A forgotten legend, a fabled artifact, and an unreasonable amount of hope lead her to the streets of Thune, where she plans to open the first coffee shop the city has ever seen.However, her dreams of a fresh start pulling shots instead of swinging swords are hardly a sure bet. Old frenemies and Thune’s shady underbelly may just upset her plans. To finally build something that will last, Viv will need some new partners and a different kind of resolve.A hot cup of fantasy slice-of-life with a dollop of romantic froth.

    and Alice WalkerAs Jacob lies dying, he begins to write a letter to his only son, Isaac. They have not met or spoken in many years, and there are things that Isaac must know. Stories about his ancestral legacy in rural Arkansas that extend back to slavery. Secrets from Jacob's tumultuous relationship with Isaac's mother and the shame he carries from the dissolution of their family. Tragedies that informed Jacob's role as a father and his reaction to Isaac's being gay.But most of all, Jacob must share with Isaac the unspoken truths that reside in his heart. He must give voice to the trauma that Isaac has inherited. And he must create a space for the two to find peace. With piercing insight and profound empathy, acclaimed author Daniel Black illuminates the lived experiences of Black fathers and queer sons, offering an authentic and ultimately hopeful portrait of reckoning and reconciliation. Spare as it is sweeping, poetic as it is compulsively readable, Don't Cry for Me is a monumental novel about one family grappling with love's hard edges and the unexpected places where hope and healing take flight.

    Her life is in New York, with her photography career finally gaining steam and her bed never empty. Sure, it’s a different woman every night, but that’s just fine with her.When Delilah’s estranged stepsister, Astrid, pressures her into photographing her wedding with a guilt trip and a five-figure check, Delilah finds herself back in the godforsaken town that she used to call home. She plans to breeze in and out, but then she sees Claire Sutherland, one of Astrid’s stuck-up besties, and decides that maybe there’s some fun (and a little retribution) to be had in Bright Falls, after all.Having raised her eleven-year-old daughter mostly on her own while dealing with her unreliable ex and running a bookstore, Claire Sutherland depends upon a life without surprises. And Delilah Green is an unwelcome surprise…at first. Though they’ve known each other for years, they don’t really know each other—so Claire is unsettled when Delilah figures out exactly what buttons to push. When they’re forced together during a gauntlet of wedding preparations—including a plot to save Astrid from her horrible fiancé—Claire isn’t sure she has the strength to resist Delilah’s charms. Even worse, she’s starting to think she doesn’t want to…

    Her life is in New York, with her photography career finally gaining steam and her bed never empty. Sure, it’s a different woman every night, but that’s just fine with her.When Delilah’s estranged stepsister, Astrid, pressures her into photographing her wedding with a guilt trip and a five-figure check, Delilah finds herself back in the godforsaken town that she used to call home. She plans to breeze in and out, but then she sees Claire Sutherland, one of Astrid’s stuck-up besties, and decides that maybe there’s some fun (and a little retribution) to be had in Bright Falls, after all.Having raised her eleven-year-old daughter mostly on her own while dealing with her unreliable ex and running a bookstore, Claire Sutherland depends upon a life without surprises. And Delilah Green is an unwelcome surprise…at first. Though they’ve known each other for years, they don’t really know each other—so Claire is unsettled when Delilah figures out exactly what buttons to push. When they’re forced together during a gauntlet of wedding preparations—including a plot to save Astrid from her horrible fiancé—Claire isn’t sure she has the strength to resist Delilah’s charms. Even worse, she’s starting to think she doesn’t want to…

    Her friends and parents make fun of her endless stream of crushes, but Ophelia is a romantic at heart. She couldn't change, even if she wanted to.So when she finds herself thinking more about cute, quiet Talia Sanchez than the loss of a perfect prom with her ex-boyfriend, seeds of doubt take root in Ophelia's firm image of herself. Add to that the impending end of high school and the fracturing of her once-solid friend group, and things are spiraling a little out of control. But the course of love--and sexuality--never did run smooth. As her secrets begin to unravel, Ophelia must make a choice between clinging to the fantasy version of herself she's always imagined or upending everyone's expectations to rediscover who she really is, after all.

    Brown. Perfect for fans of Adam Silvera and Alex London.When Andrew stumbles upon Jamie's house, he's injured, starved, and has nothing left to lose. A deadly pathogen has killed off most of the world's population, including everyone both boys have ever loved. And if this new world has taught them anything, it's to be scared of what other desperate people will do . . . so why does it seem so easy for them to trust each other?After danger breaches their shelter, they flee south in search of civilization. But something isn't adding up about Andrew's story, and it could cost them everything. And Jamie has a secret, too. He's starting to feel something more than friendship for Andrew, adding another layer of fear and confusion to an already tumultuous journey.The road ahead of them is long, and to survive, they'll have to shed their secrets, face the consequences of their actions, and find the courage to fight for the future they desire, together. Only one thing feels certain: all that's left in their world is the undeniable pull they have toward each other.

    Real chemistry.Parker Black has put her bad girl days behind her. Once the rebellious, womanizing middle child of the wealthiest family in Seattle, she’s now the founder and CEO of a luxury lingerie label. But when an incident from her past resurfaces, everything she’s built threatens to come crashing down.For up-and-coming public relations specialist Julia Conner, her job is her life. A former foster kid, she’s spent years climbing the ladder. So when Parker contacts her to help her come back from a scandal, Julia is determined to prove she can handle a big-name client like Parker Black.But Julia isn’t prepared for the way the blonde-haired billionaire makes her weak at the knees. And she definitely isn’t prepared when Parker announces to the world that Julia is her girlfriend.Swept into a fake romance with a woman who’s determined to tempt her into her bed, Julia is unable to resist Parker and her intoxicating power games. But is their relationship really just pretend? And with both their reputations on the line, will Parker and Julia be willing to put their hearts on the line too?

    Though she’d be having a lot more of it if Haelstrom Media paid her enough to actually get out of debt. She’s determined to hold out on contract negotiations for her kids’ television show Fangley Heights until she gets what she deserves. There’s only one problem, the head of the network just died and left her future more uncertain than ever.Forty-eight hours and one funeral–that’s all Jones Haelstrom has to get through before she can return to her life in LA that’s as ordered and sparse as an IKEA showroom. When she steps in as CEO of her father’s media company, Elsie Webb is her first problem to deal with. Elsie ends up challenging Jones in ways she never could have predicted, starting with an attraction neither can avoid.As their attraction teeters on the edge of something more both agree to keep it casual. A no-strings agreement and disclosure to HR should be enough to keep things between Jones and Elsie from getting tangled, right?CW: this story includes the death of an estranged parent off-page and prior to the story beginning

    L. Graziadei's Icebreaker is an irresistible YA debut about two hockey players fighting to be the best—and the romance that catches them by surprise along the way.Seventeen-year-old Mickey James III is a college freshman, a brother to five sisters, and a hockey legacy. With a father and a grandfather who have gone down in NHL history, Mickey is almost guaranteed the league's top draft spot. The only person standing in his way is Jaysen Caulfield, a contender for the #1 spot and Mickey's infuriating (and infuriatingly attractive) teammate. When rivalry turns to something more, Mickey will have to decide what he really wants, and what he's willing to risk for it.This is a story about falling in love, finding your team (on and off the ice), and choosing your own path.

    But outside this haven, the streets are filled with protests against the deep injustices that grip the town of Lucille. Bitter's instinct is to stay safe within the walls of Eucalyptus . . . but her friends aren't willing to settle for a world that the adults say is "just the way things are. Pulled between old friendships, her creative passion, and a new romance, Bitter isn't sure where she belongs - in the art studio or in the streets. And if she does find a way to help the revolution while being true to who she is, she must also ask: at what cost?

    The centuries-old shop is owned by Cleo Braithwaite, a woman with a fierce and frightening reputation. Cleo turns out to be nothing like the rumors but refuses to sit still long enough to be dazzled by the meticulous spreadsheets and slides Marley has prepared to seal the deal. Instead of making her proposal, Marley soon finds herself on an impromptu walking tour of London with the charming Cleo.Even though Marley has a dinner date that night with the woman she’s been chatting with online and was convinced was her soulmate, she can’t ignore the feelings her bewitching guide stirs up inside as they explore the historic city on foot. What’s more, the longer she’s with Cleo, the more Marley begins to question the business deal she’s been sent to make.Should Marley stick with the plan, or is a single life-changing day with Cleo worth blowing up the future Marley was so certain she wanted?

    She is also one of the Kingdom’s most privileged slaves – one of the Praetoria: five of the best, sworn to protect the Prince and, one day, to rule at his side. It’s not a bad life – luxurious parties in any of the eighteen worlds, beautiful women falling over themselves to land in her bed, her orders to be obeyed by over forty-eight billion citizens.But when a routine job goes spectacularly wrong, Cie discovers there is a witness to her failure – a witness to a political assassination the King would never want revealed. It’s Cie’s intense misfortune that the witness is a beauty – a woman with sweet, warm skin that Cie longs to sink into, with deep, brown eyes that hold promises that Cie has only ever dreamt of, a woman whose embrace offers a gentleness and a kindness Cie craves above all else.Jemma thought she’d been in love before, but when she falls for the King’s assassin, she falls hard. Cie burns her up – the assassin plays fast and loves harder, and Jemma’s head is whirling even as her body is thrilled. Jemma watches as a growing terrorist threat pushes the King to madness and Cie’s orders become more and more violent. The woman she thinks she loves is steeped in red. Is it even possible for a girl from the suburbs to love a person so drenched in blood?

    He's the only Healer on-call in the hospital — and that gunshot wound isn’t going to regenerate itself.But his patient turns out to be Corinna Arden, heiress to a pharmaceutical empire controlling Britain’s water supply. Her twin, Javier, is a man who (a) starts sending Ethan flowers at work, (b) seems terrified of a secret, and (c) has the cheekbones and earnestness to make up for both.Ethan indulges in what he thinks will be a brief and harmless romance but quickly finds himself knee-deep in a conspiracy involving murder, a drug cartel, and a bid for the multi-trillion-pound reconstruction tender: Project Earthflown.Meanwhile, Oliver is a journalist preoccupied with a dead body he found on the end of a too-convenient tip. Determined to follow the money, Oliver would also like to know what Javier Arden is doing on his couch.Earthflown is a character-driven speculative novel exploring the water crisis, hyper-privatisation and love. Set in a London that has long abandoned the earth to the rising sea, the story takes a science-based approach to conventional fantasy archetypes, where futuristic medicine meets a bit of magic.

    Terrific job. Loving family. No desperate need for a girlfriend but would be interested if one came along. Bron McIntyre is Teflon.Kate Agostino, forty-eight, is not Teflon. Yes, she has a terrific job. But a loving family? Not really. And her personal life is rapidly disintegrating and turning into dust.When her orange smoothie explodes all over her business suit while she’s on her afternoon walk, Kate simply shakes her head in resignation.Bron, having witnessed the smoothie eruption, races to help, and suddenly her life takes an unexpected turn.Falling in love is like watching the grandest sunset on the calmest ocean where the tiniest ripples wear silver sparkles as their hats. Kate and Bron find that sunset on that ocean with those ripples of love, but what happens when you take that love for granted? What happens when your person disappears? The answers are hard to hear and Bron chooses not to listen.After a relationship break, a family intervention, and conversations that rip apart seams, Bron and Kate eventually find themselves, each other, and their now. And what they discover is that love is the large and the deliberate, and the simple and the small.So when tragedy strikes, they call on its strength because, when you think about it, love can live on in the forever, particularly if it lives courageously in the now.A beautifully poignant story about life, love and a loss so tragic that sometimes even the grandest sunset on the calmest ocean with the ripples wearing hats is too heartbreaking to bear.

    She’s right on the cusp of really making it as an influencer, so a stint on reality TV is the perfect chance to elevate her brand. And $100,000 wouldn’t hurt, either.D’Vaughn Miller is just trying to break out of her shell. She’s sort of neglected to come out to her mom for years, so a big splashy fake wedding is just the excuse she needs.All they have to do is convince their friends and family they’re getting married in six weeks. If anyone guesses they’re not for real, they’re out. Selling their chemistry on camera is surprisingly easy, and it’s still there when no one else is watching, which is an unexpected bonus. Winning this competition is going to be a piece of wedding cake.   But each week of the competition brings new challenges, and soon the prize money’s not the only thing at stake. A reality show isn’t the best place to create a solid foundation, and their fake wedding might just derail their relationship before it even starts.Carina Adores is home to highly romantic contemporary love stories where LGBTQ+ characters find their happily-ever-afters. Discover a new Carina Adores book every month!

    Single and recently scorned, she’s dreading the next two weeks of couple’s massages, wine tastings and moonlight walks surrounded by people in love. Even the staff are hot and flirty… or maybe that’s just Haley’s heartache talking.But when a white-out catches Haley unprepared and underdressed, romance is the least of her worries.She’s disoriented and shivering when someone reaches through the storm and pulls her into an unoccupied cabin. As the blizzard rages outside, Haley meets her savior—the admirer she’d noticed before, a tall, dark and handsome woman named Destiny. And those sultry looks? Haley wasn’t imagining them.Des builds a fire in the hearth and kindles another in Haley’s core. Snowed in on Valentine’s Day, Haley can’t resist Cupid’s arrow—or Des herself. At least until the storm lets up.

    She heads home to the beach town where she grew up to celebrate her 40th birthday with her family. Devon Douglas can’t believe it when she comes face-to-face with Sadie again. They were inseparable in high school until Devon did something she has regretted for more than twenty years—she ruined their friendship on a lovestruck whim.Sadie is as dazzling as Devon remembers—and she can still hold her own surfing the wild waves of Clearwater Bay.Devon’s first priority is her five-year-old son, but getting to know Sadie all over again is taking up more and more of her headspace.Sadie is inexplicably drawn to Devon. It could be nostalgia. It could be remnants of their old friendship flaring up. But what if it’s more than that?Best-selling lesbian romance author Harper Bliss brings you a steamy, big-hearted romance about two women who used to be best friends, until a teenage crush destroyed it all.

    And when he's made guardian of a furry fox cub called Cadno, things get a whole lot scarier.Because Cadno isn't just any fox: he's a firefox - the only one of his kind - and a sinister hunter from another world is on his trail.Swept up into an unexpected adventure to protect his flammable friend, Charlie's going to need to find the bravery he never thought he had, if he's going to save the last firefox . . .

    Cue the nervous flop sweat.In a tiny town on the coast of Rhode Island, Maggie has built a quiet life running her family’s bookshop. But as much as she loves her work—and the eclectic town she calls home—something is missing. Then one day, an absolute smoke show walks through the front door and throws Maggie off her (arguably, very small and unreliable) game.Parker’s entire life blew up a few months back when she walked away from her home, job, and longtime girlfriend, all in a single day.When a new job presents itself in the next state over, she jumps at the chance for a fresh start, determined to avoid romance this time around. But, because life always has a way of knocking Parker on her ass, she finds the most alluring, adorably nervous woman standing behind the register of a local bookshop.Add in that Maggie’s over a decade younger than Parker and has a really hard time finishing a sentence around her, and everyone ends up flustered.WarningThis book contains snark, lesbian age gap butterflies, husbands you’ll fall in love with, and just so much gay panic. Please read at your own risk.

    In particular, effeminate queer men represent a simultaneous rejection and embrace of masculinity . . . In a world desperate to erase us, queer Latinx men must find ways to hold onto pride for survival, but excessive male pride is often what we are battling, both in ourselves and in others." A debut memoir about coming of age as a gay, Latinx man, High-Risk Homosexual opens in the ultimate anti-gay space: Edgar Gomez’s uncle’s cockfighting ring in Nicaragua, where he was sent at thirteen years old to become a man. Readers follow Gomez through the queer spaces where he learned to love being gay and Latinx, including Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, a drag queen convention in Los Angeles, and the doctor’s office where he was diagnosed a “high-risk homosexual.” With vulnerability, humor, and quick-witted insights into racial, sexual, familial, and professional power dynamics, Gomez shares a hard-won path to taking pride in the parts of himself he was taught to keep hidden. His story is a scintillating, beautiful reminder of the importance of leaving space for joy.

    One teen beauty pageant.One meet cute waiting to happen.Up and coming fanfic author Kaylee Beaumont is internally screaming at the chance to finally meet her fandom friends in real life and spend a weekend at GreatCon. She also has a side quest for the weekend:Try out they/them pronouns to see how it feelsWear more masculine-presenting cosplayKiss a girl for the first timeIt’s… a lot, and Kay mostly wants to lie face down on the hotel floor. Especially when her hometown bully, Miss North Carolina, shows up in the very same hotel. But there’s this con-sponsored publishing contest, and the chance to meet her fandom idols… and then, there’s Teagan.Pageant queen Teagan Miller (Miss Virginia) has her eye on the much-needed prize: the $25,000 scholarship awarded to the winner of the Miss Cosmic Teen USA pageant. She also has secrets:She loves the dresses but hates the tiarasShe’s a giant nerd for everything GreatConShe’s gay afIf Teagan can just keep herself wrapped up tight for one more weekend, she can claim the scholarship and go off to college out and proud. If she’s caught, she could lose everything she’s worked for. If her rival, Miss North Carolina, has anything to do with it, that’s exactly how it’ll go down.When Teagan and Kay bump into one another the first night, sparks fly. Their connection is intense—as is their shared enemy. If they’re spotted, the safe space of the con will be shattered, and all their secrets will follow them home. The risks are great… but could the reward of embracing their true selves be worth it?

    I loved it from once upon a time all the way to its joyfully complex ever after." - New York Times bestselling author Becky AlbertalliChase Arthur is a budding animator and hopeless romantic obsessed with Disney films and finding his true love, but he's plagued with the belief that he's not enough for anyone: he's recovering from an eating disorder and suffers from body dysmorphia fueled by his father, and can't quite figure out his gender identity. When Chase starts his freshman year of college, he has to navigate being away from home and missing his sister, finding his squad, and contending with his ex-best friend Leila who is gunning for the same exclusive mentorship. If only he can pull together a short for the freshman animation showcase at the end of the semester.Then Chase meets Jack Reid, a pragmatic poet who worships words and longs to experience life outside of his sheltered world. But Chase throws everything into question for Jack, who is still discovering his sexual identity, having grown up in close-knit conservative family. Jack internalized a lot of homophobia from his parents and childhood best friend, who unexpectedly visit campus, which threatens to destroy their relationship. Chase will have to learn to love--and be enough for--himself, while discovering what it means to truly live.

    But Bastián Silvano and Lore Garcia are the only ones who’ve been there. Bastián grew up both above the lake and in the otherworldly space beneath it. Lore’s only seen the world under the lake once, but that one encounter changed their life and their fate.Then the lines between air and water begin to blur. The world under the lake drifts above the surface. If Bastián and Lore don’t want it bringing their secrets to the surface with it, they have to stop it, and to do that, they have to work together. There’s just one problem: Bastián and Lore haven’t spoken in seven years, and working together means trusting each other with the very things they’re trying to hide.

    Y: The Last Man meets The Girl With All the Gifts in Gretchen Felker-Martin's Manhunt, an explosive post-apocalyptic novel that follows trans women and men on a grotesque journey of survival.Beth and Fran spend their days traveling the ravaged New England coast, hunting feral men and harvesting their organs in a gruesome effort to ensure they'll never face the same fate.Robbie lives by his gun and one hard-learned motto: other people aren't safe.After a brutal accident entwines the three of them, this found family of survivors must navigate murderous TERFs, a sociopathic billionaire bunker brat, and awkward relationship dynamics―all while outrunning packs of feral men, and their own demons.Manhunt is a timely, powerful response to every gender-based apocalypse story that failed to consider the existence of transgender and non-binary people, from a powerful new voice in horror.

    There’s the time the FBI showed up at her door because of something she tweeted about Game of Thrones. The pop songs that have been the soundtrack to the worst moments of her life. And of course, the pivotal day when Orange Is the New Black hit the airwaves and broke down the door to Jill’s own sexuality. In these honest examinations of identity, desire, and self-worth, Jill explores perhaps the most monumental cultural shift of our lifetimes: the mainstreaming of lesbian culture. Dusting off her own personal traumas and artifacts of her not-so-distant youth she examines how pop culture acts as a fun house mirror reflecting and refracting our values—always teaching, distracting, disappointing, and revealing us. Girls Can Kiss Now is a fresh and intoxicating blend of personal stories, sharp observations, and laugh-out-loud humor. This timely collection of essays helps us make sense of our collective pop-culture past even as it points the way toward a joyous, uproarious, near—and very queer—future.

    One huge grudge. And one tiny tent.It’s hard enough balancing two jobs with raising my son solo. Forget dating. I barely have time for laundry.But when my son’s scouting troop The Falcons needed a co-scout leader, I couldn’t say no. There’s just one ginormous problem: the other scout leader Russ.To all other parents, he’s #DadGoals, Mr. Sexy Widower who lords over the drop off line.To me? He’s the bane of my picket-fenced existence - stuck up, anal (not in the fun way), and definitely the person who got me booted from the Parent Teacher Association. I can’t let him wrest control of The Falcons and have history repeat itself - no matter how hot he looks in his khaki uniform.Thing is, the more we work together, the more I glimpse the caring man lurking under the cold exterior. Maybe he isn’t the completely wretched human being I thought.We’d both sworn off romance to focus on fatherhood, and nothing’s going to change that, not even sharing a too-small tent in the wilderness.Right?The Falcon and the Foe is an MM enemies-to-lovers romance containing hot single dads, sizzling snarky banter, pitched tent puns, skinny dipping, and an HEA. It's the first in the Single Dads Club series, but can be read as a standalone.

    She doesn't even get out of the subway before she falls for one—literally.Dana Gallagher's life is storybook-perfect, but she's never connected with anything deeply. But when the girl who saved her from an accident turns out to be her new apprentice at the bakery for the summer, sparks fly hard enough she might just be willing to risk her heart after all.But with Remi trying her damnedest to act straight for fear of the powerful family she left behind, can they find their way to bind together, or are they destined to crumble?One Step at a Time is a 90,000-word summertime bakery romance in the Taste of Port Andrea collection, an unordered collection of culinary romances set in the fictional city of Port Andrea. Features a bisexual lead who somehow thinks being bisexual means she can decide to only be attracted to men, a pansexual lead with a pansexual sister, Avery Lindt from Fake It trying her best to make Remi see reason, "there's more than one bed but they find excuses to have to share a bed anyway," and more mutual pining than you can shake a baguette at. Content warnings for open-door sex scenes, an overbearing mother, Emmanuel telling bad jokes, and a lot of food descriptions, because apparently I write books to make myself hungry.

    All she wants is a quiet life. Until a stray dog sets her on a collision course with a beautiful young vet.Emory Carter is fresh out of vet school and desperate to save her dead father's veterinary practice. But when she ends up getting sued, it looks like her dreams are shattered.When ice queen lawyer meets ambitious young vet sparks start to fly. But it's all so wrong. Holland is too old and broken for this, and Emory is too busy failing at life. And yet the two just can't keep their hands off each other. Right up until tragedy strikes.Opposites can attract, but can they build a life together? When lives are quite literally on the line sometimes the only thing you can do is believe in true love. Which might be a problem if you're a cold-hearted lawyer...A Quiet Life is a new stand-alone lesbian romance from Sienna Waters, the bestselling author of The Wrong Date, A Perfect Mess and Tea Leaves & Tourniquets.

    Irish TimesLaura, an impoverished Cornish girl, meets her husband when they are both in service in Teignmouth in 1916. They have a baby, Charles, but Laura's husband returns home from the trenches a damaged man, already ill with the tuberculosis that will soon leave her a widow. In a small, class-obsessed town she raises her boy alone, working as a laundress, and gradually becomes aware that he is some kind of genius.As an intensely privately young man, Charles signs up for the navy with the new rank of coder. His escape from the tight, gossipy confines of Launceston to the colour and violence of war sees him blossom as he experiences not only the possibility of death, but the constant danger of a love that is as clandestine as his work.MOTHER'S BOY is the story of a man who is among, yet apart from his fellows, in thrall to, yet at a distance from his own mother; a man being shaped for a long, remarkable and revered life spent hiding in plain sight. But it is equally the story of the dauntless mother who will continue to shield him long after the dangers of war are past.A writer with heart, soul, and a dark and naughty wit, one whose company you relish and trust. Observer

    She’s pored over the cases solved by her hero, criminal profiler Lita Miyamoto. She tracked down the graffiti artist at school, and even solved the mystery of her neighbor’s missing rabbit. But when her mother runs off to Hawaii with the school guidance counselor, Drew is shocked. How did she miss all of the clues?Drew is determined to keep her family life a secret, even from her best friend. But when a cyberbully starts posting embarrassing rumors about other students at school, it’s only a matter of time before Drew’s secret is out.Armed with her notebooks full of observations about her classmates, Drew knows what she has to do: profile all of the bullies in her grade to find the culprit. But being a detective is more complicated when the suspects can be your friends. Will Drew crack the case if it means losing the people she cares about most?

    They’ve had many sleep-overs, awkward school pictures, bad break-ups, and embarrassing drunken nights. It was always supposed to be them against the world.Until it became Autumn and her husband-to-be. And Lily.Naturally, Lily was asked to be Autumn’s maid of honor — a role she filled perfectly. All except for one crucial thing. She forgot to write her maid of honor speech.The day before the wedding has come, and Lily has hidden away to put pen to paper. But it’s not as simple as jotting down the poetry that fills her head. Not when every story reminds her of their past — when every retelling makes her heart ache for their future. A future where they could be more than friends.A future where the only speech she writes are her wedding vows.It's the night before the wedding, and Lily has to decide which speech she will make.

    In art class, she meets two offbeat students, Oscar and April. The three bond through clandestine sleepovers, thrift store shopping, and zine publishing. Winifred is finally breaking out of her shell, but there’s one secret she can’t bear to admit to April and Oscar, or even to herself—and this lie is threatening to destroy her newfound friendships.With breathtaking art and honest storytelling, rising star Sarah Winifred Searle delivers a heartfelt story about love, friendship, and self-acceptance.

    In the aftermath of another lethal attack, her chief begs her to remarry for the sake of the clan. Marie is a healer who honours the ways of her people, and Pierre, the green-eyed ex-soldier from France who wants her for his bride, is not the man she would choose. But her people are dwindling, wracked by white men's diseases and nearly starving every winter as the game retreats away from the white settlements. If her chief believes such a marriage will cement their alliance with the French against the Iroquois and the British, she feels she has no choice. Though she does it reluctantly, and with some fear--Marie is trading the memory of the man she loved for a man she doesn't understand at all, and whose devout Catholicism blinds him to the ways of her people.This beautiful, powerful novel brings to life women who have literally fallen through the cracks of settler histories. Especially Jeanne, the first child born of the new marriage, neither white nor Weskarini, but caught between worlds. As she reaches adolescence, it becomes clear she is two-spirited. In her mother's culture, she would have been considered blessed, her nature a sign of special wisdom. But to the settlers of New France, and even to her own father, Jeanne is unnatural, sinful--a woman to be shunned, and worse.And so, with the poignant story of Jeanne, Danielle Daniel imagines her way into the heart and mind of a woman at the origin of the long history of violence against Indigenous women and the deliberate, equally violent, disruption of First Nations culture--opening a door long jammed shut, so all of us can enter.

    But the church is abandoned, decrepit, and off the beaten path, and the only other person for miles is its handsome caretaker, Ariel Azevedo.Together, Diego and Ariel refurbish the old church, sharing stories of their heritage, experiences, and desires. But as the long days turn into longer nights, Diego begins to see past Ariel’s human mirage and finds himself falling into lust—and maybe something else—with one of God’s first creations.

    With a sharp mind and sharper tongue, she constantly defies family and society expectations with no regard for the consequences.Branna Kelly, only child of an Irish immigrant sailor, is hopelessly in love with Julia and imagines their life together as captains of their own fate. Left brokenhearted after Julia’s rejection, she embarks on a journey to chart a new shipping route to the Caribbean. Before Julia can explain her decision, Branna’s ship is overrun by merciless pirates. All hands are presumed lost.Fifteen years later, Julia is running the Farrow Company and sailing with the crew on her newest ship when an encounter with pirates leaves her the lone survivor to be rescued by the infamous Raven, hard-hearted captain of the mercenary ship, Banshee. Julia is shocked to discover her rescuer wears a familiar face.The Raven and the Banshee is a passionate tale of vengeance, forgiveness and second chance love in a swashbuckling adventure on the high seas.Content note: the book contains one brief scene of sexual assault and one mention of rape.

    She attends temple with Abba and Mom every Friday and Saturday. Ellen only gets crushes on girls, never boys, and she knows she can always rely on her best-and-only friend, Laurel, to help navigate social situations at their private Georgia middle school.Laurel has always made Ellen feel like being autistic is no big deal. But lately, Laurel has started making more friends, and cancelling more weekend plans with Ellen than she keeps. A school trip to Barcelona seems like the perfect place for Ellen to get their friendship back on track.  Except it doesn't.Toss in a new nonbinary classmate whose identity has Ellen questioning her very binary way of seeing the world, homesickness, a scavenger hunt-style team project that takes the students through Barcelona to learn about Spanish culture and this trip is anything but what Ellen planned.Making new friends and letting go of old ones is never easy, but Ellen might just find a comfortable new place for herself if she can learn to embrace the fact that life doesn't always stick to a planned itinerary.

    . . much to the dismay of the adventuring party of Michel, Hocus, and Ani. They are in need of an at least moderately capable fighter and it looks like Eugene, being a prince and all (albeit a bastard one), is going to be it as long as he wants in. Life on the road is different than Eugene expected, but there's no time to wallow in pouty disappointment; townsfolk are going missing and our heroes have answered the call to adventure. It feels straightforward enough; the perfect opportunity for the prince to save the day and make his companions some coin before moving on to the next distraction. But outside the palace walls, Eugene crashes into a hard reality: the system that kept him safe in his silk-sheeted bed isn't particularly concerned with the well-being of anyone who isn't him. Eugene will have to level-up his awareness if he means to be a real hero, and time is running short!

    When he wins a tournament in the Court of the Silver Wheel, its queen names him her Oak King - a figurehead destined to die in a ritual duel to invoke the change of seasons. Shrike is determined to survive. Even if it means he must put his heart as well as his life into a mere mortal’s hands.Wren Lofthouse, a London clerk, has long ago resigned himself to a life of tedium and given up his fanciful dreams. When a medieval-looking brute arrives at his office to murmur of destiny, he’s inclined to think his old enemies are playing an elaborate prank. Still, he can’t help feeling intrigued by the bizarre-yet-handsome stranger and his fantastical ramblings, whose presence stirs up emotions Wren has tried to lock away in the withered husk of his heart.As Shrike whisks Wren away to a world of Wild Hunts and arcane rites, Wren is freed from the repression of Victorian society. But both the fae and mortal realms prove treacherous to their growing bond. Wren and Shrike must fight side-by-side to see who will claim victory - Oak King or Holly King.

    AJ Clementine always knew she was a girl. The problem was, she'd been born in a magical shell that looked, on the outside, like a perfect little boy. In her teens, this conflict between her outer and inner selves exploded, igniting years of anxiety and panic attacks. Now fast becoming one of the world's most visible transgender spokespeople, AJ's journey to accept and live as her true self has captivated hundreds of thousands of people on TikTok, Youtube and Instagram, where she has shared her gender transition, what it was like to grow up Wasian in a blended family, and her transformation into a model, influencer and trans advocate. In Girl, Transcending, AJ weaves her experiences, advice, reflections and snippets of inspiration into a powerful tool to help us understand and celebrate what makes each of us unique, not only those in the LGBTQI+ community but anyone finding their way in the world. Honest, positive and empowering, AJ shines a light on her path to self-love and acceptance - the hardest bits, the parts we rarely see - in the hopes of a brighter, more inclusive future for all.

    His last before heading off to college in the fall where he won’t have his best friend, Diego. Where—despite his social anxiety—he’ll be left to make friends on his own. Knowing his time with Diego is limited, Isaac enacts a foolproof plan: snatch up a pair of badges for the epic comic convention, Legends Con, and attend his first ever Teen Pride. Just him and Diego. The way it should be. But when an unexpected run-in with Davi—Isaac’s old crush—distracts him the day tickets go on sale, suddenly he’s two badges short of a perfect summer. Even worse, now he’s left making it up to Diego by hanging with him and his gamer buddies. Decidedly NOT part of the original plan. It’s not all bad, though. Some of Diego’s friends turn out to be pretty cool, and when things with Davi start heating up, Isaac is almost able to forget about his Legends Con blunder. Almost. Because then Diego finds out what really happened that day with Davi, and their friendship lands on thin ice. Isaac assumes he’s upset about missing the convention, but could Diego have other reasons for avoiding Isaac?

    1: Umibe no Etranger.Ever since his parents disowned him for being gay, Shun has been living with his aunt on a small island near Okinawa. One day, he meets Mio, a high school student who recently lost his own parents and now spends his days sitting by the sea. The two young men begin to open up to each other...until Mio reveals that he's leaving. Three years later, an adult Mio returns to the island to confess his true feelings, but is Shun ready for a relationship?

    But lately, even their shared weirdness seems weird. Then Joel disappears. Vanishes. Poof. The whole town is looking for him, and Aubrey was the last person to see Joel. Aubrey can’t say much, but since lies of omission are still lies, here’s what they know for sure: For the last two weeks of the school year, when sixth grade became too much, Aubrey and Joel have been building a raft in the woods.The raft was supposed to be just another part of their running away game.The raft is gone now, too.Aubrey doesn’t know where Joel is, but they might know how to find him. As Aubrey, their friend Mari, and sister Teagan search along the river, Aubrey has to fess up to who they really are, all the things they never said, and the word that bully Rudy Thomas used that set all this into motion.

    Moira could never keep Kenzie’s icy glares from getting under her skin, and Kenzie could never hold back an eye-roll as she watched the crowds fawn over her rival’s happy-go-lucky charm. Starting college has forced both women to hang up their kilts, but when their local highland dance association announces a scholarship for a life-changing amount of money, they find themselves back onstage for one last season.The stakes are higher than ever, but between shooting daggers at each other’s backs and insults at each other’s faces, their eyes start lingering, their hearts start pounding, and the sparks begin to build into a fire neither of them can control.Hell could freeze before either woman would admit their attraction, but that won’t stop them from using it to play dirty—and getting caught in the crossfire of their feelings along the way.After all, sometimes the devil wears tartan.The Devil Wears Tartan is a New Adult, F/F dramedy from Katia Rose featuring more bagpipes than anyone asked for and two fiercely competitive heroines caught in a sizzling shift from enemies to lovers.

    

    

    

     As in Nigeria, vagabonds are those whose existence is literally outlawed: the queer, the poor, the displaced, the footloose and rogue spirits. They are those who inhabit transient spaces, who make their paths and move invisibly, who embrace apparitions, old vengeances and alternative realities. Eloghosa Osunde's brave, fiercely inventive novel traces a wild array of characters for whom life itself is a form of resistance: a driver for a debauched politician with the power to command life and death; a legendary fashion designer who gives birth to a grown daughter; a lesbian couple whose tender relationship sheds unexpected light on their experience with underground sex work; a wife and mother who attends a secret spiritual gathering that shifts her world. As their lives intertwine—in bustling markets and underground clubs, churches and hotel rooms—vagabonds are seized and challenged by spirits who command the city's dark energy. Whether running from danger, meeting with secret lovers, finding their identities, or vanquishing their shadowselves, Osunde's characters confront and support one another, before converging for the once-in-a-lifetime gathering that gives the book its unexpectedly joyous conclusion. Blending unvarnished realism with myth and fantasy, Vagabonds! is a vital work of imagination that takes us deep inside the hearts, minds, and bodies of a people in duress—and in triumph.

    One night, her orphanage is visited by Traveler, a gearling automaton there on behalf of his magical mistress, who needs an apprentice pronto. When Melanie is selected because of her gift, her life changes in a flash, and in more ways than she knows—because Traveler is not at all what he seems. But then, neither is Melanie Gate.So begins an epic adventure sparkling with magic, humor, secret identities, stinky cats, fierce orphan girls, impostor boys, and a foundling and gearling hotly pursued by the most powerful and dangerous wizard in the land.Action-packed yet layered, The Lock-Eater is a mix of lush world-building, high stakes, humor, and emotional heft—a page-turner and so much more."Will have readers tumbling through the pages...Deeply immersive." —Soman Chainani, author of The School for Good and Evil series"Perfect for fans of Ursula LeGuin and Diana Wynne Jones." —Eliot Schrefer, author of The Lost Rainforest series"A thrill...Charming." —Kirkus

    They are about to embark on the summer before senior year of high school, where each is going on a new, big adventure. Reese is attending a design school in Paris. Gabriel is going to Boston to volunteer with a environmental nonprofit. Sal is interning on Capitol Hill for a U.S. Senator. And Heath is stuck going to Daytona Beach to help out at his aunt’s beachfront arcade.What will this summer of new experiences and world-expanding travel mean for each of them—and for their friendship?

    Within the span of a hundred years, living creatures began to mutate and devour each other while the remaining humans, numbering in the tens of thousands, struggled bitterly in their man-made bases.In the Abyss, home to the mutated xenogenics, there lived a sentient little mushroom. Because it had been nourished by the blood and flesh of the deceased human An Ze, not only did it take on a similar-looking human form, but a similar name as well: An Zhe.An Zhe is determined to go to the human base to search for his spore, which had been harvested by humans. Once there, however, he faces the omnipresent risk of discovery and certain death as he tries to keep his non-human nature hidden from the Judges, whose responsibility is to inspect for and eliminate xenogenics like himself. And of all the Judges, Colonel Lu Feng is the most perceptive and merciless--as soon as he determines that someone is a xenogenic, he will execute that person on the spot.But An Zhe's mutation goes undetected by Lu Feng's eyes, and so a tale of humans and xenogenics unfolds...

    Within a few short years, climate collapse leaves Cape Town a vast and arid slum. Those who can afford to leave have fled to the New Temperate Zones, and to The Citadel on Signal Hill, ensconced in a climate-controlled dome behind The Wall. But at what cost? Here, residents pass their days lost in virtual reality, courtesy of a biotech implant connected to their minds, refusing to see what goes on around them. In the present day, before the Change, Luthando sees the way the world is headed and tries to avert disaster, but his activism leads to clashes with the government. As their lives begin to unravel, his life partner, Viwe, becomes embroiled in the religious end-of-days fanaticism sweeping the city. And their friend Malcolm fears that his work developing mental and emotional software is being used for sinister purposes.It Doesn't Have to Be This Way is a profoundly moving story of resilience and tenderness, and our capacity for love in the face of fear. ------------------------------------------Praise for It Doesn't Have to Be This Way:"Revolutionary. Vulnerable. Chilling in its relevance." - Mia Arderne."A bracing read." - Siya Khumalo.

    Pining after my younger roommates in San Francisco, my friends point out my Daddy side, and I start to wonder what else could be possible. My youngest roommate was a shy, chubby, red-headed trans boy finishing his fashion degree online. July’s confidence came out when he worked as a cam-boy every night, but he seemed to be holding back from pursuing the kinks he really wanted. His family was either dead or rejected him, and I have helped him as much as I can. My other roommate, Roman, was living his best life as a fabulous, tech-savvy gay man by day, high femme Drag Queen by night. He had everything he wanted, but seemed to need a firm hand as he flirts relentlessly, resulting in both July and I wanting him. When one of July's online clients tracks him down and turns into a stalker who thinks Roman is a threat, Shepherd has to protect both boys. They were members of the same kink club as well as roommates and friends for years, but the forced proximity of hiding out reveals secrets long held.On Amazon: amzn.to/3ohdXM9

    Even her older brother Spencer says so, though he wouldn’t finish the thought with, “And I should have been a girl.” Though both feel awkward in their own skin, they have to face who they are—queers in the late 60s. When both are caught with gay partners, their lives and futures are endangered by their homophobic father as their mother struggles to defend them. While the Vietnam War threatens to take Spencer away, Tracy and her father wage a war of their own, each trying to save the sweet, talented pianist. At seventeen, Tracy dresses as a boy and leaves her parents in turmoil, with only the slimmest hope of finding peace within herself. She journeys to a girl with a guitar, calling to her from a photo, "Come to Alaska. We'd be great friends." Maybe even The MoonStone Girls.

    With two hungry siblings, an empty fridge, and a violent mother to tip-toe around, Zoe can't slow down enough to catch a breath. When she discovers Mama’s been reading her diary, Zoe realizes she has to stop writing in it. Trouble is, if she stops, Mama’s sure to think she’s hiding something, and will tear through her room like a tornado—again—to find out what. Her solution: write Mama-safe entries in the first diary, while writing her real thoughts in a plain-old composition book.The more entries she makes, the fuzzier the line between safe lies and terrifying truths becomes, and it’s not long before Zoe fears she’s just as unstable as Mama. After all, the apple never falls too far from the tree. If there’s even a shred of truth to her safe journal, then maybe her real journal’s just a hot mess of made-up horrors. When things at home escalate, Zoe must face reality in order to keep herself and siblings safe. But facing reality means taking steps that could shatter her family. Can her friends, Cheryl and Nate, help her understand that love shouldn’t hurt and blood doesn’t make a family?

    There, vampires and humans exist in harmony, and Sophie and her adoptive vampire moms are living (or unliving) proof. Vampires must follow a lot of rules to keep humans feeling safe, but Sophie knows that a nightly curfew and regular visits from Child Protective Services are a small price to pay to keep her family together. But then normal, law-abiding vampires start turning feral and bloodthirsty with no explanation. After Mama— the sweetest person Sophie knows— goes rogue, Sophie decides to find a cure. But taking matters into her own hands might be way more than she bargained for if it means braving a secret council of vampires, executing epic heists, and facing the true villains head on. With her best friend by her side, Sophie will fight for hope, freedom and a family bonded by a love that’s thicker than blood.Note From The Author: Hello folks! Thank you for taking the time to check out THE LAST HOPE IN HOPETOWN, a story of found family, friendship, and sisterhood. Like all works of Upper Middle Grade, the expected audience is slightly older, in the 9-13 year-old category.To add to that, this book is not designed for the literary enjoyment of adults (though if you enjoy it, huzzah!). THE LAST HOPE IN HOPETOWN'S style and vocabulary are meant to draw in its intended audience--the modern MG reader.If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask! I'm very happy to answer.

    A book of love poems that consciously and subversively hearken back to Shakespeare's sonnets, marking Hofmann's position as one of our necessary poets of erotic desire. These short lyrics come together in their discussion of geography, painting, sculpture, and classical music as if to say that love (that queer love!) is indeed as immortal as a poem. Or as Hofmann himself writes, 'There is so much to say. It may take until night.'" --Jericho Brown, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The TraditionA Hundred Lovers is a catalog of encounters, sublime, steamy, and frank. Inspired by French autofiction, the poems feel both sharp and diaristic; their lyrical, intimate world brings us everyday scenes imbued with sex. Eros enters, where shame had lived, the speaker observes, as the poems explore risk and appetite, promiscuity and violence, and, in the wake of his marriage, questions about monogamy and desire.Bringing us both the carefully knotted silk ties of the wedding pair and their undress in a series of Hockney-like interiors where passion colors every object, Hofmann speaks plainly of the saliva, tears, and guts of the carnal, just as he does of the sublime in works of art. A Hundred Lovers invites us to consider our own memories of pleasure and pain, which fill the generous white space the poet leaves open to us between his ravishing lines.

    Fragrance has long been used to mark who is civilized and who is barbaric, who is pure and who is polluted, who is free and who is damned—Focusing their gaze on our most primordial sense, writer and perfumer Tanaïs weaves a brilliant and expansive memoir, a reckoning that offers a critical, alternate history of South Asia from an American Bangladeshi Muslim femme perspective. From stories of their childhood in the South, Midwest, and New York; to transcendent experiences with lovers, psychedelics, and fragrances; to trips home to their motherland, Tanaïs builds a universe of memories and scent: a sensorium. Alongside their personal history, and at the very heart of this work, is an interrogation of the ancient violence of caste, rape culture, patriarchy, war, and the inherited ancestral trauma of being from a lush land constantly denuded, a land still threatened and disappearing because of colonization, capitalism, and climate change. Structured like a perfume—moving from base to heart to head notes—IN SENSORIUM interlaces eons of South Asian perfume history, erotic and religious texts, survivor testimonies, and material culture with memoir. In Sensorium is archive and art, illuminating the great crises of our time with the language of Liberation.

    While Raffi and Seven of Nine are enjoying some much-needed R&R in Raffi’s remote hideaway, their downtime is interrupted by an urgent cry for help: a distant, beleaguered planet has enlisted the Fenris Rangers to save an embattled evacuation effort. As Raffi and Seven team up to rescue a mysteriously ageless professor whose infinity-shaped talisman has placed him in the deadly sights of a vicious Romulan warlord, they take tentative steps to explore the attraction depicted in the final moments of Picard season one.Star Trek: No Man’s Land is a rich, fully dramatized Star Trek: Picard adventure as Michelle Hurd and Jeri Ryan pick up their respective characters once more. Written for audio by Kirsten Beyer, a cocreator, writer, and producer on the hit Paramount+ series Star Trek: Picard, and Mike Johnson, a veteran contributor to the Star Trek comic books publishing program, this audio original offers consummate Star Trek storytelling brilliantly reimagined for the audio medium. In addition to riveting performances from Hurd and Ryan exploring new layers of Raffi and Seven’s relationship, Star Trek: No Man’s Land features a full cast of actors playing all-new characters in the Star Trek: Picard universe, including Fred Tatasciore, Jack Cutmore-Scott, John Kassir, Chris Andrew Ciulla, Lisa Flanagan, Gibson Frazier, Lameece Issaq, Natalie Naudus, Xe Sands, and Emily Woo Zeller, and is presented in a soundscape crackling with exclusive Star Trek sound effects. Drawing listeners into a dramatic, immersive narrative experience that is at once both instantly familiar and spectacularly new, Star Trek: No Man’s Land goes boldly where no audio has gone before as fans new and old clamor to discover what happens next.

    Her coffee shop, Haze, is thriving, and she has a great group of friends. There’s just one thing missing: love. Despite past betrayals, Abby hasn’t given up on finding the one, waiting with increasing impatience to experience the sparks she’s always dreamed of.Lexi Finn lives for her career. At least her job won’t break her heart. Unlike Abby, she’s most definitely not searching for the one or anyone for that matter. Avoiding relationships isn’t all that difficult when she’s become so skilled at keeping people at a distance.So imagine Lexi’s shock when, walking into Haze, she feels instant attraction and an unshakeable connection with Abby. Abby has a picture of her perfect woman in her mind, and it certainly isn’t the intolerable Lexi Finn. When a hopeless romantic meets a tough-as-nails cynic, they’ll need to overcome the wounds of the past to discover that their hearts are the most important business of all.

    This all changes when her ex, vampire Lora Walker, resurfaces with a shocking revelation--Sabrine's mother was once the feared leader of the Daughters. Sabrine has unknowingly been groomed to be her mother's assistant.Now Sabrine needs to reevaluate everything she thinks she knows, and she needs to do it fast, because the barrier that separates the magical world from the world of the humans is cracking open, and nobody knows why. And the only person she can rely on is the last person she wants to deal with: her ex-girlfriend.

    Pebbled asphalt abrades my skin. The rain is cool on my flesh – washing the blood away; my husband's death. The pregnancy he never knew about.Then there was Her.My savior is unrefined. Temperamental. Strong. Deliberate.And... beautiful.My husband is gone. I don't want anyone to replace him. I don't need anyone else.Except Her.

    She was not prepared to lose her heart. Reporter Jenny Ryan didn’t believe in love at first sight. Until it happened to her. An encounter with a sultry nightclub singer led to a secret job at the Office of Strategic Services and an unlikely romance with the woman of her dreams.OSS agent Kathryn Hammond knows she doesn’t deserve love or happiness. But having fallen for her former assignment, she’ll do anything to keep her safe—including staying away. When ghosts from her past emerge, and Jenny waltzes into headquarters as a new recruit, all of Kathryn’s fears materialize.With Jenny’s protection out of her hands, and society, the war, and time against them, will their love survive?In the Shadow of Love is the second book in this lesbian historical romance series. If you like secrets, spies, and love against all odds, you'll love this emotionally sweeping love story.Buy In the Shadow of Love and lose yourself in a page-turning night of desire and intrigue today!Note: As this is a series, reading the books in order is recommended.

    She chooses hope over her parents’ paranoid conspiracy theories, over her dead-end job, over the rising ocean levels. And when she meets Sylvia Gill, renowned Harvard professor, she feels she’s found the justification of that hope. Sylvia is the woman-in-black: the only person smart and sharp enough to compel the world to action. But when Sylvia betrays her, Willa fears she has lost hope forever. And then she finds a book in Sylvia’s library: a guide to fighting climate change called Living the Solution. Inspired by its message and with nothing to lose, Willa flies to the island of Eleutheria in the Bahamas to join the author and his group of ecowarriors at Camp Hope. Upon arrival, things are not what she expected. The group’s leader, author Roy Adams, is missing, and the compound’s public launch is delayed. With time running out, Willa will stop at nothing to realize Camp Hope’s mission—but at what cost?A VINTAGE ORIGINAL

    "A book like no other: tender, and eloquent, a singing across borders, across silences."--Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic, National Book Award finalistThe poems in Yanyi's latest book suggest that we enter and exit our old selves like homes. We look through the windows and recognize some former aspect of our lives that is both ours and not ours. We long for what we had even as we recognize that we can no longer live there. Yanyi conjures the beloved both within and without us: the beloved we believe we know, the beloved who is never the person we imagine, and the beloved who threatens to erase us even as we stand before them.How can we carry our homes with us? Informed by Yanyi's experiences of immigration, violent heartbreak, and a bodily transition, Dream of the Divided Field explores the contradictions that accompany shifts from one state of being to another. In tender, serene, and ethereal poems, Dream of the Divided Field examines a body breaking down and a body that rebuilds in limitless and boundary-shifting ways. These are homes in memory--homes of love and isolation, lust and alienation, tenderness and violence, suffering and wonder.

    It is an underground subculture founded over a century ago by LGBTQ African American and Latino men and women of Harlem. Arts-based and intersectional, it transcends identity, acting as a fearless response to the systemic marginalization of minority populations.Ricky Tucker pulls from his years as a close friend of the community to reveal the complex cultural makeup and ongoing relevance of house and Ballroom, a space where trans lives are respected and applauded, and queer youth are able to find family and acceptance. With each chapter framed as a "category" (Vogue, Realness, Body, et al.), And the Category Is . . . offers an impressionistic point of entry into this subculture, its deeply integrated history, and how it's been appropriated for mainstream audiences. Each category features an exclusive interview with fierce LGBTQ/POC Ballroom members--Lee Soulja, Benjamin Ninja, Twiggy Pucci Gar�on, and more--whose lives, work, and activism drive home that very category.At the height of public intrigue and awareness about Ballroom, thanks to TV shows like FX's Pose, Tucker's compelling narratives help us understand its relevance in pop culture, dance, public policy with regard to queer communities, and so much more. Welcome to the norm-defying realness of Ballroom.

    Her mother has kept her and her brother, Gabe, on the road for as long as she can remember, leaving a trail of rental homes and faded relationships behind them. No roots, no family but one another, and no explanations.All of that changes on Hannah’s seventeenth birthday when she wakes up transformed, a pair of golden eyes with knife-slit pupils blinking back at her from the mirror—the first of many such impossible mutations. Promising that she knows someone who can help, her mother leaves Hannah and Gabe behind to find a cure. But as the days turn to weeks and their mother doesn’t return, they realize it’s up to them to find the truth.What they discover is a family they never knew, and a history more tragic and fantastical than Hannah could have dreamed—one that stretches back to her grandmother’s childhood in Prague under the Nazi occupation, and beyond, into the realm of Jewish mysticism and legend. As the past comes crashing into the present, Hannah must hurry to unearth their family’s secrets—and confront her own hidden legacy in order to break the curse and save the people she loves most, as well as herself.

    We change our haircuts and our outfits and our minds. We change names, titles, labels. We attempt to blend in or to stand out. We outgrow relationships, we abandon dreams for new ones, we start fresh. We seize control of our stories. We make resolutions.In fact, nobody knows this better than Vivek, who's made a career of embracing many roles: artist, performer, musician, writer, model, teacher. In People Change, she reflects on the origins of this impulse, tracing it to childhood influences from Hinduism to Madonna. What emerges is a meditation on change itself: why we fear it, why we're drawn to it, what motivates us to change, and what traps us in place.At a time when we're especially contemplating who we want to be, this slim and stylish handbook is an essential companion--a guide to celebrating our many selves and the inspiration to discover who we'll become next.

    She hasn’t returned to Paradise Bay since her father walked out on her and her mum five years ago. Cyra meets Riley, a bubbly and beautiful local who is determined to get out of Paradise Bay. But before she leaves, she wants to make her last summer the best yet. She persuades Cyra to join her on a quest to fulfil her bucket list of all the items she wants to complete before permanently leaving Paradise Bay and beginning their lives as adults.It quickly becomes apparent that Cyra and Riley are more than friends, but Cyra keeps her at arm’s length as she believes that anyone she lets close always leaves. It seems that the only way around it is that they become a summer fling, which has a definite expiration date. However, in a small town like Paradise Bay, Cyra can’t seem to escape the past and it may just ruin her whole summer.

    Two hundred years after his death he needs help to find the man he loved.2015 ‘There has been a Durand in Ashlington for hundreds of years,’ was something Lillian had heard all her life. A life now spent in London with the career, fiancé, and success she had always wanted. When forced to return to her ancestral Cotswold home, a chilling presence with a desperate message leads her to believe she is not the only Durand left walking the halls of Ashlington Manor.1807 Henry escapes his father’s expectations by taking a commission in the British Army where he meets Robert Westbrook. Standing shoulder to shoulder through the Peninsula War, not only fighting the French but each other’s demons, their bond grows into something deeper. But it is going home to Ashlington that Henry dreads. Home where disaster waits.Lillian enlists the help of childhood friend Nick Hawkins to unravel Henry’s story, discovering much of what they had been told of Lillian’s heroic ancestor was a lie. Can past and present find a way to work together so that they might all settle their grief, find love once lost, and learn what it truly means to be home, or will Ashlington be lost forever?

    Rig, a gunslinging, thieving, rebel with a cause, doesn’t give a damn about them and she hasn’t looked back since abandoning her faction three years ago. That is, until her former faction sends her a message: return what she stole from them, or they’ll kill her twin sister. Rig embarks on a journey across the galaxy to save her sister – but for once she’s not alone. She has help from her network of resistance contacts, her taser-wielding librarian girlfriend, and a mysterious bounty hunter. If Rig fails and her former faction finds what she stole from them, trillions of lives will be lost--including her sister's. But if she succeeds, she might just pull the whole damn faction system down around their ears. Either way, she’s going to do it with panache and pizzazz.

    In a small town with few queer teenagers, let alone young trans men, they've shared milestones like coming out as trans, buying the right binders--and falling for each other.But just as their relationship has started to blossom, Aaron moves away. Feeling adrift, separated from the one person who understands them, they seek solace in digging deep into the annals of America's past. When they discover the story of two Revolutionary War soldiers who they believe to have been trans man in love, they're inspired to pay tribute to these soldiers by adopting their names--Aaron and Oliver. As they learn, they delve further into unwritten queer stories, and they discover the transformative power of reclaiming one's place in history.

    But it's nothing to the fear inside Naoki as Sho succumbs to his transformation - and disappears into an impenetrable chrysalis with the words I love you, Naoki on his lips.An old woman becomes a great statue, overlooking the town. A young boy follows a watchful stranger. A mother becomes a creature of smoke, as ethereal boats of light sail across Marrow's horizon and the moon advances through another phase.And Sho and Naoki meet heart to heart in strange dreams captured in the dark and in the deep, beneath the ocean of sleep.

    

    Reevaluating his rocky marriage in the wake of his husband’s infidelity and with little else to do, he decides to attend his twenty-year high school reunion, where he runs into the long-lost characters of his youth.Jeremy, his first love, is now married with two children after having been incarcerated and recovering from addiction. Paul, who Andrés has long suspected of having killed a man in a homophobic attack, is now an Evangelical minister and father of five. And Simone, Andrés’s best friend, is in a psychiatric institution following a diagnosis of schizophrenia. During this short stay, Andrés confronts these relationships, the death of his brother, and the many sacrifices his parents made to offer him a better life.A novel about the essential nature of community in maintaining one’s own health, The Town of Babylon is an intimate portrait of queer, racial, and class identity, a call to reevaluate the ties of societal bonds and the systems in which they are forged.

    

    He’s my husband. My best friend.My everything.But life evolves, and so do we. I can’t pinpoint the day we wake up and know for sure that we want more, but it happens and it scares us. Until it doesn’t and we have to wonder if we’re asking too much of the world.We’re already happy. My heart is full. I don’t know if there’s room to cherish another soul as much as I do him and we ain’t got no role models for fatherhood.All I know for certain is that with Harry by my side, I can do anything.An MM novella set within the Skins universe. Expect: found family and rescue horses, soul-deep love and swoony hurt/comfort themes. And maybe, just maybe, the pitter patter of tiny feet.

    When a twelve-year-old boy dies mysteriously at the deserted Hollow Pines Plantation, he finds himself “stuck” with no idea how long he’s been there or how to move on. Things never change much for the lost souls at Hollow Pines and time is strange when you’re dead. But when visitors from the living world arrive for the first time in a long while, the boy feels a spark of hope. These visitors are around his age, and they seem to understand more than others that the plantation is not just spooky or eerie, it’s a sad place where the unspeakable happened again and again. And if these kids could understand the truth about Hollow Pines, maybe they could help him uncover the dark secrets of his past and help him find a way to finally move on. But Hollow Pines doesn’t like visitors. And with a malevolent spirit lurking in the shadows and painful memories buried deep, and for good reason, the boy wonders if he’ll ever find his way home or be stuck at Hollow Pines forever.

    Full-throated, uninhibited, addictive.Soft smiles encouraging him over swing bridges. Hearty chuckles dancing around a ballroom. Wobbly grins. Double-glances. Eyes that brightened the world. His world.From the moment he met David O’Hara, Jonathan started forming a smile of his own.And then O’Hara left.One lingering look.No last goodbye.Seven years later, that laugh again.Full-throated, uninhibited.Addictive.O’Hara. Still all fire and flame, still drawing Jonathan in.And now he wants Jonathan paired with him in a seven-week social influencing challenge.Now, he wants to finish melting his heart…~ ~ ~"Tell Me Our Story" is a second chance, friends-to-lovers gay romance. This is a standalone, no cliffhanger story with HEA.Tropes: second chances bromance, friends to lovers, soul mates, opposites attract, slow burn, sunny and serious, unexpected virgin, forced proximity, one true love, first love / only love, lovers in denial, destined to be together

    When they took to social media to share how they felt, they were overwhelmed by how many others felt the same.I look too masculine to be non-binaryI look too feminine to be a lesbianAm I too fat for drag?Inviting you to challenge accepted beauty standards and the concept of 'the perfect body', Essie takes everything they have learned on their journey to self-acceptance and body satisfaction to help guide you towards loving your queer body. From gender, sexuality and reclaiming your body, through to food, politics, social media and fatphobia, this radical book starts a conversation about body image and mental health that queer people are so often left out of.Fiercely and unapologetically written, and with honest advice and powerful stories from a diverse range of queer people throughout, this is an inspiring and necessary book that will show you that you are enough.

    Alongside the author's personal experiences are first-hand stories from notable LGBTQ+ figures, providing a inclusive account of what it means to grow up queer. With chapters on questioning, coming out, friends and family, love, sex, shame, pride and allyship, this is insightful, thoughtful and reassuring book is essential reading for any questioning teen and their allies looking to support them.

    This is the first place that’s felt like a home, and things are finally looking up. However, as much as he tries to be the best boyfriend and father, it never feels like enough. Lucas Adams is happily married with a baby on the way. The life he’s created for himself is exactly the one he’d always longed for. He’s a successful full-time author who is delighted to meet his new next door neighbors, especially Aaron, who’s kind and intriguing. Soon, Aaron and Lucas form a close friendship and realize that they have more in common than they thought. Together, they navigate suburban life with their respective families, through all the ups and downs thrown their way. But when both of them lose what is most precious to them, they find solace in each other to cope with the fallout, and discover that the love they feel for one another is stronger than any challenge they’ve ever faced.

    imperialism in order to radically alter our understanding of freedom, power, and control. In poems of desire, gender, bodies, legacies, and imagined futures, Tran's poems elucidate the complex and harrowing processes of reckoning and recovery, enhanced by innovative poetic forms that mirror the nonlinear emotional and psychological experiences of trauma survivors. At once grand and intimate, commanding and deeply vulnerable, All the Flowers Kneeling revels in rediscovering and reconfiguring the self, and ultimately becomes an essential testament to the human capacity for resilience, endurance, and love.

    Luckily, there's a seductive Empath named Mys who pledges to get her where she needs to be. Then there's Detective Zyr Ravani, the hot werewolf tasked with keeping them safe. But what's the worst that can happen to a Ghost?See, Aurie's not living her best life. But she COULD be if she accepts the powerful desire swirling between the three of them. Ready to get away with something different? Solve Aurie's murder with Detective Zyr Ravani and the genderqueer Mx. Mys as you fall head over heels for this threesome along the way. Go ahead. #GetAwayWithItIntroducing an adventurous tale of self-discovery, magic and menagé a trois. LEAD ME ASTRAY is a fresh new story from an authentic LGBTQ voice. Add this unicorn to your reading list and find out why it's a winner.

    At the marquee where the sleepover took place, it's a scene of carnage and mayhem: there's a donkey drinking at the chocolate fountain, a huge inflatable helium sausage looms above, doves everywhere, one of the kids has a tattoo, and there's a suitcase of bratwurst on the floor! But what's weirdest of all, neither Otis nor the other kids can remember what happened!The party was in the back garden of popular kid Rocco Rococo's huge house, and Otis was only there because his mum forced an invitation. Otis realizes that makes him Prime Suspect for causing the mess, and he needs to clear his name.Meanwhile, Rocco just needs to keep his parents from finding out!So while everyone else makes a befuddled exit, Otis and Rocco reluctantly team up to hide the evidence. They decide to retrace their steps in the hope of solving the mystery...

    While refusing to hide, minimize, justify or ignore instances of trauma, it also refuses to succumb to them. Instead, it probes these histories as a strategy to move through the pain and forge an alternate path for a new tomorrow."REVENGE BODY teems with sharp, curious, brilliant work gilded with a sense of humor that careens from deadpan to ALL CAPS and back. Luna's writing is measured, generous, examining everything unexamined, but also percussive, bereft, and fiery. I love this book, I read it three times back-to-back on my first read, and I suspect you will too."Tommy Pico, author of Feed, Junk, Nature Poem and IRL“Caleb Luna brings maw and might in their debut chapbook REVENGE BODY while undeniably presenting a collection that plays with tone, rhythm and form fantastically. REVENGE BODY demands to be witnessed while graciously ferrying readers throughout the journey that Luna traverses in a body that refuses to be an apology. REVENGE BODY sincerely envisions a different tomorrow for the many bodies so many of us forget.” jaye simpson, author of it was never going to be okay“Caleb Luna’s REVENGE BODY is a searing examination of how lived experiences can accumulate inside a body--a body adorned by narratives inherited and prescribed. These poems probe the soft space between memory and hope, making tender, the bodies weaponized by language. The clarity in which Luna writes: "i / want you to see me / & / I don’t / want / that / to / be / brave," shakes me awake, as if I’ve been dormant this whole time. When I first read REVENGE BODY, I was scared by how much it seemed like the poems knew me, but that fear quickly settled into a feeling of kinship. I want to throw this book at the strangers who stare at my body. I want to make it required reading for all my past and future lovers, to say: before you know me, you must know this: “the body is a celebration / & I have had a lot / to celebrate.” I celebrate this book. I celebrate this poet.”Hieu Minh Nguyen, author of This Way to the Sugar and Not Here“Caleb Luna's debut collection of poetry is a series of beautiful and real love and honesty notes to and about fat brown disabled queer survivor body landscapes. These are medecine stories for everyone needing to hear their body and heart's stories and questions remembered, written with fierce power and grace. Take your time and let them linger on your heart and tongue.” Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, author of Tonguebreaker, Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice and Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home“In Caleb Luna’s REVENGE BODY, the body is defined and redefined so as to reflect the terror and the beauty of the world. There is a great poetic power exhibited here; through odes, elegies, flashbacks, and polemic, Luna shows how structures of violence - fatphobia, heteropatriarchy, racism, capitalism - interlock but ultimately cannot wholly deny a freedom intuited as something more than “one long masochistic scene.” Destruction, Luna powerfully concludes, is not theirs to hold.” BIlly-Ray Belcourt, author of A HISTORY OF MY BRIEF BODY

    

    They've accidentally told their grandmother they'd come with their partner for Tết Holiday - Vietnamese Lunar New Year - this Saturday, and it's too late to take it back. Not only has Minh not been to a family gathering since their disastrous coming out three years ago, they also don't have a partner to show up with. The solution? A fake partner. And of all the people Minh knows, the perfect match turns out to be Cass Beauregard, the one member of their friend group they can't get along with. Cass has a goddamn problem. The day she dumped her cheating boyfriend, she challenged him to an eventual double date to show him just how fast she could find somebody else and how much she didn't need him. But now said double-date is on Sunday and Cass still doesn’t have a new partner. The solution? Minh Loisel-Tran and their own problem. When they ask her to fake date them for Têt Holiday, Cass agrees on the one condition that they do the same for her the next day. Minh and Cass are polar opposites: one too soft and the other too brash. There is no way one weekend of fake dating is going to go well... or is there? Minh and Cass might not be as incompatible as they thought. Will this little deal be just a parenthesis in their usual disagreements, or could it lead to something more?

    From an award-winning team of authors, editors, and translators comes a groundbreaking short story collection that explores the expanse of Chinese science fiction and fantasy.In The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories, you can dine at a restaurant at the end of the universe, cultivate to immortality in the high mountains, watch roses perform Shakespeare, or arrive at the island of the gods on the backs of giant fish to ensure that the world can bloom.Written, edited, and translated by a female and nonbinary team, these stories have never before been published in English and represent both the richly complicated past and the vivid future of Chinese science fiction and fantasy.Time travel to a winter's day on the West Lake, explore the very boundaries of death itself, and meet old gods and new heroes in this stunning new collection.

    She tried to be a dutiful daughter, to pray, to repent. But it wasn’t enough. Her mother, Diane, didn’t mean to kill her but when she found Ann consorting with devils, she had no choice. She believed the angels—that in the end, the water would save them both.But every choice holds weight.One death, and Arthur is thrown back into the work he wanted to leave. One death, and Richard must face the reality of his choices. One death, and Maddie and Marie are confronted with the hardest parts of love.If only good intentions were enough to keep them from the carnage of their own decisions . . .A dark contemporary fiction drenched in blood, this debut novel from H. Noah has an intricate true crime feeling with psychological depth.Content WarningThe following book centers around processing trauma. Please be aware that it will touch upon such topics as violence, sexual assault (not overly descriptive), racism, microaggressions, misogyny, incest, and homophobia. This book also focuses on mental health and will cover depression, anxiety, PTSD, suicidal ideation, hearing voices, religious fixations, delusions, self-harm, and drug abuse.This book is dark due to the topics covered. This is not a horror or thriller meant to scare you. Please be kind to yourself and put the book back if you are not in a good place to read any of the things mentioned above.

    Many representatives of the increasingly popular body positivity movement actually add to the body image concerns of queer people of color by emphasizing cisgender, heteronormative, and Eurocentric standards of beauty. Few mainstream body positivity resources address the intersectional challenges of anti-Blackness, colorism, homophobia, transphobia, and generational trauma that are at the root of our struggles with wellness and self-care. In Decolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body Liberation, registered dietitian and nutritionist Dalia Kinsey will help readers to improve their health without restriction, eliminate stress around food and eating, and turn food into a source of pleasure instead of shame. A road map to body acceptance and self-care for queer people of color, Decolonizing Wellness is filled with practical eating practices, journal prompts, affirmations, and mindfulness tools. Ultimately, decolonizing nutrition is essential not only to our personal well-being but to our community’s well-being and to the possibility of greater social transformation. This is a body positivity and food freedom book for marginalized folks. It’s a guide to throwing out food rules in exchange for internal cues and adopting a self-love-based approach to eating. It’s about learning to trust our bodies and turning mealtime into a time for celebration and healing. It’s also a love letter to those of us who struggle with our bodies and a gentle plea for us to do the work it takes to accept, trust, and love ourselves.

    Imprisoned in the bleak Blackwood Gaol as he awaits his trial, he is cut off from his magic and his studies: a fate worse than death for the scholar who has devoted his life to academia. His only company is Winter, the mysterious prisoner in the neighbouring cell. As Thomas' trial drags nearer, their whispered conversations are the only thing keeping him from giving in to boredom and despair.Winter is a radical, a murderer, and a traitor to the crown. Everything Thomas fears and looks down on. But as Blackwood continues to crush his spirit and his magic, Winter might be his only ally. And Thomas might be Winter's only chance of escape. Because if Blackwood and its guards don't kill them both, the hangman's noose surely will.Winter's Dawn is a 24,000-word fantasy novella with a male lead and a nonbinary love interest. It is part of the Flos Magicae series, set in an alternate 1920s universe with magic. All the stories are standalone historical fantasy romances and can be read in any order.

    Three weeks later, when it finally stops growing, it's nearly two-and-a-half miles tall, and has been determined to be an active volcano.As the volcano grows and then looms over New York, an eight-year-old boy in Mexico City finds himself transported 500 years into the past, where he witnesses the fall of the Aztec Empire; a Nigerian scholar in Tokyo studies a folktale about a woman of fire who descends a mountain and destroys an entire village; a white trans writer in Jersey City struggles to write a sci-fi novel about a thriving civilization on an impossible planet; a nurse tends to Syrian refugees in Greece while grappling with the trauma of living through the bombing of a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan; a nomadic farmer in Mongolia is stung by a bee, magically transforming him into a green, thorned, flowering creature that aspires to connect every living thing into its consciousness.With its riveting and audacious vision, My Volcano is a tapestry on fire, a distorted and cinematic new work from the fiercely talented John Elizabeth Stintzi.

    After jumping off the roof of his house in the middle of the night, Daniel Kim wakes up far from Neverland, his reprieve from the real world. Thrust into a mental health hospital and then into a brand-new high school, he struggles to hold on to reality while haunted by both his very-present past and his never-present parents. But when he joins Cranbrook Preparatory’s cross-country team, he starts to feel like he’s walking on his own two feet once again. He meets Jiwon Yoon—another cross-country runner, who may be the first person to join Daniel in his Neverland daydreams. Or maybe Jiwon is the one who will finally break Daniel free.An ultimately uplifting story that does not shy away from the discomfort of reality. -Kirkus Reviews 01/01/2022

    Hades would rather be anywhere else than stuck behind a desk judging souls. At least he has a gorgeous coworker.A Hades x Thanatos Short Story.

    The rules are:The key can work on any door.The mother will only let you visit 53 universes.Do not ask to speak to the mother.Never hop more than 53 times.

    Joe knows that the place he needs to go is back home.Having stormed out two years ago, it won’t be easy, nor will returning to the haunted river beside the house where words ripple beneath the surface washing up all sorts of memories. Joe turns to his sister, Birdee, the only person who has ever listened. But she can't help him, she drowned two years ago. Then there’s Tim Fysh, local fisherman and long-time lover. But reviving their bond is bound to be trouble.As the water settles and Joe learns the truth about the river, he finds that we all have the capability to hate, and that we can all make the choice not to. Ransom’s fractured, distinctive prose highlights the beauty and brutality of his story, his extraordinarily vivid sense of place saturates the reader with the wet of the river, and the salty tang of the sea

    Perfect for fans of horror and paranormal romance who seek LGBTQ+ heroes.This book contains no spoilers for the main series, but is recommended to be read before the final instalment: THE TORN EARTH. Praise for the Lesser Known Monsters series “A wonderfully queer, riveting, and heartfelt found family adventure that shows even the most average person can save the world...or end it.”―Jayme Bean, author of Untouched“Michaelson excels at rich and quirky characters, quick darts of humor, and playful, evocative imagination. There is a distinct Bradburian vibe—think Something Wicked This Way Comes—mixed with flavors of Gaiman and Poe. An indisputable five stars...”―Halo Scot, author of Edge of the Breach“The plot is entertaining and action-packed. The mythical and fairytale threads that run throughout are enchanting.”―Shane Staley, IndieMuse

    When Gael’s aloof father returns home at the same time that his new friendship starts to become something more, Gael must decide whether the cost of protecting his heart is greater than the risk of letting the walls around it down.

    

    She's moved to Milwaukee for an entry-level corporate job that, gruelling as it may be, is the key that unlocks every door: she can pick up the tab at dinner with her new friend Tig, get her college buddy Thom hired alongside her, and send money to her parents back in India. She begins dating women--soon developing a burning crush on Marina, a beguiling and beautiful dancer who always seems just out of reach.But before long, trouble arrives. Painful secrets rear their heads; jobs go off the rails; evictions loom. Sneha struggles to be truly close and open with anybody, even as her friendships deepen, even as she throws herself headlong into a dizzying romance with Marina. It's then that Tig begins to draw up a radical solution to their problems, hoping to save them all.