reviews, releases and recommendations of LGBT media
New year, new LGBT books! Hopefully the rules of our releases posts are clear, but just to reiterate: we have 8 of those posts, for genres listed below, and we update each one evekarry month with new books coming out (that we know about). Every post covers half a year.
In this one, you can browse the contemporary books from January to June of 2023!
Looking for the other genres?
Suffering through the shortest days of the year as we northern hemisphere folk are, what better rec list for these long winter nights than cosy fantasy. Snuggle up with a blanket and watch the snow fall outside as these books warm your soul. It’s a tried and trusted method, believe me!
Before we start, though, let me just mention that our awards start tomorrow at 10am GMT! Nominations run until 4th January, so if you’re looking to support the great LGBT lit published this year, check it out.
A lot of these titles are available on Scribd, so if you want to check out that service but don’t have an account yet, use my invite code to get 2 months for free! (This also gives me one free month.)
I last did one of these posts way back in January, which means I’ve surely read enough books since then to make another one! That’s how this works, right? Anyway, on this post, as the title suggests, you’ll find 25 books with less than 400 ratings on Goodreads (that being a semi-randomly selected metric by which I’ll judge “underrated”). Maybe you’ve heard of some, maybe you haven’t. Whatever the case, have at it!
And don’t forget, you can also check out the previous posts: find the first post here, the second one here, the third one here, and the fourth one here.
This post could have a lot of different titles, to be frank: gay romances, gay melodramas… But really, it’s just a compilation of movies with gay love at their centre. Hence the title I actually settled on. (And of course, achillean as the more inclusive term, since there’s a few bi characters or ones who don’t really use labels.)
The first movie I thought of for this rec list was Moonlight, so that should tell you all you need to know about it.
A while back, Anna did a post of LGBT sports lit that they’d recommend, so now it’s my turn! There’s a variety of books here and, combined with the previous post, hopefully something that appeals for everyone. Although, I would say, if you’re looking for more sports romances, Anna’s post might be the better place to be, since the bulk of them are on there. But if you’re looking for more literary fiction or otherwise contemporary novels, then scroll on!
A lot of these titles are available on Scribd, so if you want to check out that service but don’t have an account yet, use my invite code to get 2 months for free! (This also gives me one free month.)
The me from a year ago would never even dream of making this rec list. And here we are! But also, before we go into the heavy detail, let me just say that I use a very rough definition of ‘literary fiction’. And by that I mean that in my mind it’s mostly just… character-driven, hard to define stories. That’s it. I’m literally just here for the vibes and to have a good time.
Anyway, Charlotte also recced some lit fic this year (and she included one of my favourite books of all time – On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous), so check out her post, too!
And hey, a lot of those titles are available on Scribd, so if you want to check out that service but don’t have an account yet, use my invite code to get 2 months for free! (This also gives me one free month.)
I don’t know about you, but I’m loving this growing trend of taking classics and/or events from history, making them gay, and setting them in space. (I say trend, but really so far it’s this book and Suzan Palumbo’s upcoming Countess.) If that sounds good to you—which it should—then let me urge you now to get your preorders in for The Stars Undying (US, UK, int’l) because trust me. You won’t regret it.
Before we start with the review though, don’t forget you can follow Emery on twitter too.
A spectacular space opera debut perfect for readers of Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice and Arkady Martine’s A Memory Called Empire, inspired by the lives and loves of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar.
Princess Altagracia has lost everything. After a bloody civil war, her twin sister has claimed not just the crown of their planet Szayet but the Pearl of its prophecy, a computer that contains the immortal soul of Szayet’s god. Stripped of her birthright, Gracia flees the planet—just as Matheus Ceirran, Commander of the interstellar Empire of Ceiao, arrives in deadly pursuit with his volatile lieutenant, Anita. When Gracia and Ceirran’s paths collide, Gracia sees an opportunity to win back her planet, her god, and her throne…if she can win the Commander and his right-hand officer over first.
But talking her way into Ceirran’s good graces, and his bed, is only the beginning. Dealing with the most powerful man in the galaxy is almost as dangerous as war, and Gracia is quickly torn between an alliance that fast becomes more than political and the wishes of the god—or machine—that whispers in her ear. For Szayet’s sake, and her own, Gracia will need to become more than a princess with a silver tongue. She will have to become a queen as history has never seen before—even if it breaks an empire.
Emery Robin
Rep: bi mcs, lesbian side character, nonbinary side character, gay side character
Release: 8th November 2022
If you’re looking for a new histrom to get excited about, then look no further than the upcoming One Night in Hartswood by Emma Denny, releasing from Mills & Boon next year. You’ll sadly have to wait another 2 and a half months (or so) for this book, for which I have to apologise, but trust me when I say that it’s one you won’t want to miss out on. And this post will give you five reasons exactly why!
Before we start, don’t forget you can follow Emma on twitter too.
A love story worth fighting for…
Oxfordshire 1360
When Penn and Raff meet in Hartswood Forest the only truth they know of each other is a brief moonlit kiss they had shared previously. But Penn is escaping a life of cruelty, and an arranged marriage to a woman he has never seen. Raff is tracking the elusive missing groom of his sister to restore his family’s honour. Neither are looking for a travelling companion. Yet both men find themselves drawn to each other in ways neither imagined.
Unaware of their true identities they venture north together through Hartswood Forest. And, as their bond deepens, their fates become irrevocably entwined. But, with one escaping a life of duty and one tracking a fugitive, continued concealment threatens everything they know and trust in each other. So when secrets are finally revealed, and the consequences of their relationship become clear, both must decide what they will risk for the man they love.
Emma Denny
Rep: bi mc, gay mc, lesbian side characters
CWs:Â violence, implied child abuse
Release: 19th January 2023
Not the post we necessarily planned coming to you today, but a quick one we threw together at almost the last minute (haha blogging amirite?). If you’re a fan of historical fiction, then this is a list for you! Of course, it’s actually part two of the list (part one can be found here), but honestly, I’m a little happier with this one than the last, because I didn’t have to resort to histroms to fill in the gaps (which, let’s be clear, is not a bad thing, but I had a whole separate list for historical romances, as opposed to historical fiction which might or might not include romance). But anyways. I’ll not keep you waiting any longer for it!
A lot of these titles are available on Scribd, so if you want to check out that service but don’t have an account yet, use my invite code to get 2 months for free! (This also gives me one free month.)
Full disclosure at the start of this rec list: neither me nor Anna are the biggest fans of horror, so these recs are really, what we have found that we’ve either a. started and not finished (mostly me, this one), or b. managed to get through without being hidden behind a sofa. There’s a variety of horror here: things you might consider more conventionally horror, some slashers, some horror-comedies, and some more paranormal things. Hopefully, then, something for everyone.
I just want to note here, before we start, that I’ve tried to put accurate CWs in each of these entries. However, having failed to watch all of the recs on this list, inevitably some of them will be lacking. So I’ll be coming back to update those (or, if you’ve watched, feel free to let me know what to add there).
The other day, Anna posted books to read with the same vibes as Interview with the Vampire, on which you might have noticed, there were precious few actual vampires. That’s because this list was coming! Ten books featuring vampires—not all of them horror books—for your reading pleasure this spooky season. You can also find some more vampire recs (along with other spooky season stalwarts) in last year’s post!
A lot of these titles are available on Scribd, so if you want to check out that service but don’t have an account yet, use my invite code to get 2 months for free! (This also gives me one free month.)
I am, of course, talking about the 2022 AMC TV series. The masterpiece of modern television. The adaptation that (hopefully) has Anne Rice turning in her grave. If you’re wasting your Sundays on a different show, I don’t know how to help you…
For those of you who simply want more vampire stories, Charlotte will have a rec list soon has a rec list, don’t worry! But I’m here for vibes, and vibes alone. I’m here for the toxic, unhealthy relationships! (Though I did include a few vampire titles, as well, and because of that this list is actually longer than usually.)
And if you want more trans stories about vampires (like we all do!), I’ve been told you should keep an eye out for Danny Bryn & Rem Wigmore next year!
On a whim, I decided to start a whole new style of rec post on this blog. I’ve done a few of these on my own blog before, so I figured why not transfer the idea over to this one! Here’s how it goes: I pick (or you suggest—feel free to leave any requests in comments!) a popular book or series, think of a bunch of tropes, themes or character archtypes in that book/series, and rec books which also fit those tropes, themes and archetypes. And in this case, they’re all gay!
The first of these posts is going to be about the big fantasy monster that is Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time. Fourteen books long, it’s one you would be excused of being intimidated by. If you have read it, however, and are looking for similar(ish) books, then this post is for you! So let’s get going.
A lot of these titles are available on Scribd, so if you want to check out that service but don’t have an account yet, use my invite code to get 2 months for free! (This also gives me one free month.)
When I told Charlotte that I want to make a rec list for LGBT romance books, she told me to only include “actually romantic ones”. If I knew what she meant. And I did! I really did.
So that’s what you can expect here: 10 romance books with pining turned up to the absolute maximum, and ones where you can almost physically feel the love the characters have for one another. You’ll probably gonna cry, but you can thank me later!
A lot of those titles are available on Scribd, so if you want to check out that service but don’t have an account yet, use my invite code to get 2 months for free! (This also gives me one free month.)
Running out of ideas for rec posts as I am (which, let me be clear, is a hint for you guys to maybe offer some ideas of what you want to see), I returned to an old stalwart on this blog: sapphic fantasy! Obviously, I’ve already done two parts to this post but I’ve (finally) reached the point where I’m minorly struggling to find 20 books I would highly recommend. Guess that just means I need to go and read some more… But anyway! Check out the 20 I’ve decided to rec this time.
As ever, all of the previous posts (including those two other fantasy posts) can be found here.
A lot of these titles are available on Scribd, so if you want to check out that service but don’t have an account yet, use my invite code to get 2 months for free! (This also gives me one free month.)
