Ellie has no doubts about her strict religious upbringing until she falls in love with another girl at her grandmother's cottage. Aware that homosexuality clashes with Jewish observance, Ellie feels forced to either alter her sexuality or leave her community. Meanwhile, Ellie's mother, Chana, becomes convinced she has a messianic role to play, and her sister, Neshama, chafes against the restrictions of her faith. Ellie is afraid there is no way to be both gay and Jewish, but her mother and sister offer alternative concepts of God that help Ellie find a place for herself as a queer Jew.

    Canadian-Japanese Karen, who has left her lesbian lover of eight years, befriends Red, a young woman with an unknown background who cleans houses for three others--acrid Milly, divorced by her husband after a 20-year marriage; Henrietta, whose husband is institutionalized in Vancouver; and Miss James, an eccentric, elderly spinster. Birth, illness and death follow one another, uniting the five independent and incisively drawn protagonists. "All that time I was trying to teach you how to live alone and really take care of yourself, I was teaching myself, too," Henrietta tells Red. The resulting warmth is not saccharine but realistic, as Rule illuminates the vagaries and pain of abandonment and loss, and the fragile joy of new bonds.

    Cliffy, black, and Noah, Jewish, are teens of their time, segregated by neighborhood, skin color and opportunity, yet neither boy has ever had a friend like the other.

    The love between Michaela and Rivi is depicted precisely and delicately. . . . It’s beautiful.” —Amos Oz“More than anything else, the book is a temple of love to the imaginary, and to literature as an option for deep and vigorous living.” — Time Out Written by best-selling Israeli author Judith Katzir, Dearest Anne is a stirring record of an artist’s coming-of-age during the 1970s and the story of a hidden, erotic love affair between a teenaged girl and her married teacher, Michaela.After reading Anne Frank’s diary, young Rivi starts a series of writing notebooks that document the angst of growing up in rural Israel. The entries reveal how her crush on her literature teacher develops into a poignant and turbulent love affair that lasts for years before its scandalous end. Decades later, the grown Rivi, now a mother, wife, and established author, comes to terms with the forbidden love that shaped her life.

    The richly textured novel details Gutke Gurvich’s odyssey from her apprenticeship as a midwife in a Russian shtetl to her work in the suffrage movement in New York. Interwoven with her tale is that Chava Meyer, who was attended by Gurvich at her birth and grew up to survive the pogrom that took the lives of her parents. Throughout the book, historical background plays a large part: Jewish faith and traditions, the practice of midwifery, the horrific conditions in prerevolutionary Russia and New York sweatshops, and the determined work of labor unionists and suffragists.

    With a disparate group of adult learners as the backdrop, Frank examines, with warmth and wit, the relationship between education and gender, class, and racial identity. With Crybaby Butch, Judith Frank creates a deeply human, bravely unsentimental story while at the same time investigating the meaning of butch identity as it reinvents itself from one generation to the next. ~ Carol Anshaw Fearless and unflinching, Crybaby Butch rigorously explores butch/femme dynamics over two generations. Judy Frank's debut novel is searing and memorable. ~ Claire Messud

    Because then he might understand that it’s possible to be a gay cowboy. Trouble is, Alex doesn’t even want to be a cowboy; his dream is to ditch Western-style riding and take up dressage. But with his mother long gone, his father ensconced in an RV in the driveway, his messy Aunt Grace the Hair Stylist installed in the kitchen (whose cooking tastes like her hairdressing smells), and his Kung Fu–obsessed younger twin sisters, Alex knows that his dream is highly unlikely. So when he does get the chance to try the meticulously intricate art of dressage riding and then bumps into the supremely self absorbed Cleo at a competition, it’s a whole new world for Alex.Cleo’s been sent to a very posh, very horsey boarding school nearby because of an unfortunate incident with her handsome chauffeur. Cleo doesn’t get why Alex is so serious about everything, especially when his family is so…interesting. But now Alex is about to lose even the slender hold he has on his dream—and on the secret he’s not yet ready to reveal. Meanwhile, Cleo has fallen in with the party crowd, forgetting all about her precious horse. Does this mean Alex and Cleo’s fledgling friendship is doomed from the start?Juby weaves growing up, coming out and fitting in into a hilarious but always compassionate story set against the fascinating world of dressage riding. Guaranteed to be a huge hit with its YA audience!

    As Tala’s wedding day approaches, simmering tensions come to boiling point and the pressure mounts for Tala to be true to herself.Moving between the vast enclaves of Middle Eastern high society and the stunning backdrop of London’s West End, I Can’t Think Straight explores the clashes between East and West, love and marriage, conventions and individuality, creating a humorous and tender story of unexpected love and unusual freedoms.

    When he is shipped off to Straight to God, an institution devoted to ''deprogramming'' troubled teenagers, Taylor Adams learns valuable lessons in love, courage, rebellion, and betrayal in a place where piety is a mask for cruelty and the greatest crimes go.

    Sent away to safety, she meets another displaced child and they, star-crossed, fall in love. They are from different ethnic communities. They are also both girls. When their love is discovered, Ijeoma learns that she will have to hide this part of herself. But there is a cost to living inside a lie. As Edwidge Danticat has made personal the legacy of Haiti's political coming of age, Okparanta's Under the Udala Trees uses one woman's lifetime to examine the ways in which Nigerians continue to struggle toward selfhood. Even as their nation contends with and recovers from the effects of war and division, Nigerian lives are also wrecked and lost from taboo and prejudice. This story offers a glimmer of hope — a future where a woman might just be able to shape her life around truth and love.

    The story takes us through her first case, and her first love, both bringing her more than she bargained for. An erotic, funny, and suspenseful tale of one young lesbian's accidental growth.Jobeth O'Brien awakens on the floor of her kitchen, her battered face and the memory of an angry visitor tells her that she is close to something important in her investigation. In between this surveillance and delivering newspapers, her beloved ‘62 Falcon is the scene of middle-of-the-night romps with a lonely socialite, who gives her more than she bargained for. Her quest for the truth pits her against errant husbands, a modern-day madam with a taste for blood, a horny landlady, a vicious attack dog, and the lies she tells herself.Amid these challenges, Jobeth stakes out her prey and runs for her life, continuing the investigation that pulls her into close calls, unexpected allies, and more secrets. But Jobeth has secrets of her own, and only love can excavate them.

    Zealous and passionate, she seems destined for life as a missionary, but then she falls for one of her converts.At sixteen, Jeanette decides to leave the church, her home and her family, for the young woman she loves. Innovative, punchy and tender,Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a few days ride into the bizarre outposts of religious excess and human obsession.

    Add in the request Jules has made of her and Livvie feels like she’s losing her mind, too.Her only escape is in the art room, where she discovers not only a refuge from her life, but also a kindred soul in Bianca, the school “freak”. Livvie’s always felt invisible, at school and at home, but with Bianca, she finally feels like someone sees the real Livvie. As the relationship deepens and it comes time to take the romance public, will Livvie be able to take that step?Livvie’s about to find out if she has what it takes to make the tough decisions and stand up for herself—for the first time in her life.

    Georgie--a hopeless romantic with a weakness for punk-rock-girls even if they consistently trample her heart. Cruzer--a Mexican-American photographer, the tough kid, who chases love all the way to the East Coast. Soda--a gender queer heartthrob from the Midwest, who dreams of pirate ships, moustaches and femme foxes. Welcome to The Creamsickle, the ultimate bachelor pad, a lopsided Victorian in the Mission District, home to this rascally crew of charming skater bois who hop from one bed to another in pursuit of sex, love or just the next new thrill. This is a San Francisco you have never seen, an eclectic landscape of dyke clubs and dyke havens, along with the exotic Minxy, a wonderland where baby butch Georgie enters the femme-centric world of strippers for the most comical gender-bending education of all. Discover today's world of young queers, a world where personal identity is in constant flux, where gender exploration can be performance--or a life saving transition. Beneath the sex, music, drugs and drama, you'll find something true and timeless: a search for love, for queer family, for meaning, for connection, and affirmation.

    There is no she.Two cells make up one cell. This is the mathematics behind creation. One plus one makes one. Life begets life. We are the period to a sentence, the effect to a cause, always belonging to someone. We are never our own.This is why we are so lonely.She of the Mountains is a beautifully rendered illustrated novel by Vivek Shraya, the author of the Lambda Literary Award finalist God Loves Hair. Shraya weaves a passionate, contemporary love story between a man and his body, with a re-imagining of Hindu mythology. Both narratives explore the complexities of embodiment and the damaging effects that policing gender and sexuality can have on the human heart.Illustrations are by Raymond Biesinger, whose work has appeared in such publications as The New Yorker and the New York Times.Vivek Shraya is a multimedia artist, working in the mediums of music, performance, literature, and film. Her most recent film, What I LOVE about Being QUEER, has been expanded to include an online project and book with contributions from around the world. She is also author of God Loves Hairand Even This Page Is White.