I don’t know about you guys, but personally I cannot believe the year is already ending. It felt excruciatingly long and at the same time – weirdly short. I mean, wasn’t it summer just like, yesterday?
Anyway, it’s still 20gayteen and so there are still some LGBT-themed books I can showcase for you! Let’s get started.
Scourge of the Seas of Time (and Space)
Catherine Lundoff (editor)
Release date: 1st December
Goodreads
Rep: lgbt mcs (ownvoices), poc mcs
Outlaws. Lovers. Heroes. Villains.
With their peg legs, their parrots and the skull and crossbones flying from the mastheads of their ships, classic pirates are some of the world’s best-known and easily recognizable outlaws. Or are they? These fifteen stories spin new tales of pirates crossing dimensional barriers for revenge, fighting terrible foes in outer space and building new lives after the Trojan War. Travel to the South China Sea, then on to New York City after a climate apocalypse, then roam the Caribbean during the Golden Age of Piracy and voyage to distant and fantastical worlds. Go with them as they seek treasure, redemption, love, revenge and more. Raise the Jolly Roger and sharpen your cutlass (or recharge your raygun) and climb aboard for some unforgettable journeys.
From fantastical adventures to YA science fiction, from historical tales to piracy in intergalactic space, Scourge of the Seas gives readers a broad range of new pirate legends. Featuring stories by Ginn Hale, A.J. Fitzwater, Geonn Cannon, Joyce Chng, Elliott Dunstan, Ashley Deng, Su Haddrell, Ed Grabianowski, Mharie West, Matisse Mozer, Soumya Sundar Mukherjee, Megan Arkenberg, Peter Golubock, Michael Merriam and Caroline Sciriha.
Josephine Baker’s Last Dance
Sherry Jones
Release date: 4th December
Goodreads
Rep: nonfiction; bi “mc”, black “mc”
From the author of The Jewel of Medina, a moving and insightful novel based on the life of legendary performer and activist Josephine Baker, perfect for fans of The Paris Wifeand Hidden Figures.
Discover the fascinating and singular life story of Josephine Baker—actress, singer, dancer, Civil Rights activist, member of the French Resistance during WWII, and a woman dedicated to erasing prejudice and creating a more equitable world—in Josephine Baker’s Last Dance.
In this illuminating biographical novel, Sherry Jones brings to life Josephine’s early years in servitude and poverty in America, her rise to fame as a showgirl in her famous banana skirt, her activism against discrimination, and her many loves and losses. From 1920s Paris to 1960s Washington, to her final, triumphant performance, one of the most extraordinary lives of the twentieth century comes to stunning life on the page.
With intimate prose and comprehensive research, Sherry Jones brings this remarkable and compelling public figure into focus for the first time in a joyous celebration of a life lived in technicolor, a powerful woman who continues to inspire today.
Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks
Nathan Burgoine
Release date: 11th December
Goodreads
Rep: gay mc (ownvoices), all lgbt cast
Being the kid abducted by old Ms. Easton when he was four permanently set Cole’s status to freak. At seventeen, his exit plan is simple: make it through the last few weeks of high school with his grades up and his head down.
When he pushes through the front door of the school and finds himself eighty kilometers away holding the door of a museum he was just thinking about, Cole faces facts: he’s either more deluded than old Ms. Easton, or he just teleported.
Now every door is an accident waiting to happen―especially when Cole thinks about Malik, who, it turns out, has a glass door on his shower. When he starts seeing the same creepy people over his shoulder, no matter how far he’s gone, crushes become the least of his worries. They want him to stop, and they’ll go to any length to make it happen.
Cole is running out of luck, excuses, and places to hide.
Time for a new exit plan.
Breaking Down Her Walls
Erin Zak
Release date: 11th December
Goodreads
Rep: sapphic mc, sapphic li
Leaving is what Julia Finch does best.
When a meeting with her birth parents goes horribly wrong, Julia escapes on a hastily planned road trip and winds up breaking down in a Colorado town so small the cows outnumber the people. Completely out of her element, she takes a temporary job as a ranch hand at Bennett Ranch. She only has to survive long enough to get her car fixed, and then she’s out of there for good.
Her bad luck continues when she meets the ranch owner, Elena Bennett. Elena is unhappy, abrasive, and annoyingly breathtaking. But the longer Julia stays, the more the ranch starts to feel like home, and her feelings for Elena become impossible to ignore. She’s spent years building her defenses high and running from her past. Could a love worth staying for be the key to breaking down her walls?
Seascape
Karis Walsh
Release date: 11th December
Goodreads
Rep: sapphic mc, sapphic li (ownvoices)
Marine biologist Tess Hansen has left her high-tech lab at Evergreen College and returned to Washington’s northern coast to take care of her aging parents. Although her new job studying orcas in the Pacific excites her, she finds life in the small town where she grew up to be stifling and boring. Until she meets Brittany James.
Chemist Britt James has made the move from a hectic city to the rural coast as well, but she embraces the isolation. She’s looking for a way to reconnect with the environment and make amends for the damage her chemical company has done, and Tess’s center for orca research is a top contender for her endowment.
Change has become an unwelcome part of Tess’s life and a desperate hope for Britt. Can these two women find a place of refuge with each other?
The Disasters
M.K. England
Release date: 18th December
Goodreads
Rep: lgbt mcs (lgbt author), poc mcs
Hotshot pilot Nax Hall has a history of making poor life choices. So it’s not exactly a surprise when he’s kicked out of the elite Ellis Station Academy in less than twenty-four hours.
But Nax’s one-way trip back to Earth is cut short when a terrorist group attacks the Academy. Nax and three other washouts escape—barely—but they’re also the sole witnesses to the biggest crime in the history of space colonization. And the perfect scapegoats.
On the run and framed for atrocities they didn’t commit, Nax and his fellow failures execute a dangerous heist to spread the truth about what happened at the Academy.
They may not be “Academy material,” and they may not get along, but they’re the only ones left to step up and fight.
I hope you found something on this list that interested you! I know I have. :>> Now we just have to wait for 2019 to be even better to us when it comes to lgbt books… Happy reading!
