Adult Fiction:
Kept Animals by Kate Milliken (Fiction)
It’s 1993, and Rory Ramos works as a ranch hand at the stable her stepfather manages in Topanga Canyon, California, a dry, dusty place reliant on horses and hierarchies. There she rides for the rich clientele, including twins June and Wade Fisk. While Rory draws the interest of out-and-proud June, she’s more intrigued by Vivian Price, the beautiful girl with the movie-star father who lives down the hill. Rory keeps largely separate from the likes of the Prices—but, perched on her bedroom windowsill, Rory steals glimpses of Vivian swimming in her pool nearly every night.
Tack & Jibe by Lilah Suzanne (Fiction)
Raised on a small island in North Carolina’s Outer Banks, Willa has a picture-perfect life: hanging out at the beach with her friends, living in a cozy sea-side cottage, working at a sailing store, and running a hugely popular sailing Instagram. When a group of followers enters her into High Seas, a televised national sailing championship, it should be no problem. Too bad Willa doesn’t actually know how to sail at all. Desperate to avoid having her carefully curated life come crashing down around her, Willa tracks down Lane Cordova, the winner of four previous High Seas competitions, and begs her for a crash course in sailing before the race begins. But Lane’s competence on the water is only matched by Willa’s ineptitude, and her growing crush on Lane isn’t helping matters. The competition threatens to go awry and take her entire idealized life with it.
Flavor of the Month by Georgia Beers (Romance)
Charlie Stetko had a life to envy. A penthouse in Manhattan, a beautiful girlfriend, and a high-octane marketing career. Or so she thought. When her girlfriend sends her packing, Charlie ends up unemployed. Without a place to live or money of her own, she’s forced to do the one thing she vowed she never would: go back to Shaker Falls, Vermont. Back to her parents and back to the small town life―and the people―she left behind. Back to a part-time job in the new bakery in town.
Emma Grier thought Charlie was the love of her life until that uppity Manhattan entrepreneur swept Charlie off her feet. Charlie left everything in Shaker Falls behind, including Emma’s shattered heart. But Emma picked herself back up and now owns a popular restaurant in town. As for her love life? She doesn’t need one. Something else she doesn’t need? Charlie waltzing into her restaurant to sell her the bakery’s pie.
Two Hearts Forever by Harper Bliss (Romance)
In the small town of Donovan Grove, Anna Gunn’s life is organized just the way she likes it: work from home, walks with her dog, Friday night drinks at the bar.
But Anna’s strict routine is challenged when the local bookstore is taken over by city slicker, Zoe Perez.
Will Anna let Zoe into her life, despite the major disruption she will have to tolerate?
And can Zoe look past Anna’s eccentricity and embrace her unconventional behavior?
A Roll in the Hay by Lola Keeley (Romance)
The whole “big city, successful career, loyal, hot girlfriend” experiment has been a miserable failure for veterinarian Tess Robinson, so she’s moved back home to a small town in the Scottish countryside. She doesn’t count on a run-in with the stuck-up, maddening, local landowner Lady Susannah Karlson, who tries to boss Tess around as if she owns the whole town…which she sort of does.
Closeted, wealthy, ice queen Lady Karlson is having the worst yearꟷbecoming widowed, being embroiled in a public feud over her vast estate, and now finding herself at odds with the sharp-tongued new vet who has just blown in from London. The annoying woman is so unsuitable to tend her horses, so impertinent, and so frustratingly cute.
As their clashes build and they’re thrust together against a back-drop of eccentric village busybodies, class warfare, and deadly dangers, the circling women start to wonder if there might be something more to the rising tensions between them. It can’t all be hate, can it?
A Poised Nuisance by Iris Rivers (Romance)
In which two contending Juilliard ballerinas battle with both themselves and each other––defying moral laws by falling into the chaos and turmoil of a decades-old society and participating in its traditions of bloodshed.
The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper by A.J. Fitzwater (Fantasy)
Dapper. Lesbian. Capybara. Pirate.
Cinrak the Dapper is a keeper of secrets, a righter of wrongs, the saltiest capybara on the sea and a rider of both falling stars and a great glass whale. Join her, her beloveds, the rat Queen Orvilia and the marmot diva Loquolchi, lead soprano of the Theatre Rat-oyal, her loyal cabin kit, Benj the chinchilla, and Agnes, last of the great krakens, as they hunt for treasures of all kinds and find adventures beyond their wildest dreams. Let Sir Julius Vogel Award-winning storyteller A.J. Fitzwater take you on a glorious journey about finding yourself, discovering true love and found family, and exploring the greatest secrets of the deep. Also, dapperness.
Goodbye, My Rose Garden by Dr. Pepperco (Manga)
In this beautiful new yuri manga, a young British noblewoman asks her maid to kill her…but the two fall in love instead!
Early in the twentieth century, Hanako journeys to England to follow her dream of becoming a novelist. When things don’t work out quite as she planned, she finds employment as a personal maid to noblewoman Alice Douglas, who makes a most unusual request: she begs Hanako to kill her! As Hanako tries to figure out why her mistress would make such a shocking plea, their relationship grows into something far deeper.
Fragtime (Omnibus) by Sato (Manga)
A time-freezing yuri love story–now with an anime!
Moritani Misuzu is a quiet high school girl with a very unusual power: for three minutes a day she can freeze time. When Moritani uses her ability to peek up a classmate’s skirt, she gets the shock of her life when she’s caught in the act! It turns out her classmate–the beautiful Murakami Haruka–is the only person immune to Moritani’s power! Bound together by this strange fact, the two girls grow closer. Can they make the most of their stolen moments together?
Young Adult & Children’s:
Witchlight by Jessi Zabarsky (YA Fantasy Graphic Novel)
Love — loss — witches — this YA fantasy graphic novel has it all! This thoughtful, emotional story will entrance you with its moving story and organic artwork.
Lelek is a witch.
That’s all Sanja knows when she meets Lelek in the marketplace. But Lelek is hiding something — and as her life begins to intersect with Sanja’s, all that she’s kept to herself starts to come to light.
Secrets, friendship, and magic all come together as Lelek gets closer and closer to uncovering the truth about her past. . . .
Camp Spirit by Axelle Lenoir (YA Graphic Novel)
Summer camp is supposed to be about finding nirvana in a rock garden… But Elodie prefers Nirvana and Soundgarden. Can she confront rambunctious kids, confusing feelings, and supernatural horrors all at once?
Summer 1994: with just two months left before college, Elodie is forced by her mother to take a job as a camp counselor. She doesn’t know the first thing about nature, or sports, of kids for that matter, and isn’t especially interested in learning… but now she’s responsible for a foul-mouthed horde of red-headed girls who just might win her over, whether she likes it or not. Just as Elodie starts getting used to her new environment, though — and close to one of the other counselors — a dark mystery lurking around the camp begins to haunt her dreams.
Verona Comics by Jennifer Dugan (YA)
Jubilee has it all together. She’s an elite cellist, and when she’s not working in her stepmom’s indie comic shop, she’s prepping for the biggest audition of her life.
Ridley is barely holding it together. His parents own the biggest comic-store chain in the country, and Ridley can’t stop disappointing them–that is, when they’re even paying attention.
They meet one fateful night at a comic convention prom, and the two can’t help falling for each other. Too bad their parents are at each other’s throats every chance they get, making a relationship between them nearly impossible . . . unless they manage to keep it a secret.
Girl Crushed by Katie Heaney (YA)
Leah on the Offbeat meets We Are Okay in this pitch-perfect queer romance about falling in love and never quite falling out of it–heartbreak, unexpected new crushes, and all.
Before Quinn Ryan was in love with Jamie Rudawski, she loved Jamie Rudawski, who was her best friend. But when Jamie dumps Quinn a month before their senior year, Quinn is suddenly girlfriend-less and best friend-less.
Enter a new crush: Ruby Ocampo, the gorgeous and rich lead singer of the popular band Sweets, who’s just broken up with her on-again, off-again boyfriend. Quinn’s always only wanted to be with Jamie, but if Jamie no longer wants to be with her, why can’t Quinn go all in on Ruby? But the closer Quinn grows to Ruby, the more she misses Jamie, and the more (she thinks) Jamie misses her. Who says your first love can’t be your second love, too?
Late to the Party by Kelly Quindlen (YA)
Seventeen is nothing like Codi Teller imagined. She’s never crashed a party, never stayed out too late. She’s never even been kissed. And it’s not just because she’s gay. It’s because she and her two best friends, Maritza and JaKory, spend more time in her basement watching Netflix than engaging with the outside world.
So when Maritza and JaKory suggest crashing a party, Codi is highly skeptical. Those parties aren’t for kids like them. They’re for cool kids. Straight kids.
But then Codi stumbles upon one of those cool kids, Ricky, kissing another boy in the dark, and an unexpected friendship is formed. In return for never talking about that kiss, Ricky takes Codi under his wing and draws her into a wild summer filled with late nights, new experiences, and one really cute girl named Lydia. The only problem? Codi never tells Maritza or JaKory about any of it.
The Truth About Keeping Secrets by Savannah Brown (YA Thriller)
Sydney’s dad is the only psychiatrist for miles around in their small Ohio town. He is also unexpectedly dead.
Sydney believes the crash was anything but an accident. And when the threatening texts begin, and June Copeland – homecoming queen and golden child – appears at his funeral out of nowhere, she’s sure of it.
But through Sydney’s newfound relationship with June, she’s given a glimpse of a life without the darkness of an unresolved grief and the chance, just maybe, of a fresh start.
Until it’s clear that the secrets won’t go away, and the truth might bring everything crashing down…
The Deck of Omens (The Devouring Gray #2) by Christine Lynn Herman (YA Fantasy)
Though the Beast is seemingly subdued for now, a new threat lurks in Four Paths: a corruption seeping from the Gray into the forest. And with the other Founders preoccupied by their tangled alliances and fraying relationships, only May Hawthorne seems to realize the danger. But saving the town she loves means seeking aid from the person her family despises most — her father, Ezra Bishop.
May’s father isn’t the only newcomer in town–Isaac Sullivan’s older brother has also returned, seeking forgiveness for the role he played in Isaac’s troubled past. But Isaac isn’t ready to let go of his family’s history, especially when that history might hold the key that he and Violet Saunders need to destroy the Gray and the monster within it.
Elysium Girls by Kate Pentecost (YA Fantasy)
Elysium, Oklahoma, is a town like any other. Respectable. God-fearing. Praying for an end to the Dust Bowl. Until the day the people of Elysium are chosen by two sisters: Life and Death. And the Sisters like to gamble against each other with things like time, and space, and human lives. Elysium is to become the gameboard in a ruthless competition between the goddesses. The Dust Soldiers will return in ten years’ time, and if the people of Elysium have not proved themselves worthy, all will be slain.
Nearly ten years later, seventeen-year-old Sal Wilkinson is called upon to lead Elysium as it prepares for the end of the game. But then an outsider named Asa arrives at Elysium’s gates with nothing more than a sharp smile and a bag of magic tricks, and they trigger a terrible accident that gets both Sal and Asa exiled into the brutal Desert of Dust and Steel. There Sal and Asa stumble upon a gang of girls headed by another exile: a young witch everyone in Elysium believes to be dead. As the apocalypse looms, they must do more than simply tip the scales in Elysium’s favor — only by reinventing the rules can they beat Life and Death at their own game in this exciting fantasy debut.
Sword in the Stars by Cori McCarthy & Amy Rose Capetta (YA Science Fiction)
In this epic sequel to Once & Future, Ari and her Rainbow knights must pull off a Holy Grail heist thousands of years in the past — without destroying their own destinies.
Ari Helix may have won her battle against the tyrannical Mercer corporation, but the larger war has just begun. Ari and her cursed wizard Merlin must travel back in time to the unenlightened Middle Ages and steal the King Arthur’s Grail — the very definition of impossible. It’s imperative that the time travelers not skew the timeline and alter the course of history. Coming face to face with the original Arthurian legend could produce a ripple effect that changes everything. Somehow Merlin forgot that the past can be even more dangerous than the future .
In the Role of Brie Hutchens… by Nicole Melleby (Middle Grade)
Introducing Brie Hutchens: soap opera super fan, aspiring actor, and so-so student at her small Catholic school. Brie has big plans for eighth grade. She’s going to be the star of the school play and convince her parents to let her go to the performing arts high school. But when Brie’s mom walks in on her accidentally looking at some possibly inappropriate photos of her favorite actress, Brie panics and blurts out that she’s been chosen to crown the Mary statue during her school’s May Crowning ceremony. Brie’s mom is distracted with pride—but Brie’s in big trouble: she has not been chosen. No one has, yet. Worse, Brie has almost no chance to get the job, which always goes to a top student.
Desperate to make her lie become truth, Brie turns to Kennedy, the girl everyone expects to crown Mary. But sometimes just looking at Kennedy gives Brie butterflies. Juggling her confusing feelings with the rapidly approaching May Crowning, not to mention her hilarious non-star turn in the school play, Brie navigates truth and lies, expectations and identity, and how to—finally—make her mother really see her as she is.
Plenty of Hugs by Fran Manushkin, illustrated by Kate Alizadeh (Picture Book)
Two mommies spend a sunny day with their toddler in this cozy, rhyming picture book that is a loving celebration of family.
This cheerful book follows a family from morning to night in lively rhyme that rolls off the tongue. There’s a buzz for each bug, and a breeze for each tree, and plenty of hugs for you and me. The toddler and mommies take a morning bike ride to a farm stand, they visit a zoo in the afternoon, and in the evening there’s the bath and storybook routine before the child is tucked cozily into bed. There are seas for ships and kisses for lips, so we can whisper I love you! This is sure to become a preschool favorite, for bedtime and any time.
Check out more LGBTQ new releases at:
- LGBTQ Reads New Releases: April 2020
- Women and Words: New Releases & Coming Up
- Lambda Literary: April’s Most Anticipated LGBTQ Books
- Reads Rainbow Book Releases: April 2020
Fran Manushkin says
Thank you so much for your lovely review of my book, “Plenty of Hugs.” I appreciate it very much!