Book picks similar to
Ghostkin by Ellen Mellor


trans-authors
romance
female-fronted-other
straight-novels-182-339

All started with a dare


infinetely finite
    "I dare you, Jade Elsie Brooke, to break into Trystan Woods's house and steal a pair of his boxers without him finding out." Jade Brooke was the daredevil who had never turned down a dare, no matter how bad it was. So when a simple game of truth or dare ends up flipping her life upside down in the form of a dare, she has no one to blame but herself. Trystan Woods was the boy out of reach for most, who stood at the top of the high school food chain. Everyone loves him, and he was the football team captain. Jade had never interacted with him, until the day she was dared to break into his house and steal his underwear. The only flaw in the plan? When he catches her in his room holding his boxers.

Nevada


Imogen Binnie - 2013
    When she finds out her girlfriend has lied to her, the world she thought she'd carefully built for herself begins to unravel, and Maria sets out on a journey that will most certainly change her forever.

Detransition, Baby


Torrey Peters - 2021
    She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.Ames isn't happy either. He thought detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that decision cost him his relationship with Reese—and losing her meant losing his only family. Even though their romance is over, he longs to find a way back to her. When Ames's boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she's pregnant with his baby—and that she's not sure whether she wants to keep it—Ames wonders if this is the chance he's been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of unconventional family—and raise the baby together?This provocative debut is about what happens at the emotional, messy, vulnerable corners of womanhood that platitudes and good intentions can't reach. Torrey Peters brilliantly and fearlessly navigates the most dangerous taboos around gender, sex, and relationships, gifting us a thrillingly original, witty, and deeply moving novel.

Flight


Oona Frawley - 2014
    Elizabeth’s mother rang her morning, noon and night. He’s driving me mad with his pepper talk, she said, I’ll crown him if he talks to me about the need for Vietnam to join the International Pepper Community and duties and postmen one more time! The cracks one begins to see in families.Flight is the story of four travellers as their journeys intersect one winter in Dublin.Sandrine, a Zimbabwean woman who has left her husband and son behind in the hope of making a better life for them in Ireland, is alone and secretly pregnant. She finds herself working as a carer for Tom and Clare, a couple whose travels are ending as their minds begin to fail. Meanwhile Elizabeth, their world-weary daughter, carries the weight of her own body’s secret.Set in Ireland in 2004 as a referendum on citizenship approaches, Flight is a magically observed story of a family and belonging, following the gestation of a friendship during a year of crisis. A story of arrival and departure, the newly found and the left behind, Flight is among a new breed of Irish novel – one that recognizes the global nature of Ireland experience in the late 20th century, and one that considers Ireland in the aftermath of the failed Celtic Tiger.

No Safe Secret


Fern Michaels - 2016
    Married to Tanner, a top cosmetic dentist, she has a wonderful daughter finishing high school and twin stepsons from Tanner's first marriage. No one in her exclusive neighborhood in Goldenhills, Massachusetts, knows what living with the demanding Tanner is really like. They know even less about the life she left behind in Florida almost two decades ago. Back then, Molly was Maddy Carmichael, living with her twin brother and neglectful mother in a run-down trailer park amid the orange groves of Florida. After the terrible events of her high school prom night—and the act of vengeance that followed—she fled north and reinvented herself. But the veneer of Molly's polished existence is finally cracking. As secrets old and new are revealed, Molly must face painful truths and the choices she made in their wake—and find the strength to become the woman she once hoped to be.

Lawdog: The Life and Times of Hayden Tilden


J. Lee Butts - 2001
    Lee Butts! Legendary as the meanest, most fearless lawdog of the Old West, Hayden Tilden sometimes blurs the line between U.S. Marshal and hired assassin. His adventures all began with one murderous, cold-blooded bastard: Saginaw Bob Magruder. The depraved killer butchered Tilden’s entire family and hurled the young man into a ruthless, bloody crusade for vengeance and a career as a U. S. Marshal. Tracking down Magruder will be just the beginning of Tilden’s adventures, bringing his own brand of justice to the wild and lawless West. “Lawdog has it all. I couldn’t put it down.” —Jack Ballas, author of A Town Afraid “Lawdog should assume its rightful place beside other Western classics.” —Peter Brandvold, bestselling author of Once Hell Freezes Over About the Author: J. Lee Butts is the author of 22 published books and numerous magazine articles and short works. His book Brotherhood of Blood was runner-up for the Western Writers of America Spur Award in 2005. He’s worn many hats over the years (teacher, administrator, pool manager, IBM supervisor, and western author), and he and his late wife lived everywhere from Los Angeles to Dallas. Currently he’s hanging those hats back in White Hall, Arkansas.

Meet Behind Mars


Renee Simms - 2018
    For example, in "Rebel Airplanes," an L.A. engineer works by day on city sewers and by night on R-C planes that she yearns to launch into the cosmos. The character-driven stories in Meet Behind Mars offer beautiful insight into the emotional lives of caretakers, auto workers, dancers, and pawn shop employees. In "High Country," a frustrated would-be novelist considers ditching her family in the middle of the desert. In "Dive," an adoptee returns to her adoptive home, still haunted by histories she does not know. Simms writes from the voice of women and girls who struggle under structural oppression and draws from the storytelling tradition best represented by writers like Edward P. Jones, whose characters have experiences that are specific to black Americans living in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. One instance of this is in "The Art of Heroine Worship," in which black families integrate into a white suburb of Detroit in the 1970s.The stories in this collection span forty years and two continents and range in structure from epistolary to traditionally structured realism, with touches of absurdity, humor, and magic. Meet Behind Mars will appeal to readers interested in contemporary literary fiction.

From Stardust to Stardust: An Emotional, Forbidden Romance


Samantha Garman - 2014
    We don’t always have a choice and sometimes fate chooses for us.”You can’t have two soul mates.And you certainly can’t have them at the same time.Or can you?Kai Ferris is wild and passionate, like an untamed stallion refusing a bridle. Henry Gerard is gentle and warm, perfect like a mug of hot cider on a crisp autumn day.Both men love me.But I must choose.There are two sides to this story.I'm sharing mine.If you think this is about a love triangle, you’d be wrong.

Serenity: Poems


F.S. Yousaf - 2022
    Yousaf’s last collection of poetry, Sincerely. Struck by inspiration and overwhelmed by the response of dedicated fans, Yousaf wanted to continue this journey in a new collection. While tales of longing, uncertainty, and loss flow through each poem, Yousaf artfully captures the eternal question of how to face pain with courage and quiet resilience.Featuring 140 poems and accompanying illustrations, Serenity is the perfect escape from daily life, helping readers refocus energy and kindness toward themselves and their cherished relationships.

Prim Improper


Deirdre Sullivan - 2010
    Likes: her pet rat, Roderick; her best friend, Joel; and being a little bit different (but not in the weird different sense—she wouldn’t like to be the only bald girl in her class or the only girl who always smelled of ham, or anything). Dislikes: living with Fintan (her mustachioed dad), the boy-school that Joel’s toddled off to without her, and not having her mother around any more. Hilariously and cleverly written, Prim Improper is the debut novel from Deirdre Sullivan.

Emotional Geology


Linda Gillard - 2005
    Haunted by her turbulent past, she takes refuge in a remote Hebridean island community where she cocoons herself in work, silence and solitude in a house by the sea. A new life and new love are offered by friends, her estranged daughter and most of all by Calum, a fragile younger man who has his own demons to exorcise. But does Rose, with her tenuous hold on sanity, have the courage to say “Yes” to life and put her past behind her?REVIEWS“The emotional power makes this reviewer reflect on how Charlotte and Emily Bronte might have written if they were living and writing now.”Northwords Now“Complex and important issues are played out in the windswept beauty of a Hebridean island setting, with a hero who is definitely in the Mr Darcy league!”www.ScottishReaders.net

Josh & Anna and Gabe & Claire


Eliza Freed - 2016
    Well, Anna is. Josh is making the minimum contribution necessary, and it’s ruining their relationship.Gabe Hawkins is trying to survive the wild ride that is life with his wife, Claire. It’s passionate everywhere but in their bedroom.For these four friends, the difficulties of their marriages are camouflaged by hazy happy hours, extravagant vacations, picturesque weddings, and sleeping in. The possibilities of their youth are wilting in the light of their waning twenties, and on one fateful night, four friends become two. Survivors become lovers. Truths are told, and nothing seems like forever anymore.

And Shall Machines Surrender


Benjanun Sriduangkaew - 2019
     Doctor Orfea Leung has come here to escape her past of mercenary violence. Krissana Khongtip has come here to reinvent herself from haunted spy to holy cyborg. But the utopian peace of Shenzhen is shattered when the haruspices begin committing suicide, and the pair are called upon to solve the mystery—and survive the silent war between machines . . .

Scarlet Lies


Lani Wendt Young - 2015
     Sixteen years ago, Scarlet’s family sent her away in disgrace. She’s been back once – with disastrous consequences. Now, her little sister is getting married and Scarlet's headed home once more. Will this be the reunion she's always longed for? Or will the lies of her childhood entangle her once more in their beautiful embrace? She has a nightmarish fear of flying and she’s escorting her sister’s wedding dress through three different time zones. He’s the tall, dark and handsome stranger that gets in her way… What happens when Scarlet has to go home to be bridesmaid to her least favorite little sister, (who loves to remind everyone she’s a former beauty Queen EVERY OTHER MINUTE?) Can she survive three weeks of tropical heat and mosquitos, droves of busybody relatives all wanting to tell her WHY she’s still single as she endures the wedding from hell? Six hundred guests, three wedding dresses, twenty-four cake tiers, fifteen bridesmaids, a mother on a mission to makeover her daughter who ‘lacks ambition,’ and ONE deliciously divine man who alternately renders her speechless then drives her to outrage - all add up to a recipe for disaster. Or does it? More than 'just a romance', this poignant story about the tangled connections between mothers, daughters and sisters - speaks with compelling insight and humor, of inherited trauma, desire and deception, and the power and stubbornness of love. Scarlet Lies is the first in a three book series. The second book, 'Scarlet Secrets' will release April 30th, followed by the thrilling conclusion to the saga, 'Scarlet Redemption', May 30th.

Ghostboy, Chameleon and the Duke of Graffiti


Olivia Wildenstein - 2015
    Still, Duke finds himself inexplicably drawn to her dark eyes and mysterious manner. She makes it clear she doesn’t return his admiration, but when a burst appendix lands Duke in the hospital, he and Cora will be forced to come together by the most unlikely intermediary: her eight-year-old brother, Jaime.So begins an epic tale—that of Ghostboy, Chameleon and the Duke of Graffiti. A tale of three normal kids who, against all odds, will become exceptional.A tale of hopes and dreams, of indelible friendship and first love.Ghostboy, Chameleon & the Duke of Graffiti is a gorgeous debut novel that will resonate with the thoughtful fans of John Green’s blockbuster The Fault in Our Stars.Foreword Reviews INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award Finalist!