Author: Danika Ellis

The New Superman is Bisexual! Also: Creepy Sapphic Boarding Schools

Post author By Danika Ellis
Post date October 20, 2021

Creepy Sapphic Boarding Schools

I hope you’re still in the mood for more Halloween-ish queer reads! Boarding schools are a classic setting for sapphic books, because they’re usually gender segregated. (I mean, looking at the yuri schoolgirl manga alone.) Boarding schools can also be extremely unsettling places, though. You’re removed from your home, your family, and your usual support system. The building itself may be old and ominous. The relationships between students can get intense and all-consuming. So if you want a claustrophobic, creepy, dark academia read, check these out.

The Moth Diaries by Rachel Klein

This one overlaps with last week’s list about queer vampires, since it’s a take on Carmilla. It’s written in a diary format, in which a student chronicles the strange and obsessive relationship between her roommate and a mysterious other student. This was also made into a movie starring Lily Cole.

A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee

I’m halfway through the audiobook for this one, and so far it’s exactly what I want from dark academia. Felicity has returned to her elite boarding school after a leave of absence. Last year, she became obsessed with the history of the school and the rumors of witchcraft that resulted in those historical murders. Soon after, her best friend (and secret girlfriend) died. She’s convinced the two events are connected, but when she meets Ellis, an accomplished young author who command every room, she finds herself being pulled back into this history and witchcraft. This book deals a lot with mental health issues, including hallucinations, so be aware of that when picking it up.

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

This is an ambitious book that’s impossible to summarize, so I’ll just give some snippets: celesbians. Wasp-related body horror. Many generations of sapphic characters. A horror movie that may be haunted itself–or it may just be a marketing ploy. This is a very creepy book that will leave you thinking about it long after you finish it.

As I Descended by Robin Talley

This is a Macbeth reimagining, packed full of brooding, paranoia, and revenge plots. This begins as an atmospheric, unsettling read and then descends into horror territory. It’s a Southern Gothic with tons of queer characters–but also a high body count.

A Line in the Dark by Malinda Lo

If you’d like less on the horror side and more on the thriller side, try this one. Jess is in love her best friend Angie, but she’s content to admire her from a distance–until Angie falls for Margot. Jess is sure Margot is bad for Angie, and the tension between the three of them soon culminates in an event that changes everything. This is about a toxic, jealous friendship much more than it is about the thriller or mystery elements.

Another take on boarding school mysteries is Miss Timmins’ School for Girls by Nayana Currimbhoy, which is from the point of view of a young (bisexual) teacher. It’s part murder mystery, part coming of age story.

SuperMutant Magic Academy by Jillian Tamaki

Finally, if you want something more on the “weird” side than the bloody side, I highly recommend SuperMutant Magic Academy. It’s told in vignettes (it was originally a webcomic) and isn’t a linear story, but there are significant sapphic characters. This is a boarding school for students with magical abilities, but they’re all very weird abilities. It’s another one on this list that deals with falling for your best friend, which is very relatable sapphic content.

All the Links Fit to Click

The new Superman is coming out as bisexual in next month’s issue! This is Jon Kent, son of Clark Kent, who has taken up the Superman mantle. He’s getting a boyfriend: Jay Nakamura!
Take this quiz to learn which queer spooky book should you read this October! I got Beetle & the Hollowbones by Aliza Layne, which I had just checked out from the library to read this month, so I’d say it’s accurate.
Here is some new queer horror worth checking out.
Read these books with great asexual representation.
The Heartbreak Bakery by A.R. Capetta was reviewed at Tor.com, specifically discussing its great nonbinary (agender) representation.

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

20 Must-Read Queer Webcomics
The Danger — and Necessity — of Paranoid Reading (I wrote this one!)
How To Read More Diversely
From the vault: Queer Horror Books: A Roundup for HallowQueen
Bringing the Lesbian Vampire Home: On Carmen Maria Machado’s Carmilla
Don’t forget to also check out our limited edition merch to celebrate Book Riot’s 10th birthday!

New Releases This Week

Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw (Bisexual Horror)

If you’re still looking for a perfect Halloween read, this is the new release for you. An abandoned Heian-era mansion rests on the bones of a dead bride, its walls filled with the remains of the women killed to keep her company in the afterlife. It’s, of course, the perfect place for a party before a wedding–at least for these thrill-seeking guests. But the ghost bride is hungry… (This has a bisexual main character!)

The Days of Afrekete by Asali Solomon (Sapphic Fiction)

Inspired by Mrs. Dalloway (as well as Sula and Zami), this takes place during a dinner party Liselle is putting on for supporters of her husband’s failed bid for state legislature. Then she gets a call that says he might be investigated for corruption charges, and she starts to wonder what brought her to this point and this marriage. Meanwhile, her ex-girlfriend Selena is reminiscing about their relationship being the last time she was truly happy.

This is Our Rainbow edited by Katherine Locke & Nicole Melleby (LGBTQ Middle Grade Anthology)

This is the first middle grade LGBTQ+ anthology! It has both realistic and SFF stories, with a range of genres and identities represented. It has tons of fantastic authors, including Alex Gino, Mark Oshiro, Ashley Herring Blake, Justina Ireland, Molly Knox Ostertag, and so many more. I can’t wait to dive into this one!

Personal Attention Roleplay by Helen Chau Bradley (Queer Short Stories)

A Period of unCertainty by Sheryn Munir (F/F Fiction)

Game Over by Elliot Torres (Queer Fiction)

Of Trust & Heart by Charlotte Anne Hamilton (Lesbian Historical Romance)

Her Wolf in the Wild by Rien Gray (F/F Paranormal Romance)

What’s the Matter with Mary Jane? by Candas Jane Dorsey (Pansexual Mystery)

Another Name For the Devil by Mason Deaver (Non-binary, M/NB Supernatural Thriller)

The Haunting Season by Sara Collins et al (Gay Main Characters Ghost Stories)

Flowers for the Sea by Zin E. Rocklyn (Sapphic Horror)

Azura Ghost (The Graven #2) by Essa Hansen (Ace-spec Main Character, Non-binary and Genderfluid Side Characters Science Fiction)

Perhaps the Stars (Terra Ignota Book 4) by Ada Palmer (Genderqueer Science Fiction)

Girl Crushed by Katie Heaney (F/F YA Contemporary) (Paperback release)

Miss Meteor by Tehlor Kay Mejia and Anna-Marie McLemore (Pansexual YA Contemporary) (Paperback release)

Little Thieves by Margaret Owen (Demisexual YA Fantasy)

That Dark Infinity by Kate Pentecost (Bisexual YA Fantasy)

City of Shattered Light by Claire Winn (F/F YA Science Fiction)

On Top of Glass: My Stories as a Queer Girl in Figure Skating by Karina Manta (Bisexual YA Memoir)

Still Stace: My Gay Christian Coming-Of-Age Story: An Illustrated Memoir by Stacey Chomiak (Lesbian YA Graphic Memoir)

They’re So Flamboyant by Michael Genhart, illustrated by Tony Neal (Metaphorical Picture Book)

Unprotected by Billy Porter (Gay Memoir)

Bee Reaved by Dodie Bellamy (Bisexual Essays)

The Beginner’s Guide to Being a Trans Ally by Christy Whittlesey (Nonfiction)

A Socially Acceptable Breakdown by Patrick Roche (Queer Poetry)

That’s it for me this week! Until next time, you can find me at the Lesbrary as well as on Twitter @danikaellis. You can also hear me on All the Books on the first Tuesday of the month, read my Book Riot posts, and watch my weekly New Releases videos on the Book Riot Youtube channel. You can bet I sneak in as many queer titles as I can.

Happy reading!

Danika

Our Queerest Shelves

Queer Witchy Reads for Your October TBR

Post author By Danika Ellis
Post date October 13, 2021

Sponsored by The Heartbreak Bakery by A.R. Capetta, published by Candlewick Press.

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.

As I’m writing this, I’m puppysitting my mom’s tornado of a teenage dog. He is adorable, but such a handful. (He’s a Mini Australian Shepherd/Cocker Spaniel mix.) I’m actually done work, but he’s finally settled down for a nap, and I know that as soon as I get up, he’s going to start tearing around the house again… so I might stay put and get a head start on tomorrow instead.

Today, I wanted to highlight the charity SAGE, which advocates and provides services for LGBT elders. You can find out more on their website and you can support them on their donation page.

Queer Witch Books for Your October TBR

After many years of anticipation, we’re finally seeing some queer witch books get published, especially in YA! I have all of them on my TBR, but there is happily now more than I can read in the near future. (So long, we waited! We pined for queer witch stories!) Still, I wanted to highlight some of the queer witch books that are most appropriate for your Halloween TBR. They are all atmospheric reads with a real autumnal feel, so get these before the leaves all fall!

Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft edited by Jessica Spotswood & Tess Sharpe

Start here. This is a YA anthology with lots of different takes on witches. Not every story is queer, but 5 of them are. I loved how different each of these version of witches are, from the classic Halloween version to modern wiccans to a new take on soulmate marks. This makes for a perfect October read.

Power & Magic: The Queer Witch Comics Anthology

Another anthology, this one is a collection of different comics about queer witches of color. There is a mix of art styles as well as variations on the idea of witches/witchcraft. Some stories are horror, some humor, as well as drama and romance (mostly F/F).

Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker and Wendy Xu

If you like seasonal reads, but you don’t want anything too creepy, this is an adorable graphic novel starring a sapphic witch and a nonbinary werewolf. Both main characters are Chinese American, and Nova is hard of hearing. Also, Nova has two grandmas who own a magical bookstore together! So cute!

The Lost Coast by A. R. Capetta

This is an eerie, atmospheric read about a group of queer witches looking for their lost friend — except their friend is there in front of them, with nothing behind her eyes. This is an unsettling book that is told from many different points of view, including from the trees’ perspective! The setting in the redwoods is so evocative and memorable. There is also a ton of different queer identities represented, including nonbinary characters, and there is queer sexuality on the page in a way that is still rare in YA.

Payback’s a Witch by Lana Harper

If you want to get punched in the face by Halloween, this is the read for you. It’s also got a revenge plot against a gross dude, a spellcasting tournament, and a F/F romance with a ton of sexual tension. This is set in a town populated by 4 magical families, but it also doubles as a Halloween tourist trap, so the whole book is dripping Halloween vibes.

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

While, unsurprisingly, most queer witch books are sapphic, there are some exceptions, including this one and The Witch Boy by Molly Ostertag. Cemetery Boys is about a trans brujo who wants to prove his identity to his family, and so attempts to summon the ghost of his cousin to help solve his murder — magic only brujos can do. Except he accidentally summons Julian instead, who refuses to leave — and soon Yadriel doesn’t want him to. I mean, cemetery is right there in the title, and there’s a romance with a ghost: this is a great October read.

That’s only scratching the surface of queer witch reads, though! Hopefully by this time next year, I have lots more to recommend.

All the Links Fit to Click

Hundreds of students ask Fairfax schools to return LGBTQ books to libraries.
Parents in Williamston object to students being given library cards because they might use them to read queer books. (Even though they can opt out of the program.)
Homophobic rhetoric used to try to ban LGBTQ books hurts queer and trans students.
This book club helped spark the gay rights movement.
The queer comics future is bright.
Dahlia Adler rounded up 16 LGBTQIA+ Young Adult Novels To Devour This Fall.
Read these queer gothic fiction books and these queer Indigenous YA books.
Malinda Lo wrote about her upcoming novel, A Scatter of Light, and how publishing queer YA has changed in the 8 years since writing it.

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

20 Must-Read Coming Out Stories for National Coming Out Day
20 Must-Read Adult Books by Trans & Genderqueer Authors From 2021
Queer YA Horror for Your Spooky Season TBR
9 of the Best LGBTQ Thrillers
The Quiet Disappearance of Queer Stories in Nebraska: The Golden Sower Award List Draws Criticism
Can We Please Retire the Word “Problematic”?: A Plea for Using Precise Language
Book Riot is 10 years old this month! Pick up some Book Riot merch, available only in October!

New Releases This Week

Another queer book out this week is our sponsor, so check that out, too!

The Other Man by Farhad J. Dadyburjor (Gay Fiction)

Ved Mehra is heir to a successful Mumbai business empire and he’s newly engaged. There’s just one problem with his perfect life: he’s closeted and has no interest in the woman he’s been arranged to marry. Then he meets Carlos, and suddenly he can envision a new future for himself, one that’s worth the risk. His engagement party is days away, though, and he’ll have to make some big steps to change his life and get a chance at genuine happiness.

A Snake Falls To Earth by Darcie Little Badger (Asexual Fantasy)

If you’re a fan of Elatsoe, you’ll have been eagerly anticipating Darcie Little Badger’s second YA fantasy. This one follows two main characters: Nina, a Lipan girl who believes in the stories of worlds beyond our own; and Oli, an outcast cottonmouth from a world of gods and monsters. Soon, their worlds collide, and they have to work together to save both worlds. This is based on Lipan Apache storytelling, and it has an asexual main character.

Madder: a Memoir in Weeds by Marco Wilkinson (Queer Memoir)

This is an experimental memoir that explores Wilkinson’s family roots in Uruguay and Rhode Island through the metaphor of plants. The author is a poet and a horticulturalist, and this work blends together the genres of memoir and poetry. Set aside some time to fall into this story, which — like poetry — benefits with some time to sit with it and untangle some of the language and ideas presented.

Just One Wedding by Chelsea M. Cameron (F/F Romance)

Stay Another Day by Juno Dawson (Bisexual YA Contemporary)

Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World by Benjamin Alire Sáenz (M/M YA Contemporary) [Content warning for transmisogynistic violence]

Tonight We Rule the World by Zack Smedley (Bisexual Guy YA Contemporary)

Frankie & Bug by Gayle Forman (Trans Guy YA Historical Fiction)

Party & Prey by Steve Orlando, Steve Foxe, and Mike Marts (Gay Thriller Graphic Novel)

Abbott 1973 by Saladin Ahmed & Sami Kivelä (Bisexual Fantasy Graphic Novel)

Stitch by Stitch: Cleve Jones and the AIDS Memorial Quilt by Rob Sanders, illustrated by Jamey Christoph (Gay Nonfiction Picture Book)

Any Kind of Luck at All by Mary Fairhurst Breen (Lesbian Memoir)

The Light Streamed Beneath It by Shawn Hitchins (Gay Memoir)

High Yella by Steve Majors (Queer Memoir)

A Carnival of Snackery: Diaries (2003-2020) by David Sedaris (Gay Memoir)

Never Silent: ACT UP and My Life in Activism by Peter Staley (Gay Memoir)

Oscar Wilde: A Life by Matthew Sturgis (Gay Biography)

Special Topics in Being a Human by S. Bear Bergman and Saul Freedman-Lawson (Queer Nonfiction)

Happy reading!

Danika

Our Queerest Shelves

Sapphic Vampire Books To Slake Your Thirst

Post author By Danika Ellis
Post date October 6, 2021

Sapphic Vampire Books To Slake Your Thirst

We all construct a seasonal October TBR, right? While most of the year I avoid horror as much as possible, when the leaves start to change, I’m suddenly excited to cozy up with a creepy read. And October? Well, that’s Halloween month, so I put all the witchy, scary, horror, thriller, blood-soaked reads on my TBR. Especially for the 24 hour readathon!

If you, too, like to sprinkle some monstrous books into your October reading, here are some sapphic vampire stories to add to your list! These are all ones that I’ve read and loved.

A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson

This is a bisexual, polyamorous take on the character of Dracula from the perspectives of his three “brides” (one of them is a man). It’s also a revenge story: the book begins with Constanta killing Dracula (though he’s never named in the story), and then backtracking to how they got there. It’s a narrative about abuse and also has a lot of gore, so be prepared for that going in, but it’s also gorgeously written, atmospheric, and thoughtful. This is a M/F/F/M polycule and all the main characters are bisexual.

The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez

This is a classic for very good reason. Even if you’re not usually a horror reader, this is an incredible read. It follows Gilda over two centuries, from escaping slavery to the year 2050 — we really get a sense of what being immortal would look like, how you would have to continually reinvent yourself. It plays with vampires tropes in interesting ways, and there’s also a lot of commentary on racism, homophobia, and sexism over time — what changes and what stays the same. Gilda is a lesbian vampire who feeds according to a strict moral code, where it must be consensual and also provides value for the human. While this is a vampire book, it’s not horror, so feel free to pick this one up even if you’re not looking for a scare!

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, edited by Carmen Maria Machado

Carmilla is the classic lesbian vampire tale — it predates Dracula! She’s also a prototypical “monstrous lesbian.” Still, there’s something so compelling about this story and the character, and Carmen Maria Machado does an incredible job reclaiming it for queer readers. Even if you’ve read it before, this version is like reading it for the first time. I wrote about why the original stuck with me in this post: Lesbian Pulp, Carmilla, and Reclaiming Toxic Representations. And then I was so impressed with Machado’s version that I wrote another: Bringing the Lesbian Vampire Home.

O Captain, My Captain by Katherine V. Forrest

Lesbian vampires… in space! Also, you know that joke about lesbian vampires? Well, this novella plays it at face value, and that’s all I’ll say about that.

Better Off Red by Rebekah Weatherspoon

Lesbian vampire sorority sisters! This is closer to the erotica side of things than paranormal romance, which probably isn’t surprising, given the premise. It’s also the first in a series, each with a different main character. The vampire’s name is Camila!

Smbitten by Melanie Gillman

Melanie Gillman is one of my favourite artists. They use pencil crayons in their detailed and evocative illustrations — you might remember them from As the Crow Flies. This one is a graphic novel about swing-dancing lesbian vampires! Even better, it’s on Gumroad as pay what you want, with no minimum.

Next up on my TBR is When I Arrived at the Castle by Emily Carroll, an erotic vampire horror graphic novel. I can’t wait to sink my teeth into it.

Whether you’re looking for erotica, horror, or a classic, hopefully you found a sapphic vampire book to your taste on this list!

All the Links Fit to Click

Your rage read of the week: Critics falsely claim LGBTQ books promote pedophilia in Fairfax schools.
15 Queer Books We Can’t Wait to Leaf Through This Fall.
17 incredible books by Black LGBT+ authors you need to read this Black History Month (UK) – and beyond.
Read these spooky LGBTQ middle grade and YA graphic novels for Halloween!
A movie loosely based on Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy by Judith C Brown is being protested as “blasphemous,” though it’s based on historical fact.
ReadOut: A Festival Of Lesbian Literature is in Gulfport, Florida on October 13th.
British girlband Little Mix gave a ringing endorsement to The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice by trans author Shon Faye.
Bernardine Evaristo, author of Girl, Woman, Other, was interviewed at the Independent.ie.

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

More rage reading: Librarians Face Possible Charges for Carrying Sex Education and LGBTQ Books
12 New LGBTQ Books That Prove Pride Isn’t Just for June
In Defense of Instalove: in which I defend the ancient sapphic art of uhauling
From the vault: 6 Awesome Queer Halloween Books
11 Books About Unapologetic Queerness and Radical Justice-Seeking

New Releases This Week

While there some fantastic authors of colour on this list, the LGBTQ books out this week are disproportionately white. Hey publishing: we want more diverse queer books, please.

Payback’s a Witch by Lana Harper (Bisexual F/F Fantasy)

If you want a Halloween read but aren’t in a horror mood, this is the perfect pick for you. There’s a witchy town that doubles as a Halloween tourist trap, a spellcasting tournament, and three women who make a pact to get revenge on the man who broke their heart — and then two of them fall for each other in the process. This gives me Halloweentown vibes, if Halloweentown was a bisexual fantasy romance novel.

Reprieve by James Han Mattson (Gay Horror)

On the other hand, if you’re ready to dive into a horror read, might I recommend this murder at a full contact haunted escape room? It’s about a group of 4 (including a gay international student on a “besotted search” for his former English teacher) who almost become the second group to ever get through the entire escape room without yelling the safe word, “reprieve,” until someone breaks into the cell and kills one of them. On top of the creepy story, it’s also an examination of privilege, complicity, and racism in America. If you like your horror to keep you up at night both with sheer adrenaline and with timely social criticism, this is the October read for you.

Squad by Maggie Tokuda-Hall & Lisa Sterle (Sapphic YA Fantasy Graphic Novel)

Becca is worried about fitting in at her new school, but she is immediately taken in by the popular girls. There’s just one little snag: they are werewolves. In order to finally have a place where she belongs, Becca lets herself get turned. After all, they only feed on skeezy boys who won’t take no for an answer. As this strategy gets messier and messier, she also finds herself falling for one of the other girls in the pack. This already has an adaptation in the works, after an 8 way bidding war for the rights!

The Throwback List by Lily Anderson (Bisexual Fiction)

The Swank Hotel by Lucy Corin (M/M Fiction)

The Balance Tips by Joy Huang-Iris (Queer Fiction)

The Perks of Loving a Wallflower (The Wild Wynchesters Book 2) by Erica Ridley (F/F Historical Romance)

The House on Druid Lake by Isabelle Adler (M/M Paranormal Romance)

A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow (Sapphic Fantasy)

Galaxy Brain (Cute Mutants #5) by S. J. Whitby (Genderfluid Fantasy)

The Stagsblood King by Gideon E. Wood (Gay Fantasy)

The Fox’s Tower and Other Tales by Yoon Ha Lee (Queer Fantasy Short Stories)

Blood of the Chosen (Burningblade & Silvereye #2) by Django Wexler (F/F Fantasy)

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth (Sapphic Horror) (Paperback release)

The Gold Persimmon by Lindsay Merbaum (Sapphic and Nonbinary Horror)

Rebel Boys and Rescue Dogs, or Things That Kiss with Teeth by Brianna R. Shrum (Trans Guy Love Interest YA Contemporary)

Tonight We Rule the World by Zack Smedley (Bisexual Guy YA Contemporary)

Needlework by Julia Watts (Gay YA Contemporary)

The City Beautiful by Aden Polydoros (M/M YA Historical Fiction)

The One You Want to Marry (And Other Identities I’ve Had) by Sophie Santos (Lesbian Memoir)

A Carnival of Snackery (Diaries 2003-2020) by David Sedaris (Gay Memoir)

A Tale of Two Omars: A Memoir of Family, Revolution, and Coming Out During the Arab Spring by Omar Sharif Jr. (Queer Memoir)

Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman’s Fight to End Ableism by Elsa Sjunneson (Queer Memoir)

Greedy: Notes from a Bisexual Who Wants Too Much by Jen Winston (Bisexual Woman Memoir)

The Care We Dream Of: Liberatory & Transformative Approaches to LGBTQ+ Health edited by Zena Sharman (Nonfiction)

Between Certain Death and a Possible Future : Queer Writing on Growing up with the AIDS Crisis edited by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore (Queer Nonfiction)

That’s it for me this week! Until next time, you can find me at the Lesbrary as well as on Twitter @danikaellis. You can also hear me on All the Books on the first Tuesday of the month, and I post weekly New Releases videos on the Book Riot Youtube channel. You can bet I sneak in as many queer titles as I can.

Happy reading!

Danika

Our Queerest Shelves

To All the Queer Books I’ll Never Read

Post author By Danika Ellis
Post date September 29, 2021

Sponsored by Carina Adores – For Readers Who Love Love.

The sexy Navy chief and his best friend’s adorkable little brother… Don’t miss Sailor Proof, first in a fun, sexy new military romance series from acclaimed author Annabeth Albert. Read it today!

Remember how last week I said I’d be home alone this month, because my partner was visiting family? Well, you know what they say: man plans, the pandemic laughs. New Brunswick declared a state of emergency because of rising infection levels from the Delta variant, so they had to cancel. I’m glad to have him home, but it is really disappointing that he won’t be able to see his family. I can’t believe we’re almost 2 years into the pandemic and still can’t reliably plan a week in advance!

Because the pandemic is on my mind, I wanted to highlight an organization that helped provide LGBTQ+ folks with support during this time. Prism Foundation is a “grassroots philanthropic organization that provides funds and leverages resources to empower the Asian & Pacific Islander LGBTQ+ community.” They gave out $10,000 in Covid-19 Relief Funds to individuals ($100 each) and organizations ($500 each) in 2020 and they continue to provide scholarships and grants. You can find out more on their website and you can also donate to help support them.

To All the Queer Books I’ll Never Read

When I started the Lesbrary more than a decade ago, I gave it the subtitle “The humble quest to read everything lesbian.” It was tongue in cheek even at the time, but I really was trying to read everything with a lesbian or bi woman main character. I would make lists of every sapphic (though I wasn’t using that term at the time) book I’d ever heard of. I’d scour used bookstores looking for that Bella Books, Bold Strokes Books, or Cleis Press logo on the spine. The moment I heard there was a queer woman main character in a book, it was on my TBR. I also promised to read every sapphic ebook that was sent my way — and review it, too. I was dazzled by the idea of free queer books.

Part of this was naivety: I was at the beginning of my queer book reader journey, and I didn’t realize how much had come before me. I didn’t know about the lesbian literary community in 1920s Paris or 1950s lesbian pulp or the lesbian utopia sci fi of the 70s. There was already far more out there than I could read in my lifetime.

The other side, though, was that there really were fewer queer books being published. They were out there, and there was a handful of titles getting put out by the big publishers every year, but they were so few that I could easily read every queer YA book that came out, for example. I could keep up — at least with mainstream publisher’s output of queer books.

Very quickly, I became overwhelmed with the amount of ebooks I was being sent for review. I needed to put some sort of standards in place, especially after reviewing some truly terribly edited books. (“He wrapped a towel around his waste” has a very different meaning than they were going for.) So I stopped reading every ebook I was sent for review, instead only reading the ones I found personally interesting, that also matched the genres and tropes I like. I did the same thing with my physical TBR, reluctantly letting go of the cheesy 80s lesbian romances that I was never going to really enjoy.

And that worked, for a little while. I read the queer books I was excited about and left the rest. But now… Now my dresser overflows with my “immediate” TBR, and that’s just the physical books I’ve been sent for review. My library holds list gets maxed out. My ereader bursts at the seams with eARCs.

I read around 100 books a year, which sounds like a lot, until you start keeping track of all the books coming out every week (in addition to this newsletter, I also do the All the Books podcast and Book Riot’s weekly new releases YouTube videos). I just need to read more, I think. I just need to stop watching TV and start reading! If only I could sneak in some more pages, I could keep up!

Alas, it can’t happen. For one, I love zoning out and watching TV — no shame. Also, even if it was 200 books a year, I’d still have to make choices. There are just too many good queer books out there. There are classics I haven’t read and new releases in every genres coming out every week. I have to accept it: I can’t read all the queer books, even just the ones I’m interested it.

To all the queer books I’ll never read: I’m sorry. I know that if I had read you first — because the publisher mailed me a hardcover instead of an eARC, or because the library had an audiobook version, or just because I liked the cover better — I would have raved about you. It’s not your fault. I hope you find your way into other readers’ hands who will love you.

I can’t say I’m sorry that so many queer books are being published now, but I am sorry that I can’t champion every amazing title out there. I can only hope the afterlife involves a comfy chair and a very large library.

All the Links Fit to Click

Cassandra Peterson, better known as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, came out as being in a 19-year relationship with a woman in her memoir, Yours Cruelly, Elvira.
Bisexual Visibility Day was last week! Check out new bisexual books at LGBTQ Reads and make sure to click through for previous years’ posts for even more. Oh, and here’s another list of bisexual books.
Read these innovative queer books.
Here are 5 gay YA thrillers and 5 trans and non-binary witches in YA.
No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics was made into a documentary!
Read an excerpt of Casey McQuiston’s upcoming novel, I Kissed Shara Wheeler, at Entertainment Weekly.
Brandon Taylor was interviewed about his book Filthy Animals on NPR.

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

20 Unabashedly Bi Books for Bi Day of Visibility
Good news follow up! LGBTQ-Friendly 3rd Grade Teacher Reinstated to Her Classroom (this has some really touching speeches supporting her at the school board meeting),
From the vault: This post about a 3rd grade teacher getting targeted for reading LGBTQ-affirming books in class is sadly still relevant.
8 Amazing Historical Fiction Books with Lesbian and Bisexual Women
31 of the Best Queer Books With Happy Endings

New Releases This Week

Unfortunately, this week’s releases are disproportionately by white authors. Do better, publishing. We’re far overdue for more queer books by authors of color.

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki (Sapphic, Trans Side Character Science Fiction)

Shizuka made a deal with the devil, but she is so close to wriggling out of the consequences. She has to convince 7 other violinists to make their own Faustian bargains and she’ll be clear. When she bumps into Katrina, a young trans runaway with a talent for playing violin, she’s convinced the 7th spot is secure. There’s just one problem: Lan Tran, who is the swoon-worthy interstellar refugee owner of a donut shop. The three women grow close, and Shizuka has to choose between her new found family and the curse hanging over her head. This is a perfect fit for fans of The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet!

Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo (Queer Gothic Horror)

The Secret History meets Fast and the Furious. Need I say more? Just in case, here it is: Andrew and Eddie grew up closer than brothers. When Eddie left for university, it was with the understanding Andrew would follow months later. But just before he was supposed to arrive, Eddie dies of an apparent suicide. As Andrew searches for answers, he falls into Eddie’s life of backstabbing academia and nights of “hot boys, fast cars, and hard drugs.” Oh, and one more problem: he’s being haunted by a ravenous phantom.

This is a queer Southern Gothic with dark academia elements that also examines toxic masculinity and the pervasive white supremacy in academia.

MENAFTER10 by Casey Hamilton (Gay Fiction)

The Pursued and the Pursuing by AJ Odasso (M/M Retelling)

The Body on the Bed by Leonard Krishtalka (Sapphic Mystery)

Sailor Proof by Annabeth Albert (M/M Romance)

Royal Fling by Rhys Everly (M/M Romance)

The Lights on Knockbridge Lane by Roan Parrish (M/M Christmas Romance)

Wake of the Phoenix by Chelsea Harper (M/M Fantasy)

Activation Degradation by Marina J. Lostetter (Bisexual M/M, Intersex Side Character Science Fiction Thriller)

Before We Disappear by Shaun David Hutchinson (M/M YA Historical Fantasy)

Sisters of Shadow by Katherine Livesey (Sapphic YA Fantasy)

Dark Rise by by C. S. Pacat (M/M YA Fantasy)

Some Faraway Place (A Bright Sessions Novel) by Lauren Shippen (F/F YA Fantasy)

Stars in Their Eyes by Jessica Walton & Aśka (YA Graphic Novel)

Ciel in All Directions by Sophie Labelle (Non-Binary Middle Grade Graphic Novel)

Evelyn Hooker and the Fairy Project by Gayle E. Pitman (LGBTQ Children’s Nonfiction)

Cuíer by Caio Fernando Abreu, Sarah Coolidge, et al (Queer Poetry)

That’s it for me this week! Until next time, you can find me at the Lesbrary, on Twitter @danikaellis, and you can check out my Book Riot posts. You can also hear me on All the Books on the first Tuesday of the month, and I post weekly New Releases videos on the Book Riot Youtube channel. You can bet I sneak in as many queer titles as I can.

Happy reading!

Danika

Our Queerest Shelves

Queer YA Hauntings To Creep You Out This Fall

Post author By Danika Ellis
Post date September 22, 2021

Queer YA Hauntings and Possessions

As the weather cools (at least in this hemisphere), I start to crave creepy, atmospheric reads. Usually, I have no interest in horror, but in Fall (and especially October!), it suddenly begins to appeal to me. I listened to two YA horror audiobooks recently that perfectly satisfied that craving, so I wanted to recommend them to you if you’re in a similar reading and listening mood. I also have one that’s on my TBR for this season that looks like it will fit right in and that I’ve heard amazing things about.

The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould (Lesbian YA Horror)

Logan has spent her life crisscrossing the country with her two dads, Brandon and Alejo, as they film their ghost hunting TV show. When Brandon returns to his and Alejo’s hometown, he says he’s scouting for a filming location, but then he doesn’t leave for months. Alejo and Logan come after him, but they’re soon all drawn into this small town’s mysteries–including missing teenagers–and homophobic attitudes make Brandon a prime suspect. Logan finds herself teaming up with Ashley, who is looking for her missing boyfriend. As they investigate, it becomes obvious that something supernatural is going on, and even Logan is becoming suspicious of her father. Even more unexpected? Logan and Ashley are starting to fall for each other.

This one has an incredibly creepy atmosphere, and we get glimpses into an evil being that is possessing someone and killing teens using their body–but who is being possessed, and why did they make a deal with this dark force?

The Girls Are Never Gone by Sarah Glenn Marsh (Bisexual YA Horror)

Dare took this internship to help restore Arrington Estate because it’s rumored to be haunted, and it should make good content for her ghost hunting podcast. The fact that Dare is extremely skeptical about the existence of ghosts is something she keeps under wraps. When she arrives there, she finds assistance in the daughter of the museum’s owner, Quinn. Soon, even Dare has to admit that something weird is happening in this house, with its lake that creeps closer every day, and the face that appears beside hers in the mirror.

I personally love horror stories that have a water focus, and this one is very much about the ominous lake (where at least one girl drowned). No matter how much work they do to restore it, the ceilings are always leaking, mold spreads, and carpets squelch with water underfoot.

This also has disability representation: Dare has Type 1 Diabetes and has to manage it both with medical equipment and a service dog. (The author also has Type 1 Diabetes.)

The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass (Gay YA Horror/Social Thriller)

Unlike the previous two books, Jake doesn’t have to hunt for ghosts, because they’re always with him. He sees the dead acting out their deaths, caught in an endless loop. All except Sawyer, the ghost of a school shooter who’s determined to use Jake to exact vengeance. Soon, instead of seeing ghosts, Jake finds himself controlled by one.

This is a gay paranormal thriller that has a lot of social commentary, especially on anti-Black racism. It also gets very dark, including giving the school shooter’s perspective. If you like your horror with hard-hitting social commentary, this should be on your list.

All the Links Fit to Click

Trans literature is having a troubled golden age.
Autostraddle has gathered up 75 Queer and Feminist Books Coming Your Way Fall 2021.
Buzzfeed recommends 25 books by and/or about bisexuals for Bisexual Awareness Week.
Disney’s gay characters may grow thanks to Marvel’s Phase 4 queer awakening (I’ll believe it when I see it).
Jasmine Mans, author of the poetry collection Black Girl, Call Home, released a beautiful video for her poem “Cycles.” It gave me chills.
Dahlia Adler did a cover reveal for her upcoming book Home Field Advantage, and I am sold.
Zen Cho was interviewed at Locus Magazine.
The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice by Shon Faye was reviewed at The Guardian.

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

Instead of School Board, Leander Police Investigate Book Challenge (big surprise: it’s a queer book)
From the vault: Beyond Schoolgirls: Yuri Manga and Lesbian Manga with Adult Main Characters
Lil Nas X, Unapologetic Queerness, and the Books I Wish Upon My Past Self
17 Bisexual Women Books to Read on Bi Visibility Day
It’s Time To Use the B(isexual) Word

New Releases This Week

Did you think we were done with the giant lists of new releases? Well, September still has more to give!

A Dream of a Woman by Casey Plett (Trans Women Short Stories)

Casey Plett has won multiple awards for her previous books, including a Lambda Literary Award, and this collection has been long-listed for the Giller prize. These stories are heartbreaking and hopeful at the same time. They examine the complexities of being human and the flawed, yearning ways we relate to each other. I finished the first story and had to stare at a wall for a while to process it–and I mean that in the best possible way.

Things We Couldn’t Say by Jay Coles (Bi M/Bi M YA Contemporary)

Gio is a bisexual boy who’s fallen for another bi boy on his basketball team, but that’s far from the most complicated thing in his life right now. After eight years, his absent mother has reappeared in his family’s life, asking for forgiveness. Gio isn’t sure he can give it, or if she even deserves a relationship with him at all. This deals with masculinity and vulnerability–and it’s well worth getting for the stunning cover alone.

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao (Bisexual YA Sci Fi)

This is being pitched as Pacific Rim meets The Handmaid’s Tale. Chrysalises are the only way to fight the alien mechas lurking on the other side of the Great Wall, but they require two pilots: a male pilot, and a female concubine-pilot who is often killed by the experience of being drained to power the machine. But Zetian has reversed this dynamic, making her a rare and feared Iron Widow. Everyone wants to find a way to constrain her power, but she’d done being controlled. (Bonus: polyamorous representation!)

The Insiders by Mark Oshiro (Gay Middle Grade Fantasy)

Héctor Muñoz finds himself forced back into the closet–literally–at his new school. While being gay was no big deal in San Francisco, it makes him a target at Orangevale, and he seeks refuge in the janitor’s closet. Except one day, the closet gives him access to another room, one that connects him to other middle grade outcasts from different corners of the country. This is a coming of age story about not fitting and finding your community, and it also has non-binary representation.

The Wrong End of the Telescope by Rabih Alameddine (Trans Woman Fiction)

Better to Trust by Heather Frimmer (Sapphic Fiction)

Suture by Nic Brewer (Lesbian Weird Fiction)

Hugh by David Lawrence (Gay Historical Fiction)

Between His Lover and the Deep Blue Sea by Merry Farmer (M/M Romance)

Mechanics of Love by Meka James (F/F Romance)

Love in the Limelight by Ashley Moore (F/F Romance)

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (Sapphic Sci Fi) (Paperback Release)

Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune (M/M Fantasy)

Traitors of the Black Crown (Black Crown #1) by Cate Pearce (F/F Fantasy)

Sidelined by Kara Bietz (M/M YA Contemporary)

Every Body Looking by Candice Iloh (Questioning YA Contemporary) (Paperback Release)

To Break a Covenant by Alison Ames (Lesbian YA Thriller)

The Bronzed Beasts (The Gilded Wolves #3) by Roshani Chokshi (Bisexual YA Fantasy)

Into the Dying Light (The Age of Darkness #3) by Katy Rose Pool (M/M YA Fantasy)

The Other Merlin by Robyn Schneider (Bisexual YA Fantasy)

Pepper’s Rules for Secret Sleuthing by Briana McDonald (Sapphic Middle Grade Contemporary) (Paperback Release)

Beasts and Beauty: Dangerous Tale s by Soman Chainani (Gay Main Characters Middle Grade Fantasy/Fairy Tale Short Stories)

Battle Dragons: City of Thieves by Alex London (Queer-Inclusive World, Middle Grade Fantasy)

Tenderness by Derrick Austin (Queer Poetry)

Gumbo Ya Ya by Aurielle Marie (Queer Poetry)

Happy reading!

Danika

Our Queerest Shelves

Fantastic Queer eBooks That Are All Under $5!

Post author By Danika Ellis
Post date September 15, 2021

Sponsored by Battle of the Bands edited by Lauren Gibaldi and Eric Smith.

A daughter of music royalty has a secret crush. A lonely ticket taker worries about his sister. An almost-famous songwriter nurses old wounds. A stage manager tires of being behind the scenes. A singer-songwriter struggles to untangle her feelings for her best friend and his girlfriend. The disparate protagonists of sixteen stories are thrown together for one unforgettable event: their high school’s battle of the bands. Told in a harmonic blend of voices, short stories offer a kaleidoscopic view of the same transformative night. Battle of the Bands is a celebration of youth, music, and meeting the challenges of life head-on.

Hi friends! I hope you’re doing well. It finally got properly rainy yesterday, and I know I’ll get tired of it soon, but right now I am celebrating. It’s my ideal reading weather! Now, did I scroll through TikTok instead of reading? Sure. But I appreciate the ambience anyways.

Today I wanted to highlight the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, which provides legal aid to low income trans, intersex, and gender-nonconforming people of color in New York City. You can find out more about them on the SRLP website and you can help out using their donation page.

Queer eBooks Under $5

Lots of other Book Riot newsletters include a deals section, so I thought I’d try it out once! These are all queer ebooks under $5 at the time of writing. Some are always under $5 and some are just on sale at the moment. Enjoy!

Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee for $0.99

A pacifist non-binary artist is recruited to work as a kind of mystical coder for the military. While working for the Razanei government, though, they discover the military is even worse than they thought… and then they accidentally give a dragon automaton free will. Now Jebi finds themselves with a mechanical war dragon companion, up against a tyrannical government.

Meet Cute Diary by Emery Lee for $1.99

Noah runs Meet Cute Diary, a Tumblr blog where trans people send in their adorable, romantic meet cutes. It brings a lot of trans people hope and comfort. There’s just one problem: it’s not real. Noah writes them all himself. When he’s caught, he jumps into a fake dating scheme to try to give the blog he loves so much some credibility. But actually dating is a little more messy than his neat fictional meet cutes.

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas (Trans M/M YA Fantasy) for $2.99
Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun by Jonny Garza Villa (M/M YA Contemporary) for $1.99
The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer (M/M YA Sci Fi) for $1.99
Pumpkin by Julie Murphy (Gay YA Contemporary) for $2.99
B*Witch by Paige McKenzie & Nancy Ohlin (Sapphic YA Fantasy) for $2.99

The Midnight Lie (Forgotten Gods #1) Marie Rutkoski (F/F YA Fantasy) for $2.99
Every Heart a Doorway (Wayward Children #1) by Seanan McGuire (Asexual Fantasy) for $2.99
The Amberlough Dossier: Amberlough, Armistice, Amnesty by Lara Elena Donnelly (Queer Fantasy) for $2.99
The Ascendant Trilogy by K Arsenault Rivera (Sapphic Fantasy) for $2.99
The Empress of Salt and Fortune (The Singing Hills Cycle #1) Nghi Vo (Sapphic Fantasy) for $3.99
Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard (Sapphic Fantasy) for $3.99

The Unbroken (Magic of the Lost #1) C. L. Clark (Sapphic Fantasy) for $4.99
The Black Tides of Heaven by Neon Yang (Non-Binary Fantasy) for $3.99
Finna (LitenVerse Book 1) by Nino Cipri (Queer Sci Fi) for $2.99
Knit One, Girl Two by Shira Glassman (F/F Romance) for $1.99
The Craft of Love by EE Ottoman (Trans and Bisexual M/F Historical Romance) for $1.99
Once Ghosted, Twice Shy by Alyssa Cole (F/F Romance) for $2.99
The Second Mango by Shira Glassman (F/F Fantasy) for $2.99
The Cybernetic Tea Shop by Meredith Katz (Asexual F/F Sci Fi)

Whoops, didn’t intend for that to get so long, but there are a ton of great queer YA ebook deals right now! Apologies for your wallet!

All the Links Fit to Click

Judith Butler called out TERFs as fascists, but the Guardian censored the interview.
LGBTQ Reads has a list of queer Latinx books for Hispanic & Latine Heritage Month! Don’t forget to click through to earlier Hispanic & Latine Heritage Month posts for even more recs.
It’s Sapphic September! If you’re participating in this readathon, here’s a bingo card to help guide your choices!
These bisexual books are “under the gaydar:” the queer content isn’t obvious from the covers. (Also, bonus ace rep!)
These 10 LGBTQ+ Marvel heroes should join the MCU.
Here are 5 queer YA dark academia books.
Check out these queer historical romances.
These sapphic YA books have West Asian representation.
Support this bisexual comics anthology Kickstarter.
What’s In A Name? On Writing Jewish Families In Queer Romance
A Dream of a Woman by Casey Plett, a short story collection featuring trans woman main characters, has been shortlisted for the Giller Prize.
Kevin Keller is getting an omnibus for his 10th anniversary of appearing in Archie! For some reason there’s a Kickstarter, even though this is an official Archie book.
Mark Oshiro was interviewed at Reads Rainbow about their new middle grade novel, The Insiders.
On Freedom by Maggie Nelson was reviewed at NPR and The Guardian. She was also interviewed at NPR about it.
The All-Consuming World by Cassandra Khaw was reviewed at NPR. They call it a “visionary, foul-mouthed, gory sci-fi adventure, dripping viscera, violence, and beauty in equal measure,” and I agree.
The Magician by Colm Tóibín was reviewed at the Washington Post.
The One You Want to Marry (and Other Identities I’ve Had) by Sophie Santos was reviewed at Autostraddle.

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

I’ve taken a page from the Kissing Books romance newsletter and am going to start including a few LGBTQ posts “from the vault” here, since there are so many great ones you might have missed!

New Releases This Week

The Spectacular by Zoe Whittall (Bisexual Fiction)

Missy made a name for herself as a cellist in a punk band by performing a song about her absent mother every night. Her hard partying ways catch up to her, though, when she unexpectedly falls for a tomboy drummer — oh, and also gets stranded at the border because of a forgotten flap of cocaine. She crashes at her grandmother’s house, but her grandmother is determined to get all three generations of women in the family on the same page again. This is a story about maternal ambivalence: what happens when a mother regrets having children?

Peter Cabot Gets Lost by Cat Sebastian (M/M Romance)

Cat Sebastian has a devoted fanbase who will have been counting down until this release! It’s the second in the Cabot family series. Caleb has just graduated from a Boston college in 1960 and is stranded, with no way to get to Los Angeles and start his new life. Good news: classmate Peter Cabot has offered to drive him there to escape from his father’s presidential campaign. Bad news: Caleb hates Peter.

Witch Rising (B*WITCH #2) by Paige McKenzie & Nancy Ohlin (Sapphic YA Fantasy)

In this concluding volume of the B*Witch duology, the two covens at school continue to spar, but they have bigger problems: an anti-magic faction may be responsible for killing a witch. They have to join forces to find out the truth. And if that wasn’t enough, there’s also the romantic complications: Ridley has a crush on a dead girl, and Iris is trying to catch Greta’s eye before the new witch does. But, of course, “queer witch YA” should have been enough to convince you to pick this series up already.

A Lot Like Adiós by Alexis Daria (Bi M/Bi F Romance)

Love and Lotus Blossoms by Anne Shade (Bisexual F/F Romance)

Master of Poisons by Andrea Hairston (Bisexual Fantasy) (Paperback release)

The Actual Star by Monica Byrne (Non-Binary World Sci-Fi)

Oaths of Legacy (The Bloodright Trilogy #2) by Emily Skrutskie (M/M Science Fiction)

Margaret and the Mystery of the Missing Body by Megan Milks (YA Contemporary)

The Scratch Daughters (Scapegracers #2) by Hannah Abigail Clarke (Sapphic YA Fantasy)

The Hollow Heart (Forgotten Gods #2) by Marie Rutkoski (Sapphic YA Fantasy)

The Lost Girls by Sonia Hartl (F/F Paranormal YA)

Monstress, Vol. 6: The Vow by Marjorie M. Liu & Sana Takeda (Sapphic Fantasy Graphic Novel)

Passion by June Jordan (reprint) (Bisexual Poetry)

Villainy by Andrea Abi-Karam (Queer Poetry)

808s & Otherworlds by Sean Avery Medlin (Queer Poetry)

Umbilical Cord by Hasan Namir (Two Dads Poetry)

A Quilt for David by Steven Reigns (Gay Poetry/Biography)

Early One Morning by Lawrence Schimel and Elīna Brasliņa (Two Dads Board Book)

Happy reading!

Danika

Our Queerest Shelves

Queer Books Are Everywhere. Why Are They Still Invisible?

Post author By Danika Ellis
Post date September 8, 2021

Sponsored by Other Boys by Damian Alexander.

In Other Boys, debut author Damian Alexander delivers a moving middle grade graphic memoir about his struggles with bullying, the death of his mother, and coming out. “It’s hard to describe Damian Alexander’s particular mix of earnest sweetness and searing honesty without experiencing this book for yourself. Other Boys shoots straight for the heart in every single panel, and I’m both grateful and moved.” —Becky Albertalli, bestselling author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

I’m back from camping! Sure, it rained some, and yes, one of the dogs threw up all over the tent at 4 in the morning, but we still managed to have a good time! Maybe next time we’ll leave the pups with family, though.

This week, I wanted to highlight the charity Rainbow Railroad, which helps LGBTQI+ people escape state-sanctioned violence and oppression around the world. Right now, they’re trying to respond to many calls for help from LGBTQI+ people in Afghanistan fleeing from Taliban violence. You can find out more about about them on their website, and you can help them continue this work on their donation page.

Queer Books Are Everywhere. Why Are They Still Invisible?

I’ve started to really into queer BookTok, and I’m relieved it’s a thing. For a while there, I thought I would have to start one myself, and I am overwhelmed by the idea. Videos are hard enough: I don’t want to have to relearn new logistics. Luckily, there are lots of queer bookish creators making their mark. I even wrote a post about the LGBTQ books featured most on BookTok!

I’ve also been able to watch publishing change in the decade I’ve been writing about queer books. As you’ll be see in the list below, there are more queer books being published every month than used to be published in a year! And the kinds of representation has expanded by leaps and bounds — there’s more to go, of course, but I’m grateful for the progress that’s been made.

So how is it, when more queer books are being published every year than even the fastest reader could make a dent in, that some people still think they don’t exist at all?

The sentiment “there’s no good lesbian books” has been remarkably persistent despite being unequivocally wrong. After years of seeing it in comments sections on blogs, it still shows up regularly on TikToks (now usually as “sapphic books” instead). It’s so common that Laynie Rose, the foremost sapphic BookToker, made a shirt about it.

The problem is not that queer books (or queer women books or good sapphic books) don’t exist. Of course there are genres that are lacking representation, and of course it’s a small percentage next to the straight cis books that are getting published, but it’s still a staggering amount and breadth of representation. The problem is that people seem to still not be finding them. And… how is that possible?

If you google queer books, sapphic books, good lesbian books — however you want to specify it — you’ll get decent results. You’ll immediately be given relevant titles and resources to find more. There are blogs, YouTube channels, TikTok accounts, newsletters (hello!) devoted to queer lit. So how can anyone claim these books don’t exist?

Perhaps it’s because you do have to look. If you want cis/allo/straight representation, you could go into a library, close your eyes, spin in a circle and grab the first book you touch and you’re almost guaranteed to succeed. (Don’t do that, though. Unless you have a spotter!) Queer books require you to investigate, even just a cursory amount, and I don’t see that changing.

Luckily, more and more queer books are making it onto bestseller lists and displays. And that’s thanks to the authors and readers who did the work to make that possible: who fought to find an audience when they were told there was none, who investigated to find the titles they were told didn’t exist and then read and recommended them.

For now, at least, queer books do require a little more effort to find — usually just a few more keystrokes! — but I promise: they’re worth it.

All the Links Fit to Click

Remember the Republican candidate who yelled at a teen library worker over her Pride display? Well, good news follow up: the library was flooded with donations of LGBTQ books afterwards!
Check out these queer bookstores!
Here’s a directory of lesbian book blogs. (Might I recommend mine, the Lesbrary?)
Listen to queer love letters as you tour the University of Iowa.
These 5 new queer ebooks are all under $5 and these 5 books all have queer Vietnamese main characters.
The upcoming queer graphic novel Squad by Maggie Tokuda-Hall and Lisa Sterle is being adapted! There was an eight-way bidding war! Bring on the sapphic werewolves!
The Kingston Cycle by C.L. Polk is also getting adapted!
Julian Winters, author of The Summer of Everything, and Ryan Douglass, author of The Taking of Jake Livingston, interviewed each other at LGBTQ Reads. Also, here’s a good reminder to go look at the cover of Julian Winters’s 2022 release, Right Where I Left You. It’s perfect.
Casey Plett, author of A Dream of a Woman, was interviewed at Xtra.
If monsters were real, this book (No God, No Monsters) knows what you’d really do — nothing.

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

Queer Love Is Sacred: in which I get overemotional about pop songs, teen shows, and queer literature.
13 LGBT Books That Will Make You Cry (but in a good way)
Is DC Really Making Superman Gay?
Quiz: Design Your Perfect Dinner Party and Get an Under-the-Radar Queer Book Rec

Come work with Book Riot! We’re hiring an Ad Operations Associate. Apply by September 30th!

New Releases This Week

This is one of the biggest publishing days of the year, so buckle up for a long list!

No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull (Queer Fantasy)

In the first volume of a new series, Laina finds out that her brother has been shot by Boston cops — except that somehow that isn’t the biggest news of her day. It turns out that her brother was a werewolf, and suddenly all kinds of monsters are coming out of the woodwork, running from something. This is a book with a ton of different point of view characters, including asexual and sapphic representation.

A Clash of Steel by C.B. Lee (YA Historical Fiction)

This is a YA “remix” of Treasure Island, featuring a slowburn F/F romance. It’s based on the real history of piracy in the China seas. When Xiang finds out her late father was a pirate, it’s because a girl named Anh stole her necklace and then asked for help deciphering the treasure map inside.There’s found family elements and queer pirates: who can resist?

The City Beautiful by Aden Polydoros (M/M YA Historical Fiction)

Despite this having just come out, I swear it already has a devoted fanbase. It’s a queer Jewish historical thriller that takes place in at the 1893 Chicago World Fair. Alter is being possessed by his murdered best friend’s dybbuk, and he doesn’t have long to solve the murder and stop the killer. He finds himself having to rely on the help of a dangerous boy from his past.

The Family Way by Christopher DiRaddo (Gay Fiction)

The Magician by Colm Tóibín (Gay Fiction)

How to Wrestle a Girl by Venita Blackburn (Sapphic Short Stories)

The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun (M/M Romance)

The Final Child by Fran Dorricott (Thriller)

The Actual Stars by Monica Byrne (Non-binary Worldbuilding Science Fiction)

The All-Consuming World by Cassandra Khaw (Sapphic, Non-Binary Side Characters Science Fiction)

Act Cool by Tobly McSmith (Trans Guy YA Contemporary)

The Night When No One Had Sex by Kalena Miller (YA Contemporary)

Major Detours: A Choices Novel by Zachary Sergi (M/M YA Contemporary)

The Girls Are Never Gone by Sarah Glenn Marsh (Bisexual YA Horror)

Mary, Will I Die? by Shawn Sarles (Lesbian YA Horror)

We Are Not Broken by George M Johnson (Queer, they/them pronouns YA Nonfiction)

Obie is Man Enough by Schuyler Bailar (Trans Boy Middle Grade Contemporary)

A Touch of Ruckus by Ash Van Otterloo (Sapphic, Non-Binary LI Middle Grade Fantasy)

One Life: Young Readers Edition by Megan Rapinoe (Middle Grade Memoir)

Other Boys by Damian Alexander (Gay Middle Grade Graphic Memoir)

Small Knight and the Anxiety Monster by Manka Kasha (Non-binary/Gender-neutral, they/them pronouns Picture Book)

Eighty Days by A. C. Esguerra (M/M Graphic Novel)

Tenderness by Derrick Austin (Queer Poetry)

The Breaks: An Essay by Julietta Singh (Queer Nonfiction)

Happy reading!

Danika

Our Queerest Shelves

A Queer Office Satire, Non-Binary Cyberpunk, and More LGBTQ Books Out This Week

Post author By Danika Ellis
Post date September 1, 2021

Sponsored by Carina Adores – For Readers Who Love Love.

A long-standing regular at kink club Frankie’s, April’s kind of seen it all. As a trans woman, she’s used to being the scenic rest stop for others on their way to a happily-ever-after. She knows how desire works, and she keeps hers carefully boxed up to take out on weekends only. Then Dennis Martin walks in, fresh from Seattle and looking a little lost. April just meant to be friendly, but one flirtatious drink turns into one hot night. When Dennis asks for her number, she gives it to him. When he asks for her trust, well…that’s a little harder.

As I’m writing this, I am about to pack up the car for my first camping trip in years, and I’m so excited. By the time you read this, I’ll be back — hopefully it all went smoothly! I am ready for some vegan s’mores and to tackle my TBR (but not at the same time, because that would be messy).

Today I wanted to highlight Trans Lifeline, a hotline run by and for trans people. In addition to the hotline, they also provide microgrants to help trans people correct their ID (especially trans people of color) as well as microgrants for trans health care and for trans people who are incarcerated. You can find out more at the Trans Lifeline website, and you can donate to help them in their work.

Resources You Need To Know: LGBTQ Reads

If you read queer YA, Dahlia Adler’s LGBTQ Reads is an essential website to know. It’s packed full of so many resources, I’m not even sure where to start describing them!

Dahlia Adler is bisexual author who primarily writes YA and New Adult as well as editing YA anthologies. Under the Lights and Cool for the Summer are two of her queer titles, and her anthologies — like His Hideous Heart: 13 of Edgar Allan Poe’s Most Unsettling Tales Reimagined and That Way Madness Lies: 15 of Shakespeare’s Most Notable Works Reimagined — include queer stories.

Of course, Adler doesn’t stop at just writing great queer books. For five years, she’s been maintaining the best queer YA book site on the internet, LGBTQ reads. The blog is filled with all kinds of content, including monthly new releases (which I definitely crib from for titles in these newsletters), interviews with authors, cover reveals, Fave Five posts of recommendations on a theme, guest posts, and lots more.

She also has a feature called Under the Gaydar for queer books that don’t reveal the queer content on the front or back cover, so that closeted people (especially kids and teens) can access them without being outed.

But the blog posts are only scratching the surface. Adler also maintains a ton of lists to try to match you with exactly the book you’re looking for. In the top bar, there are lots of categories to choose from, including:

Access, with pages like Books Available in Braille, eBooks Under $5, and LGBTQ YA and MG in Translation
Rep, with pages like books by age of the main character, disability and neurodiversity representation, books by romantic/sexual orientation, and race/ethnicity
Romance, by trope/archetype, historical romance by era, and setting
SFF, by region of inspiration, protagonists (like aliens, selkies, royalty, necromancers, etc), subgenre, and trope

Those are just a few of the pages available, and Adler does a superhuman job of keeping them updated with new additions.

It doesn’t stop at this website, though. Adler runs an LGBTQ Reads tumblr, where you can ask for recommendations of any kind of queer book, including anonymously, and she will give you titles. I cannot fathom how she manages to keep up with both of these on top of being a parent and writing books. She also has started a TikTok account, because of course she has.

I hope that you start following LGBTQ Reads if you haven’t already, because it’s such a wealth of information, and Dahlia Adler is doing so much to promote queer books and help LGBTQ readers. If you want to show her some support, she also has a Patreon. At the top tier, Adler will send you a hand-selected book every month!

All the Links Fit to Click

The Queer Past Gets Deleted on eBay.
Dog Eared Books in the Castro, which occupies the building that was once LGBTQ bookstore A Different Light Books, is now Fabulosa Books!
Read these queer series while you wait for the next Locked Tomb book to come out.
Check out these 18 new & upcoming queer comics!
Here are some great M/M romances set in college.
In case you missed them, these are the trans books that came out in 2019.
How “Bending the Landscape” Helped to Queer Speculative Fiction Forever.
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller helped people come out to their parents.
All In: An Autobiography by Billie Jean King was reviewed at the Washington Post.
Back this Kickstarter for a bisexual comics anthology.

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

New Releases This Week

Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke (Queer Satire)

If you use Slack, you already recognize the title reference. In this satire of office life, an employee is uploaded into the Slack interface. His coworkers think it’s a bit, but he is able to convince one of them to try to help him escape. This is a surreal commentary on modern work life, with a queer romantic subplot. If you’re unfamiliar with Slack, this is likely going to be a tough hang, but either way, get ready for a weird and memorable read.

In the Watchful City by S. Qiouyi Lu (Non-binary Bio-Cyberpunk)

This is being described as a “Asian-inspired mosaic novella” about Anima, an extrasensory non-binary person who is part of the Gleaming, a living network that keeps the city safe. When a visitor arrives with a box of objects from around the world and describes them to ær, it changes Anima’s perception. This is a collection of fragmented stories that will challenge and intrigue readers. Two of the main characters, Anima and the visitor, are non-binary and use neopronouns (æ/ær and se/ser).

For the Love of April French by Penny Aimes (Trans woman M/F Romance)

Tell Me Anything (Light Gets In #1) by Skye Kilaen (Bi M/Bi F Romance)

Queen of Teeth by Hailey Piper (Queer Horror)

The Devil You Know by Kit Rocha (Bisexual Science Fiction)

Tobyn: The It Girl by Ashley Woodfolk (Lesbian YA Contemporary)

The Flyers by Beth Turley (Sapphic Middle Grade)

This Little Rainbow by Joan Holub, illustrated by Daniel Roode (LGBTQ Board Book)

Are You This? Or Are You This? by Madian Al Jazerah (Gay Memoir)

Happy reading!

Danika

Our Queerest Shelves

Goodreads Continues To Punish Queer Books

Post author By Danika Ellis
Post date August 25, 2021

Sponsored by Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers, from Park Row Books.

With her new PhD in hand, Grace goes on a girls’ trip to Vegas. She is not the kind of person who goes to Vegas and drunkenly marries a woman…until she does. This moment has Grace wondering why she doesn’t feel more fulfilled from her degree. Staggering under the weight of her parent’s expectations, Grace flees her home in Portland for a summer in New York. In New York, she’s able to ignore questions about her future and falls hard for her wife, Yuki. But when reality comes crashing in, Grace must face what she’s been running from all along.

I am so excited to be going camping next week! I grew up with regular camping trips, but my partner and I have never gone just the two of us. I’m looking forward to a few days of reading by flashlight, reading by the campfire, reading on the beach — and I suppose some non-reading activities, too. I have a stack of books to catch up on, though, so finishing those will be my first priority. (Well, that and snacking.)

This week, I wanted to highlight the charity True Colors United. Their mission is to “implement innovative solutions to youth homelessness that focus on the unique experiences of LGBTQ young people.” You can find out more about them at their website, and here’s their donation page.

Goodreads Continues To Punish Queer Books

Last month, you might remember that I mentioned I Am Not Starfire by Mariko Tamaki and Yoshi Yoshitani getting review bombed on Goodreads before it was released. This is a standalone YA graphic novel with its own version of Starfire, a comics character beloved by many — so beloved, in fact, that some fans seemed to think anyone messing with their vision of her was a threat. There are literally hundreds of 1 star reviews ranting about this book, most of which were posted before anyone had read it. The top review calls the creators “untalented hacks” and includes a derogatory reference to self harm.

I was horrified by this, partly because it came as a complete surprise. I was researching new releases and scrolled down to see people’s general impressions, and suddenly I was punched in the face by misogyny, racism, and homophobia. Although I couldn’t do much about it, I posted my own five star review expressing my disappointment at all the reviewers angry that this book is for and about teenage girls.

What I wasn’t expecting was for that review to rise to the top page, and to then receive daily comments on it screaming at me (including lots more misogyny). Luckily, I could just delete those — which quickly got tiring, because there’s no way to stop them from coming in — but despite reporting many of the truly vile reviews posted weeks ago, they’re still up. And that’s because there is very little that Goodreads won’t allow.

We’ve discussed the Goodreads bots problem before, and the fact that because Goodreads doesn’t even require a confirmation email to create an account, it’s easy for someone to make dozens of accounts to 1 star a book. Last year, I wrote about Goodreads Charles, a user who rates hundreds of not yet released queer women books 1 star (as well as some other marginalized authors’ upcoming titles).

On the I Am Not Starfire Goodreads page, I noticed another feature that is left open for abuse: community questions. These show up before the reviews, and people left judgmental, hateful non-questions there, which are the first things people see when they scroll past the book description.

All of these things combine to cement my opinion that Goodreads is an unsafe place for queer authors and readers — as well as other marginalized groups, especially authors of color. There are no protections to prevent a book’s rating from being dragged down just because a group of people (or one person with a lot of time on their hands creating multiple accounts) are angry about the queer content. Trans books especially get this treatment, with many transphobic accounts having a dedicated shelf for 1 starring trans-accepting titles.

The lack of moderation and loose guidelines mean that hatred is amplified on Goodreads, with no recourse. Flagging reviews rarely does anything, and their guidelines don’t even require that you read a book before rating it. Essentially, as long as people don’t include slurs in their reviews, they’re fair game — and ratings without reviews are just as effective in lowering a book’s overall rating and making it look less appealing to readers.

I don’t have an answer here: Goodreads is so entrenched that it continues to hold a lot of sway. Hopefully, though, it’s a reminder a) to not take Goodreads average ratings as a measure of quality and b) to keep promoting queer and other marginalized lit to try to counteract this.

All the Links Fit to Click

Your rage read of the week: a Republican congressional candidate shouted at a teen library worker over the LGBTQ display she set up.
This picture book is fighting back against Russia’s LGBT+ propaganda law
A Tiny LGBTQ Bookstore Is a Queer Haven in Small-Town Mississippi
Soak In The Final Days Of Summer By Diving Into A Queer Book
Why do so many F/F romance readers love enemies to lovers?
5 great books with queer 12 year old main characters
Read this award-winning lesbian capybara book, The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper: “I often thought with that square jaw and a broad chest, a capybara looked like a really handsome butch lesbian, if that butch were a rodent.”

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

New Releases This Week

We’ve got some intriguing YA and middle grade releases out today, plus some much-anticipated SFF sequels!

Both Sides Now by Peyton Thomas (Trans, M/M YA Contemporary)

Finch can’t wait to get out of high school and start his life, preparing to become the first trans congressman. He just has to get through one last National Speech & Debate Tournament competition. Getting the gold would look great on his résumé — which would be helpful, because he hasn’t actually gotten accepted to any colleges yet. There’s just two problems: he’s got a crush on his debate partner Jonah — which prompts new consideration of his sexual orientation — oh, and the debate is on trans rights.

Edie in Between by Laura Sibson (F/F YA Fantasy)

This is being called a “modern-day Practical Magic“! Edie’s family has a reputation for being witches, but Edie wants nothing to do with that. Even her mother’s ghost hanging around won’t convince her to embrace their magic. That is, until her mother’s journal falls into her lap and leads her on a scavenger hunt for meaningful memorabilia from her life. Each object she finds transports her into the journal, letting her relive her mother’s teenage years. And if that wasn’t enough to pull her towards her innate witchiness, the cute girl working at the occult shop will certainly help.

Choose Your Own Adventure: Eighth Grade Witch by E.L. Thomas and Andrew E.C. Gaska, illustrated by Valerio Chiola (Non-binary Middle Grade Graphic Novel)

I loved Choose Your Own Adventure books as a kid (let’s be honest, I still do), so I am really glad to see the franchise diversifying! This one is a middle grade graphic novel with a Black non-binary main character!

Child in the Valley by Gordy Sauer (M/M Historical Fiction)

Sips of Her by Karmen Lee (F/F Romance)

Red X by David Demchuk (Gay Horror)

We’re Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction 2020 edited by C.L. Clark and Charles Payseur (Queer Speculative Fiction)

The Thousand Eyes (The Serpent Gates #2) by A. K. Larkwood (Fantasy)

The Second Rebel (The First Sister #2) by Linden A. Lewis (Pansexual Non-binary Science Fiction)

Happy reading!

Danika

Our Queerest Shelves

The Importance of Queer Fanfiction

Post author By Danika Ellis
Post date August 18, 2021

The Importance of Queer Fanfiction

I’ve recently gotten more into fanfiction; my obsession with Ted Lasso was bound to lead me there eventually. It’s gotten me thinking about my relationship with fanfic in general, and why I think it’s so important to many queer people.

While fanfiction is almost as old as literature itself, the phenomenon we call “shipping” has been queer from the start. Kirk/Spock was not just the original “slash” ship, but the original ship. It was followed by many other M/M fandom favorites — and no wonder. There were far more complex male characters on screen than female one, and besides, fanfic was the only outlet for M/M ships. They certainly weren’t going to become canon. Fanfiction allowed queer readers (and plenty of other readers) to explore a relationship that they knew wouldn’t appear on screen — and explore they did…

When I was a teenager, I read fanfiction from a franchise that will remain nameless — suffice to say that I’m angry that this queer memory has been tainted by the transphobic author. Fanfic turned into roleplaying: a sort of collaborative fanfiction writing, where two or more people play a character in a scene. I started, would you believe it, on Neopets chat boards. Of course it was an M/M ship, because that was the most popular pairing not just of that fandom, but of all fandoms at the time.

Neopets, however, was not so open to our PG-rated M/M roleplays, often deleting them (and leaving up more explicit M/F roleplays). A few of us migrated over to a new board, called Rebels Against Homophobic Neopia. (I remind you that I was about 14 at the time, and this was obviously very cool.) With no moderators, we were free to explore these stories however we pleased.

There, I met Real Life Queer People. People who not only shipped gay couples, but related to them. I began to contemplate by own sexuality — but nah, I was definitely straight. I invited my best friend to the board, also a fan of the franchise. We began roleplay flirting as our characters. I… was not straight after all. We started dating IRL.

I know lots of people, especially Millenials, who discovered their sexual orientation through fanfiction. It was a way to explore and experiment safely. It made being queer feel more normal: we knew and loved these characters already. If they could be queer and it was okay (in this fictional version of a fictional story), maybe it could be okay for us, too.

Even today, with far more mainstream queer representation (in books, movies, and TV shows), many queer young people flock to fanfiction to find representation. It’s easy to find exactly what you’re looking for, whether it’s a pairing, a mood, or a certain trope. And if you can’t find what you’re looking for, there’s no barriers to making your own.

So here’s to queer fanfiction, from Spock/Kirk to Xena/Gabrielle (which basically jump-started the lesbian romance genre) to the K-pop ships dominating today. Long may it reign.

All the Links Fit to Click

Your rage read of the week: Lincoln Children’s Museum cancels drag queen story hour event following death threats.
Can you guess the most common reasons books were banned in 2021?
Some nice follow-up from last week: the bookstore that make a TikTok about customers turning around the covers of LGBTQ books got a flood of online orders for queer books!
“Gender critical” transphobes tried to claim Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s books as supporting their viewpoints. It didn’t go well for them. Gaiman rebuked the idea that Pratchett would ever support transphobia and explained that while there are transphobic character in Sandman, you’re not supposed to agree with them. Pratchett’s daughter also defended her father against these claims, and fans told personal stories about him being a trans ally.
Love, Victor has been renewed for season 3! (I’ve really been enjoying it.)
Robin (of Batman and Robin) is canonically bisexual now.
It’s Time to Give Harley Quinn a Girlfriend on the Big Screen Already.
This book with a gay main character was first told through Instagram stories.
Here are the M/M books by bi or gay men out in the second half of 2021.
Read some books with asexual main characters!
Here are some great LGBTQ Pakistani books.
5 queer YA about friendship breakups and 5 queer novels set in India.
Dan Levy and Eugene Levy are publishing a Schitt’s Creek book called Best Wishes, Warmest Regards.
Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So got a glowing review in Washington Blade, calling it the book of the summer.
Shelly Parker-Chan was interviewed at the Geekiary about She Who Became the Sun, and why she wanted to subtitle it “Revenge of the Genderqueers.”
May Peterson, author of The Calyx Charm, discusses queerness, The Wizard of Oz, being trans, and inspirational witches.
Courtney Gould, author of The Dead and the Dark (a YA horror novel I really enjoyed) was interviewed at The Nerd Daily.
Sim Kern, author of Depart, Depart!, and Cynthia Zhang, author of After the Dragons, talk LGBTQ rep in books about climate change.
Nawaaz Ahmed, author of Radiant Fugitives, was interviewed at LA Review of Books.
Transgender Indigenous business owner Divina Nicole created a booklet called Celebrating Two-Spirit Identities. You can read it for free here.
Emery Lee, author of the excellent queer trans YA novel Meet Cute Diary, has a new book coming out! It’s called Café Con Lychee.

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

I wrote this one through gritted teeth: OwlCrate Reverses Decision, Reintroduces Harry Potter Items in Boxes.
Leander, Texas, School District Pulls Books from Reading List, including In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado and other queer titles.

New Releases This Week

Note: This week’s new releases is overwhelmingly white. Do better, publishing.

The Origins of Iris by Beth Lewis (Sapphic Thriller)

Iris ran from her abusive wife, escaping to the Catskills, which were a childhood place of comfort. She intends to find herself there, and she does… literally. Other Iris is beautiful, happy, and seems like an all around better version of herself. She made different choices. But what is she hiding, and can Iris survive in an isolated cabin with this mysterious doppelgänger?

This is an atmospheric, thought-provoking book that promises to be Wild meets Sliding Doors.

Lost on Planet Earth by Magdalene Visaggio and Claudia Aguirre (F/F Sci Fi Graphic Novel)

Basil Miranda knows exactly what’s next for her. She’s on the brink of graduation, and once she passes one more test, she’ll be on one of the best ships in the fleet, working beside her best friend. There’s only one problem: she forgot to ever ask herself if this is what she wants. When she runs from this path, she finds herself colliding with a revolution.

This is from the author of Kim & Kim and Eternity Girl, joined by the artist from Kim & Kim. It’s a bittersweet graphic novel with a philosophical bent — and Star Trek references!

Growing Up Trans: In Our Own Words edited by Lindsay Herriot and Kate Fry (Trans YA Nonfiction)

Imagine my surprise, as I added this book to the list, to realize I know one of the editors! Kate Fry and I used to work at the same bookstore together. She and Lindsay Herriot co-founded the Trans Tipping Point project in 2017, a trans youth writing workshop.

This is a collection of writings (stories, essays, art and poetry) by trans youth, ages 11-18, exploring different aspects of the trans experience. It also includes tips on how to be a good trans ally.

After the Dragons by Cynthia Zhang (Gay, M/M Fantasy)

Foxhunt by Rem Wigmore (Bisexual Solarpunk)

The Left Hand of Dog by Si Clarke (Aro/Ace Agender Science Fiction)

Sink or Swim by Tash McAdam (Trans Guy YA Contemporary)

The Scapegracers by Hannah Abigail Clarke (Lesbian YA Fantasy) (Paperback rerelease)

Being You: A First Conversation about Gender by Megan Madison, Jessica Ralli, and Anne/Andy Passchier (Gender Board Book)

Missed Connections by Brian Francis (Gay Memoir)

All In by Billie Jean King (Lesbian Autobiography)

Center Center: A Funny, Sexy, Sad Almost-Memoir of a Boy in Ballet by James Whiteside (Gay Memoir)

That’s it for me this week! Until next time, you can find me at my sapphic book blog the Lesbrary as well as on Twitter @danikaellis. You can also hear me on All the Books on the first Tuesday of the month, and I post weekly New Releases videos on the Book Riot YouTube channel. You can bet I sneak in as many queer titles as I can.

Happy reading!

Danika

Creepy Sapphic Boarding Schools

The Moth Diaries by Rachel Klein

A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

As I Descended by Robin Talley

A Line in the Dark by Malinda Lo

SuperMutant Magic Academy by Jillian Tamaki

All the Links Fit to Click

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

New Releases This Week

Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw (Bisexual Horror)

The Days of Afrekete by Asali Solomon (Sapphic Fiction)

This is Our Rainbow edited by Katherine Locke & Nicole Melleby (LGBTQ Middle Grade Anthology)

Queer Witch Books for Your October TBR

Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft edited by Jessica Spotswood & Tess Sharpe

Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker and Wendy Xu

The Lost Coast by A. R. Capetta

Payback’s a Witch by Lana Harper

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

All the Links Fit to Click

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

New Releases This Week

The Other Man by Farhad J. Dadyburjor (Gay Fiction)

A Snake Falls To Earth by Darcie Little Badger (Asexual Fantasy)

Madder: a Memoir in Weeds by Marco Wilkinson (Queer Memoir)

Sapphic Vampire Books To Slake Your Thirst

A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson

The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, edited by Carmen Maria Machado

O Captain, My Captain by Katherine V. Forrest

Better Off Red by Rebekah Weatherspoon

Smbitten by Melanie Gillman

All the Links Fit to Click

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

New Releases This Week

Payback’s a Witch by Lana Harper (Bisexual F/F Fantasy)

Reprieve by James Han Mattson (Gay Horror)

Squad by Maggie Tokuda-Hall & Lisa Sterle (Sapphic YA Fantasy Graphic Novel)

To All the Queer Books I’ll Never Read

All the Links Fit to Click

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

New Releases This Week

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki (Sapphic, Trans Side Character Science Fiction)

Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo (Queer Gothic Horror)

Queer YA Hauntings and Possessions

The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould (Lesbian YA Horror)

The Girls Are Never Gone by Sarah Glenn Marsh (Bisexual YA Horror)

The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass (Gay YA Horror/Social Thriller)

All the Links Fit to Click

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

New Releases This Week

A Dream of a Woman by Casey Plett (Trans Women Short Stories)

Things We Couldn’t Say by Jay Coles (Bi M/Bi M YA Contemporary)

Iron Widow ​by Xiran Jay Zhao (Bisexual YA Sci Fi)

The Insiders by Mark Oshiro (Gay Middle Grade Fantasy)

Queer eBooks Under $5

Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee for $0.99

Meet Cute Diary by Emery Lee for $1.99

All the Links Fit to Click

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

New Releases This Week

The Spectacular by Zoe Whittall (Bisexual Fiction)

Peter Cabot Gets Lost by Cat Sebastian (M/M Romance)

Witch Rising (B*WITCH #2) by Paige McKenzie & Nancy Ohlin (Sapphic YA Fantasy)

Queer Books Are Everywhere. Why Are They Still Invisible?

All the Links Fit to Click

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

New Releases This Week

No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull (Queer Fantasy)

A Clash of Steel by C.B. Lee (YA Historical Fiction)

The City Beautiful by Aden Polydoros (M/M YA Historical Fiction)

Resources You Need To Know: LGBTQ Reads

All the Links Fit to Click

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

New Releases This Week

Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke (Queer Satire)

In the Watchful City by S. Qiouyi Lu (Non-binary Bio-Cyberpunk)

Goodreads Continues To Punish Queer Books

All the Links Fit to Click

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao (Bisexual YA Sci Fi)