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Our Queerest Shelves

The Best LGBTQ Books of the Year, According to Lambda Literary

Buckle up, friends, because I have a lot of links for you today. Just as December is the busy time in retail, June is the busy time on the queer bookish internet. I assure you that July’s links and new releases will be half the length — though I do wish publishers saved a few more queer new releases for then.

Given how a Drag Queen Story Hour was disrupted by a white supremacist hate group this month, it’s a good time to show them some love. Check out their website for more about them, and you can help out on the donate page. Also, call/email to let your local librarians and library board know that you support library Pride displays and Drag Queen Story Hours: after all, what could be more age appropriate than people in fun costumes theatrically reading kids picture books about kindness?

Should Queer Books Have Reversible Dust Jackets?

When designing a cover for a queer books, publishers have a bit of a dilemma on their hands: should it proudly announce the queer content, making it easy for people looking for queer books to find it, or should they have a more generic cover, which might reach more people, including closeted readers who might feel unsafe reading a visibly queer book in public?

It used to be that mainstream queer books generally went the second route, with mostly just small queer romance publishers putting their same-sex couples on the cover. The further back you go in LGBTQ publishing, the more coded queer books were. As Casey the Canadian Lesbrarian put it, we had to be “queer book detectives” to deduce that a blurb from Sarah Waters or a reference to “love in an unexpected place” meant it was a sapphic book.

Luckily, there are more books with openly queer covers even in mainstream publishing now. I mean, look at Queerly Beloved by Book Rioter Susie Dumond. From the title to the giant rainbow cake to the women staring lovingly into each other’s eyes, there’s no mistaking that this is queer. When Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan came out in 2015, the title and cover were scandalous — but a lot has changed in 7 years.

What hasn’t changed, though, is that there still are closeted readers or people living in homophobic environments who hesitate to pick up these books with out and proud covers. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t exist — as Levithan said about Two Boys Kissing, even if closeted queer kids don’t feel comfortable picking it up, it still is a statement that they belong in this world and deserve to take up that space.

In a TikTok video, Kit Vincent offers an intriguing solution: what if queer books had reversible dust jackets, with a out and proud version as the regular cover and a more subtle cover on the inside? It is possible: A Series of Unfortunate Events came with a reversible dust jacket with a joke version of the cover on the reverse. It would be more expensive to produce, of course, but it is doable.

What do you think of this solution? Would you like to see queer books come with reversible dust jackets?

New Releases This Week

the cover of The Dawnhounds

The Dawnhounds by Sascha Stronach (Sapphic Fantasy)

This Māori-inspired fantasy series promises to be Gideon the Ninth meets Black Sun, and who can resist that? In fact, both of those authors have blurbs on the front cover. It takes place post biotech revolution, and Yat has just lost her job as a cop after being caught at a gay club. Two officers murder her and dump her in the harbor — but she wakes up and is taken in by a pirate crew, and now she has to try to stop a plague. And that’s just the beginning of Yat’s story.

the cover of Valiant Ladies

Valiant Ladies by Melissa Grey (F/F YA Historical Fiction)

I’m a simple sapphic; if I see a queer book with two women wielding swords on the cover, I want to read it. This follows a pair of teen girls, Kiki and Ana, in 17th century Bolivia, living double lives as proper ladies in the day and vigilante girlfriends by night. Then, Kiki’s brother is killed, and they are determined to find the murderer. This is inspired by the real life Latine teenagers the Valiant Ladies of Potosí!

the cover of X-Gender Vol. 1

X-Gender Vol. 1 by Asuka Miyazaki (Non-Binary Manga Memoir)

Ever since I read and loved My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness by Kabi Nagata, I’ve wanted to pick up more manga memoirs, especially queer ones, so I’m excited about this. X-Gender is about Asuka, a non-binary Japanese person in their 30s who has just realized that they’re attracted to women. It’s a diary-style manga volume that explores their relationship to their body, gender, and sexuality.

Island Time by Georgia Clark (Sapphic Fiction)

One’s Company by Ashley Hutson (Queer/Gender Exploration Fiction)

the cover of Boys, Beasts & Men

Skye Falling by Mia McKenzie (Queer Fiction) (Paperback Rerelease)

Boys, Beasts & Men by Sam J. Miller (Queer Short Stories)

Body Grammar by Jules Ohman (Sapphic Literary Fiction)

And There He Kept Her by Joshua Moehling (Gay Mystery)

A Song of Silver and Gold by Melissa Karibian (Sapphic Fantasy Retelling of The Little Mermaid)

the cover of Body Grammar

Crush & Lobo by Mariko Tamaki and Amancay Nahuelpan (Sapphic Graphic Novel)

ABC Pride by Louie Stowell and Elly Barnes (LGBTQ Picture Book)

Aquaman: The Becoming by Brandon Thomas and Diego Olortegui (Queer Superhero Comic)

I Can’t Believe I Slept With You! Vol. 2 by Miyako Miyahara (Yuri Manga)

Gay Giant by Gabriel Ebensperger (Gay Graphic Memoir)

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

All the Links Fit to Click

Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!

That’s it for me this week! Until next time, you can find me at my bi and lesbian book blog, the Lesbrary, as well as on Twitter @danikaellis. You can also hear me on All the Books or you can read my Book Riot posts.

Happy reading!

Danika