Genre | Fantasy / Romance Page #s | 256 Publishing Date | August 2021
“They say we are born, not made, as vampires. Created vampires are feral, ruthless killers who desire blood above all else. Those who are born into this fate have better control and thus are civilized. That we are only brutal if we choose to be. And so because we have free will, we are more like the humans and the other creatures with souls. I have never once felt human, or like anything else. I know what I am, and it is because of that feeling, and because of the marks on my flesh, that I stand steadfast in my cause.”
Wilderwood is a haven for those who have been cast out of “proper” society: academics, artists, the eccentrics and undesirous. It is also home to other kind and having weres, mages, and even an ancient griffin living amongst mortals just isn’t done.
Except in Wilderwood.
Octavia Wilder cares for those who live in the town her ancestor built and when a feral vampire threatens the peace, she partners with the Ranger who has brought word of the threat.
Ranger Roderick Arman hunts Corbin Luther, the feral vampire who killed his partner two years ago. When Luther’s trail leads him to the odd little town of Wilderwood, he quickly realizes there’s more to the town – and his hunt – than expected.
Ranger Bellemy Eislen disappeared two years ago when what was to be a quick trip to the Faelands on behalf of the Rangers went entirely wrong. Trapped in another realm, they tirelessly sought a way back to their world. And to Wilderwood and Octavia.
The three of them must fight to save Wilderwood from an invasion from another realm and protect the town from the Faelands Queen.
Wilderwood is a fantasy/romance book with some violent and sexual elements. The story features a polyamorous, queer romance between three consenting adults.
Goodreads
If you’ve ever read a book and rolled your eyes at the developing love triangle, thinking, “Why don’t they just bone each other?” then boy, is this the book for you! It was so refreshing to see three competent adults deal with their attraction to each other with communication, a priority for their partner’s happiness, and an openness to new experiences.
Although Wilderwood is set in the “1800’s,” it’s first and foremost a fantasy, with all the word’s implications. If you have to handwave away a linguistic anachronism here or a modern concept there, well, get used to it. There are vampires and encroaching fey worlds; realism is not the point here.
You know what’s also not realistic? How horny everyone gets in the most horrific situations! I have a feeling that my opinion is only revealing how rarely I read erotica, because these people sure got turned on at the most inopportune times. The sex scenes were good fun, but I couldn’t help wishing that they would like, rest before the big battle or just have an anxious sulk….This is probably why no one is writing a book about my life.
The highlight of this book for me was how unapologetically queer it is. There is a trans character whose pronouns are immediately respected by all, gay love between side characters, and the aforementioned polyamory between magical beings of all genders. It was so nice to see diverse relationships play out with no mention of their diversity. This is my favorite part of fantasy – showing the world as we want it to be (though I would prefer mine with a LOT fewer melted cows).
Check out our Queer Lil Library for more book recommendations and reviews!
Genre | Contemporary Romance Page #s | 106 Publishing Date | January 2019
Alyssa Cole returns with a fun, sexy romance novella in the Reluctant Royals series!
While her boss the prince was busy wooing his betrothed, Likotsi had her own love affair after swiping right on a dating app. But her romance had ended in heartbreak, and now, back in NYC again, she’s determined to rediscover her joy–so of course she runs into the woman who broke her heart.
When Likotsi and Fabiola meet again on a stalled subway train months later, Fab asks for just one cup of tea. Likotsi, hoping to know why she was unceremoniously dumped, agrees. Tea and food soon leads to them exploring the city together, and their past, with Fab slowly revealing why she let Likotsi go, and both of them wondering if they can turn this second chance into a happily ever after.
Goodreads
Once Ghosted, Twice Shy is the bite-sized romance you want to sink into on a rainy day. It’s a sweet story about two women who are given a second chance to get things right, told in present day with flashbacks to their initial meeting. There isn’t much of a mystery here, but it’s satisfying to learn what happened and how they got to the place of hurt in which we first find them.
Likotsi and Fabiola are queer black women who are on opposite ends of the class spectrum. While Likotsi works for the prince of a Wakanda-esque country, while Fabiola dreams of being a jewelry entrepreneur and deals with the repercussions of the American immigrant system. They come from different perspectives but share a love of fashion, exploration, and each other.
I’m a sucker for this kind of story. They originally met with the explicit intention of hooking up, but couldn’t resist Their Feelings and the desire for a deeper connection. There is a lot of unnecessary miscommunication (or actual lack of communication entirely), but they get there in the end.
Who Would I Recommend This Book To?
Once Ghost, Twice Shy is a great little romance to boost spirits on a boring afternoon.
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Check out our Queer Lil Library for more book recommendations and reviews!
I LOVE this series. Every single entry is a brilliant, passionately written primer on a topic meaningful to modern teens. But Chella Man’s entry is particularly poignant. He’s a transgender, genderqueer, deaf, Jewish person of color and an artist, activist, and actor and his story of overcoming and persevering is inspiring and truly remarkable. I highly recommend the audio, because Chella narrates and it’s one of the only audiobooks ever recorded by a person with deafness.
My initial reaction to this book was, “THIS IS EVERYTHING I NEED!” (Yes, in all caps, I couldn’t help myself). Wyatt, a trans witch with quite a bit of power – power he lost control of one awful night – has a good life now. A best friend, a lovely adopted family, everything he could ever want. Except for resolving the little issue of his past, and the kingdom and fiancé he left behind. Now back in his former home and former life, Wyatt has to face down a ton of changes after he’s made the biggest one for himself. The book features a diverse cast of people of color, queer, trans, and nonbinary folks, and some great worldbuilding.
Camryn Garrett’s debut came out of the book publishing gates on FIRE, and rightfully so. Simone is 17 years old, a person of color, bisexual, and HIV-positive. But her outlook is bright, as she knows the way to stay safe and hidden is be celibate and tell no one. But it’s not that easy when she meets Miles and falls head over heels. But no one knows her truth, and this fear of having her status known -and likely used against her – drives the main plot of the story. It’s honest, occasionally raw, and a book everyone should read.
The joy in this book cannot be understated. I am a big fan of promoting queer books that showcase happiness and love and joy and hot damn, this book has it all and more. An adorable, glittering summer romance that also tackles masc/fem stereotypes, it starts with Randy, who loves Camp Outland and all the people there. It’s a queer/gay summer camp for teens like him, and there no one bats an eye at his love for nail polish and unicorns and anything sparkly. But this year is going to be different, because as much as he fell hard for Hudson, Hudson just didn’t feel the same. So Randy reinvents himself as Del – buff, sports-loving man’s man. Surely Hudson will fall now, right? And then Randy can return, little by little, in all his unicorn and nail polish glory.
Yes, THAT TJ Klune, of The House in the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door! TJ is known for his adult books full of whimsy and cozy feelings and he brings that trademark style, and his tender writing, to this book. The Extraordinaires is the first in a trilogy and it is a complete delight. Nick’s claim to fame isn’t as Nick, but as the most popular fanfic writer for the Extraordinaires fandom. The fandom focuses on a group of real-life superheroes and when Nick bumps into Star Shadow, his favorite Extraordinare and focus of his biggest crush, everything changes. But left on the sidelines is Seth, Nick’s best friend. And maybe the one he’s really meant for.
Where was this book when I was a questioning fifteen year old who loved sci-fi and living in small town Ohio? (I still love sci-fi, don’t get me wrong. But fifteen year old me would have lived for this book!). Alyssa is our pansexual main character and in line for the crown, but she’s been able to squeak out of royal duties. For the time being. But when she learns that her uncle has died and a crownchase has been decreed, Alyssa and her engineer, Hell Monkey, are caught up in the dangerous game that apparently everyone wants to participate in. It’s funny, fast-paced, and thrilling, and it hits all the marks with snarky wordplay, breathless spaceship chases, and fascinating sci-fi worldbuilding.
It’s one of the most chilling, complex YA books I’ve ever read. And it freaked me out. Power’s debut novel rips into your psyche and leaves you questioning the nature of humanity, the value of a life, and the ties that bind us all. It’s a thriller, a post-apocalyptic/survival story, and a story of friendship to which you’d go to the ends of the Earth for. And the Earth is ending, as climate change affects us all and devastates the landscape in which Hetty and Byatt live. Best friends, they’re inseparable, but when the Tox hits and the teachers at their all-girls school fall ill and then die, the girls are largely left on their own. And then Byatt goes missing and Hetty knows she’ll go to the ends of the earth to find her.
Halli Starling (she/they) writes fantasy worlds, vampires, and romance, focusing on stories with deep emotional investment. And the occasional bloody bit of violence.
Genre | Fantasy Page #s | 442 Publishing Date | March 2021
This Machiavellian fantasy follows a scholar’s quest to choose the next ruler of her kingdom amidst lies, conspiracy, and assassination.
When the death of Iron Queen Sarelin Brey fractures the realm of Elira, Lysande Prior, the palace scholar and the queen’s closest friend, is appointed Councillor. Publically, Lysande must choose the next monarch from amongst the city-rulers vying for the throne. Privately, she seeks to discover which ruler murdered the queen, suspecting the use of magic.
Resourceful, analytical, and quiet, Lysande appears to embody the motto she was raised with: everything in its place. Yet while she hides her drug addiction from her new associates, she cannot hide her growing interest in power. She becomes locked in a game of strategy with the city-rulers – especially the erudite prince Luca Fontaine, who seems to shift between ally and rival.
Further from home, an old enemy is stirring: the magic-wielding White Queen is on the move again, and her alliance with a traitor among the royal milieu poses a danger not just to the peace of the realm, but to the survival of everything that Lysande cares about.
In a world where the low-born keep their heads down, Lysande must learn to fight an enemy who wears many guises… even as she wages her own battle between ambition and restraint.
Goodreads
When the queen is murdered, her lowborn orphan scholar is responsible for picking the next ruler despite the dissatisfaction of the ruling class. They’re about to be a lot more upset, because this taste of power goes to Lysande’s head, and she’s not about to give it up.
I ADORED Lysande’s morally complicated character. It is so rare to read a book with a genius drug addict protagonist with a chip on their shoulder who… is a woman. Lysande is not a bad person; once she has power, she immediately stops the executions of magical people (who are rounded up and killed out of fear rather than justice). But she consciously chooses to pick her battles and only ask for so much, even if it means some will suffer for it. Even if it doesn’t make her hero, well, that’s exactly why I like her. She’s not a hero.
Sharing the load of leadership with Lysande is a group of city rulers. They’re from wildly distinct regions (winter, desert, jungle, Italy), which strains credulity, but I love them all the same. Lysande has to navigate friendships and political alliances while working out who murdered the queen under orders from the White Queen (aka the looming threat). She also navigates sexy times with multiple people, both men and women, with some pretty provocative explorations of power play. What is this book?! I love it.
I found the first 50-100 pages a little slow, but once Lysande meets the other city rulers, it picks up enormously. It helps that the prose is stunning and lyrical, and eventually I just couldn’t put it down. This is very much set up for a sequel, and I hope we get one soon!
Who Would I Recommend This Book To?
The Councillor is perfect for anyone who wishes fantasy novels focused on the smart people rather than the buff people.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Check out our Queer Lil Library for more book recommendations and reviews!
Lev Rosen writes books for people of all ages, most recentlyCamp, which was a best book of the year from Forbes, Elle, and The Today Show, amongst others and is a Lambda finalist and ALA Rainbow List Top Ten. His next book, Lavender House, will be released fall of 2022. He lives in NYC with his husband and a very small cat. You can find him online at LevACRosen.com and @LevACRosen
Your novel Camp takes place at a utopian summer camp for queer teens, Camp Outland. Was it inspired by any real life camps or experiences?
There are in fact several queer camps around the country, but Camp Outland wasn’t inspired by any of them in particular. Physically, though, it’s based on the Jewish summer camp I went to as a kid and worked as a teen for several years – though that was a very different experience. But I used that camp as a good blueprint for where to put activities, cabins, and secret spots.
One of the central themes of the book is learning how to balance your own personality with allowing growth based on the preferences of others. Why do you think this is an important idea for readers, especially teen readers, to consider?
I’m not sure I’d phrase it that way – “allowing growth based on the preferences of others” – I think that implies we can grow trying to be someone else for someone else, and while that might be what happens at first, I think Randy’s growth comes from himself in the end, from discovering that this persona he’s created actually has a lot of him in it already, parts of himself he didn’t know about or get to try on, not that he’s growing into someone else for Hudson. What’s important about trying on new identities, though – whether inspired by an ill-conceived romantic plot or just a desire to change – is that a lot of queer kids don’t get that chance. The moment you come out, you’re often labeled the queer kid, and no matter what you do, your actions, attitude and choices are thought of as being an extension of that. The only way to get out of that is to not be thought of as “just” the queer kid – one way to do that is by surrounding yourself with other queer people, who won’t view your sexuality as the central part of your personality. But the only other way to fix that is by reminding straight people that queer kids are entitled to just as much identity experimentation as straight ones, and to let them go through that without making it about their queerness.
In Camp, just about every character is a queer person. This is quite a change from the days in which we were lucky to get one gay side character in a story. Why do you think it’s important to write books that are entirely centered on queer teens and adults?
Well, I think there are actually a lot of queer YA books coming out these days that have more than just a few queer characters, but the real reason I wrote a mostly queer cast is because I just don’t care about straight people. Their opinions on my sexuality, on queer teens, on what books are appropriate for queer teens – I do not care. We’ve had centuries of books with entirely straight casts. Time for some with queer casts. I mean, it’s only fair we have just as many books with all queer characters as we do book with all straight characters. And if people disagree with that, it’s good to ask why.
Camp Outland is a safe space for queer people, but it’s removed from daily life by nature of being a summer camp. What are some practical ways we can create safe spaces for ourselves and for other queer people in our daily lives?
I mean if you’re straight, the best thing you can do to ensure a safe space for queer people is to stay out of it. That’s my biggest piece of advice. The other thing I think we as queer people should do is find each other and remember that we’re a family. We might hate other queer people, or love them, or find them annoying, but in the end, these folks are part of your community, and you have to welcome them in at least somewhat. That’s not to say you should remove yourself from the straight world entirely (I mean, if you can, more power to you). That’s nigh impossible, sadly. But take space for yourself where you don’t have to perform for straight people. Where there’s no concern about being too gay about being not the stereotype people expect from you. And straight people, like I said, stay out.
You have a new book coming out in fall 2022. What can you tell us about Lavender House?
Lavender House is an adult book, but it also features an almost entirely queer cast – in the 1950s. It’s a detective story, very Knives Out, in which a San Francisco police detective, having been caught on a raid on a queer club, is fired from the force. He thinks his life is over, but is approached by a woman who asks him to investigate the murder of his wife. She takes him to a manor outside the city where there’s a wealthy family united around a lavender marriage (a marriage between a gay man and a lesbian which is just for appearances). There’s been a murder, there’s plenty of queer suspects, and plenty of fun. It’s a bit Chandler, a bit Christie, and very gay. The only thing I will say, and I hope this is obvious anyway, is it’s not a big happy lovefest like Camp. This is about a queer guy in the 50s, it’s not a pretty story, and the family is bickering and infighting. But I wanted to show the ways queer people existed before Stonewall and had their communities and families. The best part is it’s the first in a series; the second is scheduled for fall 2023, and will follow the same detective investigating more queer mysteries. When your identity is a crime, you can’t go to the police when a crime is committed. Queer fiction and crime fiction go hand in hand, and I’m so excited to get these books out there.
Are there any other queer books (or other media) that you would like to recommend to our readers?
SO MANY. One book that’s coming out soon and is getting a lot of Camp comparisons is Robby Couch’s Blaine For the Win, which is like a gay YA legally blonde where a queer kid runs for class president to prove to his ex he’s not a ditz, essentially. I’m also so excited for Dahlia Adler’s Home Field Advantage – a cheerleader and the first female football player at high school fall for each other. I’ve read this one and it’s not just an amazing sweet romance, it’s also a real exploration of the ways queer people find each other in homophobic environments and support each other. I’m also excited for Adib Khorram’s Kiss and Tell, about a queer boybander, and how his role as a queer celebrity involves navigating who he really is vs. the fetishized and sanitized version of queerness his label wants him to be. So I’d recommend pre-ordering all of those. There are many many amazing looking queer books forthcoming, though. Those are just off the top of my head.
For more information on Lev Rosen and his work, please visit his website.
Genre | YA Contemporary Fiction Page #s | 328 Publishing Date | June 2020
The world of K-Pop has never met a star like this. Debut author Lyla Lee delivers a deliciously fun, thoughtful rom-com celebrating confidence and body positivity—perfect for fans of Jenny Han and Julie Murphy.
Skye Shin has heard it all. Fat girls shouldn’t dance. Wear bright colors. Shouldn’t call attention to themselves. But Skye dreams of joining the glittering world of K-Pop, and to do that, she’s about to break all the rules that society, the media, and even her own mother, have set for girls like her.
She’ll challenge thousands of other performers in an internationally televised competition looking for the next K-pop star, and she’ll do it better than anyone else.
When Skye nails her audition, she’s immediately swept into a whirlwind of countless practices, shocking performances, and the drama that comes with reality TV. What she doesn’t count on are the highly fat-phobic beauty standards of the Korean pop entertainment industry, her sudden media fame and scrutiny, or the sparks that soon fly with her fellow competitor, Henry Cho.
But Skye has her sights on becoming the world’s first plus-sized K-pop star, and that means winning the competition—without losing herself.
Goodreads
I am not (yet) into K-Pop, but I am very much into empowered teens chasing their dreams (and their crushes) while crushing their haters. I’ll Be the One is a super cute book about challenging fatphobia in Korean American culture, family support, and some good ol’ fashioned YA romance.
Skye is one of my favorite protagonists. She is the exact opposite of me, since she uses people’s verbal and nonverbal judgements as fuel for her own awesomeness. She’s a size 16 in a culture that thinks size 2 is too big, but she’s an amazing dancer and singer, so she auditions for a TV idol competition. The female judge constantly gives her a hard time about her weight (it feels like a meaningful acknowledgement of how women often police ourselves to a higher standard), but Skye continues to outperform her contestants and stands up for herself on national television in some really triumphal fist-to-the-sky moments.
Along the way, Skye becomes friends with a lesbian couple, cutely acknowledges her bisexuality because she was checking one of them out, and then falls in love with Instagram star Henry Cho. You know how YA romances are so often ridiculous, but some of them are unbelievable in just the right way? This is one of the good ones! I loved watching them become friends, flirt, and evolve into something more. Bonus points for a double-bisexual couple!
This is a purely fun, delightful, inspiring book, and I hope everyone reads it!
Who Would I Recommend This Book To?
I’ll Be the One is the perfect weekend read for when you want to tear through a story with a grin on your face.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Check out our Queer Lil Library for more book recommendations and reviews!
Yes, little kids need LGBTQIA+ books. From affirming their family lives to providing information for their inquiring minds, these picture and chapter books are age-appropriate and perfect for every bookshelf.
Dealing with bullying and homophobia, we see the story from a little boy’s point of view. He loves wearing his rainbow shirt and supporting his two dads, but when children at school tease him for his shirt, his sadness radiates off the page. Talk about a heart-breaker. And as the story goes on, we see his family, their love, and the love shared between families and children with a very important, very simple message: love is love, and that is universal and beautiful.
A 2019 Stonewall Book Award winner! An absolutely charming picture book about a little boy who lives with his abuela and has an obsession with mermaids. It’s all he thinks and dreams about. So when he sees three women on the subway dressed as mermaids, he goes home and wraps a curtain around his waist. When his grandmother sees his ensemble, she takes him to a festival where people of all kinds and shapes are dressed in fabulous, outrageous costumes. The illustrations are gorgeous, the message so very sweet, and the honesty of it makes this book a keeper.
Oh my heart for this book, and it’s a true story! Trinity is an autistic, transgender Black girl and she really wants long hair. DeShana, her mother, helps her by creating a fabulous, colorful wig and giving her love and reassurance. It is an incredibly endearing, heartwarming picture book featuring the struggles and reality of helping a child dealing with identity and gender expression.
The only book like this for older elementary and middle grade kids! It’s a delightful anthology of stories about different ways LGBTQIA+ kids can express themselves, and the realities that come along with being part of a marginialized group. From fantasy and sci-fi to contemporary, these stories are joyous and perfect for readers who want to understand themselves better, or understand someone else in their lives.
It’s a ghost story, a book about grief and understanding, and honestly just a beautiful story. Bug is a transgender boy and he lives in a haunted house, which feels more claustrophobic and less joyful now that his Uncle Roderick, who was gay, has passed away. When an unamed ghost starts following him around, Bug turns to find comfort in his friend Moira, who is detached and going through her own difficulties as the start of middle school looms over them. Rightfully so, the book is a National Book Award finalist.
I can’t resist this book – and that cover! This is a very gentle coming-of-age story about Pluto, who loves astronomy but is reeling from her recent diagnosis with anxiety and depression. Her family isn’t taking the news well, either, and her single mother worries, but still expects an awful lot from her daughter. When Pluto meets Fallon, a girl questioning her identity, they form an immediate, special bond. It’s a valuable book for a number of reasons, but the setting and characters truly shine with gentle authenticity and relatability.
“Some babies are born into their families. Some are adopted. This is the story of how one baby found his family in the New York City subway.” Possibly my favorite book on this list, and that was a tough call to make! Based on the true story of when Peter’s husband Danny discovered an abandoned baby on the subway station in New York while on his way home from work. Together they work to adopt the little boy, who they name Kevin, and give this child a loving home. The soft illustrations from Leo Espinosa sing on every page, and create a beautiful backdrop for a dear story that hit me right in the heart.
Halli Starling (she/her) writes fantasy worlds, vampires, and romance, focusing on stories with deep emotional investment. And the occasional bloody bit of violence.
Genre | Memoir Page #s | 224 Publishing Date | June 2021
From popular LGBTQ advice columnist and writer John Paul Brammer comes a hilarious, heartwarming memoir-in-essays chronicling his journey growing up as a queer, mixed-race kid in America’s heartland to becoming the “Chicano Carrie Bradshaw” of his generation.
The first time someone called John Paul (JP) Brammer “Papi” was on the popular gay hookup app Grindr. At first, it was flattering; JP took this as white-guy speak for “hey, handsome.” Who doesn’t want to be called handsome? But then it happened again and again…and again, leaving JP wondering: Who the hell is Papi?
What started as a racialized moniker given to him on a hookup app soon became the inspiration for his now wildly popular advice column “¡Hola Papi!,” launching his career as the Cheryl Strayed for young queer people everywhere—and some straight people too. JP had his doubts at first—what advice could he really offer while he himself stumbled through his early 20s? Sometimes the best advice to dole outcomes from looking within, which is what JP has done in his column and book—and readers have flocked to him for honest, heartfelt wisdom, and of course, a few laughs.
Goodreads
Although I’ve followed Brammer on Twitter for years, I have to admit that I’ve never read the advice column that inspired this book! I will be rectifying this oversight, since Brammer is an incredible author who combines personal anecdotes with universal guidance with ease.
This book is short and sweet, marching through significant portions of his life in chapters prefaced by a hypothetical advice question. It’s lovely to think of this book as a love letter to his past selves, helping him work through the doubts and concerns that plagued him.
I particularly loved the chapter about spending his adolescence dating a girl. Despite identifying as a gay man, he has a lot of fondness for that relationship, because our interactions are far more nuanced and meaningful than simply addressing (or not addressing) sexual gratification. For all the queers coming out later in life, it’s a nice lesson in appreciating our pasts for what they gave us, rather than focusing on what was denied to us.
Far less relatable, but equally great, was his chapter on reconciling his Hispanic identity with his privilege and a family that tried to Americanize as quickly as possible. Watching him grow under the tutelage and teasing of older Hispanic coworkers was adorable, and I liked how he rewrote his history to show the drive and determination that resulted in becoming Americanized actually being the most Hispanic quality possible.
This is a book all about treating ourselves gently, sharing stories with grace and with an eye toward growth and wholeness. Brammer is a talented writer, and though I’m not eager to read his porn descriptions (a funny/depressing chapter about capitalism and the hustle!), I am excited to read his work going forward.
Who Would I Recommend This Book To?
¡Hola Papi! is the book for memoir enthusiasts who want a hits-the-highlights reel.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Check out our Queer Lil Library for more book recommendations and reviews!
Starling’s debut is a masterpiece of dread trapped in a state of the art diving suit…that the diver doesn’t control. Gyre’s entire relationship with Em is through the suit and as the plot (and Gyre’s mind) unravels, the reader is along for a truly terrifying ride.
I’m not big into the whole dark academia genre, but add in a gruesome murder, a school full of suspects, and a rocky sister relationship, and you have me. Plus I’ve been a massive fan of Gailey’s since River of Teeth, and everything she writes is fabulous and queer.
Based on the podcast by the same name! A presumed dead wife, a serial killer, and thousands of miles of road in a big rig. Fink, of Nightvale fame, crafts a tightly wound story, one that coats the reader in terror while shining a light of hope and love for them to follow through to the end.
Jake has a lot going on. He’s closeted and stressed about it. Oh, and he can see ghosts. All the time. And when the ghost of a white boy who committed a school shooting at a nearby high school starts haunting Jake, he’s determined to get rid of the ghost and fix his life. Problem is, Sawyer, the ghost, wants to possess Jake’s body.
I tore through this. It’s pulpy, dramatic, and horrifying. Oliver has everything he ever wanted – plush life, handsome husband, and he’s finally sober. But whatever drives him to cheat not only has consequences in his relationship, but his entire life. After he’s nearly murdered by his hookup, Oliver is determined to erase all evidence of his discretion, but someone else knows his secret and is turning his life upside down.
Halli Starling (she/her) writes fantasy worlds, vampires, and romance, focusing on stories with deep emotional investment. And the occasional bloody bit of violence.
Genre | Contemporary Fiction Page #s | 220 Publishing Date | April 2020
Everyone talks about falling in love, but falling in friendship can be just as captivating. When Neela Devaki’s song is covered by internet-famous artist Rukmini, the two musicians meet and a transformative friendship begins. But as Rukmini’s star rises and Neela’s stagnates, jealousy and self-doubt creep in. With a single tweet, their friendship implodes, one career is destroyed, and the two women find themselves at the center of an internet firestorm.
Celebrated multidisciplinary artist Vivek Shraya’s second novel is a stirring examination of making art in the modern era, a love letter to brown women, an authentic glimpse into the music industry, and a nuanced exploration of the promise and peril of being seen.
Goodreads
The Subtweet is a book about friendship, ambition, and regret. The fact that it packs all of this into 220 pages, and that this length feels perfect, is nothing short of amazing. The story of Neela and Rukmini, two aspiring musicians, zips along at a steady pace, skipping through time without feeling rushed, unwilling to linger unecessarily.
The story is primarily told through Neela’s point of view. She is a creative, full of passion and the desire to push cultural limitations as well as her own. Accordingly, she is judgmental, standoffish, and scared of genuine connection. When she meets Rukmini, a woman who stumbles into musical fame by performing a cover of Neela’s song, she is in awe of the joy that Rukmini brings to creation. The two women grow close, but their different approaches to music stir up insecurity and jealousy that ultimately pulls them apart.
There is so much to unpack in this little book; it handles women, social media, and race with ease while juggling the complicated relationship between success, talent, and imposter’s syndrome. As Neela, Rukmini, and others pursue success in a career with significant obstacles embedded in the system for women (and women of colour specifically), they sometimes use each other or throw each other under the bus, prompting legitimate questions about whether actions were made because of jealousy or opportunity. It never feels catty; instead, it leaves readers wondering where the moral line is, or ought to be.
Additionally, the book made me think about current debates about marginalized communities holding themselves to higher (and sometimes impossible) standards. Rukmini’s success takes off when a white woman invites her on her tour; she is later taken to task for singing songs about marginalization to white audiences, but it’s hard to blame her for seizing an opportunity. And speaking of white people, Shraya does such a good job writing white characters who are good at saying the right thing until they undermine their “progressiveness” with their privilege in the same breath.
The Subtweet is a deep book, and one that lends itself well to a book club pick – which is why I’m so excited to discuss it with my book club tonight! Top of my list of questions: What happened to Rukmini and will she ever become friends with Neela again??
What Makes This Book Queer?
Vivek Shraya is a trans artist and author, and in a super cool move, she’s made Rukmini trans, but in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it way. In fact, I DID miss it! My friend had to point out that Rukmini offhandedly worries that Hayley hires her for being “a hip brown trans girl,” and that this is the only time it’s mentioned. I love a story that dives into the reality of being trans, but I also love a story where it is incidental, because that is not the piece of identity that is being explored.
Side note: Although, YES, it is cool to see a book explore the friendship between two women, Neela and Rukmini’s relationship could so easily have tipped over into romance, and I really wanted it to! I ship them, but I’m still pleased with the story we got.
Who Would I Recommend This Book To?
The Subtweet is a thoughtful, incisive book that expertly questions the intersections of ambition, success, gender, and race. Everyone should read it!
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Check out our Queer Lil Library for more book recommendations and reviews!
Niki Smith (she/her) is the author of The Deep and Dark Blue, a beautiful middle grade graphic novel with a trans girl protagonist. Please enjoy this interview with Niki Smith:
As the author of graphic novels, which comes first? Do your stories originate with a picture, words, or some combination of both?
My books always start with a story hook I want to explore, but visuals play a big role in my research! I don’t start sketching characters or designs until much further down the line, but I make folders full of imagery I want to include. For The Deep & Dark Blue, those folders were full of natural dye pools, medieval tapestries of family trees, and depictions of spindles in mythology and fairy tales.
The Deep & Dark Blue is set in a fantastically creative fantasy world; I particularly loved the women who can cast magic by spinning. Where did your inspiration for the world and the story come from?
I grew up reading and loving so many fantasy stories that played with gender– girls who disguised themselves to live out their dreams of being knights or pirates or soldiers. I loved them, but I never encountered anything that was the inverse; being a girl was always boring and full of tedious needlework. I wanted to celebrate that instead, to write a world Grayce would long to be a part of! Spindles have been a part of so many myths throughout history, from Sleeping Beauty to the Three Fates and their thread of life. The women of the Communion of Blue spin magic thread with wool dyed a deep, mysterious blue, and can control the strings of the world around them.
It was incredibly satisfying to see Grayce’s gender validated not only by her family, but magically by the family tree. Why do you think that was important to include?
Over the course of the book, Grayce finds a place she belongs, but I didn’t want the home she’d left behind to be a source of painful memories of her dead name. The family tree is a tapestry woven from the same magic threads that Grayce learns to spin in the Communion of Blue– it’s a living tapestry, documenting births, deaths and the line of inheritance. It only made sense to have it reflect her new name once she was ready to share it!
What do you hope your readers will take away from your books?
That queer kids can have adventures too! That a little trans girl can learn to weave magic and save the day. 🙂
You have a new book coming out November 23rd. What can you tell us about The Golden Hour?
I do! The Golden Hour is very different book– it’s about a boy struggling with PTSD and anxiety after witnessing gun violence. Manuel keeps his struggles to himself, using his phone and photography to find anchors and keep himself grounded during panic attacks, but life is lonely and hard until he’s teamed up with his classmates, Sebastian and Caysha, for a group project. Sebastian lives on a grass-fed cattle farm outside town, and Manuel finds solace in the open fields and the antics of the newborn calf Sebastian is hand-raising. Manuel helps his new friends get ready for the local county fair, and he learns to open up and find the support he needs from the boy who’s always there for him.
I didn’t want to tell a story about violence. The Golden Hour is about what comes after: the trauma, the panic attacks and the nightmares. But it’s also about slowly healing, Kansas wheat fields, and a sweet first crush on a gentle boy!
In addition to all of your amazing work, do you have any queer books or media that you would like to recommend to our readers?
Absolutely! If you love graphic novels as much as I do, you should check out Snapdragon by Kat Leyh, Laura Dean Keeps Breaking up with Me by Rosemary Valero-O’Connell and Mariko Tamaki, and The Tea Dragon Society series by Kay O’Neill!
For more information on Niki Smith and her work, please visit her website.
Genre | Science Fiction Page #s | 365 Publishing Date | October 2016
Lovelace was once merely a ship’s artificial intelligence. When she wakes up in an new body, following a total system shut-down and reboot, she has no memory of what came before. As Lovelace learns to negotiate the universe and discover who she is, she makes friends with Pepper, an excitable engineer, who’s determined to help her learn and grow.
Together, Pepper and Lovey will discover that no matter how vast space is, two people can fill it together.
A Closed and Common Orbit is the stand-alone sequel to Becky Chambers’ beloved debut novel The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet and is perfect for fans of Firefly, Joss Whedon, Mass Effect and Star Wars.
Goodreads
After falling completely in love with Chambers’ first book in this series, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, I was disappointed to find that it took me a while to connect with the alternating storylines in A Closed and Common Orbit. I should not have doubted! I wound up absolutely loving the story of two beings learning how to survive and find connection, one a human unwillingly treated as a machine and the other an AI unwillingly treated as human.
Jane/Pepper’s story was fascinating, and arguably the more plot-driven arc as we wait to see how she will survive living in a rundown spaceship after escaping a factory that raises human slaves. I loved watching her grow up with Owl, her AI mother, and scavenge for food and parts. However, it was a very smart move on Chambers’ part to balance the isolation and desperation of Pepper’s past with the Sidra’s (formerly Lovelace) story of struggling to fit in to a happy, healthy society. Together, they make a cohesive story.
As always, Chambers’ books take advantage of a sci fi setting to create uniquely diverse alien races that have a variety of gender and sexuality presentations. In this book, we get a closer look at Auleons, both generally at their cultural festival and specifically in the character of Tak. With the central premise that it is very difficult for their species to breed, an entire culture emerges around the importance of mating and parenting as a respected full-time job for fathers who went to school to prepare. Additionally, we’re introduced to their four genders and how the culture makes space for and celebrates each one.
Finally, I really enjoyed the conversations about what makes someone/something worthy of personhood. There is such a satisfying hook to Pepper being raised by an AI and therefore feeling invested in helping Sidra fit in as an illegal AI with a body. It’s clear to the readers that this crime is absurd and that AI should be granted personhood, but the book pushes this to challenge our assumption about any technology that has been granted even the barest form of personality. Whether coded through genes or software, who are we to determine where personhood begins? So interesting!
Who Would I Recommend This Book To?
A Closed and Common Orbit is perfect for lovers of sci-fi and philosophy.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Check out our Queer Lil Library for more book recommendations and reviews!
I was thrilled to ask Mira Ong Chua (they/them) some questions about ROADQUEEN: Eternal Roadtrip to Love, a lesbian fake dating graphic novel that had me laughing out loud. Please enjoy this interview with Mira Ong Chua (TwitterInstagram):
Roadqueen: Eternal Roadtrip to Love takes place in a world in which queer ladies go to school on a mountain via motorbike; this amazing creation is indicative of the story as a whole. It’s every lesbian fever dream I didn’t know I had put to page! How did you make this absolutely perfect thing?
When I embark on a new personal project I try to set a challenge for myself in some way, like working within a new format or genre. For ROADQUEEN, it was writing a story where I’d be forced to draw motorcycles. Everything else was based on that premise.
The story is centered around the fake dating trope – one of my favorites! Vega says that she wants to see if Leo can be a decent lesbian. What, in your opinion, makes a lesbian decent?
I don’t want anyone to worry about that.
Leo’s long-suffering friends were very relatable, as was Leo’s desperate (and often failed) attempts to do right by Vega. You balance a super fun light-hearted romp with very realistic character work. How did you develop this skill?
Practice, probably. I was fortunate to have a day job at the time where one of my responsibilities was writing comedy scripts under tight deadlines. I’d often look back and think “Okay, well, I didn’t like how this part came out, so next time I’ll try this instead…” Once you begin building a body of work, you start understanding the things you’re drawn to.
I can’t imagine this story as a heteronormative romance. What do you think are some hallmarks of queer/lesbian love stories?
Rather than looking for hallmarks, I’d like to see queer love stories expand upon every single style and genre and niche imaginable.
What do you hope your readers take away from the story?
I hope readers have fun. And if they’re inspired to go make something of their own, too, that would be great.
Will we ever get more Leo and Vega, or another story set in this world?
Those characters started it all for me, so in a way I feel like they’re in every story I write. As for more stories set in their world…who knows!
I see that you have a new book out (I’m going to be ordering that immediately!) called Goodbye, Battle Princess Peony. Can you tell us a little about it and where people can buy it?
Goodbye, Battle Princess Peony is a gothic fairytale romance about an otherworldly princess falling into the hands of the villain who has always tormented her. It was funded through Kickstarter earlier this year, and is now available exclusively through my online store. And on October 1 I am launching my next book project: a queer 18+ romcom called Vampire Blood Drive, based on a short comic I did of the same name.
To buy Mira Ong Chua’s fabulous books, please visit her online store.
Genre | Contemporary Fiction Page #s | 427 Publishing Date | July 2020
Luc O’Donnell is tangentially–and reluctantly–famous. His rock star parents split when he was young, and the father he’s never met spent the next twenty years cruising in and out of rehab. Now that his dad’s making a comeback, Luc’s back in the public eye, and one compromising photo is enough to ruin everything.
To clean up his image, Luc has to find a nice, normal relationship…and Oliver Blackwood is as nice and normal as they come. He’s a barrister, an ethical vegetarian, and he’s never inspired a moment of scandal in his life. In other words: perfect boyfriend material. Unfortunately apart from being gay, single, and really, really in need of a date for a big event, Luc and Oliver have nothing in common. So they strike a deal to be publicity-friendly (fake) boyfriends until the dust has settled. Then they can go their separate ways and pretend it never happened.
But the thing about fake-dating is that it can feel a lot like real-dating. And that’s when you get used to someone. Start falling for them. Don’t ever want to let them go.
Goodreads
This is probably the worst way to start a book review, but honestly, just go read Spotlight on Stories‘ review of Boyfriend Material instead! It was her review that inspired me to read the book, and after I finished, all I could think was, “Yup, Chelsea was right!”
Boyfriend Material is a thoroughly entertaining book, but I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily good. It revels in its own cleverness, and the quirks of the world and its characters strain credulity. Everyone here is dialed up to eleven, and it’s kind of exhausting.
But what everyone is here for is the romance, so let’s get into what truly matters: is the spark between Luc and Oliver believable? Well…I guess? Let’s be clear. We’re living in a glorious age of fake dating queer stories, and I am predisposed to adore any story with this trope. And this has a good set up, since the two men knew each other previously, were attracted to each other, but mistakenly assumed the other was not into them. However, there were so many points along the way when I couldn’t support them being together. Luc is a fun character, and I love him, but I do NOT understand why Oliver had a crush on him, and he probably shouldn’t have put up with Luc’s terrible behaviour.
In an effort to even the playing ground (I assume), Oliver becomes the terrible communicator and ridiculous drama llama for the last 50 pages. Although the cause is believable, it is totally out of character for him and felt like an excuse to throw a final obstacle into their path.
All of that is pretty bad, I guess, but I did read the 427-page book in two days, so I do kind of recommend it? It’s good frivolous fun, and if that’s what you’re looking for, I say give it a go!
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Check out our Queer Lil Library for more book recommendations and reviews!
Nicholas Eames (he/him) is the author of Kings of the Wyld and Bloody Rose, the first two books in the hilarious and heartfelt trilogy The Band. I’m grateful that he took the time to speak with me about the musical influences on his work, how he decided to write a book with a queer female protagonist, and what we can expect from the final book in his trilogy. Please enjoy this interview with Nicholas Eames:
The world of Kings of the Wyld and Bloody Rose feel very inspired by D&D and RPGs. What is it about those systems and stories that inspired to you write these books?
The main premise of the series is inspired by rock bands, but there are a lot of similarities between bands and RPG groups, namely, getting together with friends to have a good time. I hope the books capture the spirit of roleplaying with the camaraderie and friendship that can form while playing RPGs with a lot of laughter and drinks.
I’ve played D&D since my first year of high school. I skipped school for the very first time to play D&D and had this epic odyssey getting home, jumping ditches and dodging cops. It was pretty memorable. Right off the bat, I immediately knew I wanted to tell the stories myself. I’ve been DMing ever since.
What motivated you to write the second book in your series with a queer woman as the protagonist?
It wasn’t something I set out to do when I originally wrote it. The main character was a boy named Tom, but halfway into it, I wasn’t liking the way his relationship with the band and Rose in particular was playing out. It was all too cliché. I talked to my editor, and even though it was pretty late in the writing process, I made the main character a girl instead. It wasn’t as easy as changing “he”s to “she”s; every conversation became different. I had to go back to the beginning and start over. It made a night and day difference to the story; Tam’s relationship with Rose felt right, and her relationship with Cura developed. The character just fit better.
When my editor and I were talking about making this change, we knew there would be some pushback. Kings of the Wyld was a book about older white cis dudes, and that appeals to a certain kind of reader who is going to expect more of the same. We knew assholes would gripe about it, and we checked in with each other: Do you care? No – okay, let’s do it. Luckily, people responded pretty well. And ultimately, if you get one teenage girl who writes and says she sees herself in the character, it’s worth it.
I didn’t find it difficult to write from the perspective of a queer woman, but you obviously want to be as careful as you can and not to fall into any stereotypes. With all of my characters, their sexuality doesn’t define them. It’s something that affects them, but it’s not everything. A lot of fantasy will make a big deal out of a gay character; I wanted to make it a fact of life.
I really enjoyed seeing the story through Tam’s perspective, and I would love to know why you chose to make her the protagonist rather than the titular Rose?
I was using famous rock and roll tropes, and Bloody Rose is Almost Famous with a rock journalist on the road with the band. When a band is full of self-destructive assholes, you can’t see that as much when you’re in their shoes. You have to see that from someone else’s perspective. Axl Rose telling his story would just be, “I’m amazing.” And yes, Axl Rose is the inspiration for Rose’s name.
Your female characters are all very diverse and complex, and Cura became one of my favorite characters. The reveal that she has been weaponizing and reliving her trauma through her tattooed summons was really powerful, as was the way she eventually started healing. What inspired you to tell this particular story?
Kings of the Wyld was about the music of the 70s, and Bloody Rose is about 80s music. The characters in the second book had to be larger than life, with the equivalent of the facepaint and big hair in the 80s. The tattoos were originally not about trauma. She had butterfly wings tattooed that would come out, and fireballs tattooed on her arm. I hadn’t gotten through the first scene with her before realizing it sucked. I knew it had to be something more, and with the theme of the self-destructiveness and self-harm that happened with 80s rock, I wanted her story to be about gaining mastery over something that haunts you.
One of my favorite themes is “hurt people hurt people” and the cycle of violence. We see this on both a personal and systemic level in your books. Why did you choose to focus your story on this theme?
I wrote Kings of the Wyld as a standalone, but my publisher asked if it could be a series and obviously I said yes. I knew I was not going to keep the same main characters, which turned into the idea that the series would move through eras of music and involve different generations. You can read them in any order, but the events in one affect what happens in the next. Within each book, the characters carry something forward from the past – like resentment of or love from parents – and consequences are always cascading into the future. That cycle is the point of the whole series.
What can you tell readers about the third book in the series?
It’s called Outlaw Empire, and it’s inspired by 90s music. If I’m picky, it’s about early 90s anti-establishment music: grunge, hip hop, Rage Against the Machine. They were all angry about things. I’m going to keep the book funny and light, relatively, but it will definitely be defined by its music.
There will be some carry over characters. It’s the final book of the series, so anyone who’s alive might be in there at some point. If anyone had kids, you can almost guarantee they’re in there. In fact, you’ve already met three of the four band members. One of the characters is a kobold named Shortknife; he’s mentioned briefly in a Kings of the Wyld scene. By the time I was writing the third book, I knew the group would be made up of both men and monsters, and he was a perfect character to put in. He’s got a really cool power, and he’s that one character who gets to say the fun and ludicrous things (in the first book, that was Moog, then Roderick in Bloody Rose).
It must be a very different experience to write a book on your own in contrast to writing the third book of a series with an already established audience. How has that experience been for you?
Before I wrote Kings of the Wyld, I spent ten years writing a giant grimdark fantasy book. I was racking up rejection letters, and I decided I wanted to write something that was the exact opposite. I didn’t want to get lost in worldbuilding, and I let the story be funny and goofy. Kings of the Wyld was a one in a million idea, and I’m so lucky that I thought of it, and that no one else had thought of it first. Bloody Rose is good, but it was more challenging to write.
I was hellbent on finishing Bloody Rose quickly while Kings of the Wyld came out. I had a rough time dealing with expectations, especially in my own head. Honestly, I had a relatively miserable time writing most of it. There came a point at the end of it when I had also started writing the third book that I just snapped. I knew I couldn’t keep stressing out about it. I would lay in bed and get out a calculator to work out how far behind on my word count I was, and how many days were left until the deadline. But I came to the realization that nothing is worth your mental health, so I took a big step back. Now I’m working toward finding a balance.
Is there anything else readers should know about your books?
I have curated playlists on Spotify (Kings of the Wyld | Bloody Rose), with songs that are a chapter by chapter breakdown for Kings of the Wyld on my website. They’re not imperative, but they add a lot to the books. Certain songs were so important that they unravelled scenes I was stuck on, and you can listen to them and read the chapter beat by beat.
Queen’s song “Too Much Love Will Kill You” is Freecloud’s song, and Meatloaf’s “For Crying Out Loud” is the final battle scene in Bloody Rose. I listened to it 4 or 5 times on the way to work to plot out that scene, right down to a pause for the moment Tam releases her arrow.
What queer and/or nerdy things are you enjoying at the moment?
Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth. Harrow in particular is bewildering as hell, but worth the read for the writing itself – it’s phenomenal. Both books remind you that you can tell a fantasy story with a contemporary voice.
The Unspoken Name. My god, I love it. It’s great, and the last sentence is absolutely beautiful.
For more information on Nicholas Eames and his work, please visit his website.
Roar Cat Reads 