- 10 Things That Never Happened by Alexis Hall (release date October 17, 2023): Faking amnesia seemed like a good idea when Sam was afraid he was getting sacked, but now he has to deal with the reality of Jonathan’s guilt―as well as the unsettling fact that his surly boss might have a softer side to him.
- A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon (released in February): In A Day of Fallen Night, Samantha Shannon sweeps readers back to the universe of Priory of the Orange Tree and into the lives of four women, showing us a course of events that shaped their world for generations to come.
- A Fire Born of Exile by Aliette de Bodard (release date October 12, 2023): The Scattered Pearls Belt is a string of habitats on the edge of a huge galactic empire—a glittering, decadent society rife with corruption. Now, one of its victims—Quỳnh, a scholar betrayed and left for dead—has come back for her revenge, under the guise of the glamorous and enigmatic Alchemist of Streams and Hills.
- A Shot in the Dark by Victoria Lee (release date September 5, 2023): Through the lens of her camera, Ely must confront the reason she left New York in the first place: the Orthodox community that raised her, then shunned her because of her substance abuse. Along the way, Wyatt’s walls begin to break down, and each artist fights for what’s right in front of them—a person who sees them for all that they are and a love that could mean more than they ever imagined possible.
- All the Things They Said We Couldn’t Have: Stories of Trans Joy by T.C. Oakes-Monger (released back in January): Through a series of uplifting, generous and beautifully crafted vignettes, T. C. Oakes-Monger gently leads you through the cycle of the seasons – beginning in Autumn and the shedding of leaves and identity, moving through the darkness of Winter, its cold days, and the reality of daily life, into Spring, newness, and change, and ending with the joy of long Summer days and being out and proud – and invites you to find similar moments of joy in your life.
- All-Night Pharmacy by Ruth Madievsky (released last month): Falling deeper into the life she cultivated with her sister, our narrator gets a job as an emergency room secretary where she steals pills to sell on the side. Cue Sasha, a Jewish refugee from the former Soviet Union who arrives at the hospital claiming to be a psychic tasked with acting as the narrator’s spiritual guide. The nature of this relationship evolves and blurs, a kaleidoscope of friendship, sex, mysticism, and ambiguous power dynamics.
- Always the Almost by Edward Underhill (released in February): Miles meets the new boy in town, Eric Mendez, a proudly queer cartoonist from Seattle who asks his pronouns, cares about art as much as he does―and makes his stomach flutter. Not what he needs to be focusing on right now. But after Eric and Miles pretend to date so they can score an invite to a couples-only Valentine’s party, the ruse turns real with a kiss, which is also definitely not in the plan. If only Miles could figure out why Eric likes him so much. After all, it’s not like he’s cool or confident or comfortable in his own skin. He’s not even good enough at piano to get his fellow competitors to respect him, especially now, as Miles.
- Ander & Santi Were Here by Jonny Garza Villa (released in May): To keep Ander from becoming complacent during their gap year, their family “fires” them so they can transition from restaurant life to focusing on their murals and prepare for college. That is, until they meet Santiago López Alvarado, the hot new waiter. Falling for each other becomes as natural as breathing. Through Santi’s eyes, Ander starts to understand who they are and want to be as an artist, and Ander becomes Santi’s first steps toward making Santos Vista and the United States feel like home. Until ICE agents come for Santi, and Ander realizes how fragile that sense of home is.
- Any Other City by Hazel Jane Plante (released in April): Any Other City is a two-sided fictional memoir by Tracy St. Cyr, who helms the beloved indie rock band Static Saints. Side A is a snapshot of her life from 1993, when Tracy arrives in a labyrinthine city as a fledgling artist and unexpectedly falls in with a clutch of trans women, including the iconoclastic visual artist Sadie Tang. Side B finds Tracy, now a semi-famous musician, in the same strange city in 2019, healing from a traumatic event through songwriting, queer kinship, and sexual pleasure.
- As You Walk On By by Julian Winters (released in January): The Breakfast Club meets Can’t Hardly Wait with an unforgettable ensemble cast in another swoony YA contemporary from award-winning author Julian Winters!
- Better Living Through Birding by Christian Cooper (released in June): In Better Living Through Birding, Cooper tells the story of his extraordinary life leading up to the now-infamous incident in Central Park and shows how a life spent looking up at the birds prepared him, in the most uncanny of ways, to be a gay, Black man in America today.
- The Big Reveal: An Illustrated Manifesto of Drag by Sasha Velour (released in April): This book is a quilt, piecing together memoir, history, and theory into a living portrait of an artist and an art. Within these pages, illustrated throughout with photos and original artwork, Sasha Velour illuminates drag as a unique form of expression with a rich history and a revolutionary spirit.
- Big Swiss by Jen Beagin (released August 1): Greta lives with her friend Sabine in an ancient Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, New York. The house is unrenovated, uninsulated, and full of bees. Greta spends her days transcribing therapy sessions for a sex coach who calls himself Om. She becomes infatuated with his newest client, a repressed married woman she affectionately refers to as Big Swiss.
- The Borrow a Boyfriend Club by Page Powars (release date September 12, 2023): Noah Byrd is the perfect boy. At least, that’s what he needs to convince his new classmates of to prove his gender. His plan? Join the school’s illustrious (and secret) Borrow a Boyfriend Club, whose members rent themselves out for dates. Once he’s accepted among the bros, the “slip-ups” end. But Noah’s interview is a flop. Desperate, he strikes a deal with the club’s prickly but attractive president, Asher. Noah will help them win an annual talent show—and in return, he’ll get a second shot to demonstrate his boyfriend skills in a series of tests that include romancing Asher himself.
- Boys Weekend by Mattie Lubchansky (released in June): Newly-out trans artist’s assistant Sammie is invited to an old friend’s bachelor weekend in El Campo, a hedonistic wonderland of a city floating in the Atlantic Ocean’s international waters—think Las Vegas with even fewer rules. Though they have not identified as a man for over a year, Sammie’s college buddies haven’t quite gotten the message—as evidenced by their formerly closest friend Adam asking them to be his “best man.” Arriving at the swanky hotel, Sammie immediately questions their decision to come. Bad enough that they have to suffer through a torrent of passive-aggressive comments from the groom’s pals—all met with zero pushback from supposed “nice guy” Adam. But also, they seem to be the only one who’s noticed the mysterious cult that’s also staying at the hotel, and is ritually dismembering guests and demanding fealty to their bloodthirsty god.
- Boyslut by Zachary Zane (released in May): A sex and relationship columnist bares it all in a series of essays—part memoir, part manifesto—that explore the author’s coming-of-age and coming out as a bisexual man and move toward embracing and celebrating sex unencumbered by shame.
- Can’t Let Her Go by Kianna Alexander: Peaches Monroe and Jamie Hunt are core members of their Texas friend squad and have so much in common. They’re successful at their careers in personal care. They take Austin’s “Keep It Weird” vibe to heart, each leaning into their own unique talents and sense of style. And they’re both ready to go on to even bigger things. Is pushing past the boundaries of friendship into something deeper one of them? The red-hot fantasy is there…but so is real life.
- The Celebrants by Steven Rowley (released in May): It’s been a minute—or five years—since Jordan Vargas last saw his college friends, and twenty-eight years since their graduation when their adult lives officially began. Now Jordan, Jordy, Naomi, Craig, and Marielle find themselves at the brink of a new decade, with all the responsibilities of adulthood, yet no closer to having their lives figured out. Though not for a lack of trying. Over the years they’ve reunited in Big Sur to honor a decades-old pact to throw each other living “funerals,” celebrations to remind themselves that life is worth living—that their lives mean something, to one another if not to themselves. But this reunion is different. They’re not gathered as they were to bolster Marielle as her marriage crumbled, to lift Naomi after her parents died, or to intervene when Craig pleaded guilty to art fraud. This time, Jordan is sitting on a secret that will upend their pact.
- Chef’s Choice by T.J. Alexander (released in May): When Luna O’Shea is unceremoniously fired from her frustrating office job, she tries to count her blessings: she’s a proud trans woman who has plenty of friends, a wonderful roommate, and a good life in New York City. But blessings don’t pay the bills. Enter Jean-Pierre, a laissez-faire trans man and the heir to a huge culinary empire—which he’ll only inherit if he can jump through all the hoops his celebrity chef grandfather has placed in his path.
- Chlorine by Jade Song (released in March): Ren Yu is a swimmer. Her daily life starts and ends with the pool. Her teammates are her only friends. Her coach is her guiding light. If she swims well enough, she will be scouted, get a scholarship, go to a good school. Her parents will love her. Her coach will be kind to her. She will have a good life. But these are human concerns.
- Confidence by Rafael Frumkin (released in March): At seventeen, Ezra Green doesn’t have a lot going on for him: he’s shorter than average, snaggle-toothed, internet-addicted, and halfway to being legally blind. He’s also on his way to Last Chance Camp, the final stop before juvie. But Ezra’s summer at Last Chance turns life-changing when he meets Orson, brilliant and Adonis-like with a mind for hustling. Together, the two embark upon what promises to be a fruitful career of scam artistry. But things start to spin wildly out of control when they try to pull off their biggest scam yet—Nulife, a corporation that promises its consumers a lifetime of bliss.
- The Death I Gave Him by Em X. Liu (release date September 12, 2023): A lyrical, queer sci-fi retelling of Shakespeare’s Hamlet as a locked-room thriller.
- Dykette by Jenny Fran Davis (released in May): An addictive, absurd, and darkly hilarious debut novel about a young woman who embarks on a ten-day getaway with her partner and two other queer couples.
- Dyscalculia by Camonghne Felix (released in February): When Camonghne Felix goes through a monumental breakup, culminating in a hospital stay, everything—from her early childhood trauma and mental health to her relationship with mathematics—shows up in the tapestry of her healing. In this exquisite and raw reflection, Felix repossesses herself through the exploration of history she’d left behind, using her childhood “dyscalculia”—a disorder that makes it difficult to learn math—as a metaphor for the consequences of her miscalculations in love. Through reckoning with this breakup and other adult gambles in intimacy, Felix asks the question: Who gets to assert their right to pain?
- Endpapers by Jennifer Savran Kelly (released in February): A queer book conservator finds a mysterious old love letter, setting off a search for the author who wrote it and for a meaningful life beyond the binary in early-2000s New York City.
- Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style by Paul Rudnick (released in June): Devastatingly handsome and insanely rich, Farrell Covington is capable of anything and impossible to resist. He’s a clear-eyed romantic, an aesthete but not a snob, self-indulgent yet wildly generous. As the son of one of the country’s most powerful and deeply conservative families, the world could be his. But when he falls for Nate Reminger, an aspiring writer from a nice Jewish family in Piscataway, New Jersey, the results are passionate and catastrophic.
- Fieldwork: A Forager’s Memoir by Iliana Regan (released in January): Not long after Iliana Regan’s celebrated debut, Burn the Place, became the first food-related title in four decades to become a National Book Award nominee in 2019, her career as a Michelin star–winning chef took a sharp turn north. Long based in Chicago, she and her new wife, Anna, decided to create a culinary destination, the Milkweed Inn, located in Michigan’s remote Upper Peninsula, where much of the food served to their guests would be foraged by Regan herself in the surrounding forest and nearby river. Part fresh challenge, part escape, Regan’s move to the forest was also a return to her rural roots, in an effort to deepen the intimate connection to nature and the land that she’d long expressed as a chef, but experienced most intensely growing up.
- Flux by Jinwoo Chong (released in March): A blazingly original and stylish debut novel about a young man whose reality unravels when he suspects his mysterious employers have inadvertently discovered time travel—and are using it to cover up a string of violent crimes.
- Friday I’m In Love by Camryn Garrett (released in January): It’s too late for a Sweet Sixteen, but what if Mahalia had a coming-out party? A love letter to romantic comedies, sweet sixteen blowouts, Black joy, and queer pride.
- Gays on Broadway by Ethan Mordden (released in June): From the genteel female impersonators of the 1910s to the raucous drag queens of La Cage Aux Folles, from the men of The Normal Heart to the women of Fun Home, and from Eva Le Gallienne and Tallulah Bankhead to Tennessee Williams and Nathan Lane, Gays On Broadway deftly chronicles the plays and people that brought gay culture to Broadway.
- Godly Heathens by H.E. Edgmon (release date November 28, 2023): Godly Heathens is the first book in H.E. Edgmon’s YA contemporary fantasy duology The Ouroboros, in which a teen, Gem, finds out they’re a reincarnated god from another world.
- Gorgeous Gruesome Faces by Linda Cheng (release date November 7, 2023): Debut speculative thriller that follows a disgraced teen idol who comes face-to-face with the demons of her past in a glittering, cutthroat K-pop competition.
- Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H (released in February): A queer hijabi Muslim immigrant survives her coming-of-age by drawing strength and hope from stories in the Quran in this daring, provocative, and radically hopeful memoir.
- Homebodies by Tembe Denton-Hurst (released in May): Urgent, propulsive, and strikingly insightful, Homebodies is a thrilling debut novel about a young Black writer whose world is turned upside down when she loses her coveted job in media and pens a searing manifesto about racism in the industry.
- Hood Vacations by Michal “MJ” Jones (released in January): A rhythmic & quiet rumbling–an unflinching recollection of Blackness, queerness, gender, and violence through lenses of family lineage and confessional narrative. A nostalgia for an unreachable home permeates these poems: “We were mighty beautiful once, in golden dust.”
- Horse Barbie: A Memoir by Geena Rocero (released in May): A dazzling testimony from an icon who sits at the center of transgender history and activism, Horse Barbie is a celebratory and universal story of survival, love, and pure joy.
- The Humble Lover by PEN/Saul Bellow Award winner Edmund White (released in May): Aldwych West, an eighty-year-old modern-day aristocrat living alone in his Manhattan townhouse, is used to having what he wants. And when he sets eyes on August Dupond, a strong, stunningly beautiful soloist in the New York City Ballet, he decides he must have him. Soon they strike up a closeness that falls between the blurry lines of friendship, sponsorship, and love, and August moves in with Aldwych. But eventually August starts bringing home other men, and a formidable woman in Aldwych’s circle named Ernestine also takes a deep interest in the young, enchanting star. Messy entanglements and fierce rivalries ensue, and the result is an unforgettable, outrageous tragicomedy that explores the many layers of love and sexual desire as only Edmund White can.
- I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself by Marisa Crane (released in January): In a United States not so unlike our own, the Department of Balance has adopted a radical new form of law enforcement: rather than incarceration, wrongdoers are given a second (and sometimes, third, fourth, and fifth) shadow as a reminder of their crime—and a warning to those they encounter. Within the Department, corruption and prejudice run rampant, giving rise to an underclass of so-called Shadesters who are disenfranchised, publicly shamed, and deprived of civil rights protections. Dept. of Speculation meets Black Mirror in this lyrical, speculative debut about a queer mother raising her daughter in an unjust surveillance state.
- If I Can Give You That by Michael Gray Bulla (released in February): Seventeen-year-old Gael is used to keeping to himself. Though his best friend convinces him to attend a meeting of Plus, a support group for LGBTQIA+ teens, Gael doesn’t plan on sharing much. Where would he even start? Between supporting his mother through her bouts of depression, dealing with his estranged father, and navigating senior year as a transgender boy at a conservative Tennessean high school, his life is a lot to unload on strangers. But after meeting easygoing Declan, Gael is welcomed into a new circle of friends who make him want to open up.
- In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune (released in April): In a strange little home built into the branches of a grove of trees, live three robots―fatherly inventor android Giovanni Lawson, a pleasantly sadistic nurse machine, and a small vacuum desperate for love and attention. Victor Lawson, a human, lives there too. They’re a family, hidden and safe. The day Vic salvages and repairs an unfamiliar android labelled “HAP,” he learns of a shared dark past between Hap and Gio–a past spent hunting humans.
- Is It Hot in Here (Or Am I Suffering for All Eternity for the Sins I Committed on Earth)? by Zach Zimmerman (released in April): In this laugh-and-cry-out-loud, memoir-esque exploration of selfhood, Zimmerman dives into the pros and cons of retiring a Bible-Belt-dwelling, meat-eating, God-fearing identity in exchange for a new, metropolitan lease on life—one of vegetarianism, atheism, queerness, and humor. Whether learning to absolve instilled religious guilt or reminiscing over Tinder dates gone horribly wrong, this book is a candid and hysterical look at one person’s journey toward making peace with the past and seeking hope in the future.
- The Late Americans by Booker Prize finalist Brandon Taylor (released in May): In the shared and private spaces of Iowa City, a loose circle of lovers and friends encounter, confront, and provoke one another in a volatile year of self-discovery. Among them are Seamus, a frustrated young poet; Ivan, a dancer turned aspiring banker who dabbles in amateur pornography; Fatima, whose independence and work ethic complicate her relationships with friends and a trusted mentor; and Noah, who “didn’t seek sex out so much as it came up to him like an anxious dog in need of affection.” These four are buffeted by a cast of artists, landlords, meatpacking workers, and mathematicians who populate the cafes, classrooms, and food-service kitchens of the city, sometimes to violent and electrifying consequence.
- Leg: The Story of a Limb and the Boy Who Grew from It by Greg Marshall (released in June): A hilarious and poignant memoir grappling with family, disability, and coming of age in two closets—as a gay man and as a man living with cerebral palsy.
- Lesbian Love Story: A Memoir in Archives by Amelia Possanza (released in May): Centered around seven love stories for the ages, this is Possanza’s journey into the archives to recover the personal histories of lesbians in the twentieth century.
- The Male Gazed: On Hunks, Heartthrobs, and What Pop Culture Taught Me About (Desiring) Men by Manuel Betancourt (released in May): Manuel Betancourt has long lustfully coveted masculinity—in part because he so lacked it. As a child in Bogotá, Colombia, he grew up with the social pressure to appear strong, manly, and, ultimately, straight. And yet in the films and television he avidly watched, Betancourt saw glimmers of different possibilities.
- The New Masculinity by Alex Manley (released in May): From AskMen senior editor and non-binary writer Alex Manley comes The New Masculinity: A Roadmap for a 21st-Century Definition of Manhood, a guide for escaping the shackles of toxic masculinity, unlearning what it means to be a man, and pushing back against the various ways masculinity teaches people to hurt rather than help, and to harm rather than heal.
- Old Enough by Haley Jakobson (released in June): Savannah “Sav” Henry is almost the person she wants to be, or at least she’s getting closer. It’s the second semester of her sophomore year. She’s finally come out as bisexual, is making friends with the other queers in her dorm, and has just about recovered from her disastrous first queer “situationship.” She is cautiously optimistic that her life is about to begin. But when she learns that Izzie, her best friend from childhood, has gotten engaged, Sav faces a crisis of confidence. Things with Izzie haven’t been the same since what happened between Sav and Izzie’s older brother when they were sixteen… With a singularly funny, heartfelt voice, Old Enough explores queer love, community, and what it means to be a sexual assault survivor.
- Open Throat by Henry Hoke (released in June): A lonely, lovable, queer mountain lion narrates this star-making fever dream of a novel.
- Pageboy by Elliot Page (released in June): Full of intimate stories, from chasing down secret love affairs to battling body image and struggling with familial strife, Pageboy is a love letter to the power of being seen. With this evocative and lyrical debut, Oscar-nominated star Elliot Page captures the universal human experience of searching for ourselves and our place in this complicated world.
- Paper Planes by Jennie Wood (release date August 22, 2023): After a life altering incident, Dylan and Leighton are sent to a summer camp for troubled youth. Can Dylan and Leighton save their friendship and protect their future while trying to survive camp?
- The People Who Report More Stress by Alejandro Varela (released in April): A collection of interconnected stories brimming with the anxieties of people who retreat into themselves while living in the margins, acutely aware of the stresses that modern life takes upon the body and the body politic.
- Quietly Hostile by Samantha Irby (released in May): Quietly Hostile makes light as Irby takes us on another outrageously funny tour of all the gory details that make up the true portrait of a life behind the screenshotted depression memes. Relatable, poignant, and uproarious, once again, Irby is the tonic we all need to get by.
- The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw (released in May): You may think you know how the fairy tale goes: a mermaid comes to shore and weds the prince. But what the fables forget is that mermaids have teeth.
- She Is a Haunting by Trang Tranh Tran (released February): A House with a terrifying appetite haunts a broken family in this atmospheric horror, perfect for fans of Mexican Gothic.
- Side Notes from the Archivist: Poems by Anastacia-Renee (released in March): The award-winning, genre-crossing writer demonstrates her power as a funkadelic and formidable feminist voice in this rich and beautiful collection of verse and image—a multi-part retrospective that traverses time, space, and reality to illuminate the expansiveness of Black femme lives.
- Something Wild & Wonderful by Anita Kelly (released in May): Alexei Lebedev’s journey on the Pacific Crest Trail begins with a single snake. And it is angling for the hot stranger who seemed to have appeared out of thin air. Lex is prepared for rattlesnakes, blisters, and months of solitude. What he isn’t prepared for is Ben Caravalho. But somehow—on a 2,500-mile trail—Alexei keeps running into the outgoing and charismatic hiker with golden-brown eyes, again and again.
- Song of My Softening by Omotara James (released in June): Song of My Softening studies the ever-changing relationship with oneself, while also investigating the relationship that the world and nation has with Black queerness. Poems open wide the questioning of how we express both love and pain, and how we view our bodies in society, offering themselves wholly, with sharpness and compassion.
- Up with the Sun by Thomas Mallon (released in February): Through the eyes of his occasional pianist and longtime acquaintance Matt Liannetto, a tenderhearted but wry observer often on the fringes of Broadway’s big moments, [Dick] Kallman’s life and death come into appallingly sharp focus. …Up With the Sun re-creates the brassy, sometimes brutal world that shaped Kallman, capturing his collisions with not only Lucille Ball, but an array of stars from Sophie Tucker to Judy Garland and Johnny Carson. Part crime story, part showbiz history, and part love story, this is a crackling novel about personal demons and dangerously suppressed passions that spans thirty years of gay life—the whole tumultuous era from the Kinsey Report through Stonewall and, finally, AIDS.
- Uranians: Stories by Theodore McCombs (released in May): The five speculative stories in Theodore McCombs’s kaleidoscopic collection span several possible worlds, teasing the boundaries between coexisting realities and taking up the question of queer difference from one surprising vantage after another.
- Venom & Vow by Anna-Marie McLemore (released in May): Two enemy kingdoms are forced to work together to break a curse in this lush YA fantasy, featuring a transgender prince and a bigender dama/assassin in the lead roles.
- The Water Outlaws by S.L. Huang (release date August 22, 2023): Inspired by a classic of martial arts literature, S. L. Huang’s The Water Outlaws are bandits of devastating ruthlessness, unseemly femininity, dangerous philosophies, and ungovernable gender who are ready to make history―or tear it apart.
- Who Does That Bitch Think She Is?: Doris Fish and the Rise of Drag by Craig Seligman (released in February): A vivid new history of drag told through the life of the pioneering queen Doris Fish.
- The Wicked Bargain by Gabe Cole Novoa (released in February): El Diablo is in the details in this Latinx pirate fantasy starring a transmasculine nonbinary teen with a mission of revenge, redemption, and revolution.
- World Running Down by Al Hess (released in February): A transgender salvager on the outskirts of a dystopian Utah gets the chance to earn the ultimate score and maybe even a dash of romance. But there’s no such thing as a free lunch…
- You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight by Kalynn Bayron (released in June): Charity has the summer job of her dreams, playing the “final girl” at Camp Mirror Lake. Guests pay to be scared in this full-contact terror game, as Charity and her summer crew recreate scenes from a classic slasher film, The Curse of Camp Mirror Lake. The more realistic the fear, the better for business. But the last weekend of the season, Charity’s co-workers begin disappearing.
- Your Driver Is Waiting by Priya Guns (released in February): In this electrifyingly fierce and funny social satire—inspired by the iconic 1970s film Taxi Driver—a ride share driver is barely holding it together on the hunt for love, dignity, and financial security…until she decides she’s done waiting.
Bonus book! Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston (“What happens when America’s First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales?”) came out in the Before Times but the movie came out last week!
I made this list for Metafilter but thought I’d mirror it here. (I did just sign up for an affiliate program at bookshop.org, which supports local bookstores.)
