Queer SF - August 2025
August 1, 2025
What Happened on Roslyn Street? — Elle Lavendelle
Genre: Paranormal dark academia mystery romance
Rep: Queer
Series: Book 1 of Strode University
Being an amateur sleuth is fun and games—until the murderer thinks you’re flirting with him.
Tobey has a lot on their plate.
Best friend number one? Dead, without a cause.
Best friend number two? Fake enough to lead to a cataclysmic friendship breakup.
Tobey knows her friend’s death wasn’t an accident, but no one will hear her out. In search of proof, Tobey enrolls at Strode University, an enigmatic school where monsters run wild.
Enter Caldwell, the mysterious man who may have murdered her best friend. That brings us back to the initial problem.
The lines blur, and before she knows it, she’s dating the murderer. Is Caldwell to blame, or does Strode University have a deeper story to tell? Tobey must find the answers soon or lose another friend.
Link: Goodreads
The Moonlight Lies — Aengie Scevity
Genre: YA fantasy
Rep: Sapphic
FAKE IT ’TIL FATE FITS.
Fourteen-year-old Cassiopeia Brown has never belonged. Ridiculed, detested, and powerless, she’s an outcast even among her own kind—a goblin cursed with fiery red hair. So when the prophesied hero refuses to face the coming Moonfall—a magical cataclysm that will destroy the world—Cassie decides she’ll stop it herself, even if it means stealing his identity. Even if it kills her.
With the eccentric elder Gaffer at her side, Cassie’s unlikely party grows to include Roland, a stone giant next in line for a crown he doesn’t want, and Elidi, a salamander girl hiding a secret of her own. Believing they’re aiding the child of the prophecy, the group hunts down five legendary moonlight artefacts.
However, as the stakes rise, so too do the lies—and the resentful Cassie begins to fear the disaster might be her doing. With those fears, secrets long buried by the centuries surface, and a far darker truth becomes clear: not everyone wants the world to be saved.
A heartfelt, high-stakes adventure perfect for fans of Nevermoor and The Last Airbender, The Moonlight Lies is a found-family fantasy about power, choice, and rewriting your own story—even when the stars and moons say you can’t.
Link: Goodreads
August 2, 2025
Theseus and the Sky Labyrinth — Gwenhyver
Genre: Fantasy, mythology
Rep: Sapphic
Series: Standalone in established universe
Navigate the labyrinth. Kill the beast. Don’t fall for the princess… Simple, right?
Theseus should know better than to try to impress a princess. And yet... here she is, in a sky labyrinth—an architectural wonder, a prison, a death trap, a maze of masks and monsters—where things are seldom what they seem.
Theseus might have made a name for herself in the monster-killing business, but in the labyrinth-dwelling Minotaur, she might just have met her match.
‘Theseus and the Sky Labyrinth’ is a standalone novel set in the ‘Jasyn and the Astronauts’ universe. Like the Jasyn series, it is a sapphic, swords & sorcery in space reimagining of myth where the skies are a wonder and love can move the heavens.
Link: Goodreads
August 5, 2025
Teo’s Durumi — Elaine U. Cho
Genre: Space opera
Rep: Bi+ MC; M/M; BIPOC cast
Series: Book 2 of The Alliance
The dazzling sequel to Ocean’s Godori dives back into Elaine U. Cho’s cinematic space opera series, taking Ocean and her crew deep into the cloisters of the Moon and the conflicts of the heart.
Teo Anand, former ne’er-do-well second son of the Anand Tech empire and current solar fugitive, has just crash-landed on the Moon after escaping the latest attempt on his life. But if anyone can help exonerate him, it’s his best friend, bold Korean space pilot Ocean Yoon.
Falsely accused of murdering his family, Teo is running out of both time and options. But loyalties are uncertain in their group of steadfast comrades and tentative new allies, and it’s difficult to know who to trust in the tangled web that awaits them in Artemis, a city on the Moon rich in Korean history and haunted by ghosts from Teo’s and Ocean’s pasts. Further complicating matters are Haven—the pensive medic whose beliefs challenge Ocean’s—and the dashing Phoenix—a space raider who’s come blazing into Teo’s life in more ways than one.
All the while Corvus, the real culprit behind the slaying of the Anands, is sowing a path of destruction that threatens to swallow the solar whole. The crew will wrestle with clashing ideals, flying bullets, and undeniable feelings, as they race toward a stunning final stand.
Teo’s Durumi brings Cho’s space opera duology to an exhilarating close, one that contends with questions of identity and acceptance; grief and redemption; and loyalty and sacrifice, as Teo, Ocean, and the people they love will decide once and for all how to forge their paths into the future.
Link: Goodreads
Our Vicious Descent — Hayley Dennings
Genre: Historical fantasy
Rep: Sapphic
Series: Book 2 of Ravenous Fate
In this stunning conclusion to the bestselling Ravenous Fate duology, Elise abandons her legacy as heiress to a glittering empire to ally herself with the criminals and reapers—vampires—of the city’s underworld, including Layla, the reaper she loves. Together they must discover the truth behind an alluring new poison that ravages New York.
It’s 1927, and shocking upheavals have rocked Harlem’s most powerful factions and left Elise Saint estranged from the reaper she loves, Layla Quinn. The Saint family empire is in decline, the neighborhood’s notorious reaper lair has lost their ancient matriarch, and gangster-run blood houses are peddling debauchery to humans and reapers alike. Elise is desperate to find her beloved little sister, Josi, who has been poisoned with the reaper affliction—bitten, but not quite turned vampire. Layla must contend with unrest in the Harlem clan while trying to control the violent impulses that a so-called “cure” for reapers awakened in her.
With shifting alliances and new players in the city’s underworld, Elise and Layla can’t trust anyone, let alone one another. Yet both suspect sinister forces behind the mysterious reaper-venom drug that’s all the rage with thrill-seeking blood house patrons. When the drug’s effects have deadly consequences, the two are joined in purpose as they trace the origins of the elixir. They will risk everything to unearth the secrets of reaperhood, where the shadowy boundaries between the dead and the living are even more treacherous than they imagined.
Link: Goodreads
Black Flame — Gretchen Felker-Martin
Genre: Historical horror
Rep: Queer
Manhunt author Gretchen Felker-Martin is back with Black Flame, a historical horror about one woman’s deadly obsession with a haunted film, perfect for fans of Midsommar and Night Film.
Ellen, a deeply closeted lesbian spends all her time in solitude, restoring films at a failing archive in New York City.
When a group of German academics present her with a print of an infamous exploitation film believed to have been destroyed during the Holocaust, Ellen finds herself forced to confront her own repressed sexuality. And the more she works on the restoration, the more obsessed she becomes over its depictions of occult practices and queer debauchery.
She’s soon convinced that the acts portrayed in the film are not fiction, but reality. And they’re happening to her…
Link: Goodreads
Mindscape — Andrea Hairston
Genre: Science fiction
Rep: Queer
MINDSCAPE takes us to a future in which the world itself has been literally divided by the Barrier, a phenomenon that will not be ignored. For 115 years this extraterrestrial, epidimensional entity has divided the earth into warring zones.
Although a treaty to end the interzonal wars has been hammered out, power-hungry politicians, gangsters, and spiritual fundamentalists are determined to thwart it. Celestina, the treaty’s architect, is assassinated, and her protegee, Elleni, a talented renegade and one of the few able to negotiate the Barrier, takes up her mantle. Now Elleni and a motley crew of allies risk their lives to make the treaty work.
Can they repair their fractured world before the Barrier devours them completely?
Link: Goodreads
This Is My Body — Lindsay King-Miller
Genre: Horror, paranormal
Rep: Lesbian MC
A gripping, emotional, and darkly funny queer horror novel about family trauma and possession, for fans of Rachel Harrison and Catriona Ward.
Single gay mom Brigid always thought that cutting ties with her extremist Catholic family was the best thing she could have done for her daughter, Dylan—and for herself. But when Dylan starts having terrifying fits of unnatural violence, Brigid can’t shake her memories of a girl from her childhood who behaved the same way... until Brigid’s uncle, Father Angus, performed an exorcism.
Convinced that her daughter is suffering from demonic possession, Brigid does the thing she told herself she’d never she goes home. Father Angus is the worst person she knows, but he’s also the only person who can help her daughter.
But as Brigid starts to uncover secrets about Father Angus, that long-ago exorcism, and her family’s past, she realizes that she and Dylan have never been in more danger.
This Is My Body is a piercing journey into religious trauma and childhood shame, building towards a heart-pounding twisty climax that will spin your head all the way around.
Link: Goodreads
Solum Iris — T.M. Ledvina
Genre: Cozy romantic fantasy
Rep: Sapphic
Hundreds of generations have passed since the Goddess blessed the Azura Isles and then mysteriously disappeared.
Dove Cita has finally achieved her lifelong ambition; acceptance to Prism Academy, the Azura Isle’s most prestigious university. At the annual Revelation Ceremony, every student discovers their soul’s color—a reflection of their identity and place in society. Dove dreams of a soul as rich and ruby red as her mother’s.
But when she steps before the Aura Mirror, it reveals the unthinkable; her soul has no color at all.
Shunned and adrift, Dove’s carefully laid plans crumble. When a mysterious sickness strikes campus, the students see her colorless soul as the culprit. Desperate to prove her innocence, Dove uncovers unsettling truths about the disease—secrets that tie it to the Azura Isles’ forgotten history and the goddess who vanished generations ago. As these revelations unravel everything Dove thought she knew about her world, she must confront not only the island’s past but her place in its future.
And while Dove navigates the tension of a life upended, she finds herself drawn to her roommate Rory, a rare black soul whose magnetic presence is impossible to ignore.
Solum Iris is a standalone, cozy romantic fantasy novel inspired by the beauty of nature and color-based magic. Perfect for readers of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches and Legends & Lattes, it combines found family, a cozy academic mystery, and soft romance with a satisfying conclusion.
Link: Goodreads
Mad Sisters of Esi — Tashan Mehta
Genre: Fantasy
Rep: Sapphic
Myung and Laleh are keepers of the whale of babel. They roam within its cosmic chambers, speak folktales of themselves, and pray to an enigmatic figure they know only as ‘Great Wisa.’ To Laleh, this is everything. For Myung, it is not enough.
When Myung flees the whale, she stumbles into a new universe where shapeshifting islands and ancient maps hold sway. There, she sets off on an adventure that is both tragic and transformative, for her and Laleh. For at the heart of her quest lies a mystery that has confounded scholars for centuries: the truth about the mad sisters of Esi.
Fables, dreams and myths come together in this masterful work of fantasy by acclaimed author Tashan Mehta, sweeping across three landscapes, and featuring a museum of collective memory and a festival of madness. At its core, it asks: In the devastating chaos of this world, where all is in flux and the truth ever-changing, what will you choose to hold on to?
Link: Goodreads
Automatic Noodle — Annalee Newitz
Genre: Cozy science fiction
Rep: Queer
From sci-fi visionary and acclaimed author Annalee Newitz comes Automatic Noodle, a cozy near-future novella about a crew of abandoned food service bots opening their very own restaurant.
While San Francisco rebuilds from the chaos of war, a group of food service bots in an abandoned ghost kitchen take over their own delivery app account. They rebrand as a neighborhood lunch spot and start producing some of the tastiest hand-pulled noodles in the city. But there’s just one problem. Someone―or something―is review bombing the restaurant’s feedback page with fake “bad service” reports. Can the bots find the culprit before their ratings plummet and destroy everything they created?
Link: Goodreads
The Faceless Thing We Adore — Hester Steel
Genre: Cosmic horror
Rep: Queer
It’s a tale as old as time: break up with your shitty boyfriend, travel to a foreign country to find yourself... end up in a sex-fueled commune worshiping an angry God.
When Aoife stumbles across the Farmstead, she finds everything she’s been missing—a community that loves her, sexual freedom, a greater purpose. She could actually be happy here...
If it weren’t for the teenager they keep locked up in a cabin with no windows. Or the mysterious rot spreading through the farmland. Or that some of her new friends talk about their leader Jonah with more fear than love.
When the god wakes up and it all goes wrong, it’s only Aoife who has the power to choose what will become of their tiny reality. Awkward, clumsy Aoife, who was always told she was weak, and is just now realizing the depths of her strength—and the pleasures of her rage.
Link: Goodreads
August 7, 2025
Amongst Embers and Ashes — Zenovia Bards
Genre: YA epic fantasy
Rep: Queernorm world
Life on her family farm is all Scarlet Lawson knows. That is, until she accidentally conjures fire that burns her sister’s face.
Word of the incident reaches the king, who recruits Scarlet and other teenagers capable of elemental magic to deal with a cult that terrorises the kingdom. But while the other elementals learn to use their magic, whenever Scarlet tries to conjure fire, she thinks about her sister and freezes up. Not even fellow pyro elemental, Zane Marangoz, can coax her magic out. Nevertheless, the two bond, and Scarlet finds Zane’s mischievous nature growing less annoying each day. In fact, they make her smile for the first time in ages.
After an assassination attempt on Zane by the cult, the amount of time Scarlet has to master her powers shrinks rapidly. She must confront the blockage in her magic to help protect not only the kingdom, but those she has grown close to. But even with her magic, she might not be ready, especially if the rumours brewing that the cult’s leader is secretly alive have any truth to them...
A queer-normative epic fantasy ideal for fans of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, found families and elemental magic, even if trauma blocks the main character’s powers.
Link: Goodreads
August 12, 2025
Through Sky and Stars — Tessa Croft
Genre: Science fiction
Rep: Sapphic
In 2763, humanity teeters on the brink of extinction after centuries of war with the alien Sh’keth. Val Koroleva, special forces operative, sacrifices her universe to leap across space and time to avert the disastrous war before it begins.
Eight centuries earlier, the world has yet to tumble into chaos. Bush pilot Nicole Baker, blissfully unaware of the alien threat lurking near her home, lives in peaceful solitude flying her airplane between far-flung corners of remote Alaska until a charming, mysterious stranger turns her world upside down.
Val won’t set her mission aside, but neither woman can ignore their unlikely connection. Can Val risk the future? Will love find a foothold despite a world on the brink of war?
Link: Goodreads
Lord of Ruin — K.M. Enright
Genre: Dark fantasy
Rep: Trans MMC; bi4bi polyam romance
Series: Book 2 of The Age of Blood
The unmissable sequel to Mistress of Lies, a dark fantasy romance with sizzling spice, vampiric blood magic, and cutthroat politics.
LOVE WILL BE THEIR RUIN.
It has been six months since the failed coup led by Isaac De La Cruz, and Shan LeClaire is struggling under the mantle of Royal Blood Worker. Left with a dwindling blood supply and a ravenous nation whose thirst will drown them, Shan is forced to turn to darker means to fill the need. And that is only the start of the horrors her Eternal King asks of her.
Now Councillor to the King, Samuel is trapped in a labyrinthine world of politics and bylaws. Crushed by the knowledge that he can never change things from within, Samuel breaks from Shan, turning to her rebellious brother to help him rescue the disgraced Isaac de la Cruz from the King’s dungeons.
Despite his newfound freedom, all is not well with Isaac. His actions have consequences, the dangerous magic he experimented with changing him from man to monster. But a monster might just be the only thing that can stand up to the Eternal King. Embracing the beast within, Isaac will see this broken nation shattered—even if it would cost the love of those he holds most dear.
Link: Goodreads
House of Monstrous Women — Daphne Fama
Genre: Historical gothic horror
Rep: Sapphic
A young woman is drawn into a dangerous game after being invited to the mazelike home of her childhood friend, a rumored witch, in this gothic horror set in 1986 Philippines.
In this game, there’s one rule: survive.
Orphaned after her father’s political campaign ended in tragedy, Josephine is alone taking care of the family home while her older brother is off in Manila, where revolution brews. But an unexpected invitation from her childhood friend Hiraya to her house offers an escape...
Why don’t you come visit, and we can play games like we used to?
If Josephine wins, she’ll get whatever her heart desires. Her brother is invited, too, and it’s time they had a talk. Josephine’s heard the dark whispers: Hiraya is a witch and her family spits curses. But still, she’s just desperate enough to seize this chance to change her destiny.
Except Ranoco house is strange—labyrinthine and dangerously close to a treacherous sea. A sickly-sweet smell clings to the dimly lit walls, and veiled eyes follow Josephine through endless connecting rooms. The air is tense with secrets and as the game continues it’s clear Josephine doesn’t have the whole truth.
To save herself, she will have to play to win. But in this house, victory is earned with blood.
A lush new voice in horror arises in this riveting gothic set against the upheaval of 1986 Philippines and the People Power Revolution.
Link: Goodreads
Starstrike — Yoon Ha Lee
Genre: YA science fiction
Rep: Queer
Series: Book 2 of Moonstorm
In this explosive sequel to Moonstorm, teen mecha pilot Hwa Young returns to her rebel roots to fight against the Imperial forces—but, as she grapples with her warring allegiances, who can she really trust? Perfect for fans of Iron Widow and the Skyward series!
Hwa Young and her pilot comrades have betrayed the Empire to save it from its own destruction—but what comes next? It’s been just two months since the lancer squad stopped imperial forces from deploying a devastating singularity bomb and taken shelter with the rebel clanners, who have kept them busy with raids against their ex-leaders. Their mission have helped numb the shock of recent battles… for now.
Meanwhile, Hwa Young’s best friend, technician Geum, has been left behind on the imperial fleet, imprisoned for aiding Hwa Young’s deceit against the Empire. Hwa Young is desperate to retrieve Geum—but Geum is slowly realizing that Hwa Young’s loyalties aren’t as clear cut as zie once believed.
As Hwa Young delves deeper into the rebels’ inner circles, she soon realizes that the clanners are just as cutthroat as the imperials, leaving her to wonder who she can really trust… and at odds with Geum, the one person she thought she could count on.
Link: Goodreads
Death Valley Blooms — S.M. Mack
Genre: Dark fantasy
Rep: Aroace MC; trans secondary character; bi secondary character
Every decade or so, vast quantities and varieties of wildflowers bloom all at once in Death Valley. But unbeknownst to the wider world, these super blooms are powered by a woman’s life. Mar Ramse lost her mother to Death Valley as a teenager and would give anything to break her family’s curse, but now the desert whispers its call to her. However, she still has a single ace up her sleeve: neither she nor her brother will ever have children. Is it enough for the desert to release its grip on her family?
Link: Neon Hemlock
Of Serpents and Sorrow — Katherine Shaw
Genre: Fantasy, mythology
Rep: Sapphic
Before the myth, there was a woman.
Medusa has been groomed her entire life to follow a single serve her term as the highly-respected Priestess of Athena, and then become the perfect, obedient wife to a wealthy nobleman she would never love.
Ismene has grown up despised by her tyrannical father, hidden away from polite society so she cannot bring shame to her family.
When the two meet, their lives are turned upside down by a whirlwind of forbidden feelings and secret dreams of a different kind of life. One where they might both be happier than they’d ever thought possible.
That is, until the gods get involved, and their world is transformed beyond recognition.
Link: Goodreads
Invisible Line — Su J. Sokol
Genre: Dystopian, hopepunk
Rep: Queer
Some revolutions start with a roar, others with the quiet turn of a wheel.
A hostile government. A desperate escape. A sanctuary city that holds their future.
In a near-future New York crushed under authoritarian rule, history teacher Laek can no longer hide his radical past. After a brutal confrontation with the NYPD, he and his family must flee across the border—by bicycle—into Québec. Their only chance lies in convincing Montreal to grant them refugee status.
Janie, an activist lawyer, fights to build a new life while protecting her family in a transformed Montreal. Between legal battles and cultural adjustments, she discovers that sanctuary comes with its own challenges.
Their children, Siri and Simon, must navigate a new world where everything is different—the language, the culture, and their place in it. As they adapt to their refuge, they learn that sometimes the strongest borders are the invisible ones we create ourselves.
Will they find safety in their new home, or will the past catch up with them?
Sunburst Award-nominated Su J Sokol crafts hopepunk science fiction where hope isn’t just resistance—it’s revolution.
Link: Goodreads
Alchemy and a Cup of Tea — Rebecca Thorne
Genre: Cozy fantasy
Rep: F/F
Series: Book 4 of Tomes & Tea
Reyna and Kianthe have no trouble ruling the Queendom, battling evil alchemists, and rescuing adorable baby dragons, but can they save their town from the ravening influx of.... tourists?!
On the night of her kidnapping, all Reyna wanted was a relaxing cup of tea. She didn’t expect to be dropped in a hidden cell, but what the hells. She’s flexible.
When Kianthe “rescues” her wife, she expects they’ll be back at New Leaf having tea by noon. But there’s a problem: an alchemy circle marred Reyna’s cell. What does a radical group of alchemists want with the Queendom’s newest sovereign… and why did they think they could get away with this?
To make matters worse, Kianthe and Reyna’s hometown is having its own problems. Word of New Leaf Tomes and Tea―and its celebrity owners―has finally spread, and tourists are flooding into Tawney. As their friends struggle with the sudden influx, Kianthe and Reyna have to face a bigger conundrum than rogue alchemists: the fact that closing their bookshop might be the only way to save their town.
Things can’t just be simple, can they?
Link: Goodreads
Lucky Day — Chuck Tingle
Genre: Horror
Rep: Bi MC
Lucky Day is the newest novel of terror from Chuck Tingle, USA Today bestselling author of Bury Your Gays, where one woman must go up against the most horrifying concept of all: nothing.
Vera is a survivor of a global catastrophe known as the Low Probability Event, but she definitely isn’t thriving. Once a passionate professor of statistics, she no longer finds meaning in anything at all.
But when problematic government agent Layne knocks on her door, she’s the only one who can help him uncover the connection between deadly spates of absurdity and an improbably lucky casino. What’s happening in Vegas isn’t staying there, and the world is at risk of another disaster.
When it comes to Chuck Tingle, the only thing more terrifying than a serious horror novel is an absurd one...
Link: Goodreads
Wild Night Rising — Barbara Ann Wright
Genre: Urban fantasy
Rep: Sapphic
The Wild Hunt is under new leadership: the Fury of Vengeance, who wants to bring back the horror of the old days, when gods and fey terrorized mankind. Gwyn, former leader of the Hunt, now serves as its herald but is desperate to get her old job back before the entire modern world finds out about the Hunt’s existence.
Holly has always wanted to be a cop, but her chaotic fey ancestry makes conforming to rules an actual pain. She’s recruited by a secret agency designed to round up supernatural criminals in Houston and banish them. When the Hunt targets a prisoner she’s sworn to protect, she and Gwyn must fight together, or the entire city could burn. And after meeting Holly, Gwyn wants more in her life than just her old job. All that stands in their way is an unforgiving force of nature… and the immortal host at her back.
Link: Goodreads
August 14, 2025
The Kindest Embrace If Firm Enough Can Suffocate — Rowan Alexandria Bennett
Genre: Science fiction, dystopian, cyberpunk
Rep: Trans woman MC
Series: Book 1 of The Kindest Embrace
Wisteria Elken (she/her) has always wanted to be a stellarnaut, to be entrusted with the monumental responsibility of linking the terrestrial world with the millions living in the zero-g environments of spacesteads. To do so, she’ll need to leave the only home she’s ever known and journey to the whirling lights and towering spires of humanity’s greatest metropolis, the City of Poets.
One problem. Well, a million problems, but one particularly pressing problem:
Wist is transgender.
From everything she’s heard, the executives of Kell Princeton, the premiere spacefaring ultracorp, will not allow for a transgender stellarnaut. Can Wist survive the grueling trials set forth by Kell Princeton without revealing her true identity?
This sci-fi novel set in an entirely other world weaves together themes of LGBTQ+ romance, the overcoming of anxiety and bigotry, a revolutionary spirit, a love for poetry, and rich explorations of dystopian and cyberpunk genres.
Link: Goodreads
August 16, 2025
The Final Diadem — Gume Laurel III
Genre: YA superhero novel in verse
Rep: Queer
Ariel imagined two weeks at Camp Juniper would be a peaceful escape from all the trouble he keeps finding himself in back home in Houston. He expected to exchange his unaccepting family for fresh mountain air, the loudness of inner-city life for calm hiking trails... but he didn’t expect to meet four other campers who’ve been searching for him for hundreds of years.
Ariel never imagined that in a past life, he was part of The Diadem: a five-piece superhero team on Mars that was defeated by The Gemini during an alien invasion. Though skeptical at first, Ariel can’t help but consider this story when the four campers begin to display otherworldly powers.
As the four campers work to unlock Ariel’s past life memories, they soon discover that they’re not the only ones who have been searching for him. The fate of The Diadem rests on Ariel’s shoulders—if only he can remember his power.
Link: Goodreads
August 19, 2025
Lessons in Magic and Disaster — Charlie Jane Anders
Genre: Contemporary fantasy
Rep: Queer, trans
In the vein of Alice Hoffman and Charlie Jane Anders's own All the Birds in the Sky comes a novel full of love, disaster, and magic.
A young witch teaches her mother how to do magic—with very unexpected results—in this relatable, resonant novel about family, identity, and the power of love.
Jamie is basically your average New England academic-in-training—she has a strong queer relationship, an esoteric dissertation proposal, and inherited generational trauma. But she has one extraordinary secret: she’s also a powerful witch.
Serena, Jamie’s mother, has been hiding from the world in an old one-room schoolhouse for several years, grieving the death of her wife and the simultaneous explosion in her professional life. All she has left are memories.
Jamie’s busy digging into a three-hundred-year-old magical book, but she still finds time to teach Serena to cast spells and help her come out of her shell. But Jamie doesn’t know the whole story of what happened to her mom years ago, and those secrets are leading Serena down a destructive path.
Now it’s up to this grad student and literature nerd to understand the secrets behind this mysterious novel from 1749, unearth a long-buried scandal hinted therein, and learn the true nature of magic, before her mother ruins both of their lives.
Link: Goodreads
Red Demon — Sill Bihagia
Genre: Science fantasy
Rep: Bi MC
Series: Book 1 of The Oria Series
On an isolated planet where unity is as engineered as its people, Jesse seeks the truth behind the slaughter of his family—starting with the immortal who spared him.
A century ago, two human lines nearly wiped each other out rather than acknowledge their shared humanity. But when Jesse’s mining town is slaughtered under mysterious circumstances, it’s clear ancient bigotries linger, and rebels have access to some magic or tech capable of wide-scale genocide.
The Red Demon bloodied her swords in that massacre—a bioengineered immortal left over from that century old war. Jesse expected to be upholding his empire’s fragile peace, not killing her own. Jesse is too optimistic and stubborn to break. Better days are coming—and he’s willing to take on an immortal to ensure they do.
Faruhar, the so-called Red Demon, is not the mastermind Jesse expects. Her fragmented mind is ravaged by guilt over crimes she cannot remember committing, and a code impressed on her by a few kind people she cannot forget.
Link: Goodreads
The Last Soul Among Wolves — Melissa Caruso
Genre: Fantasy
Rep: Sapphic
Series: Book 2 of the Echo Archives
The Last Soul Among Wolves is the brilliant second installment in Melissa Caruso’s Echo Archives series, a whip-smart adventure fantasy featuring cursed relics, sapphic romance, and a magical murder mystery.
All Kembral Thorne wants is to finish her maternity leave in peace. But when her best friend asks for help, she can’t say no, even if it means a visit to a run-down mansion on an isolated island for a will reading. She arrives to find an unexpected reunion of her childhood friends—plus her once-rival, now-girlfriend Rika Nonesuch, there on a mysterious job. Then the will is read, and everything goes sideways.
Eight potential heirs, half of them Kem’s oldest friends.
Three cursed relics.
The rules: one by one, the heirs will die.
The prize for the lone survivor: A wish. And wishes are always bad business.
To save their friends, Kem and Rika must race against the clock and descend into other realities once more. But the mansion is full of old secrets and new schemes, and soon the game becomes far more dangerous—and more personal—than they could have imagined.
Link: Goodreads
Diminished — Erica Rose Eberhart
Genre: Fantasy
Rep: Sapphic
Series: Book 2 of The Elder Tree Trilogy
A queen haunted by ghosts. A dragon cursed in human skin. A kingdom on the brink of war.
In the aftermath of her father’s death, Queen Greer stands at the edge of grief and revelation. Magic—once forbidden—has returned to Wimleigh, but so have enemies. When a prophetic funeral warns of rising death, it sets into motion a chain of events that will test the mettle of queens, heirs, and warriors alike.
As Greer grapples with panic attacks and the vengeful ghost of her father, her sister, Caitriona, struggles under the weight of monstrous expectations. Bearing horns, scales, and the voice of a dragon in her mind, Caitriona must lead a secret mission with Ailith MacCree—now a royal guard—north to find a lost prince who could stop a war—if he’s willing to fight. But treachery weaves through the forests, poisons creep in, and fae assassins lurk in the shadows.
With kingdoms falling to darkness, an ancient tree bleeding out its final life, and bonds shattered by betrayal, Wimleigh’s hope rests on a dragon no longer afraid to rise. When magic is reborn and monsters wear crowns, who dares to lead the charge?
Link: Goodreads
The Blade That Binds Us — Leah Thomas & Kali Wallace
Genre: YA fantasy
Rep: M/M
From beloved authors Leah Thomas and Kali Wallace comes a sweeping dark queer YA romantasy, inspired by Icelandic folklore, about a witch and shepherd boy who find love in the darkest of places.
Hrafn has seen too much. He welcomes death as the flames lick at the staves carved into his skin... until a stranger pulls him out.
Siggi has never left his village. He longs to go in search of his missing brother. Perhaps that’s why he pulls the witch boy from the fire.
Bound by a blade of bone and indebted to the village boy, Hrafn agrees to use his powerful magic to help the oaf who saved him from the pyre. Across (and sometimes under) a rugged and unforgiving landscape, the unlikely pair will travel in search of answers, crossing paths with druids, darkwolves, and the dreaded Huldu.
But when the deceptions of the past are peeled away, Siggi and Hrafn will come face to face with their true natures.
When the cost of magic is pain and family ties run bone deep, can an unlikely love blossom in a dark and dangerous world?
Link: Goodreads
August 21, 2025
A Lantern Left Burning — Thea Hawthorne
Genre: Cozy fantasy
Rep: Sapphic
Series: Standalone in established universe
Linnea Worth is burning out.
Artisan Linnea has no time for rest. The commissions keep piling up, the days blur into sleepless nights, and there’s never a moment to breathe. She can’t afford distractions, and definitely not the kind that come with a warm touch and a devastating smile.
But when her carelessness sparks disaster, she catches the sharp attention of Iris, a singer and healing attendant at Esk’s illustrious Gardens. Iris is beautiful, graceful, and infuriatingly overbearing. And she’s determined to be the one distraction Linnea can’t push away.
Linnea has never let anyone take care of her, and she won’t start now. Certainly not Iris, with her lovely hair and gentle hands. But Linnea is wearing herself to nothing, falling apart piece by piece—and the one thing that might save her is the one thing she won’t let herself have.
A Lantern Left Burning is a cosy, sapphic romance between an artisan working herself to dust and the one person who catches her before she falls apart. This novella has hurt/comfort, sapphic yearning, and lots of tense hair-washing and wound-tending. It is closed door, and is the third standalone in the Muses of Esk fantasy series. It is not necessary to have read the others to enjoy this one.
Link: Goodreads
Voidwalker — S.A. MacLean
Genre: Romantasy
Rep: M/F; bi MCs
Series: Book 1 of Beasts of the Void
Fionamara is a smuggler. Antal is the reason her people fear the dark.
Fi ferries contraband between worlds, stockpiling funds and stolen magic to keep her village self-sufficient—free from the blood sacrifices humans have paid to Antal’s immortal species for centuries.
Only legends whispered through the pine forests recall a time when things were different, before one world shattered into many, and the flesh-devouring beasts crept from the cracks between realities, with their sable antlers and slender tails, lethal claws and gleaming fangs. Now, mortal lives are food to pacify their carnivorous overlords, exchanged for feudal protection, and the precious silver energy that fuels everything from transport to weaponry.
When Fi gets planted with a stash of smuggled energy, a long-lost flame recruits her for a reckless heist that escalates into a terrorist bombing—and a coup against the reigning immortals, with Fi’s home caught in the crossfire.
She’s always known the dangers of her trade—and of the power she’s wielded since childhood, allowing her to see the secret doors between dimensions, to walk the Void itself. But nothing could have prepared her for crossing paths with Antal. For the deal she’ll have to make with him, a forced partnership to reclaim his city that begins as a desperate bid for survival, only to grow into something far more dangerous:
A revolution. And a temptation—for how sweet the monster’s fangs might feel.
Link: Goodreads
August 22, 2025
Wasteland Heart — Al Hess
Genre: Post-apocalyptic
Rep: Queer
Series: Book 1 of Edge of the World
In order to escape being a worker drone in a dismal dictatorship, Sasha joins a group of people seeking asylum on the continent of Galvlohi. Once a world power, deadly nanobots wiped out much of Galvlohi’s population. A century later, cities have given way to wilderness, and descendants of the surivors live insulated and harmonious lives with the land, only opening their borders for refugees like Sasha. It’s the perfect place to start over, to get clean, and to figure out who he is.
But his fellowship is strict about not wandering off, and it’s willing to use violence to get the point across. It’s far from the adventure and freedom Sasha expected to find, and worse, his new life threatens to end before it’s even begun when he’s afflicted with continent’s deadly nanobots. A Galvloan woman saves his life by sharing the anti-malware in her blood, but his heart is irreparably damaged.
He wants to repay the woman’s kindness, and she wants someone to find her missing brother, Corvin, which seems like the perfect job for a novice adventurer. Escaping his fellowship with a debilitating heart arrhythmia might be the easy part. Because no matter how far he travels, he can’t outrun his own problems, and the world is full of people who could be friend or foe and terrifying animals he was sure were extinct.
Then there’s Corvin. And there’s nothing easy about Corvin.
Link: Goodreads
Tales of Elsinore — Emily Wynne
Genre: Fantasy
Rep: Queer
Series: Standalone in established universe
In this late age, seasons have lost their steady cadence—as has the Priestess of the Pomegranate Moon.
The sorceress Elsinore is a woman out of time. After a brief but harrowing journey into the heart of the Mountain and the land of Faerie, she returned to the surface to find that sixty years had passed. Everyone she knew is gone, and the ways of the world now seem strange to her. Where grief and guilt drove her into the Mountain, now she travels the world to find where she belongs—guided by a book she cannot read and a hope she can’t define.
Following Emily Wynne’s debut novel, Princess of the Pomegranate Moon, this collection of eight short stories continues Elsinore’s adventures across the dying Earth she once called home. Navigating frozen cities, celestial beings, necromancers, and more, Tales of Elsinore explores the meaning of belonging—even across time and space.
Link: Publisher’s Website
August 26, 2025
The Good Vampire’s Guide to Blood and Boyfriends — Jamie D’Amato
Genre: YA paranormal
Rep: M/M
Heartstopper meets Buffy in this queer paranormal rom-com where a college freshman must navigate suddenly becoming a vampire, the underground society he's now part of, and the cute boy who discovers his secret.
It’s only natural nineteen-year-old Brennan’s life would be upended by something as ridiculous and unexpected as turning into a vampire. But if there’s one thing Brennan can do, it’s pretend everything’s fine when he’s close to losing his mind. Brennan is nineteen and just clawed his way back to Sturbridge University after recovering from a suicide attempt, and this is not the new life he was hoping for.
Brennan’s newly bloodthirsty existence gets way more complicated when Cole, the super cute librarian and everyone’s campus crush, stumbles on Brennan drinking from a stolen blood bag. Luckily, adorable Cole is happy to keep Brennan’s secret, and even seems to maybe like him? Navigating a new relationship is hard enough without the added struggles of vampire puberty, an eclectic clan of self-proclaimed “good” vampires, and growing feelings for the one person who makes Brennan feel normal. With swirling rumors of a missing student and a rise in strange “animal attacks” near campus, Brennan must uncover the secrets of the clan and figure out how to balance vampirism and humanity, or risk losing the first real friends he’s ever had.
Filled with humor and heart, The Good Vampire’s Guide to Blood and Boyfriends has a gentle bite.
Link: Goodreads
House of Dusk — Deva Fagan
Genre: Romantic epic fantasy
Rep: Sapphic
A romantic epic fantasy featuring a fire-wielding nun grappling with her dark past and a young spy caught between her mission and a growing attraction to an enemy princess.
Ten years ago, Sephre left behind her life as a war hero and took holy vows to seek redemption for her crimes, wielding the flames of the Phoenix to purify the dead. But as corpses rise, a long-dead god stirs, and shadowy serpents creep from the underworld to hunt her, she has no choice but to draw on the very past she’s been trying so hard to forget.
Orphaned by the same war Sephre helped win, Yeneris has trained half her life to be the perfect spy, a blade slipped deep into the palace of her enemies. Undercover as bodyguard to Sinoe, a princess whose tears unleash prophecy, Yeneris strives to complete her true mission to recover the stolen bones of a saint. Sinoe’s prophecies may hold answers, but allying with the fiercely compassionate princess is perilous. Yeneris must find a way to balance her growing attraction for Sinoe with her duty to her people as they conduct a dangerous search for the source of the king’s power.
As Sephre investigates the signs of a looming apocalypse, she finds her beliefs tested by Nilos, a mercurial and charming agent of the serpent. He should be her enemy, but when Sephre is wrongly accused of heresy and desperate to rescue her innocent apprentice, she has no choice but to work with the enigmatic man. Together they embark on a treacherous quest, seeking answers in the labyrinthine underworld.
As gods are reborn and spirits destroyed, the world trembles on the edge of a second cataclysm. When the true enemy makes their bid for power, Yeneris must find a way to remain true to her full self and save both her mission and her heart. And Sephre must decide whether to be bound by her past, or to forge a better future, even if it means renouncing her vows and accepting a new and terrible power.
Link: Goodreads
Empty Heaven — Freddie Kölsch
Genre: YA horror
Rep: Sapphic
You are safe, my child. You are loved, my child. You are one with the good earth.
Darian Sabine Arden is haunted by a monster who claims to love her.
Her only respite is the New England village where she spends summers with her three best friends. Kesuquosh is serene and idyllic, and the townsfolk’s odd worship of a godlike scarecrow only adds to the charming local color. But when Darian pays a surprise Halloween visit to her summer crush—a beautiful, unreadable girl named KJ—just in time to see her swept up in a bizarre harvest ritual, she’s forced to admit that Good Arcturus is more than a quaint superstition. He’s terrifyingly real.
Something ancient and sinister lurks behind the dying sunflower fields and glowing windows of Kesuquosh… and in the hearts of the people who live there. Something that doesn’t take kindly to its paradise being threatened. To save KJ—and themselves—Darian and her friends must question everything they thought they knew about their home. And Darian will have to tell the awful truth about the monster that’s been with her all along.
Empty Heaven is a propulsive and original love story, a darkly funny tribute to the power of queer found family, and a haunting exploration of the hidden horrors of beautiful places.
Link: Goodreads
This Vicious Hunger — Francesca May
Genre: Gothic fantasy, horror
Rep: Sapphic
From the author of Wild and Wicked Things comes a dark gothic fantasy about two young women struggling to find the freedom of choice in a world where their path feels predetermined. Turning to each other, they soon find themselves sinking deeper into a world of beauty, poison, and the insatiable quest for knowledge.
Thora Grieve finds herself destitute and an outcast after the sudden death of her husband only a few weeks into their marriage, but a glimmer of hope arrives when a family friend offers her spot at a university to study botany under a famed professor. Once at the university, Thora becomes entranced by a mysterious young woman, Olea, who emerges each night to tend to the plants in the professor’s private garden.
Thora soon discovers that a mysterious illness prevents Olea from leaving the garden. Hungry for connection, Thora befriends Olea through the garden gate and their relationship quickly and intensely blossoms. The visceral connection between Thora and Olea unlocks an obsessive desire in Thora as she throws herself into finding a cure for Olea’s ailment. But is this really love or is it merely lustful intoxication? Thora’s finally found the freedom to pursue her deepest desires, but at what cost?
Link: Goodreads
Roar of the Lambs — Jamison Shea
Genre: YA speculative thriller
Rep: Queer
If you knew the world was ending, who would you save? And would they let you?
Sixteen-year-old Winnie Bray is a liar. As the resident psychic at an oddities shop, Winnie truly can see the future. But her customers only want reassurance, and Winnie only wants their money. Favorable fortunes are a fast track to funding her way out of Buffalo, New York for good, after all.
But all of that changes when a vision sends her stalking in the remains of her family home that burned down in a fire 10 years ago. Among the ash and rubble, Winnie finds a box made of bone, untouched by flames and… whispering. At the touch of her finger, the box shows her a vision of death, chaos, and apocalypse, with her and rich kids Apollo and Cyrus Rathbun at the center.
Apollo knows their cousin is up to no good, and with the Rathbun family scattered to the wind, they know Cyrus is aiming to present himself as the new patriarch. Despite an initial attraction, Apollo is reluctant to believe Winnie. But soon it becomes clear that their family histories are intertwined, with the whispering, hungry box at the very center, and more than their lives are on the line. Together, they must discover the origins of the box and stop unforeseen forces from fulfilling the apocalyptic prophecy, or die trying.
From the author of I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast is Me comes a speculative thriller about the ties that bind us to places and people, perfect for fans of Andrew Joseph White and Tochi Onyebuchi.
Link: Goodreads
Lady Dragon — A.M. Strickland
Genre: YA fantasy
Rep: Sapphic
Rachel Hartman’s Seraphina meets The Priory of the Orange Tree in Lady Dragon, a sapphic YA romantasy from A.M. Strickland.
The age of queens is over... unless they can save it.
Since the last war between humans and dragons left the leaders of both species slain—the last human king of Andrath and the legendary dragon queen—both queendoms have been living under a tentative truce: only women will sit on the throne of Andrath, the dragons will have free passage through the human lands... and if men ever try to retake the throne, the draconic realm will retaliate.
Samansa and Kirek are two new leaders coming of age in war-scarred lands—Samansa a reluctant human princess and Kirek the favored contender for the draconic queenship. Per tradition, Kirek must undergo the distasteful task of using a mysterious gem called the Heartstone to shift into human form and maintain the strained ties between the species... and study human weaknesses, a new and secret task she’s been given by her queen. As the princess and the dragon girl grow closer, they are sent to investigate a potential breach of the treaty and encounter a plot that could reignite an even bloodier war. While fighting to maintain the peace their ancestors fought for and uncovering centuries-old secrets, Samansa and Kirek must grapple with betraying their clashing nations... or their unexpected feelings for each other.
Link: Goodreads
The Gods Are Bastards — D. D. Webb
Genre: High fantasy western
Rep: Queer
Series: Book 1 of The Gods Are Bastards
It was a world of sword and sorcery, but that was a thousand years ago. When the gods turn their backs, true adventurers are needed more than ever.
For centuries, the Empire of Tiraas has surged forward in the name of peace, commerce, and political power, evolving from its early days of heroes, quests, and reckless abandon in favor of a more refined, industrious existence. Today, rails connect cities and outposts. Religion is power—even if the gods have gone silent. Magic is a commodity. Dwarves and elves are carefully discouraged from exhibiting any unwanted behaviors. Even the scariest monsters are dealt with diplomatically.
Needless to say, the days in which a person could make a living as a wandering adventurer are long since gone. But a nightmarish darkness looms, and those dormant, discarded ideals of courage, honor, and death-defying heroism must somehow rise to the surface once again. Because a demonic force has returned from the past—and it means to stay.
Meanwhile, at the University of Last Rock on the unforgiving, notably uncivilized frontier, an unruly band of youngsters yearns to show the world what they can do. And they are just about to begin their schooling in good old-fashioned magic, combat, and all-around adventure-seeking. Unfortunately for them, they will need much, much more than that if they have any hope of saving the world. And save the world they must . . .
The genre-blending fantasy epic based on the hit web novel with more than eleven million views—plus almost four million views on Royal Road—now available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook!
Link: Goodreads
August 31, 2025
Dream Sweet in a Minor Sea — Janneke de Beer
Genre: Science fiction thriller
Rep: Queer
Series: Book 2 of The Jovian Symphony
The sea swallows secrets. The stars scatter lies.
When Heisenberg falls to Earth, it brings more than scorch marks and mystery. Survivors from the distant colony on Callisto are hidden away on Regulus Base, a secret facility in the Irish Sea. The Party denies all, but whispers of these secret survivors spread.
Haunted by a broken promise to his son, former Global Councillor Eoin Whishaw assembles a motley crew to break Regulus wide open. The fate of the Callistans falls into the hands of a thief from Edmonton, a cybernetic hacker from Shanghai, a disillusioned Party official, and a woman from Belgium whose presence no one can adequately explain. As they descend into the belly of the Party, each steps draws them further into a labyrinth of treachery and deceit.
A gripping sci-fi thriller, this is a story of daring heists, unlikely alliances, and the search for truth in a shadowed world.
Link: Goodreads
Moth Woods — Amara Lynn
Genre: Contemporary fantasy
Rep: Queer; pansexual x genderfluid romance
Series: Standalone in established universe
A lonely mothman…
The little piece of almost heaven I carved out for myself ain’t bad. I’ve got my truffle pig, Rampy, and my farm, and my work. It ain’t much, but it’s honest work, and a peaceful existence.
There ain’t nothin’ else I really need. But every year when the moth mating call comes along, I’m reminded of how lonely my life can be.
Then I meet Ollie, and a smidgen of somethin’ is growin’ like a breeze between us. I ain’t nothin’ special, though. Ollie cain’t possibly want me.
After all, I ain’t normal. Ollie’s a little strange, but their weird cain’t possibly match mine.
A shy flatwoods monster…
I finally return to life in West Virginia, where my kind first took root. Nothing’s worked out for me, and I’m ready for something less stressful and more peaceful.
I don’t expect to meet Glen, the sweet guy at the farmer’s market selling mouthwatering ramps, my favorite West Virginia specialty. I keep coming back for more, but Glen’s kind eyes and welcoming smile are just as alluring.
All I wanted was peace and quiet. I wasn’t looking for love, but it sneaked up on me out of the woods, and now I’m falling hard for Glen.
But I’m a cryptid, a frightening monster. There’s no way he’d still want me if he knew how weird I really am.
Link: Books2Read