Queer SF - June 2027
June 1, 2027
We Have Ruined Each Other With Our Love — Shannon Ives
Genre: Historical horror
Rep: Queer; current M/F & past F/F
In Spring of 1866, Della Halloran and her husband, Lewis, arrive in Nebraska Territory under the Homestead Act, ignoring local warnings about their newly purchased land. Each carries a secret reason for coming west. Lewis believes a colossal creature sleeps beneath the soil and hopes to uncover it to earn the approval of his father, a renowned geologist, and finally give Della the lavish life she longs for. Meanwhile, Della seeks a fresh start after the apparent suicide of her best friend—and former mistress—Levinah Wilson.
Soon, the local warnings feel justified. The stars feel infinite and burn too bright. No animals roam the plains. Eels fall from the sky. Locusts strip the land bare. And with each passing season, it seems the prairie is determined to kill them. Until Della learns the land is willing to give as well as take.
A little blood brings food. More blood brings prosperity. And when the wind starts promising Levinah’s return, Della is drawn deeper into the belly of the beast beneath the bluestem. Meanwhile, Lewis can only watch and wonder what he is willing to sacrifice to keep the woman he loves.
Caught between a love resurrected and a love that refuses to let go, they are drawn toward a reckoning that will demand far more than either of them bargained for.
Link: Kobo
Daughters of Salt and Ruin — Rebecca Sky
Genre: Fantasy
Rep: Sapphic
Daughters of enemy kingdoms must wed to unite their people against the greater threat of an encroaching immortal army, all the while navigating a string of court murders and plotting each other’s demise.
Knives Out meets Xena: Warrior Princess.
Link: Goodreads
June 8, 2027
Good Things Are Coming Your Way — Charlie Jane Anders
Genre: Fantasy, time travel
Rep: Sapphic
From award-winning author Charlie Jane Anders, a heartwarming love story about a time-traveling witch and a vampire who must work together to keep time from unraveling.
Wether Finch never planned to be a time traveling social worker. But ever since she accidentally joined a magical nonprofit, she’s been jumping through time fixing the things that went wrong in her clients’ lives. All Wether wants to do is help people—but she’s getting burned out. When a trip to the past goes wrong, she’s astonished to be rescued by a neurotic vampire.
Colette Chan vowed to protect history long ago, and as a time traveling vampire, she’s perfect for the job. Haunted by the loss of the only friend she ever had, Colette keeps her distance from everybody while she dispenses rough justice on irresponsible time travelers. But she can’t stop it all. And with more irregularities appearing, the chains of time have started unraveling.
When Colette recruits Wether to help her protect the timeline, it becomes clear that they have very different ideas about justice and mercy. But when they discover a cult hell bent on awakening a monster that hungers to devour all of space and time, they’ll have to trust each other—and perhaps find love along the way—if they want to face their future.
Link: Macmillan
Where Rivers Made the Gods — Wen-yi Lee
Genre: Historical fantasy
Rep: Sapphic
Series: Book 2 of The Butterfly Duet
Return to a city of warring gangs, blazing fire, and fading gods in the sequel to Wen-yi Lee’s acclaimed adult fantasy debut—a fierce historical fantasy that reads like Silvia Moreno-Garcia meets Fonda Lee, with the feverish intensity of R. F. Kuang’s Poppy War trilogy.
Death cannot stop love—or change.
Singapore, 1975: A city in remaking. Rivers scourged. Cemeteries dug up. Islands moving between ships from a fallen Saigon. Nothing stops progress–except the vessel of a fire goddess, who wants to bring back the dead.
Iris Yen Wan, haunted and homeless, uses her ghosts to locate corpses for a gravedigger. Then she stumbles upon an apartment where a girl with butterfly tattoos has been preserved for two years. When Iris goes near, the corpse’s eyes open. Now Adeline Siow, the madly grieving Madam Butterfly, is offering Iris a room, hoping that her murdered lover will wake again.
But Iris’s new home comes with strange and bloody strings. Shapeshifters and girls with fire follow Iris in the streets. A death god’s resentful son visits every night. In the industrial heart of the city, a crucible burns where godless men kill to touch magic once more.
And within the haunted apartment, a dangerous attraction stirs amidst the perpetually burning candles. With it grows the fear that Ang Tian might never truly come back.
Or worse, that she might—and bring something inhuman along with her.
Link: Macmillan
Everywhere Isn’t Texas — August Ponthier
Genre: Historical horror
Rep: Queer
The Twilight Zone meets I Saw the TV Glow in this speculative, horror-tinged, coming-of-age novel about a young queer woman who is drawn into a hub between dimensions through a mysterious TV.
Cowboy, a queer TV repair store employee, lives a lonely existence in 1980s Sterling, a Texas town where life revolves around the local megachurch. So when she’s tricked into buying a huge number of junk TVs for the repair shop by a church-affiliated MLM saleswoman, Cowboy has no choice—and nothing better to do—but to try and fix them.
One night, a beguiling man named Al Bones reveals himself in one of the TVs, offering Cowboy a way out of Sterling: follow him through the screen to another dimension called Nowhereland. Full of intoxicating alternate universes, much like the fantastical B movies Cowboy watches, Nowhereland is a place for the outcasts and misfits. Misfits like Cowboy.
But there’s a catch: To get this coveted ticket to Nowhereland, Cowboy must kidnap the megachurch’s hypocritical pastor and bring him to Al Bones. What lengths will Cowboy go to for a shot at a new life? And can she really leave her home behind?
Link: Penguin Random House
June 15, 2027
Not Only Will This Kill You But It Will Hurt the Whole Time You Are Dying — Dave V. Riser
Genre: Apocalyptic sword & sorcery fantasy
Rep: Trans man MC; MLM
On the shores of an ocean—where ancient forces haunt the depths and compel the dead to walk straight out of the sea—stands Curwen: immature, transgender, necromancer, last acolyte of the Old Ones. And he is dying.
While searching for a way to save himself, Curwen is accosted by rival cultists from across the sea: Dmitri, an angry, pale swordsman, and Ivan, Dmitri’s blind, compassionate older “brother.” They capture Curwen, but not before he uses his powers to prevent the brothers from leaving his beachside home.
Despite their contradictory goals—the necromancer wishes to bring about the end of the world, the cultists to save it—Cur and Ivan grow closer. Power and intimacy shift uneasily between the trio as they struggle to survive and make sense of one another. Eventually it becomes clear that Curwen must make a choice between serving the desires of the Old Ones, himself, or the cultists.
Link: Goodreads
June 22, 2027
Heart of Vengeance — Mei Goodwin
Genre: Fantasy
Rep: Sapphic
Aviva has trained all her life for this moment.
To become an Ailier—a military officer chosen to ride the great winged horses known as the Thousand and protect her people from war. At last, she will be worthy to marry her true love, Leyla, the court’s princess and heir to the throne.
When she bonds with a powerful Thousand, Aviva thinks her dreams have come true—until she is arrested for a crime she didn’t commit.
Accused of being a Usurper—a purveyor of dark and terrible magic—she is taken to Isla Kettala: the dark, dangerous island prison that no one leaves. And no one survives.
Back home, Leyla knows that Aviva has been framed. She just doesn’t know why.
Committed to saving Aviva, Leyla sets off on a quest for the truth. One that will shatter everything she believed and put them both in mortal danger.
But while Leyla is fueled by devotion, Aviva is broken by betrayal. And time is ticking...
To save Aviva, Leyla must uncover the truth. But will that truth destroy them both?
Link: Penguin Random House
Shadecaller — Claire Winn
Genre: Romantic dystopian fantasy
Rep: Bi
Series: Book 1 of The Resonant Gods Duology
“A dangerous pair. A boy in disguise as a monster and a monster in disguise as a girl.”
Ever since her firebrand mother died in a failed rebellion, street-thief Blink has sought answers about her strange ability: a siren voice that can command monsters. It’s an anomaly, a power unique to the god-bone instruments wielded by the city’s ruling Maestros. Music is forbidden to the lower reaches of society—so when Blink’s only friend is caught helping her steal from the musical archives, he’s sentenced to death by the city’s most infamously bloodthirsty Maestro, Nadareina.
Sef has been Nadareina’s bodyguard—more her pet—ever since she spared him from the massacre of his noble family and anchored a monster beneath his skin. Now unbreakably bound to her, he resists the monster’s slow, inevitable takeover. But when Nadareina demands he join her onstage in slaughtering prisoners, an agonizing parallel to his family’s demise, Sef decides to send her performance up in flames.
When Sef’s sabotage interrupts Blink’s attempted rescue, Blink accidentally calls a song that transfers Sef’s bond from Nadareina to herself. Now, with her friend still captive and nightmarish monsters hunting them, Blink and Sef are forced into a tenuous alliance. But Blink’s plan to outplay Nadareina from the shadows is hindered by Sef’s drive for vengeance—and the ruinous attraction growing between them. And as the dangers they face accelerate Sef’s monstrous transformation, Blink must ally with the doomed rebellion her mother started—or join her in the ashes.
Link: Penguin Random House
June 29, 2027
The Chrysalis Conundrum — Oliver K. Langmead
Genre: Cozy historical fantasy mystery
Rep: Gay
Series: Book 2 of Havelock Harper Mysteries
An impossible crime. An irreplaceable treasure. Another day’s work for Havelock Harper.
England’s greatest gay gentleman detective has a new case to solve. Something priceless has gone missing from the Oxford Museum of Natural History: the only preserved chrysalises of an extinct species of butterfly. Someone has lifted the cocoons from a state-of-the-art safe, and left no evidence behind. There are few leads to follow, but when has that ever stopped Havelock Harper from making deductions?
As Havelock and Sebastian (his stalwart companion and secret lover) investigate, the mystery takes them to private butterfly houses, flower shows, and even England’s first hospice. Will they be able to resolve this butterfly caper? And what impossible, fantastical phenomenon will they discover?
Link: Macmillan