Queer SF - April 2026
April 1, 2026
The Seaglass Blade — J.C. Snow
Genre: Fantasy
Rep: Queer
A home at the end of the world. The bonds that shape a family. The sacrifices demanded by love.
Aili Fallon has spent three hundred years of her unexpected immortality building a safe place for all those she cares about—her phoenix lover; their dragon son; their renegade demon daughter; and the shape-shifting spiritual creatures who come to Aili to learn the sword. She’s determined to protect them from human captivity and demonic corruption.
But the patterns of the natural world, the source of spiritual power, are inexplicably failing. When Aili’s lover is attacked, her phoenix healing disappears. A curse killing dragons targets their son, while growing demonic power threatens to destroy their daughter.
And hidden deep, a traitor is waiting.
Piece by piece, a long-laid plot of vengeance, betrayal, and cruelty is tightening around Aili and her family. The home that’s been a sanctuary is now a trap, and Aili will risk everything she’s built, and everything she is, to break them free.
Everything will not be enough.
Link: Goodreads
April 2, 2026
Event Horizon — Dan F. Bispo
Genre: Space opera
Rep: Queer
Series: Book 1 of First Light
The year is 2568. Humanity has spread itself thin and wide across the stars. It has been less than half a century since the Paradigm Shift, when the final large-scale government collapsed, leaving thousands of worlds to their own devices.
As the orphaned child of one of these abandoned worlds, Yana now calls Habitat, a post-scarcity space station, her home. Though wanting for nothing, her scars run deep, and she avoids her past by focusing on the present—on her work as an epidemiologist, her pet amoeba, and a quickly crumbling social life.
All this changes when she finds herself accidentally recruited into the Nomadic Exploration Volunteers. Now, with her last shot at happiness on the line, she must either prove her worth, or lose everything.
Link: Books2Read
The Last Death Poet — Stephen Daly
Genre: YA fantasy
Rep: Gay
‘I know about the visions. I have your camera. Call me. Please.’
When Michael is uprooted to Belfast, he isn’t just hoping for a fresh start. He’s determined to discover the truth about his dad’s mysterious absence. But from the moment he arrives, he’s plagued with visions of the city’s troubled past.
Michael begins settling into his new life and even meets a boy who helps erase the painful memories of his ex. But as the visions grow stronger and more intense, the only person he can really confide in is his new friend Meg.
As Meg delves into the supernatural source of the visions, Michael begins to question whether events of the past are linked to his dad’s disappearance.
Can he use his powers to find his dad before he’s gone forever?
Link: Goodreads
Amity in the House of Her Enemy — Hiyodori
Genre: Fantasy romance
Rep: F/F
Series: Standalone in established universe
It was an undeserved hatred, but she knew one day she would earn it.
Amity already got her revenge. Since childhood, she’s secretly worked to bring down the wealthy mage who destroyed her family. After succeeding, she runs away to start a new life under a stolen identity.
Years later, she turns thirty, and the mage’s daughter—Juniper—tracks her down.
Amity (a born servant) and Juniper (heir to a magical lord) have a long and unpleasant history. They clashed as children, and again in college, while Amity pursued vengeance against Juniper’s clan. Amity shamelessly wielded every weapon at her disposal: her wits, her looks, her healing abilities, and her fearlessness. In those days, lying and sabotage were her bread and butter.
Icy, uptight Juniper couldn’t be more different. She’s always been a stickler for the law. But now the government wants to make an example of Amity for her crimes, and Juniper steps in to protect her.
This can’t possibly be an act of compassion… yet, given the choice between going with Juniper or going to jail, Amity chooses Juniper. A dangerous gamble. Juniper still has the legal right to claim her as an indentured servant. By trapping Amity in the desolate old mansion where it all began, perhaps Juniper can finally start to exact her own long-awaited revenge.
Amity in the House of Her Enemy is a twisty and extremely slow-burn f/f romance featuring childhood enemies, hurt/comfort, family drama, and the very tentative beginnings of a movement against the greatest foe of all: the mageocracy itself.
Link: Goodreads
April 3, 2026
From Hell, With Love — Bryce Oakley
Genre: Fantasy
Rep: Sapphic
Ramona Greenbriar did not mean to summon a demon.
Divorced, academically disgraced, and working retail at a fake magic shop—she has enough complications. Her magic has never once done what it was supposed to, which is probably how the demon got in. That, and the grimoire came out of a donation box alongside a moldy sandwich. It was always going to go badly.
Enter Zara—three hundred years old, impeccably suited, and going absolutely nowhere until the next new moon, whether either of them likes it or not.
Which means explaining to her roommates why there’s definitely-not-a-demon in the apartment, trying not to notice that Zara is extremely hot, adorably curious about the mortal world, and treats Ramona like she’s someone worth the trouble.
Falling for a demon wasn’t the plan. But then again, nothing in Ramona’s life has ever gone to plan. Why start now?
From Hell, With Love is a witty, slow-burn spicy sapphic romantasy featuring forced proximity that gets intimate; fake dating a demon; a magical tether that broadcasts your feelings (including the inconvenient ones); a possessive demon who gives you her complete, undivided, three-hundred-years-of-patience attention and means every word of it; found family who absolutely will not mind their business; and the dangerous realization that being truly known might ruin you for anything less.
Link: Goodreads
April 4, 2026
Besieger — Kalina Mitova
Genre: Historical Gothic fantasy romance
Rep: M/M
Series: Book 1 of the Altars duology
Greed needs little to fester. When you have starved for so long, all you can see is hunger.
A Vampire Coven is thrown into chaos after its maker and master is found dead under mysterious circumstances. With the assassin hiding among them, the Vampire Council must choose a new Coven Master, and who better than the man who wants the throne the least.
A deserter from the First Crusade, Silvio is saved by Dulior, a vampire determined to turn and bind him at the altar. In the midst of a cycle of arranged marriages to mortals, Dulior uses Silvio as her escape from her domineering maker, and a promise, finally, of a true love match. Although granted immortality, Silvio sees no value in eternity if he cannot share it with Emerick, the man he has sworn to protect.
Husband to a woman he despises, bound to a man he wants to drown in pleasure, Silvio will have to become a pawn in the Coven’s schemes if it helps him break free from his wife and mistress.
Link: Author’s Website
April 5, 2026
Heretic — Noah Isaacs
Genre: Fantasy
Rep: Queer
Series: Book 0.5 of The Testament to Broken Gods
A lord. A lady. A priest or even a bishop. At times, a queen.
These are the people Varre has killed.
And next, an emperor.
Years now Varre has served the realm, devoting herself to the common folk who go without justice at the hands of those driven mad by power. Yet these same people fear her. Curse her. Spit at her deeds as if she should not to them be a saint.
Unlike them, her Faith lies in the dark, where the world passes unseen to most and the drivel of blasphemers is seldom heard over the wails of the damned.
Before, a single death unburdened the lives of so many. The emperor’s might condemn untold more. She used to tell herself these deeds were a necessary evil. Life for death. Death for life.
But now, as the mortal realm is to be cast asunder by her own blade, she must decide if a righteous future is worth attaining when there are none left to witness it.
Link: Goodreads
April 7, 2026
We Call Them Witches — India-Rose Bower
Genre: Post-apocalyptic horror
Rep: Sapphic
For fans of The Watchers and T. Kingfisher comes a queer, post-apocalyptic horror following one woman’s journey across a merciless wasteland to save her brother and confront the dark truth behind the monsters that ravaged the world—with the help of a woman she’s not sure she can trust, but can’t help falling for.
Nearly everyone died the first night they came...
Two years ago, monstrous beings tore through Britain, leaving few survivors. Now Sara and her family live on the run, relying on scraps of folklore and fading pagan rituals to stay safe from the eldritch creatures they call “witches.”
While her mother grows increasingly paranoid, Sara longs for something more than fear. Then a strange girl appears in the garden of their current camp. Her name is Parsley, and she cannot remember where she came from or why she’s there. Despite her family’s suspicions, Sara feels drawn to her.
But when Sara’s younger brother is taken by the Witches, she and Parsley must cross desolate moors full of merciless terrors to get him back. As their bond deepens, so do the dangers they face—and Sara begins to question whether anything is truly as it seems.
In a world ruled by terror and myth, trust is the only thing more dangerous than the Witches themselves.
Link: Goodreads
The Bloody and the Damned — Becca Coffindaffer
Genre: YA fantasy, dystopian
Rep: Non-binary MC
An assassin with outlawed, magical abilities will do anything to get their kidnapped sisters back in this dystopic-fantasy standalone, perfect for fans of Arcane and Iron Widow.
Mercy has no place here.
On Trinity, a metal world where the privileged live in the skies and the rest fight for water below, you do what you can to survive.
18-year-old Val knows this better than anyone. They’ve sacrificed everything to provide for their younger sisters. Using their outlawed teleportation powers, they've become the most infamous assassin-for-hire on Trinity, known as the Butcher.
No one should be able to trace the Butcher to Val. But when things go horribly wrong on a routine mission and Val’s sisters are kidnapped by a gang in retaliation, it means that someone has to know the truth.
Desperate and friendless, Val has no one to turn to but their ex-childhood best friend turned vigilante thief. He broke their heart, but he owes them.
But as Val fights for the return of their sisters, they start to realize there might be something much bigger at play... something that could upend everything they’ve ever known about Trinity.
Val’s journey will take them from a maximum security prison transport to the headquarters of the most powerful gang on Trinity, and all the way to the Gate of Heaven. Each more heavily guarded than the last.
Good thing the Butcher has never blinked at an extra casualty.
Link: Goodreads
Aviary — Maria Dong
Genre: Horror, fantasy
Rep: Sapphic
A young woman undertakes a terrifying journey—and a terrifying transformation—in this genre-blending speculative suspense novel set in South Korea and the US which mixes fantasy, gothic vibes and queer longing, with a shot of feminist body horror.
Fairytales are for children. Until the day we awaken in a place full of monsters, being softly enveloped by the dark.
Nineteen-year-old undocumented immigrant Hee-Jin lies on the floor of her cramped Seoul apartment, listening for footsteps.
But the knock on the door isn’t the police finally coming to deport her to North Korea. Instead, sprawled on the doorstep is a disfigured, bird-like corpse—and it has her eyes. Her younger sister, artist Hee-Young, is meant to be on an art program in America, not dead of a strange overdose.
But in Hee-Young’s pocket is a plane ticket and US passport. Seeing her chance for freedom, Hee-Jin steals her sister’s identity and takes her place, determined to uncover what really happened to her.
But the deeper she dives into the program’s strange workings, the closer she gets to the monstrous secret at its heart.
A page-turner of a mystery filled with gorgeous, creepy Korean folklore and imagery, Aviary, written by critically acclaimed Korean American author Maria Dong, is also a story about power, violence, exploitation—and transformation. And, above all, it’s about the choices women make from within a system where all the available options are bad ones.
Link: Goodreads
The Impossible Garden of Clara Thorne — Summer N. England
Genre: Cozy romantasy
Rep: Sapphic
Love grows in the most impossible of places in Summer N. England’s sweet and spicy debut cozy romantasy for fans of The Spellshop and Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea.
All gardener Clara Thorne wants is to live “happily ever after” in her beloved town of Moss, magically growing herbs and vegetables and trying to write her book. But Fate has other plans when The Goddess unexpectedly bestows her with an impossible quest. Clara has one month to travel to the cursed and abandoned town of Dwindle and grow them a garden. If she fails, she will be banished.
Only Clara’s magic doesn’t work outside of Moss, a fact she has kept hidden for years. Worse, the Goddess has assigned the absurdly sexy, annoyingly cheerful Hesper Altanfall to keep her safe. All leather and crossbows, Hesper is as determined to protect Clara as she is full of secrets-but Clara would rather eat thorns than accept help. Nevertheless, the two can't help but grow closer as they make their way across enchanted woods, share one too many tavern beds, and work together to rebuild Dwindle one garden bed at a time.
Clara, however, refuses to give in to their blossoming romance. She’s had one too many losses, and Hesper might the one to break her beyond repair. But if Clara can find the key to opening her heart, she may just unearth the life and love she’s always believed to be impossible.
Link: Goodreads
Devil of the Deep — Falencia Jean-Francois
Genre: Fantasy
Rep: Queer
Lu watched the love of his life walk the plank and sink into the inky-black depths of the sea. Nnenna was dead... or so he thought.
Five years later, Lieutenant “Lu” Ortega, dutiful fleet officer, embarks on a mission to hunt down a powerful talisman now in the hands of a runaway mermaid. On his quest, he discovers the impossible: Nnenna is still alive. Fierce and cunning, and as breathtaking as ever, Nnenna’s won enough bloody sword fights as a pirate captain to earn the nickname “Devil of the Deep.” She has come to reject the system of order that Lu clings to, and worse, she’s protecting the very quarry he’s tracking: Pearl Highwater, who has defied the all-powerful sea god and might hold a valuable key to finding her people’s lost island.
When the tides and fates bring them together, Nnenna, Lu, and Pearl must choose their loyalties, find their courage, and race to protect the island from false gods and forces of evil—or risk unleashing an ancient curse that could destroy them all.
Link: Goodreads
Sins of Survival — Jen Karner
Genre: Urban fantasy
Rep: Sapphic
Series: Book 2 of Legacy of Shadows
It’s been years since Dani left the Scions of Seraph in her rear view, after finding out they were killing innocents. But if she’s learned anything about people, it’s that they hold a grudge, and her old “family” is no different. A near miss with some of their people leaves Dani and Emilie with a target painted on their backs and a group of hunters out for blood.
After a year of trying, and failing, to fit in as a hunter, Emilie gets a call from a local clinic about a message from beyond the grave begging for help. The spirits show her the man who killed them, a rip in the veil between the realm of spirits and the living, and a monster from beyond the veil using hunters as hosts.
So it’s just a Tuesday, really.
The Scions must be stopped and the creature eliminated if they hope to close the tear and restore balance. To find a way forward, Dani must face the skeletons in her closet. To keep her new family, Emilie must embrace all of her talents. To find the life they want, they’ll have to decide if that life includes each other.
Link: Goodreads
Hail the Rising Tides — Kat Kraehen
Genre: Fantasy
Rep: Sapphic, Achillean
Prim and prideful Ione possesses the Moon Goddess’s spirit and a harrowing fate: overpower the wrathful Sun God and sweep His murderous pyromancers into the sea. But attaining divine ascension is easier said than done, and the longer Ione takes to save her people, the more impatient her conniving archpriest becomes.
Quiet, distrusting Lina has had more than enough of bloodshed. After escaping immolation by Sun-worshipers, she gains a new lease on life as a nameless acolyte of the Moon Goddess. That is until she catches the eye of Lady Ione, whose captivation with Lina has caused the Goddess to stir within her for the first time.
As temples burn and Ione’s archpriest launches treacherous gambits of his own, Ione and Lina’s alliance deepens into something neither of them anticipated. If Ione’s enemies reach her before she can awaken the Moon Goddess, everyone she loves will go up in flames.
But if she succeeds, the Sun cult will be annihilated—including Lina, whose past as a Sun priestess cannot remain hidden forever.
Link: Author’s Website
Year of the Mer — L.D. Lewis
Genre: Epic fantasy, retelling
Rep: Sapphic
A dark, bloody epic fantasy reimagining of The Little Mermaid that goes far beyond the fairytale to explore family legacy, war, and what we will sacrifice for vengeance—the perfect read for fans of The Priory of the Orange Tree and Circe.
The fairytale mermaid Arielle might have gotten her happily-ever-after, but her granddaughter Yemi is having a much harder time. Her father, the king of Ixia, was assassinated years ago, her mother is slowly dying of a poisoned wound, and she faces whispers and slights from her own people. Yemi has been raised as the shield of the kingdom and is soon to inherit the throne, but she cannot shake her fury at how Ixia has treated her family after all they’ve sacrificed. Only her patient mother and steadfast personal bodyguard (and fiancée), Nova, help Yemi rein in that fury...most of the time.
When the kingdom’s discontented rumblings reach a fever pitch, a coup erupts and Yemi’s throne is usurped, stripping her of her family and forcing her into exile. Now, only one being has the power to help her: Ursla.
Like her grandmother before her, Yemi is tempted by a deal with the sea-witch. With powerful and ancient magic behind her, Yemi could avenge her family, take back her throne, and protect the love of her life. But she should know more than anyone that there is always a price. As much as Yemi wants vengeance, Ursla has been waiting a very, very long time for her own—and it may take more fortune than Yemi possesses to keep her from losing everything all over again.
Link: Goodreads
The Beacon and the Brine — Katherine McIntyre
Genre: Romantasy
Rep: Queer; M/X
Series: Book 2 of Monstrous Cravings
A desperate human dreamer. A sea monster bound by contract. A forbidden romance that could set them free… or end in destruction.
After one mistake too many, Elrich’s family is marrying him off.
Arielle Triton is his future bride-to-be, gorgeous, eligible, and from a wealthy family with connections to New Atlantis… who also hides the fact they’re merfolk. Except there’s no spark toward Arielle, none of the soul-searing romance Elrich dreamed of.
Yet, Ursuline, the serious cecaelia who’s their family lawyer? From the moment he meets them, he’s drowning in their sharp gaze, living for their low chuckles, their dry wit. But Ursuline is bound to the Triton family, just as Elrich is bound to marry someone he doesn’t love. And as those feelings grow stronger for Ursuline, the tug-of-war between duty and desire become unbearable.
As the truth behind the Triton family wealth surfaces, Elrich can no longer ignore the weighted whispers or disappearances from the staff. However, learning too many secrets in the Triton household is deadly, and if he and Ursuline stand a chance of survival, he’s clutching onto one hope.
Some contracts are destined to be broken.
Link: Goodreads
The Beast You Let In — Dana Mele
Genre: YA horror
Rep: Queer
Everyone in the rural town of Ashling knows the tale of Veronica Green, a teen who was murdered in the woods. But did a party trick bring her back to claim her revenge? A fast-paced, suspenseful YA horror from the author of Summer’s Edge and People Like Us.
There is no one Hazel trusts less than her self-centered twin, Beth. Like when Beth storms out of a party, abandoning Hazel when she didn’t want to attend in the first place. Rather than chasing after her, Hazel throws herself into flirting and telling ghost stories over a Ouija board. She might not be the popular twin, but she can be fun too.
Except Beth doesn’t come home that night, and Hazel’s anger morphs into anxiety. It only sharpens when Beth reappears a day later, disoriented and claiming to be Veronica Green, a teen who was murdered in their small town years before. If it isn’t a possession, Beth is really good at faking it. Did they accidentally release a vengeful horror during the party?
Hazel must uncover what happened to Veronica all those years ago if she’s going to save Beth. But the truth may destroy them both—if they don’t destroy each other first.
Link: Goodreads
Flightless — Marie Parks
Genre: Fantasy
Rep: Queer
Riff is a disgraced, low-class thief. All of his hopes hinge on Ascension, so he can rejoin the elite, upper-class thieves guild he belonged to as a youth. When he’s offered a rare, lucrative job to steal an artifact and prove himself to the guild, there’s no question he'll take it. But as his crewmates grow skittish, and one of his usuals refuses to join the operation, Riff wonders what they know that he doesn’t.
As his crew prepares, they face sabotage and betrayal, realizing the job is a trap. The only way out is forward, because the artifact is their sole bargaining chip for their lives. Riff must discover how far he’s willing to go to improve his station and confront his ambitions. This job has the potential to fulfill all his dreams... or lose him his career and his life.
Link: Goodreads
The Goblin Crown — Brenna Raney
Genre: Fantasy
Rep: Queer; non-binary MC
Who are you when you can wear any face?
Aren is a shapeshifter, able to run with a centaur herd, fly on a hawk’s wings, and scurry through the kitchens to the screams of the innkeeper’s wife.
At age six, she’s a human foundling, abandoned to the care of the village hedgewitch. With refugees fleeing a strange upheaval in the north, spirits singing to her from a haunted forest, and the hedgewitch working to stop a looming disaster, she won’t escape her childhood unchanged.
At nineteen, he’s an elf, flirting his way through the Queen’s Court to find out what killed his mother and cursed his village. Unfortunately, it only takes one misstep to alert the elves to the shapeshifter in their midst. With the palace hunting the imposter and a human delegation arriving at Court—including a too-familiar human prince—Aren must walk a careful line to piece together the truth of what happened all those years ago.
For readers who enjoy Witch King by Martha Wells, Sword Catcher by Cassandra Clare, and Uprooted by Naomi Novik.
Link: Goodreads
What We Are Seeking — Cameron Reed
Genre: Science fiction fantasy
Rep: Queer
From Cameron Reed, the acclaimed author of The Fortunate Fall, comes a soaring novel of queer hope and transformation, perfect for readers of Ann Leckie and Amal El-Mohtar.
On the planet Scythia, plants give birth to insects, trees can drag you to your death, and armies of animals graft native plants into human crops.
John Maraintha has been abandoned here, light-years from the peaceful forests that he loves.
The desert is harsh and the people in thrall to a barbaric custom called marriage.
He must find some way to make a life here.
But on Scythia, survival means transformation―and not everyone is willing to accept change.
Link: Goodreads
Maybe Tomorrow I’ll Know — Alex Ritany
Genre: YA speculative
Rep: Queer
A boy is trapped in a time loop—and in a girl’s body—in this heartfelt and wryly humorous love story.
Laurie wakes up in a girl’s body with no memories, driving down an unknown highway, and promptly crashes the car. Thankfully, a handsome stranger named Gideon comes to his rescue. It’s awkward for Laurie to pretend that he’s a girl, but at least this is the scariest thing he’ll ever have to deal with.
Except the next morning—and every morning after—Laurie wakes up barreling down that same highway. He re-meets Gideon every day, with no idea who this girl whose body he’s inhabiting even is. Only one thing is he’s on a countdown. Laurie has been given only one hundred days to get back in the right body, break the time loop, and not fall for Gideon while he does it.
Maybe Tomorrow I’ll Know is a funny, deeply felt exploration of love, identity, and what it means to move through the world in a body that is truly yours.
Link: Goodreads
April 9, 2026
Sailing the Golden Chersonese — Joyce Chng
Genre: Fantasy
Rep: Queer; non-binary MC
Adventure, magic and more…
Neo has been raised to be their father’s son, to succeed him as the captain of the pirate vessel Sri Matahari and to sail the seas of the Golden Chersonese raiding and having adventures. They thought this was all that they needed or wanted until the beautiful Maria sought their help on her quest for vengeance. Together they will avenge wrongs, encounter Naks and other wonders, and find a magic all their own.
Link: Queen of Swords Press
April 14, 2026
Forgive-Me-Not — Mari Costa
Genre: YA fantasy, graphic novel
Rep: Sapphic
A queer “enemies to lovers” journey of a lost princess and a changeling who was made to take the heir’s place as part of a fey scheme.
Aisling is many things to many people: princess, heir to the throne, teenage daughter of two loving parents... She’s also about to learn a lot more about herself: changeling. Fey creature. Hunted. Feared. Loved?
Forgive-Me-Not is the name given to the true princess―the lost teenage biological daughter to the king and queen, who’s grown up in the chaotic and untrustworthy realm of Faerie. When Forgive-Me-Not breaks into Aisling’s room the night before their 18th birthday looking for revenge, the two embark on a long and arduous journey. And what starts as a confrontational and adversarial pairing grows into a bond of mutual understanding, friendship, and maybe something more...
Link: Goodreads
Wife Shaped Bodies — Laura Cranehill
Genre: Literary horror
Rep: Sapphic
Sorrowland meets Manhunt in this literary horror debut in which an isolated newlywed—covered in mushroom growths like all the other wives in her community—strikes a precarious balance between following her husband’s strict rules and pursuing an intense connection with a woman who makes her question everything.
Forbidden from leaving her house from girlhood until marriage, Nicole has only her mother’s lessons and what she can see from her bedroom window to draw on in forming her view of the world, and of herself. Taught that the mushrooms which cover the women in her village are repulsive and dangerous, she conforms to a rigid set of rules to protect herself and those around her.
When her wedding day arrives, Nicole moves from one prison to another—an empty mansion on the very outskirts of town belonging to the husband she’s been promised to since birth. As she haunts the edges of Silas’s unknowable life and decaying home, maintaining control over her own transforming body becomes increasingly impossible. And when another wife with rebellious tendencies pays Nicole an unexpected visit, something within her cracks open. Their furtive explorations yield confusing answers, unearthing the long-buried secrets of the generations of resentful brides that came before. Unmoored, angry, and at last awakened, Nicole must reckon with who she really is, and perhaps, give in to what she truly wants.
Raw, visceral, and relentless, Wife Shaped Bodies is an exploration of gender, power, and community through the lens of mycological body horror and an ode to the unsettling beauty of the natural world.
Link: Goodreads
Swallowed by Night — Jeremey Harrison
Genre: Fantasy, dystopian
Rep: M/M
In a world ravaged by war and a plague that threatened to end humankind, deliverance came with an unexpected consequence: vampires.
Vincent Asposito lives a life of luxury, locked in a gilded cage by his father. Longing to break free, Vinny devises a daring plan to sneak out, only to have his first taste of freedom end in being kidnapped by Jude, the human son of the resistance leader.
On the surface, Jude embodies everything Vincent should despise: a sworn enemy determined to destroy the only world he knows, yet he can’t help his attraction to the infuriatingly handsome man. Forced into a reluctant alliance, the two embark on a risky mission that could tip the scales of war between humans and vampires.
As their bond deepens, dangerous revelations come to light, forcing Vincent to decide where his loyalties lie—and who he’s willing to sacrifice.
Link: Goodreads
Morsel — Carter Keane
Genre: Horror
Rep: Queer
The Blair Witch Project meets The Ritual, with a generous helping of The Menu, in Morsel, a delicious folk horror novella perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher, Cassandra Khaw, and Paul Tremblay.
Lou did what the children of parents with back-breaking, poor paying jobs are supposed to do; pulled up her bootstraps, went to college, and got an office job with coworkers who won’t stop talking about their multi-level marketing scheme disguised as self-betterment.
Determined to lift her ill mother out of poverty before it's too late, and in the spirit of climbing the corporate ladder, Lou accepts an assignment in the rural hills of Ohio. She quickly finds herself stranded in the middle of nowhere with a sabotaged truck, a dog she’s determined to keep safe, and something stalking her through the ancient Appalachian woods.
If she can’t escape the woods in time, she’ll come face to face with the fact that her job isn’t the only thing that wants to eat her alive.
Morsel is a chilling testament to the burden of generational poverty and the all-consuming nature of capitalism, where the monster and the monstrous, in the end, are not the same.
Link: Goodreads
The Haunted Houses She Calls Her Own — Gwendolyn Kiste
Genre: Speculative short story collection
Rep: Queer
“Truth is rarely convenient as silence.”
Celebrated author Gwendolyn Kiste cordially invites you to explore The Haunted Houses She Calls Her Own. Enter a world possessed by recriminations from bygone eras, where the regrets and malice of years past still reverberate and shape our doom. Here, morally complex women and queer antiheroines swim against the current of a social structure that serves as a spectral prison in these layered stories of the weird and the Other.
Known for crafting bold metafictional narratives that grapple with challenging social issues, Kiste's unwavering voice deftly weaves a siren's song of resilience and survival. Included among the short stories in this collection are the Bram Stoker Award-winning “The Eight People Who Murdered Me (Excerpt From Lucy Westenra’s Diary),” “The Girls From the Horror Movie,” “The Sea Witch of the World’s Fair,” and other riveting new gothic tales of body horror, the supernatural, and unapologetic resistance.
“What’s going on inside you?” I ask, but the darkness never whispers back.
Link: Goodreads
Bear My Heart — Karen Lykkebo
Genre: Cozy fantasy romance
Rep: Sapphic
Series: Book 1 of Daughters of Divinity
I never did anything to Sayran’s heart. If anything, she did something to mine! I was simply existing, enjoying the solitude and stillness of my home. I was content in my hut far up on Gods Mountain. I wandered among the Old Gods and listened to stars sing.
Then Sayran showed up, rippling through my silence with her quiet voice. She made the sun brighter with her smile. She warmed my home with her mere presences. She changed everything without changing anything.
I almost killed her with my claws.
Now I’m not sure I can live without her.
Link: Author’s Website
Princeweaver — Elian J Morgan
Genre: Romantasy
Rep: M/M
Their marriage is to save a warring kingdom. But in the process, it might destroy them both...
Born with forbidden, nature-infused magic in an occupied land, anxious apothecary Meilyr survives by keeping his head down. Until he ends up engaged to invading prince Osian in order to save his brother’s life. Now, he is in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse to hide his true self.
When nobles in Osian’s court are gruesomely murdered by the same magic that flows through his veins, Meilyr realises someone is seeking revenge for his homeland. As suspicion towards him grows, he and the prince work together to uncover the killer, or risk losing the crown—or their lives.
Between court politics, unwieldy magic and a murderer on the loose, Meilyr must keep his wits about him. Especially as his feelings for Osian grow deeper with every passing day...
Combines the court intrigue and slow-burn yearning of A Taste of Gold and Iron with the folkloric grounding and lore that readers of Naomi Novik and Stephanie Garber will enjoy.
Link: Goodreads
Wine for Roses — Emily O’Malley Liu
Genre: Fantasy
Rep: M/M
They say the stolen rose blooms best.
When Ethan Keating Mendoza is hired as a gardener at an old Victorian residence in central Indiana, he has one clear make the roses bloom. Ethan’s life is roses—he’s the son of a hedge witch and a partner in his father’s rose-growing business—but he has no magic himself.
The Kilbride estate is wild and overgrown. The roses have not bloomed in decades, and Ethan fears he may be in over his head. Worse still is Louis, the peculiar trustee of the property, who lives under a bloodthirsty curse that ties him to the garden. But Louis gives Ethan a chance, and Ethan is determined to do right by the suffering roses. As Ethan and Louis grow closer, Ethan becomes increasingly desperate to save the man he loves from the garden’s curse.
But the garden isn’t letting them go without a fight.
Link: Goodreads
An Elixir for Wanderlust — Alistair Reeves
Genre: Romantasy
Rep: M/M
Series: Book 3 of Rune Tithe (stands alone)
Having once escaped the dark waters that cursed him, a young witch returns home to face the evil targeting his loved ones—whatever the consequences.
After almost a decade away, Taliesin Ashborne has come home to attend his grandfather’s funeral. While past tensions still linger between him and his family, a stiff drink and a steamy encounter with Kessian, the gorgeous man who approaches him at the wake, really takes the edge off.
But the old magic of Shearwater Spring has left more scars on Tal than he realized. Nine years ago, twenty-four townspeople, including Tal and his father, mysteriously walked into a deep river one night—and only Tal returned.
To this day, something dangerous lurks in Shearwater’s black waters. It’s hunting down everyone Tal loves, and after it got his twin, he couldn’t stand to lose anyone else. Hoping to rid him of this curse once and for all, his sibling Fae urges him to see the town’s new healer... who just so happens to be Kessian.
Trying to keep his emotions in check—for not only his own benefit but also Kessian’s safety—will be anything but easy for Tal after nine years of isolation. Now, with a wraith hot on his trail, he must uncover what corrupted the ancient magic of the river so he can finally come home for good.
Link: Goodreads
The Midnight Croissant — Bonnie Solomon
Genre: Cozy fantasy, humor
Rep: Queer; drag queen MC
Series: Book 2 of Pearly Gates (stands alone)
The afterlife’s sassiest spirit guide is about to slay Paris. But is she ready to face the one soul she’s never stopped loving?
Fresh off a solo incarnation of self-imposed solitude, spirit guide Pearly Gates is trying to follow the rules—or at least appear like she is. But when her first official charges—a prickly retiree, a guilt-ridden widower with a closeted grandson, and a young woman for whom romance has never quite clicked—hit a spiritual dead end, Pearly makes a bold move. She nudges them into a group tour of the City of Love…then tags along in disguise.
Her boss is not amused. The deal? If Pearly can raise their spiritual vibes by the end of the trip, she wins the freedom to guide her way. If not, it’s back to cosmic waste management. No pressure.
From midnight snacks to museum flirtations, moonlit magic to midlife makeovers, Pearly’s meddling sparks transformations she never expected. And when her ex-soulmate signs on as their tour guide—hoping to reconnect—she’s forced to reconsider the walls she’s built around her own heart. Can they finally break their old patterns, or are they doomed to repeat history all over again?
Set in present-day Paris, The Midnight Croissant is a warm, witty story celebrating love in all its forms—full of found family, fresh starts, and the magic of showing up as your fabulous, flawed, self—anchored by a swoony, slow-burn romance.
This book sparkles as a standalone, while also continuing the Pearly Gates series.
Link: Goodreads
The Witch Queen — Heather Walter
Genre: Fairy tale retelling
Rep: Sapphic
Genre: Book 2 of The Crimson Crown Duology
The wicked queen from Snow White rises to her destiny in this second book in a darkly romantic fairy tale retelling duology from the author of Malice.
The sequel to The Crimson Crown, in which Ayleth, once a talentless witch cast out by her coven, has embraced her dark destiny and vows revenge on all who have wronged her; Jacquetta battles her loyalty between her coven and her heart; and Blodwyn seeks to unravel a mystery at the heart of her family.
Link: Goodreads
April 15, 2026
Pieties — Marc Ruvolo
Genre: Historical horror
Rep: Gay
Wheaton, Illinois. 1981. After contracting a debilitating new mystery illness doctors are calling GRID, Andrew Fineman reluctantly bids farewell to his new life in NYC, returning to the uber-religious suburb where he was born-and the control of his estranged parents. Sick, destitute, a thousand miles from his West Village circle, Andrew finds himself trapped in a home overseen by his strict, domineering father. A man who believes Andrew’s sickness may be a punishment from God.
While more sympathetic, his mother appears ill as well, sleepwalking the darkened halls, her body covered in unexplained sores and bruises. At night, his father disappears for hours into the secluded, picture-perfect Japanese garden behind the house, a strange obsession he's cultivated as long as Andrew can remember. And there’s a horrible scratching in the walls that may or may not be rats... When he spies his father in the garden with a stranger, late at night and half hidden in the stands of bamboo, Andrew begins to investigate.
Before long, a series of ominous events convinces him there is something far more dangerous than mere adultery at play. Even worse, his mother may end up being the next victim...
Madness creeping around every corner, Andrew wonders if these incidents are merely symptoms of his illness, or does some terrible secret truly lurk between the black surface of the koi pond and his father’s forbidden, walled-off groves of whispering bamboo?
Link: Goodreads
April 20, 2026
Mist and Memory — Heather Salter-Purves
Genre: Gothic love story
Rep: Sapphic
She’s haunted Thornwood Forest for four hundred years. Then one woman walks in—and the ghost who can’t look away.
Wren doesn’t remember being human. She only knows the forest is hers to protect, and that she died here long ago—condemned as a witch for loving the wrong person. For centuries, she’s existed as mist and light, a solitary guardian. The dangerous ones who wander into her woods don’t walk back out the same.
Then Mara appears: an anthropology student researching queer erasure in witch trial records. She walks into Thornwood without fear, sits down with her notebook, and says, “I know you’re there. And I’m not afraid.”
Wren can’t stop watching her. Following her. Wanting her in a way she’d forgotten was possible.
As Mara uncovers the truth of Wren’s death, memories surface—and with them, a dangerous possibility. Wren didn’t just survive her execution. She transformed. She became what they called her: a witch, a monster, a force of nature. And she’s been waiting four hundred years for someone brave enough to see her clearly.
Together, they’ll discover that love can exist in the spaces between worlds. That becoming a monster on your own terms is its own kind of power. That sometimes the most dangerous love stories are the ones that refuse to apologize for existing.
Link: Kobo
April 21, 2026
Honor & Heresy — Max Francis
Genre: Dark epic fantasy, dark academia
Rep: M/M
Genre: Book 1 of Honor & Heresy
Roy Dawnseve, the prospective heir to Dawnseve Manor, cares more for philosophy than battle. However, in a society that shuns literature and promotes violence, his fate is compromised. But Roy is given a choice: he can either brave the front lines and fight the Old Ones, the mysterious, black-armored soldiers invading Northgard—or he can investigate their identity in the Orphic Basilica, an ancient, abandoned library.
When Roy chooses to unravel the mystery, it soon becomes clear that the Orphic Basilica isn’t without its own horrors. Strange voices echo down the halls, ghosts with burning red eyes roam the bookshelves, and those who stepped foot in the library have either emerged insane or were driven to their own demise.
Roy’s only companion—and his partner in the investigation—is Percival Atherton, a manipulative, enigmatic and distractingly charming scholar who has no qualms about belittling Roy. As a fierce snowstorm sinks its claws into the city, isolating them from civilization, Roy and Percival must grapple with their tormented pasts, an unexpected romance, and an age-old conspiracy whose secrets are certain to wipe Northgard from history.
Filled with all the yearning of a rivals-to-lovers romance, the intrigue and fear of a dark academia, and the wonder and discovery of an epic fantasy, Honor & Heresy is ultimately a story of self-discovery amidst the chaos of war and a long, cold winter.
Link: Goodreads
The Labyrinth of Waking Dreams — Michelle Kulwicki
Genre: YA portal fantasy
Rep: Queer
In this adventure-packed portal fantasy, three teens discover a gateway to a mythical Labyrinth in the Appalachian Mountains.
Barren’s Peak, West Virginia, is not a place anyone would call magical, but Thea LaGuerre calls it home. A high school drop-out whose mother died in an accident, Thea is stuck working part-time jobs just to make ends meet. The most she has to look forward to are barn parties where she can make out with Callum, the one interesting boy who moved to town six months ago.
Thea doesn’t know it yet, but Callum was sent to Barren’s Peak to watch her. He was raised within the magicians’ order, a shadowy organization meant to keep humanity safe from an underworld of monsters. Callum would sacrifice anyone, including himself, to help their cause, but he still can’t help falling into Thea’s orbit. She’s the first person he’s felt seen by since his childhood sweetheart, Oliver—who he hasn’t seen since Oliver’s banishment from the order.
But Oliver hasn’t given up on Callum or on magic. Following a magical creature’s trail to Barren’s Peak, Oliver happens upon Callum and Thea at a barn party that turns into a monster-overrun massacre. To save Callum and the girl he’s protecting from a wave of deadly fairies, Oliver opens a portal for the three of them to flee into the Labyrinth.
To get home again, Thea, Oliver, and Callum will have to work together to survive the Labyrinth’s trials and discover the threads that brought them there.
Link: Goodreads
Thrall — Rebecca Mahoney
Genre: Fantasy, horror
Rep: Sapphic
In Thrall, a young woman looking for a transformative college experience is bitten by a vampire and must team up with his other living victims to hunt him down.
Lucy Easting has at last broken free from her grim home life and is ready to truly live. But her long-awaited new beginning at Rollins University isn’t what she expected. After attending the first campus party of the year, Lucy awakens the next day with a memory block…and two puncture marks on her neck.
She tries to piece together what happened that night, but every lead brings her to another dead end. Until she receives a handwritten note from the campus radio station, inviting her to call. When she does, the host’s soothing voice over the line confirms her worst fear, and the simplest explanation of what’s happening to her: she’s turning into a vampire.
Lucy teams up with the show’s host, who narrowly escaped an attack her sophomore year, and a beautiful archery champion who, while exactly Lucy’s type, is as likely to shoot her as kiss her. They believe their “friend with the cold hands” is responsible for the disappearance of several women in town, and they’ve been tracking him via the airwaves since long before Lucy arrived.
As the vampire’s sway over Lucy grows and his plans become clear, she realizes she must fight for a future of her own, or she may not have any future at all.
Link: Goodreads
The Witch and the Huntress — Luna McNamara
Genre: Mythology, retelling
Rep: Sapphic
Two of Greek mythology’s most complex and powerful women—Medea and Atalanta—join forces on Jason’s quest for the Golden Fleece in this suspenseful, sapphic reimagining from the acclaimed author of Psyche and Eros.
Medea possesses both witchcraft and cunning, yet she endures a lonely and constrained life under the rule of her wicked father, Aeetes. When the hero Jason arrives, they strike a deal: If Medea helps him win her father’s Golden Fleece, Jason will marry her and take her with him back to Greece. But as the journey unfolds, Medea is forced to choose between the life she expected and the love she secretly desires—and the cost may be greater than she ever imagined.
Atalanta, raised by bears, is a capable warrior caught between the wilderness and the human world but never fully part of either. After the sudden disappearance of the woman she loves, Atalanta joins Jason’s Argonauts in an attempt to find her. But when Medea becomes part of the crew, the sorceress awakens something in Atalanta that she cannot ignore.
Jason, a skilled diplomat but a reluctant warrior, depends on his heroic companions to help him claim the Golden Fleece and retake the stolen throne of his father. Medea and Atalanta are among his most useful allies, but Jason soon finds that success may demand more than he can give.
Bursting with mythological references and cameos, Luna McNamara’s The Witch and the Huntress is a daring, enchanting story about two singular women in search of love, power, and redemption, set against a backdrop of epic quests and meddling gods.
Link: Goodreads
Tea and Treachery at the Infinite Pantry — Jo Miles
Genre: Cozy fantasy
Rep: Queer; F/X
Series: Book 1 of The Infinite Pantry
A good cup of tea can fix any problem, she’s always said. For this one, she’s going to need more tea.
To Glendevyn, the Infinite Pantry is far more than a magical museum of the world’s most treasured foods. It’s the home she’s always longed for. As the new head curator, she expected to wrestle with ornery funders and too-tight budgets… but when rare items in the collection suddenly start decaying, reduced to dust despite their protection spells, she’s out of her depth.
The elven mage Irdruan would do anything for Glendevyn—even hide their feelings for her. She clearly doesn’t return those feelings, after all, and how can they risk their friendship when she’s relying on their support? But even with all Irdruan’s magic, they can’t find a way to do the one thing Glendevyn needs from them: to put a stop to the growing destruction.
Caught between an unknown magic threatening everything they’ve built and a wealthy funder pushing to take control, Glendevyn and Irdruan will do whatever it takes to save the Infinite Pantry. They’ll have to learn to trust each other—and themselves—as they fight for their home with the power of love, friendship, and delicious food.
The first book in a new series, this sweet cozy fantasy is steeped in magic and deliciousness, like curling up with a warm mug of tea.
Link: Goodreads
April 24, 2026
Skies of Fire and Smoke — Brian D. Hinson
Genre: Fantasy, alternate history
Rep: MLM
When Germania revolts against the dragons that rule Europe, Lt. Johann Fischer joins the attack on the Citadel in his Fokker. The fierce war begins on that day, but the dragons and their allied Papal States wield an overwhelming power. Johann battles for his life, his secret lover, Emil, and the freedom of his people.
Kendensei, a Scale Guard of the Citadel, is sent to Germania as a spy, where she infiltrates Johann’s family as Gretchen, their live-in maid and cook.
As the inept Pope pressures the Kaiser of Germania to abandon his vainglorious war, Cardinal Lanzo Cellucci seeks the throne of Saint Peter for himself, by whatever means at his disposal.
Skies of Fire and Smoke is an alternate historical fantasy of brutal warfare and savage aerial battles, which criticizes predatory and hypocritical religious power, threading broad emotional arcs of its characters consumed in war and resistance.
Link: Goodreads
April 28, 2026
Alex Wise vs. the Gods of the Apocalypse — Terry J. Benton-Walker
Genre: MG fantasy
Rep: MLM
Series: Book 3 of Alex Wise
Saving the world is one thing... saving the multiverse is another. Alex Wise returns in the third book in this thrilling fantasy series all about finding your inner hero.
Alex may have failed to stop the Cosmic Shift, but that doesn’t mean he is giving up on saving the world. The only problem is... he has no idea what world he’s even in. A rip in the multiverse has stranded him and his best friend Loren in a mysterious realm—without his sister Mags, or demi-god crush Liam, or even his kinda cool, kinda annoying stepbrother Nick. Like Earth, this world is at war, and Loren and Alex will have to use all their wits and magic to escape space pirates, an underground rebellion, and advanced technology with terrifying consequences.
But even if Alex manages to find a way to return home, it will be nothing like the home he once knew. His nemesis Ezra is stronger than ever and, along with War and Famine, is turning Earth into a violent, chaotic dumpster fire. Alex never asked to be a superhero, but with the weight of not one but TWO worlds resting on his shoulders, that’s exactly who he needs to be.
Link: Goodreads
The Night King’s Court — Elisa A. Bonnin
Genre: YA cozy fantasy
Rep: Sapphic
Caraval meets Flowerheart in this rich and immersive cozy fantasy, where dazzling magic, lush descriptions, and a sweet sapphic romance cast an irresistible spell.
Ida’s father went missing without a trace seven years ago, last seen at the court of the enigmatic Night King, which comes to life only after dark with magic and revelry.
So when a position opens up for a new court Luminaire, Ida doesn’t hesitate. She inherited her gift for enchantments from her father—and with this position, she’ll use it to find him again.
Ida is swept into the king’s collection of magical beings, those who bring light and entertainment to the Court’s midnight gatherings—and swept away by the Court, where faerie gardens edge into underwater masquerades, dreaming revels offer blissful escapes, and life is a mesmerizing euphoria.
Yet a sinister thread interrupts Ida’s nights of decadence. Memories go missing, the castle’s magic takes on a malevolence, and Ida can’t seem to leave the boundaries of the court itself.
Enlisting the help of the king’s breathtakingly beautiful daughter Lenore, Ida must unravel the castle’s secrets… before this enchanted world destroys her.
Link: Goodreads
The Moon Blessed King — Lindsey Byrd
Genre: Fantasy
Rep: M/M
Series: Book 2 of A Tale of Two Crowns Duology
In the daring sequel to The Sun Blessed Prince, Elician and Cat must confront the goddess of death to save their nations—unless it's already too late.
Elician, a Giver with the power to raise the dead, is crowned King of Soleb, but it’s forbidden for Givers to rule. However, Elician is determined to end a generations-long war with the kingdom of Alelune—and will marry Alelune's rightful heir to do so.
But Cat is a Reaper, able to kill with a touch, and is therefore feared by his own people. His claim to the throne is a gamble at best, until his tyrannical brother, Gillage, seizes power before Cat can lay his claim to it—and now the conflict Elician had hoped to avoid seems inevitable.
Just as the war between nations begins anew, the goddess of death releases a devastating plague across the continent. To stop it, Elician and Cat must confront Death herself, leaving Elician's rebellious sister, Fen, to do what she can to heal the sick in their absence. But when a coup threatens to upend her brother’s reign, Fen must decide exactly what she is willing to sacrifice to help her brother succeed.
With the death toll rising and the struggle for the Alelunen throne in the balance, it’s a race against time to appease the wrath of a god with the monarchies of both countries at stake.
Link: Goodreads
This Dream Will Devour Us — Emma Clancey
Genre: YA contemporary fantasy
Rep: Bi+ MCs
Sometimes you have to kill a dream to escape a nightmare.
Nora is the opposite of lucky. She’s still wrangling her late father’s debts when a mysterious illness lands her brother in the hospital. But her fortunes take an unexpected turn when she wins the lottery to attend the Lamour family’s exclusive, magical Dream Gala.
If Nora can win over the Lamour heirs, she’ll get a coveted spot on their magical training program—and the money she needs to save her brother.
There’s just one problem: Nora never bought a lottery ticket.
Determined to discover who wants her at the gala—and why—Nora plunges headfirst into magical high society. Caught up in a decadent world of brutal billionaires and cutthroat celebrities, Nora is soon in over her head and entangled in a messy love triangle.
When her search for answers uncovers a sinister conspiracy, will Nora stay silent or risk the wrath of a family powerful enough to get away with murder?
Link: Goodreads
Moon Dark — E.A. Field
Genre: Dark romantasy, retelling
Rep: Queer
A dark and thrilling re-imagining of Frankenstein and The Phantom of the Opera, MOON DARK is an adult romfantasy set in the manor and opera houses of late 1800s France.
1865 Fredericksburg, England: When Ian is born his father enlists Victor, a renowned, eccentric physician friend, to perform a series of depraved surgeries to correct his son’s facial and limb deformity. But when people end up as corpses in alleys and body parts pile up in their lab, Ian becomes the victim of two men playing God.
Ian survives the forced experiments but his disfigurement and legacy from his father marks him as an unnatural demon among men. Outcasted and feared though his intelligence far outstrips his generation, Ian escapes his father and Victor when they decide he’s too dangerous to be left alive. But Ian finds himself lost in a civilization that will not accept him—until a Marquis takes an interest in him. Ian learns that love comes in all forms but that above all, power is survival. But power does not get Ian closer to existing in society or finding peace.
It’s at the Marquis’ estate that Ian meets Gisele, a seamstress employed by an opera company, who shows him what unconditional love is. She can see past his deformity to the creative, intensely lonely soul inside. When Ian learns Victor is using his father to hunt him, Gisele’s life is in danger. Victor will use Gisele as a bargaining piece and Ian is the only one who can protect her. He has lived as both man and monster and now is confronted with his prodigious creator. He will be forced to decide if he will give up his life for revenge or choose to save the woman who has given him everything.
Link: Goodreads
The Redwood Bargain — Markelle Grabo
Genre: YA fantasy
Rep: Sapphic
To free her cousin from an indentured contract, Katrien agrees to fulfill their lord’s bargain with the fabled “Redwood Man.” Three maids before her have posed as his stepdaughter, Lady Zaviera, and met this lord of the forest as promised. But Katrien means to be the first to fool him—and live.
Impersonating a Lady is no easy feat, especially one as beautiful and aloof as Zaviera. With one month before she’s sent off, Katrien is put through endless lessons, even as the Redwood Man’s suffocating vines overtake the manor and threaten its staff.
Zaviera takes a special interest in her training, and their shared interests grow into shared affections. But the Redwood Man awaits his prize. Caught between duty and desire, her future and her past, Katrien must navigate a tricky bargain—or risk failing those she holds dearest.
Link: Goodreads
The Spell for Unraveling — Rochelle Hassan
Genre: YA contemporary fantasy
Rep: Queer
Series: Book 3 of The Buried and the Bound
Author Rochelle Hassan delivers a pulse-pounding conclusion to her dangerous and alluring trilogy, The Buried and the Bound, inviting readers into the realm of witches that churns beneath the surface of the mundane―just as it threatens to boil over...
After the chaos of the summer solstice, elder hedgewitch Anne Sterling steps in to take Coven Blackthorn under her wing―and to enlist their help. There’s damage control to be done as threats of a fairy war loom and the upheaval in Elphame spills into the human realm. Leo, in particular, is uniquely positioned to influence the course of events.
But Aziza’s top priority is to rescue her oldest friend and former librarian, Meryl, a selkie whose mysterious captor may have closer ties to Blackthorn―and Aziza herself―than she ever realized. To find him, Aziza will venture into the secretive community of witches hidden beneath the surface of mundane society and confront her deadliest foe yet.
Meanwhile, Tristan delves deep into the study of necromancy, certain it will be their best defense against the danger closing in on all sides. But mastery of the infernal arts is not without its own risks. And there are some things you can’t come back from.
Link: Goodreads
The Black Parade — Ilana M. Lindsey
Genre: Post-apocalyptic
Rep: M/M
Series: Book 1 of the After the Dust trilogy
The world may burn, but it will never take your heart.
As billions die from an apocalyptic cloud of polluted dust, David—a climate activist in a previous life—is holed up in an abandoned hospital in London offering a cure to anyone who needs it. Months earlier he escaped from a rogue government scientist whose illegal experimentation gave David two unasked-for gifts: the ability to cure people with his blood and a locked collar around his neck. When Lysander, the sheltered son of an aristocrat, arrives and begs David to save his mother's life, David has to try. Together, the two young men begin a journey across the UK toward an island community they hope will provide food and shelter.
Lysander struggles, longing for the security he took for granted before society crashed. He despairs over David’s hero complex and tendency to lead them both into danger. David is torn between protecting Lysander and the guilt that drives him to use his power to save the dying. Their clashing personalities, values, and ideas of what safety looks like, are woven together with an irresistible attraction that grows into something deeper. As they face the elements, other survivors, and a government desperately trying to reassert control, David and Lysander’s greatest challenge becomes staying together while fate conspires to rip them apart.
Link: Goodreads
Our Rogue Fates — Sarah Glenn Marsh
Genre: Romantic fantasy
Rep: M/M
On the hunt for hidden treasure, two former best friends turned adversaries must put the past behind them if they hope to survive.
When he isn’t training as a Warden to become half the hero his father was, Griff Sayer is in the business of breaking hearts all across the town of Mayfair. His ex-best-friend, Mal Pryce, meanwhile, is in business with whatever or whoever puts good money in his hands. Now in their mid-20s, Griff and Mal have only exchanged scathing looks and carefully barbed jabs since the fight that sent them their separate ways years ago. But all that begins to change when an attack Mal plotted for his shady boss leaves Griff near death and their childhood friend Alys is his savior, forcing them back into each other’s orbit.
Livid at his boss, Mal makes a deal to earn his freedom and Griff’s safety. He has just four weeks to retrieve an ancient treasure from Rotrose Mire, a remote swamp known for its ghostly and beastly dangers, the same treasure Alys’s beloved father Rhun had been searching for when he disappeared for good. Armed with a map and a broken blade of Rhun’s, Mal sets off—with Alys and a reluctant Griff in tow.
Yet the explosive tension between the two men—along with the dangers of the mire pressing in around them—make for a more difficult journey than any of them could have anticipated. As Griff and Mal peel back their tough facades, and shared feelings heat up in unexpected ways as they learn to trust again, they also realize that someone—or something—seems to be following their path. Someone who doesn’t want them to succeed, no friend to their parents’ old enemies, but also no friend to would-be heroes…
Link: Goodreads
Siren’s Last Song — Ashleigh Martin
Genre: YA fantasy
Rep: Sapphic
The underwater kingdom of Merelani lives in peace—that is, until the newly crowned MerKing is murdered by a human poacher. And seconds after his death, the seafloor erupts into riotous sea quakes, an obvious portent of their Sea Goddess’s anger.
Avarie, the king’s meek twin sister, is tasked with finding the killer and avenging his death. With a potion, she’s transformed into a human and her journey on land begins.
Even with knowledge of the human world from books, life ashore proves disorienting. Luckily for Avarie, she runs into—quite literally—a local who’s more than obliging to show her around.
As Avarie and Lahna grow closer, time ticks away. The Sea Goddess’s wrath reaches new peaks, and secrets between the duo could irreparably destroy their budding romance.
Siren’s Last Song is a YA sapphic tale of navigating grief, the weight of rising to responsibility, and falling for the one you should stay away from the most.
Link: Goodreads
An Accident of Dragons — Cheri Radke
Genre: Cozy fantasy
Rep: Queer
Series: Book 1 of Tales of Summer
No one would have chosen a Lord Summer so wholly ill-suited for the role—no one except the Dragon of Summer herself, it would seem. An indolent and foppish peacock getting a bit old for his typical charms to play well, Teddy has no doubt that the nobles of Summer find him ridiculous. They all know that the only reason the dragon chose him was on account of his connection to the previous Lord Summer as his, uh, special companion.
Still, as long as Teddy can keep the dragon happy, and her blessings continue to bring peace and prosperity to the Isle of Summer, surely he’s doing well enough. Right?
When Summer lays a rare and highly valuable egg, Teddy’s care-free life threatens to fall apart as the egg’s unexpected appearance dredges up long-repressed memories, and outside forces turn avaricious eyes on the insular island. A mysterious, dragon-worshiping cult covets the egg, and when Teddy bungles a self-interested attempt to give it to them, they sail away with his young daughter instead.
If he hopes to save her, Teddy can no longer afford to ignore how his personal shortcomings are putting his country and the people he loves at risk. To match wits with an ambitious sorceress who presents an unflattering mirror of his own flaws, he must face the reality of just how, precisely, he became Lord Summer.
Link: Goodreads
The Boyfriend Academy — J.S. Strange
Genre: Dystopian dark academia
Rep: Gay
Love is forbidden. Truth is dangerous. Survival is everything.
Ganymede’s is no ordinary boarding school. Behind its spiral towers and manicured lawns, boys are forged into the men society demands—strong, obedient, perfect. Graduate, and the world is yours: a home, a career, a wife. But fail… and you’re no longer useful to society.
For Dylan Cecil it should be simple: keep his head down, survive graduation, and earn his place. But when his friend Blake disappears, Dylan can’t silence the questions gnawing at him, even as whispers of danger shadow the school’s gilded halls.
As June’s trials close in—eight tests that will decide who is worthy of manhood—Dylan is haunted by Blake’s absence and drawn to Roman Edwards, a boy as magnetic as he is unknowable.
In a world rebuilt on order and obedience, Dylan must decide: will he become the man the academy wants—or the man he really is?
Link: Goodreads
The Mystery of the Bitten Peach — Cecelia Tan
Genre: Time-travel fantasy romance
Rep: Sapphic
Meet Mei, a young Chinese American who has discovered she has the mystical ability to transport herself anywhere that is spiritually “China”—including Chinatowns around the world and different eras of Chinese history. As an adoptive child of the diaspora, Mei was raised in America with no knowledge of Chinese folklore or fairy tales, but when an antiques dealer friend needs help retrieving a mythic artifact—a jade carving of a peach that represented same-sex love in ancient China—she’s game to give it a try.
Her quest sends Mei not only into the past, but on a journey of self-discovery.
Link: Author’s Website
April 29, 2026
The Strange Untried — Haden Cross
Genre: Science fiction, retelling
Rep: Queer trans man MC; other queer characters
Series: Standalone in established universe
Early-career xenozoologists Abelard Cousteau, Huang Mingyu, and Chen Yuxuan have put their time in studying the boring worms found around the alien planet research base they’ve called home the last several years. When they wander too far off the trail to find their way back to camp, everything they think they know—about this world, the nature of the universe, and the unspoken tension at the core of Abelard and Yuxuan’s relatioship—blows wide open.
“The Strange Untried” is set before the events of the novel The Uncontinented Stars and shares characters/locations, but is standalone.
Link: Itch.io
The Gathering Shade — Celia Thorn
Genre: Paranormal romance
Rep: Sapphic
Series: Book 2 of Sisters of Twilight
Quintia was a Sister of Twilight, a vampire warrior. She didn’t do feelings… did she?
This job should have been an easy one. Get into the hospital, retrieve the blood sample, get out. But now a pretty doctor with light blue eyes is in her way, and Quintia finds herself enchanted by the headstrong human.
Rosalind, a genetic consultant at a busy London hospital, refuses to hand over the blood sample she took from a mystery patient. Especially not to the tall, leather-clad woman that just strode into her laboratory. There is something strange going on here, and Rosalind won’t give in until she gets to the bottom of it.
The Sisterhood is facing an unknown foe and Rosalind might be the key to unravelling the mystery. Circumstance forces Quintia and Rosalind together despite their differences, but perhaps the cliché is true: opposites do attract…
The Gathering Shade is the second book in a sapphic urban fantasy series about a Sisterhood of sword-wielding vampires fighting an evil that is threatening to overpower vampire society. It features a fresh take on vampires, found family, action, mystery, and a closed-door sweet romance.
Link: Goodreads