The market for queer books is an ever growing sphere, desperate for more specific recommendations every day. Whether you’re looking for a generally queer cast of characters or are desperate to see your own identity shown back at you, there is a book for you.
Now this list will be an ever expanding one that is separated into clear sections. The first section will include books that I have personally read and can give in depth detail on! I will break this into categories so you are able to easily search for an identity as either a main character, side character, or general community.
The other section will include books that I have yet to read but know have a specific queer identity in their characters. As I read some of these novels, I will shift their placement and will provide more details.
While this list will not be all encompassing, I will do my best to provide a general overlook on some of the queer literature out there! If you are looking for something more specific, check out my other posts to find more condensed recommendation posts surrounding a specific portion of the LGBTQIA+ community!
Happy queer reading!
Post Updated Monthly
Fantasy
Title: Legends and Lattes
Author: Travis Baldree
Queer Rep: sapphic/queer (very light)
Own Voices?: No
Year Published: 2022
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Cozy fantasy
Synopsis:
Worn out after decades of packing steel and raising hell, Viv the orc barbarian cashes out of the warrior’s life with one final score. A forgotten legend, a fabled artifact, and an unreasonable amount of hope lead her to the streets of Thune, where she plans to open the first coffee shop the city has ever seen.
However, her dreams of a fresh start pulling shots instead of swinging swords are hardly a sure bet. Old frenemies and Thune’s shady underbelly may just upset her plans. To finally build something that will last, Viv will need some new partners and a different kind of resolve.
A hot cup of fantasy slice-of-life with a dollop of romantic froth.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: Girl, Serpent, Thorn
Author: Melissa Bashardoust
Queer Rep: Bisexual/pansexual, sapphic
Own Voices?: Unsure; seems likely
Year Published: 2020
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis:
There was and there was not, as all stories begin, a princess cursed to be poisonous to the touch. But for Soraya, who has lived her life hidden away, apart from her family, safe only in her gardens, it’s not just a story.
As the day of her twin brother’s wedding approaches, Soraya must decide if she’s willing to step outside of the shadows for the first time. Below in the dungeon is a demon who holds knowledge that she craves, the answer to her freedom. And above is a young man who isn’t afraid of her, whose eyes linger not with fear, but with an understanding of who she is beneath the poison.
Soraya thought she knew her place in the world, but when her choices lead to consequences she never imagined, she begins to question who she is and who she is becoming…human or demon. Princess or monster.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: The Diviners
Author: Libba Bray
Queer Rep: Gay, asexual, homoromantic
Own Voices?: Unsure
Year Published: 2012
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Historical Fantasy (can be considered light horror)
Synopsis:
Evangeline O’Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and sent off to the bustling streets of New York City–and she is ecstatic. It’s 1926, and New York is filled with speakeasies, Ziegfeld girls, and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is that she has to live with her uncle Will and his unhealthy obsession with the occult. Evie worries he’ll discover her darkest secret: a supernatural power that has only brought her trouble so far.
When the police find a murdered girl branded with a cryptic symbol and Will is called to the scene, Evie realizes her gift could help catch a serial killer. As Evie jumps headlong into a dance with a murderer, other stories unfurl in the city that never sleeps. And unknown to all, something dark and evil has awakened….
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: Lair of Dreams
Author: Libba Bray
Queer Rep: Gay, asexual, homoromantic
Own Voices?: Unsure
Year Published: 2015
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Historical fantasy, (can be considered light horror)
Synopsis:
After a supernatural showdown with a serial killer, Evie O’Neill has outed herself as a Diviner. With her uncanny ability to read people’s secrets, she’s become a media darling, earning the title “America’s Sweetheart Seer.” Everyone’s in love with the city’s newest It Girl…everyone except the other Diviners.
Piano-playing Henry DuBois and Chinatown resident Ling Chan are two Diviners struggling to keep their powers a secret—for they can walk in dreams. And while Evie is living the high life, victims of a mysterious sleeping sickness are turning up across New York City.
As Henry searches for a lost love and Ling strives to succeed in a world that shuns her, a malevolent force infects their dreams. And at the edges of it all lurks a man in a stovepipe hat who has plans that extend farther than anyone can guess…As the sickness spreads, can the Diviners descend into the dreamworld to save the city?
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: Before the Devil Breaks You
Author: Libba Bray
Queer Rep: Gay, asexual, homoromantic
Own Voices?: Unsure
Year Published: 2017
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Historical Fantasy (can be considered light horror)
Synopsis:
New York City.
1927.
Lights are bright.
Jazz is king.
Parties are wild.
And the dead are coming…
After battling a supernatural sleeping sickness that early claimed two of their own, the Diviners have had enough of lies. They’re more determined than ever to uncover the mystery behind their extraordinary powers, even as they face off against an all-new terror. Out on Ward’s Island, far from the city’s bustle, sits a mental hospital haunted by the lost souls of people long forgotten–ghosts who have unusual and dangerous ties to the man in the stovepipe hat, also known as the King of Crows.
With terrible accounts of murder and possession flooding in from all over, and New York City on the verge of panic, the Diviners must band together and brave the sinister ghosts invading the asylum, a fight that will bring them fact-to-face with the King of Crows. But as the explosive secrets of the past come to light, loyalties and friendships will be tested, love will hang in the balance, and the Diviners will question all that they’ve ever known. All the while, malevolent forces gather from every corner in a battle for the very soul of a nation–a fight that could claim the Diviners themselves.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: The King of Crows
Author: Libba Bray
Queer Rep: Gay, asexual, homoromantic
Own Voices?: Unsure
Year Published: 2020
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Historical Fantasy (can be considered light Horror)
Synopsis:
After the horrifying explosion that claimed one of their own, the Diviners find themselves wanted by the US government, and on the brink of war with the King of Crows.
While Memphis and Isaiah run for their lives from the mysterious Shadow Men, Isaiah receives a startling vision of a girl, Sarah Beth Olson, who could shift the balance in their struggle for peace. Sarah Beth says she knows how to stop the King of Crows-but, she will need the Diviners’ help to do it.
Elsewhere, Jericho has returned after his escape from Jake Marlowe’s estate, where he has learned the shocking truth behind the King of Crow’s plans. Now, the Diviners must travel to Bountiful, Nebraska, in hopes of joining forces with Sarah Beth and to stop the King of Crows and his army of the dead forever.
But as rumors of towns becoming ghost towns and the dead developing unprecedented powers begin to surface, all hope seems to be lost.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: The Heart-Break Bakery
Author: A.R. Capetta
Queer Rep: Agender, nonbinary, gay, bisexual, demisexual, queer
Own Voices?: Queer own voices
Year Published: 2021
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Fantasy/magical realism
Synopsis:
Syd (no pronouns, please) has always dealt with big, hard-to-talk-about things by baking. Being dumped is no different, except now Syd is baking at the Proud Muffin, a queer bakery and community space in Austin.
And everyone who eats Syd’s breakup brownies . . . breaks up. Even Vin and Alec, who own the Proud Muffin. And their breakup might take the bakery down with it. Being dumped is one thing; causing ripples of queer heartbreak through the community is another.
But the cute bike delivery person, Harley (he or they, check the pronoun pin, it’s probably on the messenger bag), believes Syd about the magic baking. And Harley believes Syd’s magical baking can fix things, too—one recipe at a time.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Title: Peter Darling
Author: Austin Chant
Queer Rep: Trans man, gay/queer
Own Voices?: Queer own voices
Year Published: 2017
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis:
Ten years ago, Peter Pan left Neverland to grow up, leaving behind his adolescent dreams of boyhood and resigning himself to life as Wendy Darling. Growing up, however, has only made him realize how inescapable his identity as a man is.
But when he returns to Neverland, everything has changed: the Lost Boys have become men, and the war games they once played are now real and deadly. Even more shocking is the attraction Peter never knew he could feel for his old rival, Captain Hook—and the realization that he no longer knows which of them is the real villain.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: The Gilded Wolves
Author: Roshani Chokshi
Queer Rep: Bisexual or pansexual
Own Voices?: Not queer own voices, but biracial own voices
Year Published: 2019
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Historical Fantasy
Synopsis:
It’s 1889. The city is on the cusp of industry and power, and the Exposition Universelle has breathed new life into the streets and dredged up ancient secrets. Here, no one keeps tabs on dark truths better than treasure-hunter and wealthy hotelier Séverin Montagnet-Alarie. When the elite, ever-powerful Order of Babel coerces him to help them on a mission, Séverin is offered a treasure that he never imagined: his true inheritance.
To hunt down the ancient artefact the Order seeks, Séverin calls upon a band of unlikely experts: An engineer with a debt to pay. A historian banished from his home. A dancer with a sinister past. And a brother in arms if not blood.
Together, they will join S verin as he explores the dark, glittering heart of Paris. What they find might change the course of history–but only if they can stay alive.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: The Unbroken
Author: C.L. Clark
Queer Rep: Sapphic MC, Bisexual/pansexual MC
Own Voices?: Author is queer and nonbinary
Year Published: 2021
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis:
Touraine is a soldier. Stolen as a child and raised to kill and die for the empire, her only loyalty is to her fellow conscripts. But now, her company has been sent back to her homeland to stop a rebellion, and the ties of blood may be stronger than she thought.
Luca needs a turncoat. Someone desperate enough to tiptoe the bayonet’s edge between treason and orders. Someone who can sway the rebels toward peace, while Luca focuses on what really matters: getting her uncle off her throne.Through assassinations and massacres, in bedrooms and war rooms, Touraine and Luca will haggle over the price of a nation. But some things aren’t for sale.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ .75
Title: The Faithless
Author: C.L. Clark
Queer Rep: Sapphic MC, Bisexual/pansexual MC and side character
Own Voices?: Author is queer and nonbinary
Year Published: 2023
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis:
The rebels have won, and the empire is withdrawing from Qazal. But undoing the tangled web that binds the two nations will not be easy, and Touraine and Luca will face their greatest challenge yet.
Luca needs to oust her uncle from the Balladairan throne once and for all and take her rightful place as Queen. But he won’t let go of power so easily. When he calls for a “Trial of Competence” and Luca’s allies start disappearing from her side, she will need to find a way to prove her might. And she knows someone who can help…
Touraine has found a home in the newly free country of Qazal. But she soon realizes that leading a country and leading a revolution are two very different tasks. And, even more importantly, if Luca’s uncle doesn’t ratify the treaty, the Qazali could end up right back where they started.
Together, the two women will have to come overcome their enemies, their history, and their heartbreak in order to find a way to secure Luca’s power and Touraine’s freedom.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ .75
Title: Of Fire and Stars
Author: Audrey Coulthurst
Queer Rep: Bisexual, Lesbian/Queer
Own Voices?: Own voices for queer rep
Year Published: 2016
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Fantasy Romance
Synopsis:
Betrothed since childhood to the prince of Mynaria, Princess Dennaleia has always known what her future holds. Her marriage will seal the alliance between Mynaria and her homeland, protecting her people from other hostile kingdoms.
But Denna has a secret. She possesses an Affinity for fire–a dangerous gift for the future queen of a land where magic is forbidden.
Now Denna has to learn the ways of her new kingdom while trying to hide her growing magic. To make matters worse, she must learn to ride Mynaria’s formidable warhorses before her coronation–and her teacher is the person who intimidates her most, the prickly and unconventional Princess Amaranthine, sister of her betrothed.
When a shocking assassination leaves the kingdom reeling, Mare and Denna reluctantly join forces to search for the culprit. As the two work together, they discover there is more to one another than they thought–and soon their friendship is threatening to blossom into something more.
But with dangerous conflict brewing that makes the alliance more important than ever, acting on their feelings could be deadly. Forced to choose between their duty and their hearts, Mare and Denna must find a way to save their kingdoms–and each other.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: Bitter
Author: Akwaeke Emezi
Queer Rep: Bisexual, queer MC and side characters
Own Voices?: Author is nonbinary and queer
Year Published: 2022
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis:
Bitter is thrilled to have been chosen to attend Eucalyptus, a special school where she can focus on her painting surrounded by other creative teens. But outside this haven, the streets are filled with protests against the deep injustices that grip the town of Lucille.
Bitter’s instinct is to stay safe within the walls of Eucalyptus . . . but her friends aren’t willing to settle for a world that the adults say is “just the way things are.” Pulled between old friendships, her creative passion, and a new a romance, Bitter isn’t sure where she belongs – in the art studio or in the streets. And if she does find a way to help the revolution while being true to who she is, she must also ask: at what cost?
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: The Once and Future Witches
Author: Alex E. Harrow
Queer Rep: Lesbian, trans woman
Own Voices?: Unsure
Year Published: 2020
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis:
In 1893, there’s no such thing as witches. There used to be, in the wild, dark days before the burnings began, but now witching is nothing but tidy charms and nursery rhymes. If the modern woman wants any measure of power, she must find it at the ballot box.
But when the Eastwood sisters — James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladonna — join the suffragists of New Salem, they begin to pursue the forgotten words and ways that might turn the women’s movement into the witch’s movement. Stalked by shadows and sickness, hunted by forces who will not suffer a witch to vote — and perhaps not even to live — the sisters will need to delve into the oldest magics, draw new alliances, and heal the bond between them if they want to survive.
There’s no such thing as witches. But there will be.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Title: Raybearer
Author: Jordan Ifueko
Queer Rep: Biromantic asexual mc, minor queer characters
Own Voices?: Unsure
Year Published: 2020
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis:
Nothing is more important than loyalty. But what if you’ve sworn to protect the one you were born to destroy?
Tarisai has always longed for the warmth of a family. She was raised in isolation by a mysterious, often absent mother known only as The Lady. The Lady sends her to the capital of the global empire of Aritsar to compete with other children to be chosen as one of the Crown Prince’s Council of 11. If she’s picked, she’ll be joined with the other Council members through the Ray, a bond deeper than blood. That closeness is irresistible to Tarisai, who has always wanted to belong somewhere. But The Lady has other ideas, including a magical wish that Tarisai is compelled to obey: Kill the Crown Prince once she gains his trust. Tarisai won’t stand by and become someone’s pawn–but is she strong enough to choose a different path for herself? With extraordinary world-building and breathtaking prose, Raybearer is the story of loyalty, fate, and the lengths we’re willing to go for the ones we love.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: The Four Profound Weaves
Author: R.B. Lemberg
Queer Rep: Transgender, nonbinary, sapphic/queer
Own Voices?: Queer own voices (author is bigender)
Year Published: 2020
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis:
The Surun’ nomads do not speak of the master weaver, Benesret, who creates the cloth of bone for assassins in the Great Burri Desert. But aged Uiziya must find her aunt in order to learn the final weave, although the price for knowledge may be far too dear to pay.
Among the Khana in the springflower city of Iyar, women travel in caravans to trade, while men remain in the inner quarter, as scholars. A nameless man struggles to embody Khana masculinity, after many years of performing the life of a woman, trader, wife, and grandmother.
As his past catches up, the nameless man must choose between the life he dreamed of and Uiziya–while Uiziya must discover how to challenge the evil Ruler of Iyar, and to weave from deaths that matter.
In this breathtaking debut set in R. B. Lemberg’s beloved Birdverse, The Four Profound Weaves offers a timeless chronicle of claiming one’s identity in a hostile world.
About the Birdverse: The Birdverse is the creation of fantasy author R. B. Lemberg. It is a complex, culturally diverse world, with a range of LGBTQIA characters and different family configurations. Named after its deity, Bird, Birdverse shorter works have been nominated the Nebula, Hugo, Tiptree award, and Rhysling awards. The Four Profound Weaves is the first full-length work set in the Birdverse.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: Now She is Witch
Author: Kirsty Logan
Queer Rep: Sapphic/queer, nonbinary
Own Voices?: Queer rep own voices
Year Published: 2023
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis:
From the snowy winter woods to the bright midnight sun; from lost and powerless to finding your path, Now She is Witch conjures a world of violence and beauty – a world where women grasp at power through witchcraft, sexuality and performance, and most of all through throwing each other to the wolves.
Lux has lost everything when Else finds her, alone in the woods. Her family, her lover, her home – all burned. The world is suspicious of women like her. But Lux is cunning; she knows how to exploit people’s expectations, how to blend into the background. And she knows a lot about poisons.
Else has not found Lux by accident. She needs her help to seek revenge against the man who wronged her, and together they pursue him north. But on their hunt they will uncover dark secrets that entangle them with dangerous adversaries.
This is a witch story unlike any other.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: Every Heart a Doorway
Author: Seanan McGuire
Queer Rep: Trans boy, asexuality,
Own Voices?: Yes for asexuality
Year Published: 2016
Audience: Young adult/adult. Okay for older teens, check content warnings
Main Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis:
Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children
No Solicitations
No Visitors
No Quests
Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere… else.
But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.
Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced… they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.
But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of the matter.
No matter the cost.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: Down Among the Sticks and Bones
Author: Seanan McGuire
Queer Rep: Sapphic
Own Voices?: Author is queer
Year Published: 2017
Audience: Young adult/adult. Okay for older teens, check content warnings
Main Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis:
Twin sisters Jack and Jill were seventeen when they found their way home and were packed off to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children.
This is the story of what happened first…
Jacqueline was her mother’s perfect daughter—polite and quiet, always dressed as a princess. If her mother was sometimes a little strict, it’s because crafting the perfect daughter takes discipline.
Jillian was her father’s perfect daughter—adventurous, thrill-seeking, and a bit of a tomboy. He really would have preferred a son, but you work with what you’ve got.
They were five when they learned that grown-ups can’t be trusted.
They were twelve when they walked down the impossible staircase and discovered that the pretense of love can never be enough to prepare you for a life filled with magic in a land filled with mad scientists and death and choices.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: Beneath the Sugar Sky
Author: Seanan McGuire
Queer Rep: Trans boy side character
Own Voices?: Author is queer
Year Published: 2018
Audience: Young adult/adult. Okay for older teens, check content warnings
Main Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis:
When Rini lands with a literal splash in the pond behind Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, the last thing she expects to find is that her mother, Sumi, died years before Rini was even conceived. But Rini can’t let Reality get in the way of her quest – not when she has an entire world to save (Much more common than one would suppose.)
If she can’t find a way to restore her mother, Rini will have more than a world to save: she will never have been born in the first place. And in a world without magic, she doesn’t have long before Reality notices her existence and washes her away. Good thing the student body is well-acquainted with quests…
A tale of friendship, baking, and derring-do.
Warning: May contain nuts.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: In an Absent Dream
Author: Seanan McGuire
Queer Rep: Sapphic energy but nothing confirmed
Own Voices?: Author is queer
Year Published: 2019
Audience: Young adult/adult. Okay for older teens, check content warnings
Main Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis:
This fourth entry and prequel tells the story of Lundy, a very serious young girl who would rather study and dream than become a respectable housewife and live up to the expectations of the world around her. As well she should.
When she finds a doorway to a world founded on logic and reason, riddles and lies, she thinks she’s found her paradise. Alas, everything costs at the goblin market, and when her time there is drawing to a close, she makes the kind of bargain that never plays out well.
At the Publisher’s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: Come Tumbling Down
Author: Seanan McGuire
Queer Rep: Sapphic, trans boy
Own Voices?: Author is queer
Year Published: 2020
Audience: Young adult/adult. Okay for older teens, check content warnings
Main Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis:
When Jack left Eleanor West’s School for Wayward Children she was carrying the body of her deliciously deranged sister–whom she had recently murdered in a fit of righteous justice–back to their home on the Moors.
But death in their adopted world isn’t always as permanent as it is here, and when Jack is herself carried back into the school, it becomes clear that something has happened to her. Something terrible. Something of which only the maddest of scientists could conceive. Something only her friends are equipped to help her overcome.
Eleanor West’s “No Quests” rule is about to be broken.
Again.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: Across the Green Grass Fields
Author: Seanan McGuire
Queer Rep: Intersex MC, I’m unsure on the preference of intersex identities within the queer community, but the MC is an intersex woman
Own Voices?: Author is queer
Year Published: 2021
Audience: Young adult/adult. Okay for older teens, check content warnings
Main Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis:
“Welcome to the Hooflands. We’re happy to have you, even if you being here means something’s coming.”
Regan loves, and is loved, though her school-friend situation has become complicated, of late.
When she suddenly finds herself thrust through a doorway that asks her to “Be Sure” before swallowing her whole, Regan must learn to live in a world filled with centaurs, kelpies, and other magical equines—a world that expects its human visitors to step up and be heroes.
But after embracing her time with the herd, Regan discovers that not all forms of heroism are equal, and not all quests are as they seem…
A standalone Wayward Children story containing all-new characters, and a great jumping-on point for new readers.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Title: Where the Drowned Girls Go
Author: Seanan McGuire
Queer Rep: Sapphic side characters, intersex character
Own Voices?: Author is queer
Year Published: 2022
Audience: Young adult/adult. Okay for older teens, check content warnings
Main Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis:
“Welcome to the Whitethorn Institute. The first step is always admitting you need help, and you’ve already taken that step by requesting a transfer into our company.”
There is another school for children who fall through doors and fall back out again. It isn’t as friendly as Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children.
And it isn’t as safe.
When Eleanor West decided to open her school, her sanctuary, her “Home for Wayward Children,” she knew from the beginning that there would be children she couldn’t save; when Cora decides she needs a different direction, a different fate, a different prophecy, Miss West reluctantly agrees to transfer her to the other school, where things are run very differently by Whitethorn, the Headmaster.
She will soon discover that not all doors are welcoming…
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: The Starless Sea
Author: Erin Morgenstern
Queer Rep: Gay MC
Own Voices?: No
Year Published: 2019
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis:
Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a mysterious book hidden in the stacks. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues–a bee, a key, and a sword–that lead him to a masquerade party in New York, to a secret club, and through a doorway to an ancient library, hidden far below the surface of the earth.
What Zachary finds in this curious place is more than just a buried home for books and their guardians–it is a place of lost cities and seas, lovers who pass notes under doors and across time, and of stories whispered by the dead. Zachary learns of those who have sacrificed much to protect this realm, relinquishing their sight and their tongues to preserve this archive, and also those who are intent on its destruction.
Together with Mirabel, a fierce, pink-haired protector of the place, and Dorian, a handsome, barefoot man with shifting alliances, Zachary travels the twisting tunnels, darkened stairwells, crowded ballrooms, and sweetly-soaked shores of this magical world, discovering his purpose–in both the mysterious book and in his own life.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: She Who Became the Sun
Author: Shelley Parker Chan
Queer Rep: Gender-fluid, lesbian/queer, gay, bisexual/pansexual
Own Voices? Own voices for queer and trans rep
Year Published: 2021
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis:
To possess the Mandate of Heaven, the female monk Zhu will do anything
“I refuse to be nothing…”
In a famine-stricken village on a dusty yellow plain, two children are given two fates. A boy, greatness. A girl, nothingness…
In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected.
When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother’s identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There, propelled by her burning desire to survive, Zhu learns she is capable of doing whatever it takes, no matter how callous, to stay hidden from her fate.
After her sanctuary is destroyed for supporting the rebellion against Mongol rule, Zhu takes the chance to claim another future altogether: her brother’s abandoned greatness.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: The Invisible Life of Addie Larue
Author: V.E. Schwab
Queer Rep: Bisexual/queer MC
Own Voices?: Author is queer
Year Published: 2020
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: fantasy
Synopsis:
France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever – and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.
Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.
But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title:The Priory of the Orange Tree
Author: Samantha Shannon
Queer Rep: Sapphic MCs
Own Voices?: Author is queer
Year Published: 2019
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis:
A world divided.
A queendom without an heir.
An ancient enemy awakens.
The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction–but assassins are getting closer to her door.
Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.
Across the dark sea, Tané has trained all her life to be a dragonrider, but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel.
Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: A Day of Fallen Night
Author: Samantha Shannon
Queer Rep: Sapphic, asexual, gay, nonbinary, general queer identities
Own Voices?: Author is queer
Year Published: 2023
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis:
Tunuva Melim is a sister of the Priory. For fifty years, she has trained to slay wyrms—but none have appeared since the Nameless One, and the younger generation is starting to question the Priory’s purpose.
To the north, in the Queendom of Inys, Sabran the Ambitious has married the new King of Hróth, narrowly saving both realms from ruin. Their daughter, Glorian, trails in their shadow—exactly where she wants to be.
The dragons of the East have slept for centuries. Dumai has spent her life in a Seiikinese mountain temple, trying to wake the gods from their long slumber. Now someone from her mother’s past is coming to upend her fate.
When the Dreadmount erupts, bringing with it an age of terror and violence, these women must find the strength to protect humankind from a devastating threat.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: Cemetery Boys
Author: Aiden Thomas
Queer Rep: Trans boy, bisexual love interest, gay MC
Own Voices?: Author is trans and queer
Year Published: 2020
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis:
Yadriel has summoned a ghost, and now he can’t get rid of him. When his traditional Latinx family has problems accepting his true gender, Yadriel becomes determined to prove himself a real brujo. With the help of his cousin and best friend Maritza, he performs the ritual himself, and then sets out to find the ghost of his murdered cousin and set it free.
However, the ghost he summons is actually Julian Diaz, the school’s resident bad boy, and Julian is not about to go quietly into death. He’s determined to find out what happened and tie off some loose ends before he leaves. Left with no choice, Yadriel agrees to help Julian, so that they can both get what they want. But the longer Yadriel spends with Julian, the less he wants to let him leave.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: Mooncakes
Author: Suzanne Walker
Queer Rep: Nonbinary, queer, lesbian elders
Own Voices?: Own voices queer rep and disability rep (hearing loss)
Year Published: 2019
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Fantasy, Graphic Novel
Synopsis:
A story of love and demons, family and witchcraft. Nova Huang knows more about magic than your average teen witch. She works at her grandmothers’ bookshop, where she helps them loan out spell books and investigate any supernatural occurrences in their New England town. One fateful night, she follows reports of a white wolf into the woods, and she comes across the unexpected: her childhood crush, Tam Lang, battling a horse demon in the woods. As a werewolf, Tam has been wandering from place to place for years, unable to call any townhome. Pursued by dark forces eager to claim the magic of wolves and out of options, Tam turns to Nova for help. Their latent feelings are rekindled against the backdrop of witchcraft, untested magic, occult rituals, and family ties both new and old in this enchanting tale of self-discovery.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Title: Ice Massacre
Author: Tiana Warner
Queer Rep: Sapphic
Own Voices?: As far as I can tell, yes for queer rep. I found one article referencing her coming out.
Year Published: 2014
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis:
A mermaid’s supernatural beauty serves one purpose: to lure a sailor to his death.
The Massacre is supposed to bring peace to Eriana Kwai. Every year, the island sends its warriors to battle these hostile sea demons. Every year, the warriors fail to return. Desperate for survival, the island must decide on a new strategy. Now, the fate of Eriana Kwai lies in the hands of twenty battle-trained girls and their resistance to a mermaid’s allure.
Eighteen-year-old Meela has already lost her brother to the Massacre, and she has lived with a secret that’s haunted her since childhood. For any hope of survival, she must overcome the demons of her past and become a ruthless mermaid killer.
For the first time, Eriana Kwai’s Massacre warriors are female, and Meela must fight for her people’s freedom on the Pacific Ocean’s deadliest battleground.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Romance
Title: What if it’s Us
Author: Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera
Queer Rep: Gay
Own Voices?: Adam Silvera is own voices for queer rep
Year Published: 2018
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Contemporary Romance
Synopsis:
ARTHUR is only in New York for the summer, but if Broadway has taught him anything, it’s that the universe can deliver a showstopping romance when you least expect it.
BEN thinks the universe needs to mind its business. If the universe had his back, he wouldn’t be on his way to the post office carrying a box of his ex-boyfriend’s things.
But when Arthur and Ben meet-cute at the post office, what exactly does the universe have in store for them . . . ?
Maybe nothing. After all, they get separated.
Maybe everything. After all, they get reunited.
But what if they can’t nail a first date even after three do-overs?
What if Arthur tries too hard to make it work and Ben doesn’t try hard enough?
What if life really isn’t like a Broadway play?
But what if it is?
What if it’s us?
Rating: ⭐️⭐️
Title: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
Author: Benjamin Alire Saenz
Queer Rep: Gay/queer
Own Voices?: Own voices queer rep
Year Published: 2012
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Contemporary romance
Synopsis:
Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship–the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: Tentacles and Triathlons
Author: Ashley Bennett
Queer Rep: Gay, bisexual, queer
Own Voices?: Unsure, I don’t believe so
Year Published: 2022
Audience: Ashley Bennett
Main Genre: Romance
Synopsis:
When parks department supervisor Reece Rollins decides to sign up for a triathlon– there are two things holding him back. One, his fear for monsters. Two, his sub-par swimming skills.
At the urging of his sister’s wolven mate, Reece joins Leviathan Fitness to train in the gym’s olympic size swimming pool. After running into Reece at the pool, Cyrus offers to help Reece get ready to win the race.
New feelings arise from the depths as Reece and Cyrus learn that monsters and humans go together, tentacle in hand. The only question is- can these two hold on to their new found love despite their differences?
Tentacles & Triathlons is book two in the Leviathan Fitness series. Each book will center around the gym and feature a different monster pairing.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: I Wish You all the Best
Author: Mason Deaver
Queer Rep: Nonbinary (MC and side character), queer, bisexual
Own Voices?: Nonbinary and queer own voices
Year Published: 2019
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Contemporary romance
Synopsis:
When Ben De Backer comes out to their parents as nonbinary, they’re thrown out of their house and forced to move in with their estranged older sister, Hannah, and her husband, Thomas, whom Ben has never even met. Struggling with an anxiety disorder compounded by their parents’ rejection, they come out only to Hannah, Thomas, and their therapist and try to keep a low profile in a new school.
But Ben’s attempts to survive the last half of senior year unnoticed are thwarted when Nathan Allan, a funny and charismatic student, decides to take Ben under his wing. As Ben and Nathan’s friendship grows, their feelings for each other begin to change, and what started as a disastrous turn of events looks like it might just be a chance to start a happier new life.
At turns heartbreaking and joyous, I Wish You All the Best is both a celebration of life, friendship, and love, and a shining example of hope in the face of adversity.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: Don’t Stop Me
Author: Emory Eden
Queer Rep: Lesbian, sapphic, queer, bisexual
Own Voices?: Queer own voices
Year Published: 2022
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Contemporary romance
Synopsis:
She was everything I ever wanted.
Smart. Beautiful. Passionate.
I became obsessed with her, or at least who I thought she was.
And then, she showed me her true colors, by showing up on my doorstep as my son’s girlfriend.
She was off-limits.
But I couldn’t deny the part of me still wanted her and by the look in her eyes…
Neither could she.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: A Lady for a Duke
Author: Alexis Hall
Queer Rep: Trans woman
Own Voices?: Unsure
Year Published: 2022
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Historical Romance
Synopsis:
When Viola Carroll was presumed dead at Waterloo she took the opportunity to live, at last, as herself. But freedom does not come without a price, and Viola paid for hers with the loss of her wealth, her title, and her closest companion, Justin de Vere, the Duke of Gracewood.
Only when their families reconnect, years after the war, does Viola learn how deep that loss truly was. Shattered without her, Gracewood has retreated so far into grief that Viola barely recognises her old friend in the lonely, brooding man he has become.
As Viola strives to bring Gracewood back to himself, fresh desires give new names to old feelings. Feelings that would have been impossible once and may be impossible still, but which Viola cannot deny. Even if they cost her everything, all over again.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Title: Delilah Green Doesn’t Care
Author: Ashley Herring Blake
Queer Rep: Lesbian, bisexual, sapphic, queer
Own Voices?: Queer own voices
Year Published: 2022
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Contemporary romance
Synopsis:
Delilah Green swore she would never go back to Bright Falls—nothing is there for her but memories of a lonely childhood where she was little more than a burden to her cold and distant stepfamily. Her life is in New York, with her photography career finally gaining steam and her bed never empty. Sure, it’s a different woman every night, but that’s just fine with her.
When Delilah’s estranged stepsister, Astrid, pressures her into photographing her wedding with a guilt trip and a five-figure check, Delilah finds herself back in the godforsaken town that she used to call home. She plans to breeze in and out, but then she sees Claire Sutherland, one of Astrid’s stuck-up besties, and decides that maybe there’s some fun (and a little retribution) to be had in Bright Falls, after all.
Having raised her eleven-year-old daughter mostly on her own while dealing with her unreliable ex and running a bookstore, Claire Sutherland depends upon a life without surprises. And Delilah Green is an unwelcome surprise…at first. Though they’ve known each other for years, they don’t really know each other—so Claire is unsettled when Delilah figures out exactly what buttons to push. When they’re forced together during a gauntlet of wedding preparations—including a plot to save Astrid from her horrible fiancé—Claire isn’t sure she has the strength to resist Delilah’s charms. Even worse, she’s starting to think she doesn’t want to…
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Title: Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail
Author: Ashley Herring Blake
Queer Rep: Lesbian, bisexual, queer
Own Voices?: Queer own voices
Year Published: 2022
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Contemporary romance
Synopsis:
For Astrid Parker, failure is unacceptable. Ever since she broke up with her fiancé a year ago, she’s been focused on her career—her friends might say she’s obsessed, but she’s just driven. When Pru Everwood asks her to be the designer for the Everwood Inn’s renovation that will be broadcasted on a popular home improvement show, Innside America, Astrid knows this is the answer to everything that is wrong with her life. It’ll be the perfect distraction from her failed love life, and her perpetually displeased mother might finally give her nod of approval.
However, Astrid never planned on Jordan Everwood, Pru’s granddaughter and lead carpenter for the inn’s renovation, who despises every modern design decision Astrid makes. Jordan is determined to preserve the history of her family’s inn, particularly as the rest of her life is in shambles. When that determination turns into a little light sabotage, ruffling Astrid’s perfect little feathers, the showrunners ask them to play up the tension. But somewhere along the way, their dislike for each other turns into something quite different, and Astrid must decide what success truly means. Is she going to pursue the life that she’s expected to lead, or the one she wants?
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: Take a Hint Dani Brown
Author: Talia Hibbert
Queer Rep: Bisexual
Own Voices?: Author is queer
Year Published: 2020
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Contemporary Romance
Synopsis:
Danika Brown knows what she wants: professional success, academic renown, and an occasional roll in the hay to relieve all that career-driven tension. But romance? Been there, done that, burned the T-shirt. Romantic partners, whatever their gender, are a distraction at best and a drain at worst. So Dani asks the universe for the perfect friend-with-benefits–someone who knows the score and knows their way around the bedroom.
When big, brooding security guard Zafir Ansari rescues Dani from a workplace fire drill gone wrong, it’s an obvious sign: PhD student Dani and former rugby player Zaf are destined to sleep together. But before she can explain that fact to him, a video of the heroic rescue goes viral. Suddenly, half the internet is shipping #DrRugbae–and Zaf is begging Dani to play along. Turns out his sports charity for kids could really use the publicity. Lying to help children? Who on earth would refuse?
Dani’s plan is simple: fake a relationship in public, seduce Zaf behind the scenes. The trouble is, grumpy Zaf is secretly a hopeless romantic–and he’s determined to corrupt Dani’s stone-cold realism. Before long, he’s tackling her fears into the dirt. But the former sports star has issues of his own, and the walls around his heart are as thick as his… um, thighs.
The easy lay Dani dreamed of is now more complex than her thesis. Has her wish backfired? Is her focus being tested? Or is the universe just waiting for her to take a hint?
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: Love and Other Disasters
Author: Anita Kelly
Queer Rep: Nonbinary, bisexual, queer
Own Voices?: Own voices for queer rep. Author is nonbinary (they/them) and queer
Year Published: 2022
Audience: Adult
Main Genre:Contemporary Romance
Synopsis:
Recently divorced and on the verge of bankruptcy, Dahlia Woodson is ready to reinvent herself on the popular reality competition show Chef’s Special. Too bad the first memorable move she makes is falling flat on her face, sending fish tacos flying—not quite the fresh start she was hoping for. Still, she’s focused on winning, until she meets someone she might want a future with more than she needs the prize money.
After announcing their pronouns on national television, London Parker has enough on their mind without worrying about the klutzy competitor stationed in front of them. They’re there to prove the trolls—including a fellow contestant and their dad—wrong, and falling in love was never part of the plan.
As London and Dahlia get closer, reality starts to fall away. Goodbye, guilt about divorce, anxiety about uncertain futures, and stress from transphobia. Hello, hilarious shenanigans on set, wedding crashing, and spontaneous dips into the Pacific. But as the finale draws near, Dahlia and London’s steamy relationship starts to feel the heat both in and outside the kitchen—and they must figure out if they have the right ingredients for a happily ever after.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Title: Everything Leads to You
Author: Nina LaCour
Queer Rep: Not explicitly stated, could be bisexual, pansexual, or lesbian. MC discusses boys in the past but the focus is on women in the present
Own Voices?: Lesbian/Queer own voices
Year Published: 2014
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Contemporary Romance
Synopsis:
I want you to do something with the place. Something epic.
After being entrusted with her brother’s Los Angeles apartment for the summer as a graduation gift, Emi Price isn’t sure how to fulfill his one condition: that something great take place there while he’s gone. Emi may be a talented young production designer, already beginning to thrive in the competitive film industry, but she still feels like an average teen, floundering when it comes to romance.
But when she and her best friend, Charlotte, discover a mysterious letter at the estate sale of a Hollywood film legend, Emi must move beyond the walls of her carefully crafted world to chase down the loose ends of a movie icon’s hidden life, leading her to uncover a decades’ old secret and the potential for something truly epic: love.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: I Fell in Love With Hope
Author: Lancali
Queer Rep: Gay/queer
Own Voices?: Unsure
Year Published: 2022
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Romance
Synopsis:
Against the unforgiving landscape of a hospital, I broke the one rule dying people must always follow. I fell in love. I fell in love with a mischievous, sun-eyed boy who became my only joy in such a desolate place. That’s what made it all the more soul-crushing when he committed suicide before my eyes.
Since then, I’ve sworn never to love again. With three exceptions: My best friends, Sony, Neo, and Coeur, a little gang of rebellious dying kids. Sony leads the charge with the air of freedom and only one lung to breathe it. Neo, a bad-tempered and wheel-chaired writer, keeps track of our great deeds from stealing to terrorizing our nurse. Coeur is the beautiful boy, the muscle, the gentle giant with a failing heart.
Before death inevitably knocks on our doors, my thieves and I have one last heist planned. A great escape that will take us far from abusive parents, crippling loss, and the realities of our diseases. So what happens when someone else walks through that door? What happens when a girl joins our party and renders me speechless with her mischievous smile? What happens when she has suns in her eyes, and as terrified as I am to lose again, I start to fall?
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Title:I’m in Love With Mothman
Author: Paige Lavoie
Queer Rep: Bisexual/pansexual, queer, lesbians
Own Voices?: Own voices queer rep
Year Published: 2022
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Fantasy romance
Synopsis:
22-year-old Heather is suffering from an epic case of burnout.
So, just like any other young influencer, she
abandons her social platforms. Check!
gathers up her best flowy dresses. Check!
and moves to a desolate cabin. Check!
Heather imagines spending her #unplugged days traipsing through the woods and tending to her garden. However, her cottagecore fantasy is turned upside down when a wounded cryptid crashes into her roof—and her heart.
With no help from her internet followers, and the local monster-hunter growing suspicious, Heather’s quiet life in the wilderness has suddenly become a little more complicated. To make matters worse, she thinks she might be falling in love with the brooding winged man in her living room.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue
Author: Mackenzie Lee
Queer Rep: Bisexual, queer, asexual and aromantic side character
Own Voices?: Not really, author is openly bisexual but is (as far as I can find) a woman and main characters are queer men, one is multiracial
Year Published: 2017
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Historical Romance
Synopsis:
A young bisexual British lord embarks on an unforgettable Grand Tour of Europe with his best friend/secret crush. An 18th-century romantic adventure for the modern age written by This Monstrous Thing author Mackenzi Lee–Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda meets the 1700s.
Henry “Monty” Montague doesn’t care that his roguish passions are far from suitable for the gentleman he was born to be. But as Monty embarks on his grand tour of Europe, his quests for pleasure and vice are in danger of coming to an end. Not only does his father expect him to take over the family’s estate upon his return, but Monty is also nursing an impossible crush on his best friend and traveling companion, Percy.
So Monty vows to make this yearlong escapade one last hedonistic hurrah and flirt with Percy from Paris to Rome. But when one of Monty’s reckless decisions turns their trip abroad into a harrowing manhunt, it calls into question everything he knows, including his relationship with the boy he adores.
Witty, dazzling, and intriguing at every turn, The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue is an irresistible romp that explores the undeniably fine lines between friendship and love.
Rating: Unsure, I didn’t rate it on Storygraph
Title: Last Night at the Telegraph Club
Author: Malinda Lo
Queer Rep: Lesbian/Queer
Own Voices?: Own voices queer rep
Year Published: 2021
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Historical Romance
Synopsis:
That book. It was about two women, and they fell in love with each other. And then Lily asked the question that had taken root in her, that was even now unfurling its leaves and demanding to be shown the sun: Have you ever heard of such a thing?
Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can’t remember exactly when the question took root, but the answer was in full bloom the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club.
America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father–despite his hard-won citizenship–Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: How to Excavate a Heart
Author: Jake Maia Arlow
Queer Rep: Lesbian, sapphic, queer
Own Voices?: Queer own voices, also jewish own voices
Year Published: 2022
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Contemporary romance
Synopsis:
It all starts when Shani runs into May. Like, literally. With her mom’s Subaru.
Attempted vehicular manslaughter was not part of Shani’s plan. She was supposed to be focusing on her monthlong paleoichthyology internship. She was going to spend all her time thinking about dead fish and not at all about how she was unceremoniously dumped days before winter break.
It could be going better.
But when a dog-walking gig puts her back in May’s path, the fossils she’s meant to be diligently studying are pushed to the side—along with the breakup.
Then they’re snowed in together on Christmas Eve. As things start to feel more serious, though, Shani’s hurt over her ex-girlfriend’s rejection comes rushing back. Is she ready to try a committed relationship again, or is she okay with this just being a passing winter fling?
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: Red, White, and Royal Blue
Author: Casey McQuiston
Queer Rep: Bisexual and gay MC’s, lesbian and trans side characters
Own Voices?: Author is bisexual
Year Published: 2019
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Contemporary Romance
Synopsis:
When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, genius—his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There’s only one problem: Alex has a beef with the actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse.
Heads of family, state, and other handlers devise a plan for damage control: staging a truce between the two rivals. What at first begins as a fake, Instragramable friendship grows deeper, and more dangerous, than either Alex or Henry could have imagined. Soon Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret romance with a surprisingly unstuffy Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations and begs the question: Can love save the world after all? Where do we find the courage, and the power, to be the people we are meant to be? And how can we learn to let our true colors shine through? Casey McQuiston’s Red, White & Royal Blue proves: true love isn’t always diplomatic.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: I’ll Give You the Sun
Author: Jandy Nelson
Queer Rep: Gay
Own Voices?: No
Year Published: 2014
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Contemporary Romance
Synopsis:
At first, Jude and her twin brother are NoahandJude; inseparable. Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude wears red-red lipstick, cliff-dives, and does all the talking for both of them.
Years later, they are barely speaking. Something has happened to change the twins in different yet equally devastating ways . . . but then Jude meets an intriguing, irresistible boy and a mysterious new mentor.
The early years are Noah’s to tell; the later years are Jude’s. But they each have only half the story, and if they can only find their way back to one another, they’ll have a chance to remake their world.
This radiant, award-winning novel from the acclaimed author of The Sky Is Everywhere will leave you breathless and teary and laughing–often all at once.
Rating: Unknown, read prior to keeping track of ratings
Title: Honey Girl
Author: Morgan Rogers
Queer Rep: Lesbian MC’s, queer side characters, trans side character
Own Voices?: Queer own voices
Year Published: 2021
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Contemporary romance
Synopsis:
With her newly completed PhD in astronomy in hand, twenty-eight-year-old Grace Porter goes on a girls’ trip to Vegas to celebrate. She’s a straight A, work-through-the-summer certified high achiever. She is not the kind of person who goes to Vegas and gets drunkenly married to a woman whose name she doesn’t know…until she does exactly that.
This one moment of departure from her stern ex-military father’s plans for her life has Grace wondering why she doesn’t feel more fulfilled from completing her degree. Staggering under the weight of her parent’s expectations, a struggling job market and feelings of burnout, Grace flees her home in Portland for a summer in New York with the wife she barely knows.
In New York, she’s able to ignore all the constant questions about her future plans and falls hard for her creative and beautiful wife, Yuki Yamamoto. But when reality comes crashing in, Grace must face what she’s been running from all along—the fears that make us human, the family scars that need to heal and the longing for connection, especially when navigating the messiness of adulthood.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: Mistakes were Made
Author: Meryl Wilsner
Queer Rep: Bisexual, lesbian/queer
Own Voices?: Queer own voices
Year Published: 2022
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Contemporary romance
Synopsis:
When Cassie Klein goes to an off-campus bar to escape her school’s Family Weekend, she isn’t looking for a hookup—it just happens. Buying a drink for a stranger turns into what should be an uncomplicated, amazing one-night stand. But then the next morning rolls around and her friend drags her along to meet her mom—the hot, older woman Cassie slept with.
Erin Bennett came to Family Weekend to get closer to her daughter, not have a one-night stand with a college senior. In her defense, she hadn’t known Cassie was a student when they’d met. To make things worse, Erin’s daughter brings Cassie to breakfast the next morning. And despite Erin’s better judgement—how could sleeping with your daughter’s friend be anything but bad?—she and Cassie get along in the day just as well as they did last night.
What should have been a one-time fling quickly proves impossible to ignore, and soon Cassie and Erin are sneaking around. Worst of all, they start to realize they have something real. But is being honest about the love between them worth the cost?
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
erotica
Title: Court of the Vampire Queen
Author: Katee Robert
Queer Rep: Polyamory between one woman and three men, general queerness
Own Voices?: Queer own voices
Year Published: 2022
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Erotica
Synopsis:
All Mina ever wanted was to escape her father’s control. Half human, half vampire, she lived eternally torn between two worlds, never fully experiencing the pleasures of either-until her father chose her as the pawn in his latest political move, gifting her to the darkly powerful and dangerously seductive Malachi Zion.
Malachi is not a vampire to be trifled with. He rules with an iron fist and has a reputation for the darkest of sins. But the longer Mina spends with him, the more she realizes he’s not the monster she first thought-and as fear bleeds into lust, then trust, then something more, Malachi opens Mina up to a world she never knew could be hers for the taking: including the love of Malachi’s two closest friends and companions.
Now surrounded by all three men, the center of their shockingly seductive world, Mina may finally have the power to face down her father and take back the life-and crown-that by all rights should be hers.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️
Mystery
Title: Dead Dead Girls
Author: Nekesa Afia
Queer Rep: Sapphic/queer (not directly labeled due to time period)
Own Voices?: Queer own voices
Year Published: 2021
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Historical mystery
Synopsis:
Harlem, 1926. Young black girls like Louise Lloyd are ending up dead.
Following a harrowing kidnapping ordeal when she was in her teens, Louise is doing everything she can to maintain a normal life. She’s succeeding, too. She spends her days working at Maggie’s Café and her nights at the Zodiac, Manhattan’s hottest speakeasy. Louise’s friends might say she’s running from her past and the notoriety that still stalks her, but don’t tell her that.
When a girl turns up dead in front of the café, Louise is forced to confront something she’s been trying to ignore–several local black girls have been murdered over the past few weeks. After an altercation with a local police officer gets her arrested, Louise is given an ultimatum: She can either help solve the case or let a judge make an example of her.
Louise has no choice but to take the case and soon finds herself toe-to-toe with a murderous mastermind. She’ll have to tackle her own fears and the prejudices of New York City society if she wants to catch a killer and save her own life in the process.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Horror
Title: The Monster of Elendhaven
Author: Jennifer Giesbrecht
Queer Rep: General queer
Own Voices?: Unsure
Year Published: 2019
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Gothic Horror
Synopsis:
The city of Elendhaven sulks on the edge of the ocean. Wracked by plague, abandoned by the South, stripped of industry and left to die. But not everything dies so easily. A thing without a name stalks the city, a thing shaped like a man, with a dark heart and long pale fingers yearning to wrap around throats. A monster who cannot die. His frail master sends him out on errands, twisting him with magic, crafting a plan too cruel to name, while the monster’s heart grows fonder and colder and more cunning.
These monsters of Elendhaven will have their revenge on everyone who wronged the city, even if they have to burn the world to do it.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Title: Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke
Author: Eric LaRocca
Queer Rep: Sapphic/queer
Own Voices?: No
Year Published: 2021
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Horror
Synopsis:
A whirlpool of darkness churns at the heart of a macabre ballet between two lonely young women in an internet chat room in the early 2000’s — a darkness that threatens to forever transform them once they finally succumb to their most horrific desires.
What have you done today to deserve your eyes?
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: Her Body and Other Parties
Author: Carmen Maria Machado
Queer Rep: Sapphic/queer
Own Voices?: Queer own voices
Year Published: 2017
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Horror
Synopsis:
A wife refuses her husband’s entreaties to remove the green ribbon from around her neck. A woman recounts her sexual encounters as a plague slowly consumes humanity. A salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery within the seams of the store’s prom dresses. One woman’s surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted houseguest. And in the bravura novella “Especially Heinous,” Machado reimagines every episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a show we naively assumed had shown it all, generating a phantasmagoric police procedural full of doppelgängers, ghosts, and girls-with-bells-for-eyes.
Earthy and otherworldly, antic and sexy, queer and caustic, comic and deadly serious, Her Body and Other Parties swings from horrific violence to the most exquisite sentiment. In their explosive originality, these stories enlarge the possibilities of contemporary fiction.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: Sorrowland
Author: Rivers Solomon
Queer Rep: Queer, two spirit, gender not pushed onto children
Own Voices?: Queer own voices, author is nonbinary (they/them) and queer
Year Published: 2021
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Horror
Synopsis:
Vern–seven months pregnant and desperate to escape the strict religious compound where she was raised–flees for the shelter of the woods. There, she gives birth to twins, and plans to raise them far from the influence of the outside world.
But even in the forest, Vern is a hunted woman. Forced to fight back against the community that refuses to let her go, she unleashes incredible brutality far beyond what a person should be capable of, her body wracked by inexplicable and uncanny changes.
To understand her metamorphosis and to protect her small family, Vern has to face the past, and more troublingly, the future–outside the woods. Finding the truth will mean uncovering the secrets of the compound she fled but also the violent history in America that produced it.
Rivers Solomon’s Sorrowland is a genre-bending work of Gothic fiction. Here, monsters aren’t just individuals, but entire nations. It is a searing, seminal book that marks the arrival of a bold, unignorable voice in American fiction.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: All the White Spaces
Author: Ally Wilkes
Queer Rep: Trans man, queer (nothing explicitly stated due to the time period)
Own Voices?: Unsure
Year Published: 2022
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Horror
Synopsis:
In the wake of the First World War, Jonathan Morgan stows away on an Antarctic expedition, determined to find his rightful place in the world of men. Aboard the expeditionary ship of his hero, the world-famous explorer James “Australis” Randall, Jonathan may live as his true self—and true gender—and have the adventures he has always been denied. But not all is smooth sailing: the war casts its long shadow over them all, and grief, guilt, and mistrust skulk among the explorers. When disaster strikes in Antarctica’s frozen Weddell Sea, the men must take to the land and overwinter somewhere which immediately seems both eerie and wrong; a place not marked on any of their part-drawn maps of the vast white continent. Now completely isolated, Randall’s expedition has no ability to contact the outside world. And no one is coming to rescue them. Something deadly and mysterious stalks the members of an isolated polar expedition in this haunting and spellbinding historical horror novel, perfect for fans of Dan Simmons’s The Terror and Alma Katsu’s The Hunger. As the harsh Antarctic winter descends, this supernatural force will prey on their deepest desires and deepest fears to pick them off one by one. It is up to Jonathan to overcome his own ghosts before he and the expedition are utterly destroyed. In the freezing darkness of the Polar night, where the aurora creeps across the sky, something terrible has been waiting to lure them out into its deadly landscape…
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
thriller
Title: The City in the Middle of the Night
Author: Charlie Jane Anders
Queer Rep: Sapphic/queer
Own Voices?: Unsure, author is a trans woman but unsure if she is sapphic
Year Published: 2019
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Sci-fi
Synopsis:
Set on a planet that has fully definitive, never-changing zones of day and night, with ensuing extreme climates of endless, frigid darkness and blinding, relentless light, humankind has somehow continued apace — though the perils outside the built cities are rife with danger as much as the streets below.
But in a world where time means only what the ruling government proclaims, and the levels of light available are artificially imposed to great consequence, lost souls and disappeared bodies are shadow-bound and savage, and as common as grains of sand. And one such pariah, sacrificed to the night, but borne up by time and a mysterious bond with an enigmatic beast, will rise to take on the entire planet–before it can crumble beneath the weight of human existence.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: Burn Our Bodies Down
Author: Rory Power
Queer Rep: Lesbian/queer
Own Voices?: Unsure
Year Published: 2020
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Synopsis:
Ever since Margot was born, it’s been just her and her mother. No answers to Margot’s questions about what came before. No history to hold on to. No relative to speak of. Just the two of them, stuck in their run-down apartment, struggling to get along.
But that’s not enough for Margot. She wants family. She wants a past. And she just found the key she needs to get it: A photograph, pointing her to a town called Phalene. Pointing her home. Only, when Margot gets there, it’s not what she bargained for.
Margot’s mother left for a reason. But was it to hide her past? Or was it to protect Margot from what’s still there?
The only thing Margot knows for sure is there’s poison in their family tree, and their roots are dug so deeply into Phalene that now that she’s there, she might never escape.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Title: Catherine House
Author: Elisabeth Thomas
Queer Rep: Bisexual
Own Voices?: Unsure
Year Published: 2020
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Thriller
Synopsis:
Catherine House is a school of higher learning like no other. Hidden deep in the woods of rural Pennsylvania, this crucible of reformist liberal arts study with its experimental curriculum, wildly selective admissions policy, and formidable endowment, has produced some of the world’s best minds: prize-winning authors, artists, inventors, Supreme Court justices, presidents. For those lucky few selected, tuition, room, and board are free. But acceptance comes with a price. Students are required to give the House three years–summers included–completely removed from the outside world. Family, friends, television, music, even their clothing must be left behind. In return, the school promises a future of sublime power and prestige, and that its graduates can become anything or anyone they desire.
Among this year’s incoming class is Ines Murillo, who expects to trade blurry nights of parties, cruel friends, and dangerous men for rigorous intellectual discipline–only to discover an environment of sanctioned revelry. Even the school’s enigmatic director, Vikt ria, encourages the students to explore, to expand their minds, to find themselves within the formidable iron gates of Catherine. For Ines, it is the closest thing to a home she’s ever had. But the House’s strange protocols soon make this refuge, with its worn velvet and weathered leather, feel increasingly like a gilded prison. And when tragedy strikes, Ines begins to suspect that the school–in all its shabby splendor, hallowed history, advanced theories, and controlled decadence–might be hiding a dangerous agenda within the secretive, tightly knit group of students selected to study its most promising and mysterious curriculum.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Sci-Fi
Title: Light From Uncommon Stars
Author: Ryka Aoki
Queer Rep: Trans girl, queer, sapphic
Own Voices?: Queer own voices, author is trans
Year Published: 2021
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Sci-fi
Synopsis:
Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: to escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six.
When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka’s ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She’s found her final candidate.
But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. Shizuka doesn’t have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan’s kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul’s worth. And maybe something as small as a warm donut is powerful enough to break a curse as vast as the California coastline.
As the lives of these three women become entangled by chance and fate, a story of magic, identity, curses, and hope begins, and a family worth crossing the universe for is found.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: We Are the Ants
Author: Shaun David Hutchinson
Queer Rep: Gay/queer
Own Voices?: Queer own voices
Year Published: 2016
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Science Fiction
Synopsis:
Henry Denton has spent years being periodically abducted by aliens. Then the aliens give him an ultimatum: The world will end in 144 days, and all Henry has to do to stop it is push a big red button.
Only he isn’t sure he wants to.
After all, life hasn’t been great for Henry. His mom is a struggling waitress held together by a thin layer of cigarette smoke. His brother is a jobless dropout who just knocked someone up. His grandmother is slowly losing herself to Alzheimer’s. And Henry is still dealing with the grief of his boyfriend’s suicide last year.
Wiping the slate clean sounds like a pretty good choice to him.
But Henry is a scientist first, and facing the question thoroughly and logically, he begins to look for pros and cons: in the bully who is his perpetual one-night stand, in the best friend who betrayed him, in the brilliant and mysterious boy who walked into the wrong class. Weighing the pain and the joy that surrounds him, Henry is left with the ultimate choice: push the button and save the planet and everyone on it…or let the world—and his pain—be destroyed forever.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: The Fifth Season
Author: N.K. Jemisin
Queer Rep: General queer rep in a large portion of characters, labels not defined in apocalyptic scenario. Poly family rep as well
Own Voices?: Unsure
Year Published: 2015
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Sci-fi
Synopsis:
At the end of the world, a woman must hide her secret power and find her kidnapped daughter.
This is the way the world ends. . .for the last time.
It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world’s sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester.
This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: The Obelisk Gate
Author: N.K. Jemisin
Queer Rep: General queer rep in a large portion of characters, labels not defined in apocalyptic scenario. Poly family rep as well
Own Voices?: Unsure
Year Published: 2016
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Sci-fi
Synopsis:
The season of endings grows darker as civilisation fades into the long, cold night.
Essun has found shelter, but not her missing daughter. Instead there is Alabaster Tenring, destroyer of the world, with a request only Essun can grant.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: The Stone Sky
Author: N.K. Jemisin
Queer Rep: General queer rep in a large portion of characters, labels not defined in apocalyptic scenario. Poly family rep as well
Own Voices?: Unsure
Year Published: 2017
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Sci-fi
Synopsis:
This is the way the world ends… for the last time.
The Moon will soon return. Whether this heralds the destruction of humankind or something worse will depend on two women.
Essun has inherited the power of Alabaster Tenring. With it, she hopes to find her daughter Nassun and forge a world in which every orogene child can grow up safe.
For Nassun, her mother’s mastery of the Obelisk Gate comes too late. She has seen the evil of the world, and accepted what her mother will not admit: that sometimes what is corrupt cannot be cleansed, only destroyed.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Title: More Than This
Author: Patrick Ness
Queer Rep: Gay
Own Voices?: Queer own voices
Year Published: 2013
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Science Fiction
Synopsis:
A boy drowns, desperate and alone in his final moments. He dies. Then he wakes, naked and bruised and thirsty, but alive. How can this be? And what is this strange deserted place?
As he struggles to understand what is happening, the boy dares to hope. Might this not be the end? Might there be more to this life, or perhaps this afterlife?
From multi-award-winning Patrick Ness comes one of the most provocative and moving novels of our time.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
nonfiction
Title: Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir
Author: Akwaeke Emezi
Queer Rep: Nonbinary, queer
Own Voices?: Queer own voices, author is nonbinary (they/them) and queer
Year Published: 2021
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Memoir
Synopsis:
In three critically acclaimed novels, Akwaeke Emezi has introduced readers to a landscape marked by familial tensions, Igbo belief systems, and a boundless search for what it means to be free. Now, in this extraordinary memoir, the bestselling author of The Death of Vivek Oji reveals the harrowing yet resolute truths of their own life. Through candid, intimate correspondence with friends, lovers, and family, Emezi traces the unfolding of a self and the unforgettable journey of a creative spirit stepping into power in the human world. Their story weaves through transformative decisions about their gender and body, their precipitous path to success as a writer, and the turmoil of relationships on an emotional, romantic, and spiritual plane, culminating in a book that is as tender as it is brutal.
Electrifying and inspiring, animated by the same voracious intelligence that distinguishes their fiction, Dear Senthuran is a revelatory account of storytelling, self, and survival.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: All Boys Aren’t Blue
Author: George M. Johnson
Queer Rep: Queer
Own Voices?: Queer own voices, it is his memoir
Year Published: 2020
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Memoir
Synopsis:
In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson explores their childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. From the memories of getting their teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with their loving grandmother, to their first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys.
Both a primer for teens eager to be allies as well as a reassuring testimony for young queer men of color, All Boys Aren’t Blue covers topics such as gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, structural marginalization, consent, and Black joy. Johnson’s emotionally frank style of writing will appeal directly to young adults.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Fiction
Title: Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens
Author: Tanya Boteju
Queer Rep: Queer MC, drag queens and kings heavily involved in the story
Own Voices?: Queer own voices
Year Published: 2019
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Synopsis:
Perpetually awkward Nima Kumara-Clark is bored with her insular community of Bridgeton, in love with her straight girlfriend, and trying to move past her mother’s unexpected departure. After a bewildering encounter at a local festival, Nima finds herself suddenly immersed in the drag scene on the other side of town.
Macho drag kings, magical queens, new love interests, and surprising allies propel Nima both painfully and hilariously closer to a self she never knew she could be—one that can confidently express and accept love. But she’ll have to learn to accept lost love to get there.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: Beautiful Music for Ugly Children
Author: Kirstin Cronn-Mills
Queer Rep: Trans boy
Own Voices?: No
Year Published: 2012
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Synopsis:
“This is Beautiful Music for Ugly Children, on community radio 90.3, KZUK. I’m Gabe. Welcome to my show.” My birth name is Elizabeth, but I’m a guy. Gabe. My parents think I’ve gone crazy and the rest of the world is happy to agree with them, but I know I’m right. I’ve been a boy my whole life. When you think about it, I’m like a record. Elizabeth is my A side, the song everybody knows, and Gabe is my B side–not heard as often, but just as good. It’s time to let my B side play. .
Rating: Unknown, read prior to keeping track of ratings. I do remember that there is outdated language and while it was important to me before I came out as trans, I wouldn’t recommend it for a young, newly out trans kid today.
Title: The Death of Vivek Oji
Author: Akwaeke Emezi
Queer Rep: Trans, queer (often not explicitly named due to unsafe environment)
Own Voices?: Queer own voices, author is nonbinary and queer
Year Published: 2020
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Contemporary fiction
Synopsis:
What does it mean for a family to lose a child they never really knew?
One afternoon, in a town in southeastern Nigeria, a mother opens her front door to discover her son’s body, wrapped in colorful fabric, at her feet. What follows is the tumultuous, heart-wrenching story of one family’s struggle to understand a child whose spirit is both gentle and mysterious. Raised by a distant father and an understanding but overprotective mother, Vivek suffers disorienting blackouts, moments of disconnection between self and surroundings. As adolescence gives way to adulthood, Vivek finds solace in friendships with the warm, boisterous daughters of the Nigerwives, foreign-born women married to Nigerian men. But Vivek’s closest bond is with Osita, the worldly, high-spirited cousin whose teasing confidence masks a guarded private life. As their relationship deepens–and Osita struggles to understand Vivek’s escalating crisis–the mystery gives way to a heart-stopping act of violence in a moment of exhilarating freedom.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ .5
Title: Freshwater
Author: Akwaeke Emezi
Queer Rep: Nonbinary, queer
Own Voices?: Queer own voices, author is nonbinary and queer
Year Published: 2018
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Synopsis:
One of the most highly praised novels of the year, the debut from an astonishing young writer, Freshwater tells the story of Ada, an unusual child who is a source of deep concern to her southern Nigerian family. Young Ada is troubled, prone to violent fits. Born “with one foot on the other side,” she begins to develop separate selves within her as she grows into adulthood. And when she travels to America for college, a traumatic event on campus crystallizes the selves into something powerful and potentially dangerous, making Ada fade into the background of her own mind as these alters–now protective, now hedonistic–move into control. Written with stylistic brilliance and based in the author’s realities, Freshwater dazzles with ferocious energy and serpentine grace.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
Queer Rep: Bisexual MC, Lesbian love interest, gay side character
Own Voices?: No
Year Published: 2017
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: historical fiction
Synopsis:
Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?
Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.
Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the ’80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story near its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: We Are Okay
Author: Nina LaCour
Queer Rep: Bisexual, Lesbian
Own Voices?: Queer own voices
Year Published: 2017
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Synopsis:
You go through life thinking there’s so much you need. . . . Until you leave with only your phone, your wallet, and a picture of your mother. Marin hasn’t spoken to anyone from her old life since the day she left everything behind. No one knows the truth about those final weeks. Not even her best friend Mabel. But even thousands of miles away from the California coast, at college in New York, Marin still feels the pull of the life and tragedy she’s tried to outrun. Now, months later, alone in an emptied dorm for winter break, Marin waits. Mabel is coming to visit and Marin will be forced to face everything that’s been left unsaid and finally confront the loneliness that has made a home in her heart.
Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: Detransition Baby
Author: Torrey Peters
Queer Rep: Trans women, queer women
Own Voices?: Queer own voices, author is trans
Year Published: 2021
Audience: Adult
Main Genre: Contemporary fiction
Synopsis:
Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn’t hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.
Ames isn’t happy either. He thought detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that decision cost him his relationship with Reese–and losing her meant losing his only family. Even though their romance is over, he longs to find a way back to her. When Ames’s boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she’s pregnant with his baby–and that she’s not sure whether she wants to keep it–Ames wonders if this is the chance he’s been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of unconventional family–and raise the baby together?
This provocative debut is about what happens at the emotional, messy, vulnerable corners of womanhood that platitudes and good intentions can’t reach. Torrey Peters brilliantly and fearlessly navigates the most dangerous taboos around gender, sex, and relationships, gifting us a thrillingly original, witty, and deeply moving novel.
Rating: I read this in April of 2023 and I have not been able to come up with a rating for this, I’m still unsure of my feelings on it
Title: Juliet Takes a Breath
Author: Gabby Rivera
Queer Rep: Lesbian/Queer
Own Voices?: Queer own voices, Latinx own voices
Year Published: 2016
Audience: Young adult
Main Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Synopsis:
Juliet Milagros Palante is leaving the Bronx and headed to Portland, Oregon. She just came out to her family and isn’t sure if her mom will ever speak to her again. But Juliet has a plan, sort of, one that’s going to help her figure out this whole “Puerto Rican lesbian” thing. She’s interning with the author of her favorite book: Harlowe Brisbane, the ultimate authority on feminism, women’s bodies, and other gay-sounding stuff.
Will Juliet be able to figure out her life over the course of one magical summer? Is that even possible? Or is she running away from all the problems that seem too big to handle?
With more questions than answers, Juliet takes on Portland, Harlowe, and most importantly, herself.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Title: They Both Die at the End
Author: Adam Silvera
Queer Rep: Gay/queer, bisexual
Own Voices?: Queer own voices, Latinx/Latino own voices
Year Published: 2017
Audience: Young Adult
Main Genre: Speculative Fiction
Synopsis:
On September 5, a little after midnight, Death-Cast calls Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio to give them some bad news: They’re going to die today.
Mateo and Rufus are total strangers, but, for different reasons, they’re both looking to make a new friend on their End Day. The good news: There’s an app for that. It’s called the Last Friend, and through it, Rufus and Mateo are about to meet up for one last great adventure—to live a lifetime in a single day.
In the tradition of Before I Fall and If I Stay, They Both Die at the End is a tour de force from acclaimed author Adam Silvera, whose debut, More Happy Than Not, the New York Times called “profound.”
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️