility, the matron finds herself unsure of her role, her accent and her body.
“I’ve lived a completely ordinary life, so much that I don’t know how to write a transgender or queer or Appalachian story, because I don’t feel like I’ve lived one. … Though, in searching for ways to write myself in my stories, maybe I can find power in this ordinariness.”
![Scoreless Game (On the Board Book 2) by [Anna Zabo, L.A. Witt]](https://i0.wp.com/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41UDi-Oe9iL.jpg?resize=161%2C262&ssl=1)
At nearly thirty-one years old, Pittsburgh Griffins captain Elias Karlsson’s hockey years are numbered. Everything is changing around him, including his eleven-year friendship with Nikolai Sidorov. Elias would give anything for Nisha to be a permanent part of his life, but their once bedrock-strong bond has broken into a million pieces, and Elias doesn’t know why. More than anything, Elias wants his friend back, but if that isn’t an option, maybe it’s time for him to look outside of hockey for someone to be there with him when hockey isn’t an option anymore.
In the margins of a book’s pages, sparks fly as a teenage romance begins. But in this time and place, sparks like that can only ignite trouble.
In a modern mega-city built around dragons, one boy gets caught up in the world of underground dragon battles and a high-stakes gang war that could tear his family apart.
How do you face your fears when everything is terrifying?
A teen boy tries to discover the reason behind his best friend’s disappearance―and the arrival of a mysterious and magnetic stranger―in misty Victorian London, i
Each spring, Ithaca condemns twelve maidens to the noose. This is the price vengeful Poseidon demands for the lives of Queen Penelope’s twelve maids, hanged and cast into the depths centuries ago.
Everly Brooks knows she has what it takes to be the next big singer-songwriter. At least, that’s if she could get her onstage presence to stop feeling so wooden and blossom like her rich, moving lyrics. The reality signing competition, SO YOU WANNA BE A POP STAR? is her chance at proving to the world—and herself—that her talent and artistry can mean something more than just live streams and online videos.
Delia Barnes and Ernest Wrangham met as teens at Celebration Camp, a church-supported conversion therapy program—the dubious, unscientific, Christian practice meant to change a person’s sexuality. After witnessing a devastating tragedy, they escaped in the night, only to take separate roads to their distant homes.
Abandoned by his father, Gareth Inglis grew up lonely, prickly, and well-used to disappointment. Still, he longs for a connection. When he meets a charming man in a London molly house, he falls head over heels—until everything goes wrong and he’s left alone again. Then Gareth’s father dies, turning the shabby London clerk into Sir Gareth, with a grand house on the remote Romney Marsh and a family he doesn’t know.
In the second installment of C.L. Clark’s Magic of the Lost trilogy, soldier Touraine and princess Luca must return to Balladaire to reclaim Luca’s throne and to face the consequences of dismantling an empire.
It’s 1914, and World War I is ceaselessly churning through thousands of young men on both sides of the fight. The violence of the front feels far away to Henry Gaunt, Sidney Ellwood and the rest of their classmates, safely ensconced in their idyllic boarding school in the English countryside. News of the heroic deaths of their friends only makes the war more exciting.
When Alexei Lebedev finally comes out to his conservative community, it does 
Two lifelong friends, occasional lovers and constant conmen find themselves on top of the world after founding a company that promises instant enlightenment to its users in this thrilling, brainy caper about scams, schemes, and the absurdity of the American Dream.
Best friends and chosen family Chris, Elise, Jo, and Alex work hard to keep themselves afloat. Their regular brunches hold them together even as the rest of their lives threaten to fall apart. In an effort to avoid being the oldest gays at the party, the crew decides to put on a new queer event called Grind–specifically for homos in their dirty thirties.
On a remote, gas-wreathed outpost of a human colony on Jupiter, a man goes missing. The enigmatic Investigator Mossa follows his trail to Valdegeld, home to the colony’s erudite university—and Mossa’s former girlfriend, a scholar of Earth’s pre-collapse ecosystems.![Sotto Voce (Clover Hill Romance Book 5) by [Suzanne Clay]](https://i0.wp.com/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41yiVdWVf3L.jpg?resize=210%2C346&ssl=1)
Harmony Stevens spends her mornings running errands for pay and her nights working the midnight shift at Sunrise Diner. Yes, her life might be small, but after putting her own dreams on hold long ago to serve as caregiver for her recently-deceased mother, there is little for her to pursue outside of Clover Hill. With too many debts to pay and too many regretful memories in her silent home, she can’t imagine living big and pursuing music like she’d always planned. Her one bright spot is a handsome insomniac regular at work by the name of Oliver—until the moment she sees a new wedding band on his finger.
Autumn is looking forward to summer vacation. She and her best friend plan on going to all the best ice cream places their stomachs can handle–and in NYC, the possibilities can’t get any sweeter.
Welcome to Meadowlark, Long Island—expensive homes and good schools, ambition and loneliness. Meet Chase Ohara and Lia Vestiano: the driven overachiever and the impulsive wanderer, the future CEO and the free spirit. Best friends for years—weekend trips to Montauk, sleepovers on a yacht—and then, first love. True love.
Sixteen-year-old Alicia Rivers has a reputation that precedes her. But there’s more to her story than the whispers that follow her throughout the hallways at school—whispers that splinter into a million different insults that really mean: a girl who has had sex. But what her classmates don’t know is that Alicia was sexually abused by a popular teacher, and that trauma has rewritten every cell in her body into someone she doesn’t recognize. To the world around her, she’s been cast, like the mythical Medusa, as not the victim but the monster of her own story: the slut who asked for it.
A pair of thrones between us, and my heart clutched like a rosary within his hands . . .”
Neve has spent lifetimes defending the mortal world against the legions of hell with her two sisters.
Anthony “Ant” Stevenson isn’t sure when he stopped being a virgin. Or even if he has. The rules aren’t always very clear when it comes to boys who like boys. In fact, relationships of all kinds feel complicated, even with Ant’s oldest friends. There’s Charlie, who’s both virulently homophobic and in a secret physical relationship with Ant. Then there’s drama kid Jack, who may be gay and has become the target of Charlie’s rage. And, of course, there’s big, beautiful Freddie, who wants Ant to ditch soccer, Charlie’s sport, and try out for the rugby team instead. Ant’s story of loneliness and intimacy, of unexpected support and heart-ripping betrayal, is told forthrightly with tongue-in-cheek black-bar redactions over the language that teenagers would actually use if, you know, they weren’t in a story.
Natalie Donovan jumps at a friend’s offer to stay in the family cabin for a month—she desperately needs the chance to get away from, and get over, her messy breakup. She doesn’t count on the owner of the local diner making her heart pound and her body desperate to be touched.
After her twin’s death, a solitary young woman leaves Rome for Shanghai, the city where her brother Ruben had long dreamed of opening a restaurant. Teaching Italian to Chinese students, she meets a mysterious girl named Xu, who is also running from a turbulent past: a violent father, an absent mother, and an extended family who wishes she’d been a boy. Xu’s house is dingy and full of rotting food, like a museum of decomposing organic matter. In the gloom of abandoned textile factories and dilapidated slaughterhouses, the two discover an extreme dimension where biting, swallowing, and taking each other in are part of the erotic ritual.
After years of severed communication, Justin appears on his sister’s doorstep needing a place to stay. The home he’s made for himself has collapsed, as has everything else in his life. When they were children, Willa played the role of her brother’s protector, but now, afraid of the chaos he might bring, she’s reluctant to let him in.
A glittering gay metropolis of 24 million people, Berlin is a bustling world of pride parades, polyamorous trysts, and even an official gay language. Its distant radio broadcasts are a lifeline for teenagers William and Gareth, who flee toward sanctuary. But is there a place for them in the deeply divided city?
In these unconventional and unpredictably connected stories, Erin Slaughter shatters the stereotype of the soft-spoken, sorrowful woman in distress, queering the domestic and honoring the feral in all of us. In each story, grieving women embrace their wildest impulses as they attempt to master their lives: one woman becomes a “gazer” at a fraternity house, another slowly moves into her otherworldly stained-glass art, a couple speaks only their basement’s black box, and a thruple must decide what to do when one partner disappears.
What does it mean to “be-in-kind” with a nonhuman animal? Or in Dr. Sean Kell-Luddon’s case, to be in-kind with one of the last remaining wild wolves? Using a neurological interface to translate her animal subject’s perception through her own mind, Sean intends to chase both her scientific curiosity and her secret, lifelong desire to experience the intimacy and freedom of wolfishness. To see the world through animal eyes; smell the forest, thick with olfactory messages; even taste the blood and viscera of a fresh kill. And, above all, to feel the belonging of the pack.
As a descendant of the Chinese god of medicine, ignored middle child Elle was destined to be a doctor. Instead, she is underemployed as a mediocre magical calligrapher at the fairy temp agency. Nevertheless, she challenges herself by covertly outfitting Luc, her client and crush, with high-powered glyphs.
18 years after her disappearance, the princess has returned. But what is left of her kingdom?
At fourteen, Penny Winters fell out of the closet and in love with her best friend, Misa Ito. But before they truly understood their feelings, Misa and her family were gone. Over a decade later, when Penny secures a job at a top New York advertising agency, she has a second chance at first love when she’s introduced to the lead account executive, Misa.
Twelve-year-old Abigail (she/her/hers) is so excited to spend her summer at Camp QUILTBAG, an inclusive retreat for queer and trans kids. She can’t wait to find a community where she can be herself—and, she hopes, admit her crush on Laura Dern to kids who will understand.
Halfway through sixth grade, Noah’s best friend and the only other trans boy in his school, Lewis, passed away in a car accident. Lewis was adventurous and curious, always bringing a new paranormal story to share with Noah. Together they daydreamed about cryptids and shared discovering their genders and names. After his death, lonely and yearning for someone who could understand him like Lewis once did, Noah starts writing letters to Mothman, wondering if he would understand how Noah feels and also looking for evidence of Mothman’s existence in the vast woods surrounding his small Poconos town. Noah becomes determined to make his science fair project about Mothman, despite his teachers and parents urging him to make a project about something “real.”
Ava and Kaye used to be best friends. Until one night two years ago, vampires broke through the magical barrier protecting their town, and in the ensuing attack, Kaye’s mother was killed, and Ava was turned into a vampire. Since then, Ava has been trapped in her house. Her mother Eugenia needs her: Ava still has her witch powers, and Eugenia must take them in order to hide that she’s a vampire as well. Desperate to escape her confinement and stop her mother’s plans to destroy the town, Ava must break out, flee to the forest, and seek help from the vampires who live there. When there is another attack, she sees her opportunity and escapes.
The official origin story of 
High-school senior and notorious wallflower Hawkins finally works up the courage to remove her mascot mask and ask out her longtime crush: Regina Moreno, head cheerleader, academic overachiever, and all-around popular girl. There’s only one teensy little problem: Regina is already dating Chloe Kitagawa, athletic all-star…and middling English student. Regina sees a perfectly self-serving opportunity here, and asks the smitten Hawkins to tutor Chloe free of charge, knowing Hawkins will do anything to get closer to her.
Fresh from an epic victory over sorceress Morgana Le Fay, Emry Merlin should be flying high. She no longer has to hide that she’s a girl wizard in Camelot, and the battle has made her fall even more in love with Prince Arthur. Even her hapless but beloved twin brother Emmett has joined her at court.
A scorned god.
Four days before Christmas, 8-year-old Bo loses his mother in a tragic accident, 28-year-old Brandon loses his job after a hostile takeover of his big-media employer, and 48-year-old Blue, a key witness in a criminal trial against an infamous now-defunct tech startup, struggles to reconnect with his family.
After the death of her wife, Shelby is suffering from prolonged grief. She’s increasingly isolated, irritated by her family’s stoicism and her friends’ reliance on the toxic positivity of self-help culture. Then, in a grief support group, she meets Cammie, who gives her permission to express her most hopeless, hideous feelings. Cammie is charismatic and unlike anyone Shelby has ever met. She’s also recovering from cancer and going through several other calamities. Shelby puts all her energy into helping Cammie thrive—until her intuition tells her that something isn’t right.
Metamorphoses springs from Ovid’s epic poem to explore the slipperiness of identity. In poems that shift registers from travelogue to elegy, from nature documentary to a simple record of the realities of daily life, Kennedy focuses on transformation, personal and collective, in an empire in decline, in a world transfigured by ecological upheaval.
It’s been one year since Manny was cast out of his family and driven into the wilderness of the American Southwest. Since then, Manny lives by self-taught rules that keep him moving―and keep him alive. Now, he’s taking a chance on a traveling situation with the Varela family, whose attractive but surly son, Carlos, seems to promise a new future.
George’s life is loud. On the water, though, with everything hushed above and below, she is steady, silent. Then her estranged dad says he needs to talk, and George’s past begins to wake up, looping around her ankles, trying to drag her under.
Ren Yu is a swimmer. Her daily life starts and ends with the pool. Her teammates are her only friends. Her coach, her guiding light. If she swims well enough, she will be scouted, get a scholarship, go to a good school. Her parents will love her. Her coach will be kind to her. She will have a good life.
Gita Chithra, the captain of the intergalactic ship The Tempest, is used to leading her crew on simple retrieval and assistance missions. But when she receives a frantic distress call from Ri, the AI she trained from inception—making her like a daughter to Gita—she knows she’s in for something much more dangerous.![Jamie by [L.D. Lapinski]](https://i0.wp.com/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51hCECpVViL.jpg?resize=185%2C284&ssl=1)
Jamie Rambeau is a happy 11-year-old non-binary kid who likes nothing better than hanging out with their two best friends Daisy and Ash. But when the trio find out that in Year Seven they will be separated into one school for boys and another for girls, their friendship suddenly seems at risk. And when Jamie realises no one has thought about where 
Bradley Graeme is pretty much perfect. He’s a star football player, manages his OCD well (enough), and comes out on top in all his classes . . . except the ones he shares with his ex-best friend, Celine.
After his first adventure as the Descendant, Cameron can’t sit through seventh grade classes. Especially when his mother is still trapped in Chidani and his father is still missing. But he encounters a particularly nasty bully in his new school, and it doesn’t take long for Cameron and his trusty friends Zion and Aliyah to realize that the troubles of Chidani won’t stay away for long.
Give in to this irresistible paranormal romance anthology filled with tales of the mortal and the monstrous. In 
Mahalia Harris wants.
Seventeen-year-old Carter Harper may have created an award-winning iPhone app and have a 3.93 GPA, but her successes are overshadowed by brutal bullying, debilitating depression, and biting loneliness. Tired of being treated as the popular girls’ plaything, Carter hatches a plan to gain their respect, and maybe even gain a bit of popularity of her own. When that doesn’t work, she thinks her only choice is to die by suicide.
Real or imaginary, geekdom is where it’s at in this multi-genre YA anthology that celebrates “the geek,” with stories by some of today’s top bestselling, critically acclaimed Black authors.
Seventeen-year-old Theo Wright has it all figured out. His plan (well, more like his dad’s plan) is a foolproof strategy that involves exceling at his magnet school, getting scouted by college recruiters, and going to Duke on athletic scholarship. But for now, all Theo wants is a perfect prom night. After his best friend Jay dares Theo to prompose to his crush at Chloe Campbell’s party, Theo’s ready to throw caution to the wind and take his chances.
Fifteen-year-old Kermit Sanders knows grief and its all-encompassing shadows. After losing his beloved older sister in a tragic car accident, nothing quite punctures through the feelings of loss. Everywhere Kermit goes, he is reminded of her.
Nova Albright, the first Black homecoming queen at Lovett High, is dead. Murdered the night of her coronation, her body found the next morning in the old slave cemetery she spent her weekends rehabilitating.
For most of her life, Aaliyah’s home situation hasn’t been great, but she’s at least had her childhood best friend and role as a cross-country star to balance it out. But once she got outed by a church elder last spring, everything came undone — including Aaliyah.
Xavier Reynolds is doing less than stellar. He just got dumped, was passed over for a prestigious fellowship, and to top it all off he’s right back home in Harper’s Cove, Maine (population: 9,000). The last thing he wants to do is to work as a prep chef in the kitchen of the hip new restaurant in town, The Wharf. Especially since the hot, single-father chef who owns it can’t delegate to save his life.
In 
Janie believes there’s a best way to do everything. When she sticks to a schedule, she and her mom can tackle anything. But Janie’s perfect schedule—and her life—are getting shaken up this year. Her new stepmom, Keisha, is moving in, along with her daughter, Makayla.
Thirty years ago, a young woman was murdered, a family was lynched, and New Orleans saw the greatest magical massacre in its history. In the days that followed, a throne was stolen from a queen.
Ranita Atwater is “getting short.”
Could I one day inspire happiness in others, the same way he seemed to do in me?
Elsie is a sexy, funny, and fiercely independent woman in south London. But, at just 28, she is also tired. Though she spends her days writing tender poetry in her journal, her nights are spent working long hours for minimum wage at a neighborhood dive bar. Not even sleeping with her alluring coworker, Bea, can quell her existential dread. The difficulty of being estranged from her family, struggle of being continually rejected from jobs, and fear of never making money doing what she loves is too great. But Elsie is determined to keep the faith, for a little longer at least. Things will surely turn around. They have to.
Ellie Engle doesn’t stand out. Not at home, where she’s alone with her pet fish since her dad moved away and her mom has to work around the clock . Not at the bakery, where she helps out old Mr. Walker on the weekends. And definitely not at school, where her best friend Abby—the coolest, boldest, most talented girl in the world—drags Ellie along on her never-ending quest to “make her mark.” To someone else, a life in the shadows might seem boring, or lonely. But not to Ellie. As long as she has Abby by her side and a comic book in her hand, she’s quite content.
Mickey Hayward dreams of writing stories that matter. She has a flashy media job that makes her feel successful and a devoted girlfriend who takes care of her when she comes home exhausted and demoralized. It’s not all A-list parties and steamy romance, but Mickey’s on her way, and it’s far from the messy life she left behind in Maryland. Despite being overlooked and mistreated at work, it seems like she might finally get the chance to prove herself–until she finds out she’s being replaced.
THE BSE (Best Summer Ever) LIST!
In 2019, R.K. Russell broke the mold when he came out as bisexual in an essay for ESPN that ignited the sports world. Now, in his powerful memoir, The Yards Between Us, he shares his story and explores his love of football, men and women, walking the devastating tightrope of keeping his sexuality secret, the tension between his private and public lives, and the importance of crashing through barriers.
I’m safe here.
In the shared and private spaces of Iowa City, a loose circle of lovers and friends encounter, confront, and provoke one another in a volatile year of self-discovery. At the group’s center are Ivan, a dancer turned aspiring banker who dabbles in amateur pornography; Fatima, whose independence and work ethic complicates her relationships with friends and a trusted mentor; and Noah, who “didn’t seek sex out so much as it came up to him like an anxious dog in need of affection.” These three are buffeted by a cast of poets, artists, landlords, meat-packing workers, and mathematicians who populate the cafes, classrooms, and food-service kitchens of Iowa City, sometimes to violent and electrifying consequence. Finally, as each prepares for an uncertain future, the group heads to a cabin to bid goodbye to their former lives—a moment of reckoning that leaves each of them irrevocably altered.
Unlike her private school classmates, 17-year-old and Yale-bound Kennedy Devon wasn’t born into a life of privilege. In fact, Kennedy and her mother are homeless. Kennedy refuses to be pitied, so she hides her secret from her friends and her girlfriend, Gwen Clark.
Heavy is the crown James has been born to wear, especially as the first Black heir to the British throne. But with his father’s recent passing, and with a new boyfriend to hide, James is woefully unprepared for the sudden shine of public scrutiny.
Alice and her crew are doing their best to recover from the last boss battle, but some of them keep having these. . . dreams: visions of a dark past―and an even darker future. Sadly, the evil in Wonderland may not be as defeated as they’d hoped.