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Bellies: A novel
By Nicola Dinan. 2023
"TRIUMPHANT AND HUMANE." — Elle , A Most Anticipated Book of 2023 I wore a dress on the night I…
first met Ming. It begins as your typical boy meets boy. While out with friends at their local university drag night, Tom buys Ming a drink. Confident and witty, a magnetic young playwright, Ming is the perfect antidote to Tom's awkward energy, and their connection is instant. Tom finds himself deeply and desperately drawn into Ming's orbit, and on the cusp of graduation, he's already mapped out their future together. But shortly after they move to London to start their next chapter, Ming announces her intention to transition. From London to Kuala Lumpur, New York to Cologne, we follow Tom and Ming as they face tectonic shifts in their relationship and friend circle in the wake of Ming's transition. Through a spiral of unforeseen crises—some personal, some professional, some life-altering—Tom and Ming are forced to confront the vastly different shapes their lives have taken since graduating, and each must answer the essential question: Is it worth losing a part of yourself to become who you are? Buoyed by a voice as tender, effervescent and wryly funny as the cast of characters it centers, Bellies is an unforgettable story of youth, intimacy, hunger and heartbreak, at once boldly original yet fiercely familiar, which unabashedly holds a mirror up to our most vulnerable selves and desires
Old enough: A novel
By Haley Jakobson. 2023
A debut novel “as astute, funny, and loving as your best friend from college”* about a young bisexual woman who…
is pulled between a new sense of community and loyalty to a friendship she’s outgrown *Isle McElroy Savannah "Sav" Henry is almost the person she wants to be, or at least she's getting closer. It’s the second semester of her sophomore year. She’s finally come out as bisexual, is making friends with the other queers in her dorm, and has just about recovered from her disastrous first queer “situationship.” She is cautiously optimistic that her life is about to begin. But when she learns that Izzie, her best friend from childhood, has gotten engaged, Sav faces a crisis of confidence. Things with Izzie haven’t been the same since what happened between Sav and Izzie’s older brother when they were sixteen. Now, with the wedding around the corner, Sav is forced to reckon with trauma she thought she could put behind her. On top of it all, Sav can’t stop thinking about Wes from her Gender Studies class—sweet, funny Wes, with their long eyelashes and green backpack. There’s something different here—with Wes and with her new friends (who delight in teasing her about this face-burning crush); it feels, terrifyingly, like they might truly see her in a way no one has before. With a singularly funny, heartfelt voice, Old Enough explores queer love, community, and what it means to be a sexual assault survivor. Haley Jakobson has written a love letter to friendship and an honest depiction of what finding your people can feel like—for better or worse
Pomegranate
By Helen Elaine Lee. 2023
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN FICTION The acclaimed author of The Serpent's Gift returns with…
this "deep and beautiful" (Jaqueline Woodson, New York Times bestselling author) story about a queer Black woman working to stay clean, pull her life together, and heal after being released from prison. Ranita Atwater is "getting short." She is almost done with her four-year sentence for opiate possession at Oak Hills Correctional Center. Three years sober, she is determined to stay clean and regain custody of her two children. Ranita is regaining her freedom, but she's leaving behind her lover Maxine, who has inspired her to imagine herself and the world differently. My name is Ranita, and I'm an addict , she has said again and again at recovery meetings. But who else is she? Who might she choose to become? Now she must steer clear of the temptations that have pulled her down, while atoning for her missteps and facing old wounds. With a fierce, smart, and sometimes funny voice, Ranita reveals how rocky and winding the path to wellness is for a Black woman, even as she draws on family, memory, faith, and love in order to choose life. Pomegranate is a complex portrayal of queer Black womanhood and marginalization in America from an author "working at the height of her powers" (Tayari Jones, New York Times bestselling). In lyrical and precise prose, Helen Elaine Lee paints a humane and unflinching portrait of the devastating effects of incarceration and addiction, and of one woman's determination to tell her story
I will greet the sun again: A novel
By Khashayar J Khabushani. 2023
"[A] masterful debut . . . a novel of survival and longing and love, and in many ways a modern…
portrait of an artist as a young man . . . a book written for us , we Iranian Americans whom you don't often hear about." - Porochista Khakpour, The Washington Post (Best Books of the Year) "A triumph . . . a book of astonishing accomplishment and bravery." - Dina Nayeri, The Guardian Winner of the Alex Award from the American Library Association • Finalist for the California Book Award and the Lambda Literary Award An Amerie's Book Club Pick • A Phenomenal Book Club Pick Growing up in the San Fernando Valley with his two brothers, all K wants is to be "a boy from L.A.," all American. But K-the youngest, named after a Persian king-knows there's something different about himself. Like the way he feels about his closest friend, Johnny, a longing that he can't share with anyone. At home, K must navigate another confusing identity: that of the dutiful son of Iranian immigrants struggling to make a life for themselves in the United States. He tries to make his mother proud, live up to her ideal of a son. On Friday nights, K attends prayers at the local mosque with Baba, whose violent affections distort K's understanding of what it means to be a man and how to love. When Baba takes the three brothers from their mother back to Iran, K finds himself in an ancestral home he barely knows. Returning to the Valley months later, K must piece together who he is, in a world that now feels as foreign to him as the one he left behind. A stunning, tender novel of identity and belonging, I Will Greet the Sun Again tells the story of a young man lost in his own family, his own country, and his own skin. Staring down the brutality of being a queer kid and a Muslim in America, Khashayar J. Khabushani transforms personal and national pain into an unforgettable and beautifully rendered exploration of youth, love, family-and the stories that make us who we are
The secret lives of country gentlemen (The Doomsday Books #1)
By Kj Charles. 2023
Abandoned by his father, Gareth Inglis grew up lonely, prickly, and used to disappointment. Still, he longs for a connection.…
When he meets a charming stranger, he falls head over heels?until everything goes wrong and he's left alone again. Then Gareth's father dies, turning the shabby London clerk into Sir Gareth, with a grand house on the remote Romney Marsh and a family he doesn't know. The Marsh is another world, a strange, empty place notorious for its ruthless gangs of smugglers. And one of them is dangerously familiar... Joss Doomsday has run the Doomsday smuggling clan since he was a boy. When the new baronet?his old lover?agrees to testify against Joss's sister, Joss acts fast to stop him. Their reunion is anything but happy, yet after the dust settles, neither can stay away. Soon, all Joss and Gareth want is the chance to be together. But the bleak, bare Marsh holds deadly secrets. And when Gareth finds himself threatened from every side, the gentleman and the smuggler must trust one another not just with their hearts but also with their lives
Where the dead sleep
By Joshua Moehling. 2023
When an early morning call brings Deputy Ben Packard to the scene of a home invasion, he finds Bill Sandersen…
shot in his bed. Bill was a well-liked local who chased easy money his whole life, leaving bad debts and broken hearts in his wake. Everyone Packard talks to has a story about Bill, but no one has a clear motive for wanting him dead. The business partner. The ex-wife. The current wife. The high-stakes poker buddies. Any of them?or none of them?could be guilty. As the investigation begins, tragedy strikes the Sheriff's department, forcing Packard to make a difficult choice about his future: step down as acting Sheriff and pursue the quiet life he came to Sandy Lake in search of or subject himself to the scrutiny of an election for the full-time role of Sheriff, a job he's not sure he wants. There's a hidden history to Sandy Lake that Packard, ever the outsider, can't see. Bad blood and old secrets run deep. But an attempt on Packard's life means he's getting uncomfortably close to the dangerous legacy of the quiet Minnesota town. And someone will do anything to keep it hidden
Endpapers
By Jennifer Savran Kelly. 2023
In this page-turning novel set in 2003 New York City, a genderqueer book conservator feels trapped by her gender presentation,…
her ill-fitting relationship, and her artistic block-until she discovers a decades-old hidden queer love letter and becomes obsessed with tracking down its author. It's 2003, and artist Dawn Levit is stuck. A bookbinder who works in conservation at the Met, she spends her free time scouting the city's street art, hoping something might spark inspiration. Instead, everything looks like a dead end. And art isn't the only thing that feels wrong: wherever she turns, her gender identity clashes with the rest of her life. Her relationship, once anchored by shared queerness, is falling apart as her boyfriend Lukas increasingly seems to be attracted to Dawn only when she's at her most masculine. Meanwhile at work, Dawn has to present as female, even on the days when that isn't true. Either way, her difference feels like a liability. Then, one day at work, Dawn finds something hidden behind the endpaper of an old book: the torn-off cover of a '50s lesbian pulp novel, Turn Her About . On the front is a campy illustration of a woman looking into a handheld mirror and seeing a man's face. And on the back is a love letter. Dawn latches onto the coincidence, becoming obsessed with tracking down the note's author. Her fixation only increases when her best friend Jae is injured in a hate crime, for which Dawn feels responsible. As Dawn searches for the letter's author, she is also looking for herself. She tries to understand how to live in a world that doesn't see her as she truly is, how to get unstuck in her gender, and how to rediscover her art, and she can't shake the feeling that the note's author might be able to help guide her to the answers. A sharply written, deeply evocative story about what it means to live authentically-even within an identity whose parameters have not yet been defined- Endpapers will appeal to readers of queer, nonbinary, or trans fiction like Torrey Peters' Detransition, Baby as well as anyone who loves character-driven, setting-rich stories like Tell the Wolves I'm Home or The Immortalists
Family meal: A novel
By Bryan Washington. 2023
"A stunning look at what it really means to be family." -Michael Schaub, NPR From the bestselling, award-winning author of…
Memorial and Lot , an irresistible, intimate novel about two young men, once best friends, whose lives collide again after a loss. Cam is living in Los Angeles and falling apart after the love of his life has died. Kai's ghost won't leave Cam alone; his spectral visits wild, tender, and unexpected. When Cam returns to his hometown of Houston, he crashes back into the orbit of his former best friend, TJ, and TJ's family bakery. TJ's not sure how to navigate this changed Cam, impenetrably cool and self-destructing, or their charged estrangement. Can they find a way past all that has been said - and left unsaid - to save each other? Could they find a way back to being okay again, or maybe for the first time? When secrets and wounds become so insurmountable that they devour us from within, hope and sustenance and friendship can come from the most unlikely source. Spanning Los Angeles, Houston, and Osaka, Family Meal is a story about how the people who know us the longest can hurt us the most, but how they also set the standard for love. With his signature generosity and eye for food, sex, love, and the moments that make us the most human, Bryan Washington returns with a brilliant new novel
Brother & sister enter the forest
By Richard Mirabella. 2023
After years of severed communication, Justin appears on his sister's doorstep needing a place to stay. The home he's made…
for himself has collapsed, as has everything else in his life. When they were children, Willa played the role of her brother's protector, but now, afraid of the chaos he might bring, she's reluctant to let him in. Willa lives a carefully ordered life working as a nurse and making ornate dioramas in her spare time. As Justin tries to connect with the people she's closest to-her landlord, her boyfriend, their mother-she begins to feel exposed. Willa and Justin's relationship has always been strained yet loving, frustrating and close. But it hits a new breaking point when Justin spirals out of control, unable to manage his sobriety and the sustained effects of a brain injury. Years earlier, in high school, desperate to escape his home life and his disapproving, troubled mother, Justin falls into the hands of his first lover, a slightly older boy living on his own who offers Justin some semblance of intimacy and refuge. When Justin's boyfriend commits a terrifying act of violence, the two flee on a doomed road trip, a journey that will damage Justin and change his and his family's lives forever. Weaving together these two timelines, Brother & Sister Enter the Forest unravels the thread of a young man's trauma and the love waiting for him on the other side
And there he kept her
By Joshua Moehling. 2022
When two teenagers break into a house on a remote lake in search of prescription drugs, what starts as a…
simple burglary turns into a nightmare for all involved. Emmett Burr has secrets he's been keeping in his basement for more than two decades, and he'll do anything to keep his past from being revealed. As he gets the upper hand on his tormentors, the lines blur between victim, abuser, and protector. Personal tragedy has sent former police officer Ben Packard back to the small Minnesota town of Sandy Lake in search of a fresh start. Now a sheriff's deputy, Packard is leading the investigation into the missing teens, motivated by a family connection. As clues dry up and time runs out to save them, Packard is forced to reveal his own secrets and dig deep to uncover the dark past of the place he now calls home. Unrelentingly suspenseful and written with a piercing gaze into the dark depths of the human soul, this thrilling page-turner introduces listeners to a complicated new hero and forces us to consider the true nature of evil
Big swiss: A novel
By Jen Beagin. 2023
NATIONAL BESTSELLER AND CULT FAVORITE Named a Best Book of the Year by the New Yorker , Time , NPR,…
Vogue , Elle , Cosmopolitan , Huffington Post , NBC News, Lit Hub, theSkimm, Condé Nast Traveler , Town & Country , and more! "One of the funniest books of the last few years" ( Los Angeles Times ) about a sex therapist's transcriptionist and her affair with one of the patients. Greta lives with her friend Sabine in an ancient Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, New York. The house is unrenovated, uninsulated, and full of bees. Greta spends her days transcribing therapy sessions for a sex coach who calls himself Om. She becomes infatuated with his newest client, a repressed married woman she affectionately refers to as Big Swiss. One day, Greta recognizes Big Swiss's voice in town and they quickly become enmeshed. While Big Swiss is unaware Greta has eavesdropped on her most intimate exchanges, Greta has never been more herself with anyone. Her attraction to Big Swiss overrides her guilt, and she'll do anything to sustain the relationship... "A fantastic, weird-as-hell, super funny novel" ( Bustle ), Big Swiss is both a love story and a deft examination of infidelity, mental health, sexual stereotypes, and more-from an amazingly talented, singular voice in contemporary fiction
Wild geese
By Soula Emmanuel. 2023
Phoebe Forde has a new home and new name and is newly thirty. An Irish transplant and PhD candidate, she's…
overeducated and underpaid, but she's finally settling into her new life in Copenhagen. Almost three years into her gender transition, Phoebe has learned to move through the world carefully, savoring small moments of joy. After all, a woman without a past can be anyone she wants. But an unexpected visit from her ex-girlfriend Grace brings back memories of Dublin and the life she thought she'd left behind. Over the course of a weekend, their romance rekindles into something sweet and radically unfamiliar as Grace helps Phoebe navigate the jagged edges of nostalgia and hope. Written with wit and warmth, Wild Geese is a tale of dislocations and relocations, encounters, and accidents. It's a novel of past lives, messy feelings, and the desire to start afresh
The good ones
By Polly Stewart. 2023
"Polly Stewart's The Good Ones is a fantastic achievement. A classic Southern Gothic tale told through the prism of modern-day…
sensibilities. Not to be missed."-S. A. Cosby, New York Times bestselling author of Razorblade Tears "A riveting, unflinching exploration of adolescent female friendships, small-town pressures to conform, and the true crime lover's tendency to conflate empathy and voyeurism, The Good Ones drew me in from the first lines and still hasn't released me, days after finishing."-Katie Gutierrez, nationally bestselling author of More Than You'll Ever Know An engrossing work of literary suspense that illuminates the push and pull of female friendship and the costs of being good when the rules for women begin to chafe. The last time Nicola Bennett saw Lauren Ballard she was scraping a key along the side of a new cherry-red Chevy Silverado. That was the night before her friend mysteriously vanished from her home, leaving a bloodstained washcloth and signs of a struggle-as well as her grieving husband and young daughter-behind. Now, nearly twenty years later, Nicola, newly unemployed and still haunted by the disappearance of her childhood friend, is returning to her Appalachian hometown. For Nicola, Tyndall County has remained frozen in time. Everywhere she turns she's reminded of Lauren. Yet shockingly, her former friends and neighbors have all moved on. Drawn to stories of missing girls, Nicola obsessively searches the internet, hoping to discover a clue to Lauren's ultimate fate. Driven by a desperate need to know what happened to her friend, Nicola takes a job in her hometown, determined to uncover any bit of information, any small clue, that can help. Deep down she knows the answers are tucked in the hollows and valleys of this small Blue Ridge county. As secrets come to light and the truth begins to unravel, will Nicola finally find release and break free of the past-or lose herself completely to unanswered questions from her adolescence?
Last Night at the Hollywood Canteen: A Novel
By Sarah James. 2023
"Glamorous and suspenseful." —Marie Benedict, New York Times bestselling authorPerhaps the best place in 1943 Hollywood to see the stars…
is the Hollywood Canteen, a club for servicemen staffed exclusively by those in show business. Murder mystery playwright Annie Laurence, new in town after a devastating breakup, definitely hopes to rub elbows with the right stars. Maybe then she can get her movie made.But Hollywood proves to be more than tinsel and glamour. When despised film critic Fiona Farris is found dead in the Canteen kitchen, Annie realizes any one of the Canteen's luminous volunteers could be guilty of the crime. To catch the killer, Annie falls in with Fiona's friends, a bitter and cynical group—each as uniquely unhappy in their life and career as Annie is in hers—that call themselves the Ambassador's Club.Solving a murder in real life, it turns out, is a lot harder than writing one for the stage. And by involving herself in the secrets and lies of the Ambassador's Club, Annie just might have put a target on her own back. "This vibrant, utterly delightful mystery expertly captures the drama, glamour and absurdity of wartime Hollywood. Sarah James's swift dialogue, dry wit and clever characters transport you into a 1940s movie, where the jokes are quick, the love affairs scandalous and the cast as charming as they are flawed." —Brianna Labuskes, author of The Librarian of Burned Books
Where the Dead Sleep: A Novel (Ben Packard #2)
By Joshua Moehling. 2023
"One of the best new voices in the mystery genre." —William Kent Krueger, New York Times bestselling author"Observant and authentic…
(and funny, too)...the literary descendant of Fargo and Mare of Easttown." —Adam White, bestselling author of The MidcoastA small town's dark secrets turn deadly…When an early morning call brings Deputy Ben Packard to the scene of a home invasion. Everyone Packard talks to has a story about Bill, but no one has a clear motive for wanting him dead. The business partner. The ex-wife. The current wife. The high-stakes poker buddies. Any of them—or none of them—could be guilty.As the investigation begins, tragedy strikes the Sheriff's department, forcing Packard to make a difficult choice about his future: step down as acting Sheriff and pursue the quiet life he came to Sandy Lake in search of, or subject himself to the scrutiny of an election for the full-time role of Sheriff, a job he's not sure he wants.There's a hidden history to Sandy Lake that Packard, ever the outsider, can't see. Bad blood and old secrets run deep. But an attempt on Packard's life means he's getting uncomfortably close to the dangerous legacy of the quiet Minnesota town. And someone will do anything to keep it hidden.
Family Meal: A Novel
By Bryan Washington. 2023
&“Tender and poignant, Washington&’s latest hits the spot.&” – PEOPLE Magazine From the bestselling, award-winning author of Memorial and Lot,…
an irresistible, intimate novel about two young men, once best friends, whose lives collide again after a loss.Cam is living in Los Angeles and falling apart after the love of his life has died. Kai's ghost won't leave Cam alone; his spectral visits wild, tender, and unexpected. When Cam returns to his hometown of Houston, he crashes back into the orbit of his former best friend, TJ, and TJ's family bakery. TJ's not sure how to navigate this changed Cam, impenetrably cool and self-destructing, or their charged estrangement. Can they find a way past all that has been said - and left unsaid - to save each other? Could they find a way back to being okay again, or maybe for the first time?When secrets and wounds become so insurmountable that they devour us from within, hope and sustenance and friendship can come from the most unlikely source. Spanning Los Angeles, Houston, and Osaka, Family Meal is a story about how the people who know us the longest can hurt us the most, but how they also set the standard for love. With his signature generosity and eye for food, sex, love, and the moments that make us the most human, Bryan Washington returns with a brilliant new novel.
Organ Meats: A Novel
By K-Ming Chang. 2023
Two girls are bound by red string and canine heritage in this vivid tale about female companionship and loyalty, from…
the National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree and author of Gods of Want.&“[K-Ming Chang has the] ability to take a common, decidedly earthbound, experience and transform it through her lens into a fantastical, otherworldly encounter.&”—San Francisco ChronicleBest friends Anita and Rainie find refuge by an old sycamore tree with its neighboring lot of stray dogs who have a mysterious ability to communicate with humans. The girls learn that they are preceded by generations of dog-headed women and woman-headed dogs whose bloodlines bind them together. Anita convinces Rainie to become a dog with her, tying a collar of red string around each of their necks to preserve their kinship forever. But when the two girls are separated, Anita sinks into a dreamworld that only Rainie knows how to rescue her from. As Anita&’s body begins to rot, it is up to Rainie to rebuild Anita&’s body and keep her friend from being lost forever. Filled with ghosts and bodily entrails, this is a story about the horror and beauty of intimacy, written in K-Ming Chang&’s signature poetic and visceral lore.
Don't Forget the Girl: A Novel
By Rebecca McKanna. 2023
"A heartbreaking story of female friendship, first love, and betrayal, Rebecca McKanna explodes onto the thriller scene. Absolutely phenomenal!" —New…
York Times bestselling author Julie ClarkWe never remember the dead girls. We never forget the killers.Twelve years ago, 18-year-old University of Iowa freshman Abby Hartmann disappeared. Now, Jon Allan Blue, the serial killer suspected of her murder, is about to be executed. Abby's best friends, Bree and Chelsea, watch as Abby's memory is unearthed and overshadowed by Blue and his flashier crimes. The friends, estranged in the wake of Abby's disappearance, and suffering from years of unvoiced resentments, must reunite when a high-profile podcast dedicates its next season to Blue's murders.Tense and introspective, for readers of Megan Goldin and Heather Gudenkauf, Don't Forget the Girl is an astonishing debut thriller that mines the complexities of friendship and the secrets between us that we may take to the grave.
Old Enough: A Novel
By Haley Jakobson. 2023
Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Bisexual Fiction&“Old Enough is full of growth, heartbreak, and winsome bisexual chaos.&”—VogueA debut…
novel &“as astute, funny, and loving as your best friend from college&”* about a young bisexual woman who is pulled between a new sense of community and loyalty to a friendship she&’s outgrown*Isle McElroySavannah "Sav" Henry is almost the person she wants to be, or at least she's getting closer. It&’s the second semester of her sophomore year. She&’s finally come out as bisexual, is making friends with the other queers in her dorm, and has just about recovered from her disastrous first queer &“situationship.&” She is cautiously optimistic that her life is about to begin. But when she learns that Izzie, her best friend from childhood, has gotten engaged, Sav faces a crisis of confidence. Things with Izzie haven&’t been the same since what happened between Sav and Izzie&’s older brother when they were sixteen. Now, with the wedding around the corner, Sav is forced to reckon with trauma she thought she could put behind her. On top of it all, Sav can&’t stop thinking about Wes from her Gender Studies class—sweet, funny Wes, with their long eyelashes and green backpack. There&’s something different here—with Wes and with her new friends (who delight in teasing her about this face-burning crush); it feels, terrifyingly, like they might truly see her in a way no one has before. With a singularly funny, heartfelt voice, Old Enough explores queer love, community, and what it means to be a sexual assault survivor. Haley Jakobson has written a love letter to friendship and an honest depiction of what finding your people can feel like—for better or worse.
I Will Greet the Sun Again: A Novel
By Khashayar J. Khabushani. 2023
A poetic, open-hearted debut about an Iranian American boy searching for his place in the world—&“teeming with desire and light,…
and quietly devastating&” (Justin Torres, author of We the Animals) &“Call me K, because unlike Baba and Maman I was born right here and like my brothers I want to be known as a boy from L.A., since that&’s the truth.&”Growing up in the San Fernando Valley with his two brothers, all K wants is to be &“a boy from L.A.,&” all American. But K—the youngest, named after a Persian king—knows there&’s something different about himself. Like the way he feels about his closest friend, Johnny, a longing that he can&’t share with anyone.At home, K must navigate another confusing identity: that of the dutiful son of Iranian immigrants struggling to make a life for themselves in the United States. He tries to make his mother proud, live up to her ideal of a son. On Friday nights, K attends prayers at the local mosque with Baba, whose violent affections distort K&’s understanding of what it means to be a man and how to love.When Baba takes the three brothers from their mother back to Iran, K finds himself in an ancestral home he barely knows. Returning to the Valley months later, K must piece together who he is, in a world that now feels as foreign to him as the one he left behind.A stunning, tender novel of identity and belonging, I Will Greet the Sun Again tells the story of a young man lost in his own family, his own country, and his own skin. Staring down the brutality of being a queer kid and a Muslim in America, Khashayar J. Khabushani transforms personal and national pain into an unforgettable and beautifully rendered exploration of youth, love, family—and the stories that make us who we are.