Being Emily


Rachel Gold - 2012
    Those words don’t comfort Emily, because she was born Christopher and her insides know that her outsides are all wrong.They say that it gets better, be who are you and it’ll be fine. For Emily, telling her parents who she really is means a therapist who insists Christopher is normal and Emily is sick. Telling her girlfriend means lectures about how God doesn’t make that kind of mistake.Emily desperately wants high school in her small Minnesota town to get better. She wants to be the woman she knows is inside, but it’s not until a substitute therapist and a girl named Natalie come into her life that she believes she has a chance of actually Being Emily.A story for anyone who has ever felt that the inside and outside don’t match and no one else will understand...

Horn-Horn


A.D.T. McLellan - 2017
    If you loved the style of Beetlejuice, Northern Exposure, Goosebumps, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Mean Girls, you will fall in love with Horn-Horn!When teenage loner Cassie Gellar moves with her family to the seaside town of Horn-Horn, she finds herself at odds with the battling cliques at her new school.There’s Eleanore Parker, Principal’s daughter and social butterfly. Then there’s Hayley and the ‘backseater’ misfits.But there’s also Zag, a shackled little boy she finds hiding in the woods. Where is he from, and why does he have a woman on a moose chasing after him?Cassie finds herself catapulted into a world of magic and danger, one where nothing is ever as it seems and nobody is to be trusted.Full of intelligent comedy, fantasy and horror, the constantly evolving town of Horn-Horn proves that friendship and family can transcend even space and time itself.

Last Dance with Mary Jane


John Goode - 2012
    His days have become therapy and drinking himself to sleep. His only solace is listening to Shayne's voice mail to hear his voice one last time. He is starting to think that fate is against him.He has no idea how right and wrong he is.CONTENT ADVISORY: This title is a love story that does not contain a HEA.

Journey of a Betrayed Hero: Volume 1


Brandon Varnell - 2019
     After being betrayed by the very kingdom he saved, Jacob Stone forsook his title of Hero. Now he lives the simple life of a barkeep. Yet even that life is irrevocably erased when a young woman named Enyo appears before him. She claims to be the daughter of the former Dark Lord and has come seeking his aid. He’d normally never consider lending her a hand, but when she tells him that she knows of a way for him to return home, he’s left with little recourse. His journey will take him across the kingdom of Terrasole, toward the place where it all began. If he succeeds, he’ll return to the home he’d been stolen from. If he fails… well, he won’t live long enough to regret failing. Scroll up and click to READ this isekai adventure now!

Myra Breckinridge/Myron


Gore Vidal - 1968
    No one -- not aspiring actor Rusty Godowski, not his girlfriend, Mary-Ann Pringle, not powerful agent Letitia Van Allen -- remains untouched by Myra's quest. Her job teaching Empathy and Posture at the Academy of Drama and Modeling, owned by her uncle Buck Loner, gives her the perfect opportunity to vamp, scheme, and seduce her way into the undiscovered lives and passions of others -- while trying to keep a few secrets of her own.In the sequel, Myron, the Breckinridge saga takes an increasingly bizarre turn. Myron seems to be an inconspicuous man with a sweet wife and a Chinese catering business, and Myra, determined to become a megastar, wages an outrageous battle for hormonal supremacy over the body she shares with Myron. In a tale that combines time-travel with the ultimate Hollywood fantasy, Gore Vidal leads us through the movie-star world of the fabulous forties as Myra attempts to alter cinema history.When Myra Breckinridge first appeared in 1968, critics were delighted, baffled, and somewhat appalled by this comedy of sex change. (Readers made it the number-one best-seller.) Time magazine queried: Has literary decency fallen so low? Perhaps they should have asked, Has literature ever been so witty, so provoking, so intriguing? Thirty years later Myra has become literature's most famous transsexual. After all, this is her/his/their age.

Unboxed


Non Pratt - 2016
    In previous years, they had put together a time capsule about their best summer with a friend who was dying. Now that their friend has passed, they reunite to open the box.

Violet


Lily Hammond - 2017
    If there is anything she feels is lacking - well there is always time for that later. She's content, even if she hasn't found the right woman yet. That's what she thinks, until she's knocked unconscious. Fran wakes up in a life straight out of the past; it's early in the 20th century - a completely different world for her to navigate. With no bearings set, she's whisked off to the coast as companion to a troubled cousin Violet, not knowing if she can trust this artistic and passionate woman, whose love for life is breaking. Stranded in this old world, Fran must come to terms with being the same person in a different time, and build a life she can accept. But it's 1916, there's Violet, and there's one big question - could love be what life's all about?

Bad Boy


Elliot Wake - 2016
    Plus the scars on his chest and a prescription for testosterone. Because Ren is transgender: assigned female at birth, living now as male. He films his transition and shares it bravely with the world; his fans love his honesty and positivity.But Ren has been living a double life.Off-camera, he’s Cane, the muscle-bound enforcer for social justice vigilante group Black Iris. As Cane, he lets his dark side loose. Hurts those who prey on the disempowered. Indulges in the ugly side of masculinity. And his new partner, Tamsin Baylor, is a girl as rough and relentless as him. Together, they terrorize the trolls into silence.But when a routine Black Iris job goes south, Ren is put in the crosshairs. Someone is out to ruin his life. He’s a bad boy, they say, guilty of what he punishes others for.Just like every other guy: at heart, he’s a monster, too.Now Ren’s got everything to prove. He has to clear his name, and show the world he’s a good man. But that requires facing demons he’s locked away for years. And it might mean discovering he’s not such a good guy after all.

The Economics of Prophecy: Volume 1


Norafukurou - 2020
    However, shunned as she is for being a descendant of rebel blood, her words are heeded by no one.On the other hand, Ricardo, the adopted heir of a peddler, who also happens to be an economics department graduate reincarnated into this world, attends the Royal Academy to study as a merchant.During an argument with a much more affluent merchant, the one to stick up for him is none other than Alfina.As the distance between them rapidly closes, Ricardo makes full use of his modern knowledge of science, mathematics and economics to stand against the unknown disaster of prophecy!

Godspeaker


Tessa Crowley - 2016
    He has walked with queens, run from a shattering city, watched a great shadow swallow the sun. He has met a god and fallen in love with him — and now he is going to die. "I never pictured myself ever writing an autobiography, though that may be due in large part to the fact that I never really considered I might have a life worthy of one. But here at the end of all things, alone in my prison cell, while the very world crumbles around the city, I understand the urgency of giving this dreadful sundering a narrative and context." Silas is a Godspeaker, a single mortal chosen among thousands to be the mouth and the hands and the will of a god — in his case, the Night Father, Umbrion. It’s a tremendous position for awkward, anxious, stuttering Silas, but no sooner had he taken up the mantle had his patron god killed the queen and broke the city in twain. Now he is an unwilling footsoldier in a war between the gods, as great demons rise up from the sea, and as all of Andelan fights to survive.

Designs on You


Carrie Pack - 2014
    So when tasked with retouching photos for a big fashion client, a stunning, lanky model mesmerizes Scott and occupies his thoughts and fantasies long after the assignment is finished. Scott soon discovers that the object of his desire is nothing like the backstory he imagined. Despite Jamie Donovan’s aloof and dismissive behavior, Scott struggles to forge a friendship with him, all the while trying to keep his attraction at bay. Will Jamie follow through on signals that he may be interested, or will he forever be the beautiful man in the photograph, an untouchable fantasy?

Gordo


Jaime Cortez - 2021
    A young, probably gay, boy named Gordo puts on a wrestler's mask and throws fists with a boy in the neighborhood, fighting his own tears as he tries to grow into the idea of manhood so imposed on him by his father. As he comes of age, Gordo learns about sex, watches his father's drunken fights, and discovers even his own documented Mexican-American parents are wary of illegal migrants. Fat Cookie, high schooler and resident artist, uses tiny library pencils to draw huge murals of graffiti flowers along the camp's blank walls, the words "CHICANO POWER" boldly lettered across, until she runs away from home one day with her mother's boyfriend, Manny, and steals her mother's Panasonic radio for a final dance competition among the camp kids before she disappears. And then there are Los Tigres, the perfect pair of twins so dark they look like indios, Pepito and Manuel, who show up at Gyrich Farms every season without fail. Los Tigres, champion drinkers, end up assaulting each other in a drunken brawl, until one of them is rushed to the emergency room still slumped in an upholstered chair tied to the back of a pick-up truck. These scenes from Steinbeck Country seen so intimately from within are full of humor, family drama, and a sweet frankness about serious matters - who belongs to America and how are they treated? How does one learn decency, when laborers, grown adults, must fear for their lives and livelihoods as they try to do everything to bring home a paycheck? Written with balance and poise, Cortez braids together elegant and inviting stories about life on a California camp, in essence redefining what all-American means.

The Thirty Names of Night


Zeyn Joukhadar - 2020
    He has been unable to paint since his mother’s ghost has begun to visit him each evening. As his grandmother’s sole caretaker, he spends his days cooped up in their apartment, avoiding his neighborhood masjid, his estranged sister, and even his best friend (who also happens to be his longtime crush). The only time he feels truly free is when he slips out at night to paint murals on buildings in the once-thriving Manhattan neighborhood known as Little Syria. One night, he enters the abandoned community house and finds the tattered journal of a Syrian American artist named Laila Z, who dedicated her career to painting the birds of North America. She famously and mysteriously disappeared more than sixty years before, but her journal contains proof that both his mother and Laila Z encountered the same rare bird before their deaths. In fact, Laila Z’s past is intimately tied to his mother’s—and his grandmother’s—in ways he never could have expected. Even more surprising, Laila Z’s story reveals the histories of queer and transgender people within his own community that he never knew. Realizing that he isn’t and has never been alone, he has the courage to officially claim a new name: Nadir, an Arabic name meaning rare. As unprecedented numbers of birds are mysteriously drawn to the New York City skies, Nadir enlists the help of his family and friends to unravel what happened to Laila Z and the rare bird his mother died trying to save. Following his mother’s ghost, he uncovers the silences kept in the name of survival by his own community, his own family, and within himself, and discovers the family that was there all along. Featuring Zeyn Joukhadar’s signature storytelling, The Thirty Names of Night is a timely exploration of how we all search for and ultimately embrace who we are.

Little Fish


Casey Plett - 2018
    At first she dismisses this revelation, having other problems at hand, but as she and her friends struggle to cope with the challenges of their increasingly volatile lives--from alcoholism, to sex work, to suicide--Wendy is drawn to the lost pieces of her grandfather's life, becoming determined to unravel the mystery of his truth. Alternately warm-hearted and dark-spirited, desperate and mirthful, Little Fish explores the winter of discontent in the life of one transgender woman as her past and future become irrevocably entwined.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf


Marlon James - 2019
    Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: "He has a nose," people say. Engaged to track down a mysterious boy who disappeared three years earlier, Tracker breaks his own rule of always working alone when he finds himself part of a group that comes together to search for the boy. The band is a hodgepodge, full of unusual characters with secrets of their own, including a shape-shifting man-animal known as Leopard.Drawing from African history and mythology and his own rich imagination, Marlon James has written an adventure that's also an ambitious, involving read. Defying categorization and full of unforgettable characters, Black Leopard, Red Wolf explores the fundamentals of truths, the limits of power, the excesses of ambition, and our need to understand them all.