Category Archives: Queer Lit

Baby & Solo by Lisabeth Posthuma

Seventeen-year-old Joel Teague has a new prescription from his therapist—a part-time job—the first step toward the elusive Normal life he’s been so desperate to live ever since The Bad Thing happened. Lucky for Joel, ROYO Video is hiring. It’s the perfect fresh start—Joel even gets a new name. Dubbed “Solo” after his favorite Star Wars character, Joel works his way up the not-so-corporate ladder without anyone suspecting What Was Wrong With Him. That is, until he befriends Nicole “Baby” Palmer, a smart-mouthed coworker with a chip on her shoulder about . . . well, everything… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity mentioned
  • Pregnancy & unplanned pregnancy
  • Abortion
  • Suicide & attempted suicide
  • Alcohol consumption & mentions of smoking
  • Psychiatric hospitalisation

Bride of Ignat, Volume 1 by Moyori Mori

Rita, a lonely boy, is chosen as the “Dragon’s Bride” by the village custom. The ancient legend of the “Snowy Mountain Dragon” is now nothing more than a legend, but Rita, unable to find his role in the village, accepts the sacrifice while realizing that it is to reduce the number of mouths to feed. Rita, who was left alone and freezing in the snowstorm, is saved by Ignat, a beautiful dragon in human form. Rita’s eyes sparkle because the dragon really exists, and he is able to fulfill his role as a “bride”, but Ignat rejects him, saying “I… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Pandemic mentioned
  • Death of parents recounted
  • Bullying

Bluebird by Brooke Blaine

Every morning, I stop at the same gas station for coffee before my shift. Same routine. Same quiet moment before the sirens start. And the same beautiful stranger. We see each other almost every day—two men passing in the early hours, never speaking. Until one morning, we finally do. Reid is kind, easy to talk to, and someone who would never be interested in me, at least not in the way I want him to. Then the call comes in. A wreck in town. One patient critical. It’s Reid. I save his life—but the accident steals ten years of his memories. Reid doesn’t remember his past, his job, or… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Car accident, resulting in traumatic brain injury & amnesia

All Are Welcome by Liz Parker

Tiny McAllister never thought she’d get married. Not because she didn’t want to, but because she didn’t think girls from Connecticut married other girls. Yet here she is with Caroline, the love of her life, at their destination wedding on the Bermuda coast. In attendance—their respective families and a few choice friends. The conflict-phobic Tiny hopes for a beautiful weekend with her bride-to-be. But as the weekend unfolds, it starts to feel like there’s a skeleton in every closet of the resort. From Tiny’s family members who find the world is changing at an uncomfortable speed, to… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Drug use

Alice Austen Lived Here by Alex Gino

Sam is very in touch with their own queer identity. They’re nonbinary, and their best friend, TJ, is nonbinary as well. Sam’s family is very cool with it… as long as Sam remembers that nonbinary kids are also required to clean their rooms, do their homework, and try not to antagonize their teachers too much. The teacher-respect thing is hard when it comes to Sam’s history class, because their teacher seems to believe that only Dead Straight Cis White Men are responsible for history. When Sam’s home borough of… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Queerphobia & coming out themes
  • Racism
  • Police violence mentioned

Alias Space and Other Stories by Kelly Robson

Alias Space and Other Stories is the first fiction collection from Nebula Award-winning writer Kelly Robson, who vaulted onto the Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror stage in 2015, earning spots in multiple Year’s Best anthologies. This volume collects Robson’s best stories to date, along with exciting new work, and notes to accompany each piece.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Sex work
  • Graphic sexual assault, on-page
  • Suicide
  • Death of a child
  • Murder
  • Animal cruelty

Abandon Me: Memoirs by Melissa Febos

In her dazzling Abandon Me, Febos captures the intense bonds of love and the need for connection–with family, lovers, and oneself. First, her birth father, who left her with only an inheritance of addiction and Native American blood, its meaning a mystery. As Febos tentatively reconnects, she sees how both these lineages manifest in her own life, marked by compulsion and an instinct for self-erasure. Meanwhile, she remains closely tied to the sea captain who raised her, his parenting ardent but intermittent as his work took him away for months at a time. Woven… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Emotional intimate partner abuse
  • Substance addiction
  • Suicidal ideation

A + E 4ever by I. Merey

Asher Machnik is a teenage boy cursed with a beautiful androgynous face. Guys punch him, girls slag him and by high school he’s developed an intense fear of being touched. Art remains his only escape from an otherwise emotionally empty life. Eulalie Mason is the lonely, tough-talking dyke from school who befriends Ash. The only one to see and accept all of his sides as a loner, a fellow artist and a best friend, she’s starting to wonder if ash is ever going to see all of her….

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia & coming out themes
  • Statutory rape
  • Bullying

After You Died by Dea Poirier

Bisexual teen, Asher remembers nothing from the night in 1968 that the police found him covered in his girlfriend’s blood. He knows he’d never hurt anyone, least of all her. But the only person who believes him is his twin sister. He’s sentenced to five years at the Dozier Reform School. And like Asher’s memory, Dozier hides violent secrets of its own. Juvenile boys serving time for everything from truancy to murder are hidden away in the sinister School for Boys. Those who manage to escape its bounds with broken bones and scars are the lucky ones. Asher’s afraid he may end… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child sexual abuse mentioned
  • Domestic abuse
  • Attempted suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Murder
  • Torture

Affiliations, Aliens, and Other Profitable Pursuits by Lyn Gala

A desire for status has brought Ondry and Liam to a human world to trade, but dealing with humans has brought up all the old pain in Liam’s heart. Even though Ondry would do anything to protect his beloved palteia, he doesn’t know how to protect Liam from himself. Worse, Ondry isn’t sure how to shield Liam from the shifting politics on the Rownt ship where the Calti Grandmothers are nothing like the ones they left behind on the planet.With everything in their lives changing, Ondry and Liam have only each other… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Rape (off-page) & child sexual abuse recounted
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) & trauma
  • Death of a parent (off-page)
  • War themes
  • Animal attack (off-page)