Book picks similar to
For Hire: Audition by Kevin A. Patterson


science-fiction
sexuality
fiction
action-adventure

The Vela


Yoon Ha Lee - 2019
    But when she's hired to find a missing refugee ship, she discovers that this is no ordinary rescue mission, and she must play a role in deciding the fate of the whole universe.

Goliath


Tochi Onyebuchi - 2022
    Those with the means and the privilege have departed the great cities of the United States for the more comfortable confines of space colonies. Those left behind salvage what they can from the collapsing infrastructure. As they eke out an existence, their neighborhoods are being cannibalized. Brick by brick, their houses are sent to the colonies, what was once a home now a quaint reminder for the colonists of the world that they wrecked.A primal biblical epic flung into the future, Goliath weaves together disparate narratives—a space-dweller looking at New Haven, Connecticut as a chance to reconnect with his spiraling lover; a group of laborers attempting to renew the promises of Earth’s crumbling cities; a journalist attempting to capture the violence of the streets; a marshal trying to solve a kidnapping—into a richly urgent mosaic about race, class, gentrification, and who is allowed to be the hero of any history.

Peaces


Helen Oyeyemi - 2021
    Setting off with their pet mongoose, Otto and Xavier arrive at their sleepy local train station, but quickly deduce that The Lucky Day is no ordinary locomotive. Their trip on this former tea-smuggling train has been curated beyond their wildest imaginations, complete with mysterious and welcoming touches, like ingredients for their favorite breakfast. They seem to be the only people onboard, until Otto discovers a secretive woman who issues a surprising message. As further clues and questions pile up, and the trip upends everything they thought they knew, Otto and Xavier begin to see connections to their own pasts, connections that now bind them together.A spellbinding tale from a star author, Peaces is about what it means to be seen by another person--whether it's your lover or a stranger on a train--and what happens when things you thought were firmly in the past turn out to be right beside you.

Blood Like Magic


Liselle Sambury - 2021
    The problem is, she’s never been in love—she’ll have to find the perfect guy before she can kill him.After years of waiting for her Calling—a trial every witch must pass in order to come into their powers—the one thing Voya Thomas didn’t expect was to fail. When Voya’s ancestor gives her an unprecedented second chance to complete her Calling, she agrees—and then is horrified when her task is to kill her first love. And this time, failure means every Thomas witch will be stripped of their magic.Voya is determined to save her family’s magic no matter the cost. The problem is, Voya has never been in love, so for her to succeed, she’ll first have to find the perfect guy—and fast. Fortunately, a genetic matchmaking program has just hit the market. Her plan is to join the program, fall in love, and complete her task before the deadline. What she doesn’t count on is being paired with the infuriating Luc—how can she fall in love with a guy who seemingly wants nothing to do with her?With mounting pressure from her family, Voya is caught between her morality and her duty to her bloodline. If she wants to save their heritage and Luc, she’ll have to find something her ancestor wants more than blood. And in witchcraft, blood is everything.

Ascension


Jacqueline Koyanagi - 2013
    When the desperate crew of a cargo vessel stops by her shipyard looking for her spiritually advanced sister Nova, Alana stows away. Maybe her boldness will land her a long-term gig on the crew. But the Tangled Axon proves to be more than star-watching and plasma coils. The chief engineer thinks he's a wolf. The pilot fades in and out of existence. The captain is all blond hair, boots, and ego . . . and Alana can't keep her eyes off her. But there's little time for romance: Nova's in danger and someone will do anything--even destroying planets--to get their hands on her.

Station Cores: Complete


Jonathan Brooks - 2019
     Milton Frederick was originally abducted from his apartment to help defend one batch of pacifistic aliens called The Collective against another set of homicidal aliens called Heliothropes…but he never quite made it that far. Instead, during the process where his human consciousness was ripped from his body and inserted into a massive metal contraption called a Station Core, the ship that he was being transported on blew up and he was sent hurtling through space. Crash-landing on an unknown planet with just a foot-and-a-half tall, foul-mouthed, nanite-formed AI guide called ALANNA to tell him what happened, Milton has to come to terms with his new existence as a giant metal egg, defend his hazardously-in-need-of-repair outer shell from the dangerous local wildlife (including blood-thirsty squirrels), and manage the unique radiation spewing from his damaged internal reactor – all while figuring out how the heck to get off the planet. All of his work building a “dungeon” underground, defending it with makeshift traps, and filling it with small Combat Units may work well enough against the random beasts wandering around, but they’re next to useless when something else even more dangerous shows up knocking on his door: people. Not humans, of course, but the local equivalent – Proctans – who are similar enough to Milton’s original species…though with one major difference. They all have unique special abilities that looks suspiciously like “magic”. However, there is an even bigger threat that looms on the horizon not only for Milton, but all the Proctans as well… Contains LitRPG/GameLit elements such as level progression and experience, optional tables, no harems, and a heavy Dungeon Core emphasis. Note: The optional stat tables tend to skew the percentages toward the back of the eBook. The locations can be a tad deceptive; while this box set is 562,000 words, stat tables comprise less than 8% of that total word count.

Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More


Janet Mock - 2014
    Those 2300 words were life-altering for the People.com editor, turning her into an influential and outspoken public figure and a desperately needed voice for an often voiceless community. In these pages, she offers a bold and inspiring perspective on being young, multicultural, economically challenged, and transgender in America. Welcomed into the world as her parents’ firstborn son, Mock decided early on that she would be her own person—no matter what. She struggled as the smart, determined child in a deeply loving yet ill-equipped family that lacked the money, education, and resources necessary to help her thrive. Mock navigated her way through her teen years without parental guidance, but luckily, with the support of a few close friends and mentors, she emerged much stronger, ready to take on—and maybe even change—the world. This powerful memoir follows Mock’s quest for identity, from an early, unwavering conviction about her gender to a turbulent adolescence in Honolulu that saw her transitioning during the tender years of high school, self-medicating with hormones at fifteen, and flying across the world alone for sex reassignment surgery at just eighteen. With unflinching honesty, Mock uses her own experience to impart vital insight about the unique challenges and vulnerabilities of trans youth and brave girls like herself. Despite the hurdles, Mock received a scholarship to college and moved to New York City, where she earned a master’s degree, enjoyed the success of an enviable career, and told no one about her past. She remained deeply guarded until she fell for a man who called her the woman of his dreams. Love fortified her with the strength to finally tell her story, enabling her to embody the undeniable power of testimony and become a fierce advocate for a marginalized and misunderstood community. A profound statement of affirmation from a courageous woman, Redefining Realness provides a whole new outlook on what it means to be a woman today, and shows as never before how to be authentic, unapologetic, and wholly yourself.

Son of the Storm


Suyi Davies Okungbowa - 2021
    Damn good stuff!" —Jenn Lyons, author of The Ruin of KingsIn the ancient city of Bassa, Danso is a clever scholar on the cusp of achieving greatness—only he doesn’t want it. Instead, he prefers to chase forbidden stories about what lies outside the city walls. The Bassai elite claim there is nothing of interest. The city’s immigrants are sworn to secrecy.But when Danso stumbles across a warrior wielding magic that shouldn’t exist, he’s put on a collision course with Bassa’s darkest secrets. Drawn into the city’s hidden history, he sets out on a journey beyond its borders. And the chaos left in the wake of his discovery threatens to destroy the empire.

Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones


Torrey Peters - 2016
    So says Lexi. She's a charismatic trans woman furious with the way she sees her trans friends treated by society and resentful of the girl who spurned her love. Now, Lexi has a plan to wreak her vengeance: a future in which no one can produce hormones and everyone must make the same choice that she made-what body best fits your gender? FOR SIGNED AND NUMBERED VERSION, CHECK WWW.TORREYPETERS.COM

Nova Academy: Heroes & Villains


Scott Olen Reid - 2017
    He's just fast enough and just strong enough - to get himself killed. Fortunately for Theo, he's also a super genius with a flair for building the advanced armor and weapons he needs to compete. Only it may not be enough for the trouble he finds in his first year at Nova Academy for Superhuman Studies.With his telepath girlfriend, Carly, Theo is forced to become a super and a hero before he is ready. (Not that he's sure he would ever want to be a hero, even when he is ready to be a super.)The two will need to become powerful and form a super team of fellow students if they want to stand up to the supervillains kidnapping Academy students. Itall becomes even more complicated when Carly turns Theo's understanding of the world of supers upside down; revealing the incredible secrets and history of telepaths since The Event that led to the creation of super powers for much of the planet's population.(Note there two covers for this book. The newer version has an updated cover to match the series cover theme.)If you enjoyed Nova Academy, please take a minute to leave a good review on Amazon.com! Every review makes a world of difference for an independent author. Thanks for reading and your support!

Queen of the Conquered


Kacen Callender - 2019
     Sigourney Rose is the only surviving daughter of a noble lineage on the islands of Hans Lollik. When she was a child, her family was murdered by the islands’ colonizers, who have massacred and enslaved generations of her people—and now, Sigourney is ready to exact her revenge.When the childless king of the islands declares that he will choose his successor from amongst eligible noble families, Sigourney uses her ability to read and control minds to manipulate her way onto the royal island and into the ranks of the ruling colonizers. But when she arrives, prepared to fight for control of all the islands, Sigourney finds herself the target of a dangerous, unknown magic. Someone is killing off the ruling families to clear a path to the throne. As the bodies pile up and all eyes regard her with suspicion, Sigourney must find allies among her prey and the murderer among her peers... lest she become the next victim. Queen of the Conquered reckons with the many layers of power and privilege in a lush fantasy world—perfect for readers of V. E. Schwab, Kiersten White, and Marlon James.

A Murder Over a Girl: Justice, Gender, Junior High


Ken Corbett - 2016
    12, 2008, at E. O. Green Junior High in Oxnard, CA, 14-year-old Brandon McInerney shot and killed his classmate, Larry King, who had recently begun to call himself "Leticia" and wear makeup and jewelry to school.Profoundly shaken by the news, and unsettled by media coverage that sidestepped the issues of gender identity and of race integral to the case, psychologist Ken Corbett traveled to LA to attend the trial. As visions of victim and perpetrator were woven and unwoven in the theater of the courtroom, a haunting picture emerged not only of the two young teenagers, but also of spectators altered by an atrocity and of a community that had unwittingly gestated a murder. Drawing on firsthand observations, extensive interviews and research, as well as on his decades of academic work on gender and sexuality, Corbett holds each murky facet of this case up to the light, exploring the fault lines of memory and the lacunae of uncertainty behind facts. Deeply compassionate, and brimming with wit and acute insight, A Murder Over a Girl is a riveting and stranger-than-fiction drama of the human psyche.

Provenance


Ann Leckie - 2017
    She hatches an audacious plan--free a thief from a prison planet from which no one has ever returned, and use them to help steal back a priceless artifact.But Ingray and her charge return to her home to find their planet in political turmoil, at the heart of an escalating interstellar conflict. Together, they must make a new plan to salvage Ingray's future and her world, before they are lost to her for good.

Crazy Eights


James Melzer - 2017
    An expert in all things extraordinary, she’s approached to lead the formation of a new team into the West Virginia wilderness to evaluate reports of a giant spider, but her quest for answers leads her to the discovery of an eight-legged monstrosity no one could have prepared for. Existing for eons beneath our earth, these aren’t your garden variety spiders. They’re bloodthirsty monsters that will rip apart anything—and anyone—in their path, and while a town fights to survive Emily and her team will have to do everything they can to beat back the terror before there’s a new species at the top of the food chain!

Beyond Binary: Genderqueer and Sexually Fluid Speculative Fiction


Lee MandeloSarah Kanning - 2012
    Speculative fiction is the literature of questions, of challenges and imagination, and what better to question than the ways in which gender and sexuality have been rigidly defined, partitioned off, put in little boxes? These seventeen stories explore the ways in which identity can go beyond binary from space colonies to small college towns, from angels to androids, and from a magical past to other worlds entirely, the authors in this collection have brought to life wonderful tales starring people who proudly define (and redefine) their own genders, sexualities, identities, and so much else in between.