Possibly the longest year known to mankind has finally ended! Just in time for what could be the second longest year known to mankind. But overall, December was somewhat kind to us (although Anna’s books read total might suggest otherwise). And now we’re finally in 2021 (and so close to all those amazing new books)!
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Book Releases: All The 2020 Releases We Heard About Too Late
After three days of wrangling this post (there is nothing worse than when your browser and internet connection decide to take turns screwing up while you’re trying to make the longest post known to man), it’s finally done! An absolutely not at all definitive list of books we heard about too late to add them to our monthly releases lists. Yeah, that’s a mouthful I know.
Undoubtedly, there are still yet more we’ve missed off, even after all this, but here are the 380 or so books that we didn’t get the first time round.
But before we start, just for you all, have a list of
ALL THE LGBT RELEASES (THAT WE KNEW ABOUT) FROM 2020
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Book Releases: January 2021
It being the end of 2020 (finally) it’s time to start looking ahead to what 2021 has to offer us in terms of releases (spoilers: it’s a lot and it looks amazing). So, if you’re wondering what to do with the Christmas money and/or book tokens you’ve received, then here are 65 books releasing in January you might consider preordering!
As ever, you can find all our previous releases posts here and the rainbow emoji indicates an author who id’s as LGBT.
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Book Releases: Ownvoices M/M books of July-December 2020
I already showed you all the M/M books written by achillean authors that were published in the first half of this year. Now it’s time for the second half!
I use the “ownvoices” term from the title in a pretty loose sense. So you will find books here by gay authors featuring bi characters, and so on. But at the end of the day, all the authors in this post know first-hand what love between men looks like.
Without a further ado, then!
See also: ownvoices m/m books of January-June 2021 & of July-December 2021.
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Book Recs: Gender in SFF
A while back, Anna asked for rec list suggestions and one of the ones that came up was nonbinary SFF. Now, they passed that onto me, since that’s not really their ballpark, and I sort of changed the rules ever so slightly. Instead of solely nonbinary rep (although most of the books here are still that), I’ve just gone for SFF that actually considers gender in its worldbuilding.
It’s a smaller category than you might think, sadly. But because it’s Christmas (or another winter holiday of your choice), I’ve lengthened this post from the usual 10 books to include a couple more.
So, enjoy!
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Author Interview: Lí Xīng
Our interview for you today is with the author of Night Flowers Shirking from the Light of the Sun, Lí Xīng. If you haven’t read that (and it’s free to read, so what are you doing, go go go), and you like that Grandmaster of the Demons show (I don’t know the name, please don’t tell me the name, I’m fine not knowing), this is a sapphic version of that. So, get yourself a cuppa, have a read of this interview, and then a read of Night Flowers. Trust me, you won’t regret it.
And don’t forget to follow her on Twitter!
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Book Recs: YA Contemporary That Isn’t About Coming Out
Books which features coming out scenes are all very well and good — we do, after all, need to see a wide range of those and there are areas where that story still hasn’t been told — but sometimes you just want to read a book where the fact that the main character is gay is wholly incidental to the story. That is, not a coming out story, nor really a romance.
So, here are 10 books which (hopefully) suit that remit. Yes, some do feature romances, but they aren’t romance books, in the sense that it’s central to the story. (Oh, and they’re all contemporary, because it doesn’t really make sense to make my task easier by including other genres, since obviously they wouldn’t have coming out scenes.)
But anyway. On with the list.
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Film & TV Recs: LGBT Romcoms
Okay, before we start: yes, there’s only one movie with trans rep and it’s a short feature at that. I know. (I made the list 11 titles long instead of the usual 10 to counterbalance that.) I was going to include Boy Meets Girl (which features a trans actress in the main role, in case you didn’t know), but frankly I have very mixed feelings about that movie. It feels a lot like a film for cis audience and not at all for trans people, and I really, really don’t understand why they didn’t go the sapphic route all the way.
I will tell you about an upcoming romcom with a trans main character played by a trans actress, though! Right now it’s called Re-Live: A Tale of an American Island Cheerleader and it stars Rain Valdez in the main role. Look out for that in 2021!
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Music Recs: Make The Yuletide Gay
Happy holigays! Last year around this time I made a rec list of Christmas movies, so I figured this year it’s time for music. Especially since so many great songs came out recently!
The whole mix that I’m putting at the end of this post is almost 50 songs long. Which means I didn’t put them all on the post itself, but instead focused on my absolute favourites of 2020 alone.
I didn’t want to simply put the soundtrack of Happiest Season on my mix and call it a day (yes, it’s all by LGBT artists!), so I looked far and wide for more songs for you guys! My other goal was to make this mix as full of original songs as possible, and I mostly succeeded there.
In any case, believe me, you do want to check out the mix too, for even more holiday gay cheer!
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Book Reviews: Lesbian Books for the Soul
In case you haven’t heard of Bywater Books before now, they are an independent publishing company that only publishes lesbian fiction. So obviously, they’re one of our favourites. And we are very lucky to be able to review three of their books today!
So, if you’re looking for a contemporary romance, or a mystery, check out these books!
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Artist Interview: Aish Divine
We’re very happy to say we managed to chat a bit with Aish Divine! He’s an incredibly talented musician who just released his newest album The Sex Issue on December 4th (in case you somehow didn’t know that yet…).
Read on if you want to learn how Aish’s culture was a jumping-off point of his musical career or what he thinks are the ebst kind of songs. Also join me in keeping our fingers crossed that his music will be used in Queer Eye, it’s what he (and us) deserves.
And of course, you can listen to Aish’s music here, and follow him on twitter.
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Reads Rainbow Awards 2020: The Results
It’s finally time! The results are in! Six weeks of voting and over 1000 votes cast, and we finally have the winners right here.
Last year, we included the top five (or more, since there were a lot of ties) in each category but this year, we can have a distinct top three in every category bar one, so that’s what we’ve gone with. However, if you do want to know how the numbers worked out, there’ll be a link below to the results (as of tomorrow, probably, thanks to internet connectivity and slow computer issues).
See the breakdown of results here!
Otherwise, happy scrolling!
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Book of the Month: Wolf Moon: The Invasion of the Dolls
If you want something a little more light-hearted to read this or next month, perhaps some middle grade lit, perhaps featuring a trans mc, then look no further than our December book of the month! And to make it even better, the book featured here is a sequel, so you can get on the first book right away, just in time for the next one in January. And you can support a self-published author.
It’s wins all round.
Related: Don’t forget all releases can be found in our monthly lists here.
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Music Releases: LGBT songs of November 2020
There’s only a month of new music left in this year? How?
But on the plus side, November was truly a gift, music-wise. There are so many gems on the mix! I had to reshuffle things so many time to decide on the ten songs for the post!
And if that’s still somehow not enough for you, check out all my previous monthly posts right here!
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Wrap-up: November 2020
Yeah, I don’t know how on earth it’s already December, either. I feel like I blinked, didn’t sleep for a week, and the the year ended. 2020 sure is great to us.
Personally I (Anna) have read very well in November: maybe not as much as some people (I mean Charlotte), but only good books. And because of the movie rec list I made a few weeks back, I had a lot of fun with the stuff I watched. Hopefully I can continue that this month and y’all as well.
And, last but not least, you still have until 7th December to vote in our Alternative Choice Awards so:
Go Vote!
