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    Book Recs: Adult Lit (I)

    4 May, 2019

    The other day I was scrolling through twitter and I saw someone make a comment that they didn’t see any rec lists of adult LGBT books. Which. Once you say it, becomes obvious, really. There are a lot of lists of YA LGBT books. In fact, those are the ones me and Anna find easiest to confirm the rep in for you. Adult books? That’s hard. Often, those are the ones where we find ourselves spending 10 minutes just trying to find a confirmation that it is LGBT, let alone how.

    So this is (probably only part one of) a list of all the adult LGBT lit we can find (read, unread, and pre-release). Where possible, we’ve added in rep as usual, but for that we’re mostly reliant on Goodreads reviewers (and you know how vague they can be). But. These are 50 confirmed LGBT novels. Sorted by genre (10 of each).

    Enjoy!

    Key:

    lesbians & wlw relationships: ☀️
    gays & mlm relationships: 🌿
    bisexual characters: 💎
    trans, genderqueer, non-binary, gnc characters: 🌷
    LGBT authors: 🌈

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    Book Recs: Lesbian Authors

    26 April, 2019

    April 26th is the International Lesbian Visibility Day! And what’s a better way to celebrate that than having a lesbian talk about other lesbians? (Possibly getting said lesbian a girlfriend but shh…)

    I was actually talking with Charlotte about what we should post for this occasion and at first we just wanted to go with books with lesbian protags. But then we realised… As many sapphic books as we’re getting lately, still not a lot of them uses the word “lesbian” on page. And I’m not gonna lie, I would really love for us to finally get over that and stop treating lesbian as a dirty word or whatever is happening here.

    But yes, this is why y’all are getting a rec list of books written by lesbians. We gotta stick together, right? I’m also changing the format of our rec lists for this one, because I want to highlight authors more than anything else. I’ll be putting one book per a lesbian here, but that’s not to say I think it’s the only one you should read!

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    Book Recs: Historical

    11 April, 2019

    Hello from Cornwall! Or not really, because this is a scheduled post and I am currently probably dragging my family around yet another castle (they should never have let me plan the trip, is all I’m saying). It’s probably apt, then, that my rec list is going to be full of history!

    Historical LGBT books are a bit of a minefield, I think we can all agree. You think you’ll have come across a good one, and then all of a sudden, it’s either a) tragic, b) buries its gays (because no gay people ever had a happy ending in the past, did they?), or c) does both. So, of the utmost importance on this list, is that the book isn’t overly tragic all the way through, and it absolutely does not bury its gays.

    So, with that in mind, here are ten historical LGBT books for you!

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    Book Recs: High Fantasy

    4 April, 2019

    Have you ever noticed how a lot of fantasy with LGBT characters tends to be urban fantasy? Obviously, that’s no bad thing, but sometimes you just want to read about LGBT characters in high fantasy settings. (Or, let’s be real, you want to read high fantasy settings without the casual homophobia, but apparently that’s too hard for some people to write. Not that I’m bitter, but.) Because it’s fantasy, so why shouldn’t we be there too?

    So here are ten high fantasy books with LGBT mains. Brief disclaimer before I begin: there are three books on here I haven’t read, but people I trust have reviewed them highly (and also I plan to read them asap).

    Related: LGBT High Fantasy, part two
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    Book Recs: Witches (And Other Magic-Doers)

    26 March, 2019

    LGBT people are magic, so obviously I had to do a rec list of LGBT books with witches (and various other magic-doers). Shamefully, I haven’t read all that many (that I’m willing to rec. There is that One Series We Don’t Talk About as well, but it’ll be a cold day in hell when I rec that), so some of the ones on here are ones people I trust have loved, or ones that aren’t yet published.

    But, because they’re about witches (and other magic-doers), and they’re LGBT, I can guarantee* that they’ll be amazing.

    *Please don’t actually hold me to this, thanks.

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    Book Recs: Favourite Love Confessions

    12 March, 2019

    It’s niche rec list time! I asked, and you voted, so here it is: ten of my favourite love confessions. In LGBT lit, only, obviously.

    A good love confession can leave you with such a warm feeling inside, and make even the hardest of hearts feel almost like they don’t mind romance (disclaimer: I don’t actually know this). So, clearly, I had to spread the love (lol). And that warm feeling.

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    Book Recs: Books with Black Characters

    15 February, 2019

    Like I said in my last rec list – 10 upcoming books by Black authors – I wanted to celebrate Black History Month with some appropriate recommendations. So this is why today I decided to talk about books that feature Black characters. I tried to only choose titles with Black main characters, but I will admit in the end a few of the books have a Black love interest. Which, if you think about it… those are still kind of main characters…

    Three out of ten books I’m recommending today are actually graphic novels, for some novelty. And three are novellas. There’s young adult and new adult, there’s fantasy and contemporary, and historical fiction… Today, you get a little bit of everything!!

    Okay, so let’s jump in!

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    Book Recs: Upcoming Books by Black Authors

    8 February, 2019

    It’s the Black History Month so I wanted to focus my posts the next few weeks on books by and/or about Black people. As you can see from the title, today I will be recommending book written by Black authors. And specifically: books that are only about to come out. Most of them are set for this year, but there are a few 2020 titles as well.

    Two books listed here are by authors I’ve already read something by before (I wonder if you can guess which authors I’m talking about…) & you can read my reviews of their previous books here and here.

    There are some amazing stories coming our way, I can tell you that much already! So let’s dive in without any further ado.

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    Book Recs: Enemies to Lovers

    4 February, 2019

    We all know how good a trope enemies (or rivals) to lovers can be when it’s done right. It has that perfect intensity and tension, and the point where they realise that actually they don’t hate each other any more and you get pining? Absolutely brilliant. So, of course, I had to do a rec list (and also, this was what was voted for on Twitter). There’s actually a lot of overlap between this list and some other ones, mostly because when a book has one of my favourite tropes it tends to hit a few more at the same time. And also. Because it’s a favourite trope, if the book is good it normally rockets onto my favourites shelf.

    So, without further ado, the list.

    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.)

    And hey, there’s now a second part to this, with ten more books!

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    Book Recs: Novellas

    26 January, 2019

    We all have those days where you have an oh shit moment and realise you’re behind on your Goodreads challenge and what are you going to do??? Well. I have for you here a guaranteed way of boosting your numbers. Read loads of novellas! (Although, to be honest, I don’t really know what constitutes a “novella” and what’s a short story or even a novelette, but that’s a whole other kettle of fish.) Anyway, these are some of the best ones I’ve read (and they’re all gay, of course).

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    Book Recs: The Great Big LGBT Rec List (IV)

    10 January, 2019

    Today is the day (for better or for worse). We’ve reached the last part of our recs list (sad face). You can find the rest of the list here. I’m really not sure what to say here, because it’s all been said, and I just feel like saying more would mean talking out my arse, so like. On to the books!

    A brief reminder of the key:

    lesbians & wlw relationships: ☀️
    gays & mlm relationships: 🌿
    bisexual characters: 💎
    trans, genderqueer, non-binary, gnc characters: 🌷
    LGBT authors: 🌈
    poetry: 🌉

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    Book Recs: The Great Big LGBT Rec List (III)

    7 January, 2019

    I really hope I can say “here comes the post you’ve all been waiting for!!” and be right… Well, the post does come, so I’m already halfway there… In any case! Like the title says, this is part 3 of our very big and very great, and very much made up of books by & for the LGBT community recommendations list!

    Today I give you books number 51 all the way to 75. There’s only one post in this series left! (So far. Charlotte & I hope you guys would be interested in more posts like this when we hit our next followers milestone!)

    Question we already asked on twitter (here): would you be interested in a Q&A, to get to know Charlotte and me better? Let us know in the comments!

    Before you dive in, make sure you read part one and part two of our Great Big LGBT Rec List! And take one more look at how we mark the rep in this series:

    lesbians & wlw relationships: ☀️
    gays & mlm relationships: 🌿
    bisexual characters: 💎
    trans, genderqueer, non-binary, gnc characters: 🌷
    LGBT authors: 🌈
    poetry: 🌉

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    Book Recs: The Great Big LGBT Rec List (II)

    4 January, 2019

    It’s Friday, which means (you guessed it!) Anna is finally letting me post the second part of the Great Big Rec List! (I’m kidding, kind of. Anna keeps the posts on this blog regular.) Anna posted her first 25 here, and you can find all of the parts of this list here or by the link in the menu up top.

    So, here is a list of 25 of my favourite LGBT books. I say of my favourite because, not unexpectedly, when I tried to write down only 50 books, the list kept spilling over (so did Anna’s, which is good news for you guys because it means there might be more than 4 parts to this series). The books on here are all ones I’ve loved, and they’re also all ones which end on a, if not always outright happy, then hopeful note. (You can always trust me and Anna not to rec you tragic gay stories, or ones which end up burying their gays, just fyi.) There are some books that need trigger warnings on this list, so if you’re wondering, just drop us a comment and we can answer any questions!

    Once again, the key to the rep is:

    lesbians & wlw relationships: ☀️
    gays & mlm relationships: 🌿
    bisexual characters: 💎
    trans, genderqueer, non-binary, gnc characters: 🌷
    LGBT authors: 🌈
    poetry: 🌉

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    Book Recs: The Great Big LGBT Rec List (I)

    1 January, 2019

    We talked about this giant rec list on twitter before & if anyone thought we’re only joking… well, you guys just don’t know how serious we are about LGBT literature yet.

    100 LGBT books. Fifty from me & fifty from Charlotte. Our favourite titles that we think everyone should read. Posted in four neat parts over the first two weeks of the year, so we can start off 2019 properly.

    Of course, for this list to make sense, you have to know what rep you can expect from each book. And this time, to make things obvious right away (and also to make everything cuter), we chose to use various emojis. And so it goes:

    lesbians & wlw relationships: ☀️
    gays & mlm relationships: 🌿
    bisexual characters: 💎
    trans, genderqueer, non-binary, gnc characters: 🌷
    LGBT authors: 🌈

    And because most of the list is composed of novels and short stories, we decided to mark poetry as well: 🌉

    Let’s go!

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    Book Recs: Graphic Novels

    24 December, 2018

    Let’s be real, what’s better than some graphic novels. I mean, you get a great story and great artwork! (Also, you get a nice boost to your reading challenge, if you’re a bit behind at times like me…)

    So today I’m here with ten titles, all of them featuring LGBT leads, most of them actually having way more than one character who’s not cishet. A Christmas gift for you all, if you will. :>>

    Enjoy!

    And if you need more, here’s a post about LGBT graphic novels, part II.

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