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Showing 1 - 20 of 231 items
By Eva Crocker. 2023
By Lucian Childs. 2023
A Globe and Mail Best Spring Book • One of Lambda Literary Review's Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Books of June 2023…
• A Southern Review Book to Celebrate in June 2023 • A 49th Shelf Best Book of 2023 A queer coming-of-age—and coming-to-terms—follows the aftereffects of betrayal and poignantly explores the ways we search for home. When a sister’s casual act of betrayal awakens their father’s demons—ones spawned by his time in Vietnamese POW camps—the effects of the ensuing violence against her brother ripple out over the course of forty years, from Lubbock, to San Francisco, to Fort Lauderdale. Swept up in this arc, the members of this family and their loved ones tell their tales. A queer coming-of-age, and coming-to-terms, and a poignant exploration of all the ways we search for home, Dreaming Home is the unforgettable story of the fragmenting of an American family.A delightful new series for a younger YA audience with charming and relatable characters, lively dialogue, a huge amount of…
LGBTQ+ representation, and a focus on friendship and found family. In The Stars of Mount Quixx, two sisters must team up with a dapper spider monster to clear a sleepy mountain town of its mysterious and dangerous fog.By Brian D Kennedy. 2024
My Fair Lady meets the classic teen film She's All That in this charming and swoony new rom-com from Brian…
D. Kennedy, author of A Little Bit Country. Perfect for fans of What If It's Us and She Gets the Girl. Wade Westmore is used to being in the spotlight. So when he's passed over for the lead in the spring musical, it comes as a major blow—especially when the role goes to his ex-boyfriend, Reese, who dumped him for being too self-involved. Shy sophomore Elijah Brady is used to being overlooked. Forget not knowing his name—most of his classmates don't even know he exists. So when he joins the stage crew for the musical, he seems destined to blend into the scenery. When the two have a disastrous backstage run-in, Elijah proposes an arrangement that could solve both boys' problems: If Wade teaches Elijah how to be popular, Wade can prove that he cares about more than just himself. Seeing a chance to win Reese back, Wade dives headfirst into helping Elijah become the new and improved "Brady." Soon their plan puts Brady center stage—and he's a surprising smash hit. So why is Wade suddenly less worried about winning over his ex and more worried about losing Elijah?By Ryan La Sala. 2023
From Ryan La Sala, author of the tantalizingly twisted The Honeys and riotously imaginative Reverie , comes a chilling new…
contemporary fable about art, aesthetic obsession, and the gaze that peers back at us from behind our reflections. No one survived the party at the penthouse. Except Athan. Athanasios "Athan" Bakirtzis has made it far in life relying on his charm and good looks, even securing an invitation to a mysterious penthouse soiree for New York City's artsy elite. But when he sneaks off to the bathroom, he hears a slam, followed by a scream. Athan peers outside, only to be pushed back in by a boy his age. The boy gravely tells him not to open the door, then closes Athan in. Outside the door, the party descends into chaos. Through hours of howls, laughter, and sobs, Athan stays hidden. When he finally emerges, he discovers a massacre where the corpses appear to have arranged themselves into a disturbingly elegant sculpture-and Athan's mysterious savior is nowhere to be found. Athan-the only known survivor-is now the primary suspect. In a race to prove his innocence, Athan is swept up in a supernatural mystery, one of secret occult societies and deadly eldritch horrors with rather distinctive taste. Something evil is waking up in the walls of New York City, and it's compelling victims toward violence, chaos, and self-destruction. Bound to him by a mysterious hereditary power, Athan has felt this evil hiding behind his reflection his entire life, watching him. Waiting. Now, it's taking overBy Mary Averling. 2024
Dark secrets and unnatural magic abound when a twelve-year-old girl ventures into a bog full of monsters to break a…
mysterious curse. Nothing about Kess Pedrock&’s life is normal. Not her home (she lives in her family&’s Unnatural History Museum), not her interests (hunting for megafauna fossils and skeletons), and not her best friend (a talking demon&’s head in a jar named Shrunken Jim). But things get even stranger than usual when Kess meets Lilou Starling, the new girl in town. Lilou comes to Kess for help breaking a mysterious curse—and the only clue she has leads straight into the center of Eelgrass Bog. Everyone knows the bog is full of witches, demons, and possibly worse, but Kess and Lilou are determined not to let that stop them. As they investigate the mystery and uncover long-buried secrets, Kess begins to realize that the curse might hit closer to home than she&’d ever expected, and she&’ll have to summon all her courage to find a way to break it before it&’s too lateBy A. J Sass. 2024
In this heartfelt novel about family, friendship, and identity perfect for fans of The List of Things That Will Not…
Change and Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World , a thirteen-year-old nonbinary kid discovers that life doesn't always go according to plan—especially when they start public school for the first time. Thirteen-year-old Shai is an expert problem-solver. There's never been something they couldn't research and figure out on their own. But there's one thing Shai hasn't been able to logic their way through: picking at the hair on their arms. Ever since their mom lost her job, the two had to move in with family friends, and the world went into pandemic lockdown, Shai's been unable to control their picking. Now, as the difficult times recede and everyone begins to discover their "new normal," Shai's hoping the stress that caused their picking will end, too. After reading that a routine can reduce anxiety, Shai makes a plan to create a brand new normal for themself that includes going to public school. But when their academic evaluation places them into 9th grade instead of 8th, it sets off a chain of events that veer off the path Shai had prepared for, encouraging Shai to learn how to accept life's twists and turns, especially when you can't plan for themBy Sierra Simone. 2023
After being a soldier, working as a bodyguard should have been simple: keep the owner of DC's ultra-secret club safe,…
don't think about his midnight eyes or his devil's smile, don't surrender my body to his wicked desires. But I underestimated Mark Trevena and the power of his dark, seductive world. I underestimated the hold he'd have on me, the way I would do anything for him at all. And so when he asks me to escort his soon-to-be bride home, I can only—miserably, broken-heartedly—say yes. Isolde is nothing like I expect, however. Quiet and lonely and sharp. A girl who likes knives and God. A girl whose nightmares echo my own. And one night while sailing under the cold stars, we share a reckless, tear-soaked kiss. I'm doomed. Falling in love with Mark was one thing, but his bride too? Being in love with a husband and wife at the same time? Torture. Misery. A tragedy if tragedies came with bruises, sweat, sighs. But it isn't enough to merely fall into the forbidden. Because in Mark Trevena's world, the fall is only the beginning... The Lyonesse trilogy is a queer, kinky contemporary retelling of the legend of Tristan and Isolde, set in the same world as the New Camelot series. Readers will not have to read New Camelot to enjoy Lyonesse, although readers who enjoyed New Camelot will find all the things they loved about the trilogy here: MMF ménage, plenty of the angsty forbidden, and a sweeping retelling of a familiar storyBy Jonathan Bécotte. 2023
By Marty Wilson-Trudeau. 2022
By Vicki Johnson. 2023
Molly wants to look her best for picture day at her school, and what looks better than a tux?Molly's school…
picture day is coming up, and she wants to have a perfect portrait taken to hang on their wall. Her mom has picked out a nice dress for her, but Molly knows from experience that dresses are trouble. They have tight places and hard-to-reach zippers, and worst of all, no pockets! Luckily, she has the perfect thing to save picture day--her brother's old tuxedo!But mom doesn't want her to wear a tuxedo in the photo; she thinks Molly looks best in the dress. Can Molly find the courage to follow her heart and get her mom to realize just how awesome she'd look in a tux? This book highlights a gender nonconforming main character and is published in partnership with GLAAD to accelerate LGBTQ inclusivity and acceptance.By Anthony Oliveira. 2024
A singular, stunning debut that transcends and transfigures genre—at once a bold retelling of biblical tales and an unforgettable contemporary…
coming-of-age story, connected in collapsing time across millennia.There are few love stories in the holy books. Love is what ruins. Love is what costs. Love is a flaming sword at our backs, a garden left to ruin and to wild.In Dayspring, Anthony Oliveira brings to vibrant, glorious life the gospel according to the disciple Christ loved—his companion in the days before the crucifixion, the only instrument that remembers with fidelity his sound.Sacred, profane, and rich with explicit desire and a poetic attention to form, Dayspring weaves electric and heart-wrenching stories of passion, grief, destruction, and survival into a narrative unmoored in space and time, one that re-examines and re-frames great and doomed figures from scripture and history, even as it casts its keen eye on the trials of modern life.Seamlessly blending fiction, memoir, and verse in the exhilarating tradition of Anne Carson and Madeline Miller, Dayspring is an immersive, mesmerizing work, one that wrenches beauty from cataclysm and finds bliss in apocalypse.By Allan Wolf. 2022
Cozy and expansive at once, this warm bedtime book reminds us that our aspirations—no matter how big—deserve the universe.A gorgeous…
picture-book ode to wonder and safety, told in cumulative rhyme and with earthy illustrations evoking brick brownstones and crisp autumn skies. In a galaxy spiraling white, on a small blue planet with a moon so pretty, in a green park in a bustling city, a little girl sits on a blanket with her family, eating a sandwich, an apple, and chips. Equipped with telescope and space book, Violet gazes up into the great beyond, imagining a rocket ride to the stars . . . and a soft, sleepy return to her blanket. Lyrical and meditative, this is the perfect picture book to savor and share during a late-night picnic under the moon—or anytime.By Shaun David Hutchinson. 2024
What would you do if no one could see you? In this surreal adventure, a boy who is used to…
being overlooked literally becomes invisible, only to realize there may be far more dangerous threats in his school than bullies. Sixth grade takes a turn for the weird when Hector Griggs discovers he has the ability to turn invisible. Sure, ever since Hector’s former best friend Blake started bullying him, he’s been feeling like he just wants to disappear…but he never thought he actually would. And then, Hector meets another invisible boy, Orson Wellington, who has an ominous warning: "I’m stuck here. Stuck like this. It’s been years. The gelim’s hunting me and it’ll get you, too." It turns out, there is more than meets the eye at St. Lawrence’s Catholic School for Boys, and if Hector is going to save Orson—and himself—from the terrifying creature preying on students’ loneliness and fear, he’ll need to look deeper. With the help of a mysterious new classmate, Sam, can Hector unravel the mysteries haunting his school, and discover that sometimes it takes disappearing to really be seen?By Anne Fleming. 2024
"Curiosities is pure delight. Anne Fleming draws us in so that we feel we are living the characters’ lives, whether…
braving the North Atlantic on a sailing ship, or stealing away for a forbidden tryst in the English countryside. And she does it all with a light touch that has the reader dancing through peril and pleasure." —Ann-Marie MacDonald"Curiosities arrives like a little sun from another period to warm the reader with the joy and pleasure of knowledge, even as it illuminates the terrors and confusion that arise from ignorance. Wonders and disasters tumble over fractured lives and loves, but Fleming’s conjuring of the past alive in our present is so deft and sure it might be witchcraft. I loved this book." —Marina EndicottThis sparkling, genre-bending novel opens with amateur historian Anne, who has a passion for research into the murkier corners of England in the 1600s. In an archive, Anne has stumbled across an obscure memoir, one that hints at an intricate tapestry of secret lives and loves. The full story eventually weaves together five manuscripts, each a different thread in the same strange tale: The Plague descends upon a village, and two children, Joan and Thomasina, are the only survivors. They bond with each other and with "Old Nut," a woman who lives in the forest nearby. But when relatives return, Old Nut is accused of witchcraft and condemned to death. Joan is hired as a maid to well-educated Lady Margaret Long—and, being lively and curious, soon becomes a beloved companion. Thomasina is sent on a perilous voyage to Virginia, where she adopts boys' clothing and navigates life as a male. Years later, Tom and Joan find each other and fall in love—but are discovered, naked, by a clergyman. Horrified, he believes there can only be one explanation for Tom's "unmanned" state: Joan is a witch and, like Old Nut years ago, must be tried for sorcery. It falls upon Anne, reading between faded pages and centuries, to uncover the fate of the lovers—and add her own contemporary line of "truth" to this tale from a time when there were no labels for who Tom and Joan might be.By James Hannaham. 2022
Winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award In this &“dangerously hilarious&” novel (Los Angeles Times), a trans woman reenters life on…
the outside after more than twenty years in a men&’s prison, over one consequential Fourth of July weekend—from the author of the PEN/Faulkner Award winner Delicious Foods. Carlotta Mercedes has been misunderstood her entire life. When she was pulled into a robbery gone wrong, she still went by the name she&’d grown up with in Fort Greene, Brooklyn—before it gentrified. But not long after her conviction, she took the name Carlotta and began to live as a woman, an embrace of selfhood that prison authorities rejected, keeping Carlotta trapped in an all-male cell block, abused by both inmates and guards, and often placed in solitary. In her fifth appearance before the parole board, Carlotta is at last granted conditional freedom and returns to a much-changed New York City. Over a whirlwind Fourth of July weekend, she struggles to reconcile with the son she left behind, to reunite with a family reluctant to accept her true identity, and to avoid any minor parole infraction that might get her consigned back to lockup. Written with the same astonishing verve of Delicious Foods, which dazzled critics and readers alike, Didn&’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta sweeps the reader through seemingly every street of Brooklyn, much as Joyce&’s Ulysses does through Dublin. The novel sings with brio and ambition, delivering a fantastically entertaining read and a cast of unforgettable characters even as it challenges us to confront the glaring injustices of a prison system that continues to punish people long after their time has been served.By Anita Kelly. 2022
The first openly nonbinary contestant on America&’s favorite cooking show falls for their clumsy competitor in this delicious romantic comedy…
debut that USA Today hailed as &“an essential read.&” Recently divorced and on the verge of bankruptcy, Dahlia Woodson is ready to reinvent herself on the popular reality competition show Chef&’s Special. Too bad the first memorable move she makes is falling flat on her face, sending fish tacos flying—not quite the fresh start she was hoping for. Still, she's focused on winning, until she meets someone she might want a future with more than she needs the prize money. After announcing their pronouns on national television, London Parker has enough on their mind without worrying about the klutzy competitor stationed in front of them. They&’re there to prove the trolls—including a fellow contestant and their dad—wrong, and falling in love was never part of the plan. As London and Dahlia get closer, reality starts to fall away. Goodbye, guilt about divorce, anxiety about uncertain futures, and stress from transphobia. Hello, hilarious shenanigans on set, wedding crashing, and spontaneous dips into the Pacific. But as the finale draws near, Dahlia and London&’s steamy relationship starts to feel the heat both in and outside the kitchen—and they must figure out if they have the right ingredients for a happily ever after. Booklist's Best Romance Debuts of the YearWomen's Health's Best Romance Novels of the YearBookpage's Best Romance Novels of the YearBy Rahul Mehta. 2011
With buoyant humor and incisive, cunning prose, Rahul Mehta sets off into uncharted literary territory. The characters in Quarantine—openly gay…
Indian-American men—are Westernized in some ways, with cosmopolitan views on friendship and sex, while struggling to maintain relationships with their families and cultural traditions. Grappling with the issues that concern all gay men—social acceptance, the right to pursue happiness, and the heavy toll of listening to their hearts and bodies—they confront an elder generation's attachment to old-country ways. Estranged from their cultural in-group and still set apart from larger society, the young men in these lyrical, provocative, emotionally wrenching, yet frequently funny stories find themselves quarantined. Already a runaway success in India, Quarantine marks the debut of a unique literary talent.By Kenneth Logan. 2016
“A funny and realistic coming-out tale… The rounded characters deal with betrayal and honesty and love and near tragedy in…
ways teen readers, gay or straight, will recognize. Just the right touch of humor, mystery, drama, and romance should earn this a place on every teen bookshelf.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)“We need stories that give courage to kids struggling to be honest with themselves and others about who they are. Logan tells one that will give you hope and make you laugh.” — Robbie Rogers, LA Galaxy midfielder, former midfielder for the US National Soccer Team“James and his friends have deep, meaningful, complex bonds... Logan’s look at a boy reconciling his private and public selves is well written and affecting.” — School Library Journal“Logan handles his material exceptionally well, building suspense as he dramatizes both the downside of being in the closet and the realistic complications of coming out, while creating, in James, an unusually thoughtful and sympathetic character... [a] satisfying debut.” — Booklist“A wonderful book that will encourage young readers to seek authenticity and stand up for their true selves… LGBT teens, as well as straight, will recognize much of their lives in this story. Highly recommended.” — Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA)“Logan tackles the complexities of coming out thoughtfully, presenting realistic (and not always fully supportive) responses to James’s revelation.” — Publishers Weekly“[James’] painful, funny experiences with family, love, and friends will resonate with many teens.” — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s BooksBy Emil Ostrovski. 2016
“A lyrical, raucous narrative interspersed with flyers, posters, and letters…the oscillation between [Noah’s] heartfelt interior thoughts and sometimes careless actions…
and words is both moving and infuriating-in other words, vividly human. An intelligent, thought-provoking exploration of living in spite of futility.” — Booklist (starred review)“Intellectual boys’ boarding school story meets near-future dystopia in this end-times tale. …Noah and his friends form loving, believably complex relationships…witty.” — Kirkus Reviews“Noah is a nihilistic existentialist to the world, but inside he’s searching for something to reassure him that he is truly alive. His search for meaning is universal and will resonate with readers beginning to question their future.” — School Library Journal“The complex organization of this novel requires careful attention…Even so, brainy readers who want to see just how grim Holden Caulfield would get if he knew he was dying soon will find this to be a pretty accurate approximation.” — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books