I follow hundreds of queer book blogs to scout out the best sapphic book news and reviews! Many of them get posted on Tumblr and Twitter as I discover them, but my favourites get saved for these link compilations. Here are some of the posts I’ve found interesting in the last few weeks.

Librarians face threats of legal charges for carrying sex education books and LGBTQ resources. (Want to fight censorship? Here’s an anti-censorship toolkit.)

The rhetoric used to try to ban LGBTQ books hurts queer and trans students.

The queer comics future is bright.

These 20 coming out stories are must-reads.

QUIZ: Which Queer Spooky Book Should You Read This October?

Malinda Lo wrote about her upcoming novel, A Scatter of Light, and how publishing queer YA has changed since she first pitched it 8 years ago.

A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow was reviewed at NPR.

Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor was reviewed at Autostraddle.

This post has the covers linked to their Amazon pages. If you click through and buy something, I might get a small referral fee. For even more links, check out the Lesbrary’s Twitter! We’re also on Facebook, Goodreads, Youtube and Tumblr.

If you’d like more LGBTQ lit links, follow my Book Riot newsletter: Our Queerest Shelves! I round up the newest LGBTQ book news as well as the most exciting queer new releases out this week, plus each newsletter comes with an exclusive queer books post from me. If that appeals to you, please subscribe!

Support the Lesbrary on Patreon at $2 or more a month and be entered to win a queer women book every month! $10 and up patrons get guaranteed books throughout the year!

Would you believe that more than 50 sapphic books come out this month? It’s true! Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to find out which books have queer representation, or what kind of representation they have. So here’s a big list of bi and lesbian books out this month, sorted by genre. I’ve highlighted a few of the books I’m most interested in, but click through to see the other titles’ blurbs!

As always, if you can get these through an indie bookstore, that is ideal, but if you can’t, the titles and covers are linked to my Amazon affiliate link. If you click through and buy something, I’ll get a small percentage. On to the books!

Adult

Fiction

The Spectacular by Zoe Whittall (Bisexual Fiction)

It’s 1997 and Missy is a cellist in an indie rock band on tour across America. At twentytwo years old, she gets on stage every night and plays the song about her absent mother that made the band famous. As the only girl in the band, she’s determined to party just as hard as everyone else, loving and leaving a guy in every town. But then she meets a tomboy drummer who is hard to forget, and a forgotten flap of cocaine strands her at the border.

Fortysomething Carola is just surfacing from a sex scandal at the yoga center where she has been living when she sees her daughter, Missy, for the first time in ten years—on the cover of a music magazine.

Ruth is eighty-three and planning her return to the Turkish seaside village where she spent her childhood. But when her granddaughter, Missy, winds up crashing at her house, she decides it’s time  that the strong and stubborn women in her family find a way to understand one another again.

In this sharply observed novel, Zoe Whittall captures three very different women who each struggle to build an authentic life. Definitions of family, romance, gender, and love will radically change as they seek out lives that are nothing less than spectacular.

• How to Wrestle a Girl by Venita Blackburn (Sapphic Short Stories)
• Suture by Nic Brewer (Lesbian Weird Fiction)
• Better to Trust by Heather Frimmer (Sapphic Fiction)

Romance

• Suspecting Her by Mary P. Burn (F/F)
• A Lot Like Adiós by Alexis Daria (Bi M/Bi F)
• Jordan’s Kiss by Nanisi Barrett D’Arnuk (F/F)
• Dangerous Without You by Lexus Grey (F/F)
• Mechanics of Love by Meka James (F/F)

• Love in the Limelight by Ashley Moore (F/F)
• Beginner’s Bet by Fiona Riley (F/F)
• Calculated Risk by Katherine Rupley (F/F)
• Love and Lotus Blossoms by Anne Shade (Bisexual F/F)
• Two Winters by Lauren Emily Whalen (F/F)

• Chain Reaction by Cara Malone (F/F Romantic Suspense)
• Witch, Please! by Ann Aguirre (Bisexual Paranormal F/M Romance)

Mystery/Thrillers

The Final Child by Fran Dorricott (Thriller)

He won’t forget her…
 
Erin and her brother Alex were the last children abducted by ‘the Father’, a serial killer who only ever took pairs of siblings. She escaped, but her brother was never seen again. Traumatised, Erin couldn’t remember anything about her ordeal, and the Father was never caught.
 
Eighteen years later, Erin has done her best to put the past behind her. But then she meets Harriet. Harriet’s young cousins were the Father’s first victims and, haunted by their deaths, she is writing a book about the disappearances and is desperate for an interview with the only survivor. At first, Erin wants nothing to do with her. But then she starts receiving sinister gifts, her house is broken into, and she can’t shake the feeling that she’s being watched. After all these years, Erin believed that the Father was gone, but now she begins to wonder if he was only waiting…
 
A tense and emotive thriller, The Final Child is a powerful tale of a survivor being forced to confront her painful past.

• What’s the Matter with Mary Jane? (An Epitome Apartments Mystery) by Candas Jane Dorsey (Pansexual Mystery)
• The Body on the Bed by Leonard Krishtalka (Sapphic Mystery)

Fantasy

No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull (Sapphic and Queer Fantasy)

One October morning, Laina gets the news that her brother was shot and killed by Boston cops. But what looks like a case of police brutality soon reveals something much stranger. Monsters are real. And they want everyone to know it.

As creatures from myth and legend come out of the shadows, seeking safety through visibility, their emergence sets off a chain of seemingly unrelated events. Members of a local werewolf pack are threatened into silence. A professor follows a missing friend’s trail of bread crumbs to a mysterious secret society. And a young boy with unique abilities seeks refuge in a pro-monster organization with secrets of its own. Meanwhile, more people start disappearing, suicides and hate crimes increase, and protests erupt globally, both for and against the monsters.

At the center is a mystery no one thinks to ask: Why now? What has frightened the monsters out of the dark?

The world will soon find out.

Traitors of the Black Crown (Black Crown #1) by Cate Pearce (F/F Fantasy)

Three women will betray the black crown. A Knight. A Duchess. A Queen.

Raena Schinen narrowly escaped when the Queen’s guard murdered her entire family. If Raena’s survival is exposed, she’ll be next. For fifteen years Raena has hidden as a male Knight, “Sir Rowan”, consumed by her vengeful desire to assassinate the Queen.

The moment Raena is close enough to exact her revenge, she is unexpectedly exiled to a foreign land. There she serves the common-born Duchess Aven Colby, whose suspicious kinship with the Queen further threatens Raena’s delicate secrets.

Just as they become united in a common goal to curb a looming invasion, unexpected heat and romance blossoms between “Sir Rowan” and Aven. The peril demands they set out on a journey to form clandestine political alliances, risking the Queen’s wrath, and drawing Raena and Aven closer together.

But no one in the kingdom could have imagined the sinister foe rising from below the surface. In order to save themselves and those they love, Raena, Aven, and the Queen must recognize who are the oppressors and who will unite against the Black Crown.

• Among Thieves by M.J. Kuhn (Lesbian Fantasy)

Science Fiction

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki (Trans Sapphic Science Fiction)

Good Omens meets The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet in Ryka Aoki’s Light From Uncommon Stars, a defiantly joyful adventure set in California’s San Gabriel Valley, with cursed violins, Faustian bargains, and queer alien courtship over fresh-made donuts.

Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: to escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six.

When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka’s ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She’s found her final candidate.

But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. Shizuka doesn’t have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan’s kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul’s worth. And maybe something as small as a warm donut is powerful enough to break a curse as vast as the California coastline.

As the lives of these three women become entangled by chance and fate, a story of magic, identity, curses, and hope begins, and a family worth crossing the universe for is found.

The All-Consuming World by Cassandra Khaw (Science Fiction)

Maya has died and been resurrected into countless cyborg bodies through the years of a long, dangerous career with the infamous Dirty Dozen, the most storied crew of criminals in the galaxy, at least before their untimely and gruesome demise. Decades later, she and her diverse team of broken, diminished outlaws must get back together to solve the mystery of their last, disastrous mission and to rescue a missing and much-changed comrade . . . but they’re not the only ones in pursuit of the secret at the heart of the planet Dimmuborgir. 

The highly evolved AI of the galaxy have their own agenda and will do whatever it takes to keep humanity from ever regaining control. As Maya and her comrades spiral closer to uncovering the AIs’ vast conspiracy, this band of violent women—half-clone and half-machine—must battle their own traumas and a universe of sapient ageships who want them dead, in order to settle their affairs once and for all. 

Welcome to The All-Consuming World, the debut novel of acclaimed writer Cassandra Khaw. With this explosive and introspective exploration of humans and machines, life and death, Khaw takes their rightful place next to such science fiction luminaries as Ann Leckie, Ursula Le Guin, and Kameron Hurley.

• First Light by Casey E. Berger (Sapphic Science Fiction)
• The Actual Star by Monica Byrne (Non-Binary World Sci-Fi)
• In the Deep by Kelly Jennings (Bisexual, Polyamorous Sci Fi)

Comics, Graphic Novels, and Manga

• Monstress, Vol. 6: The Vow by Marjorie M. Liu & Sana Takeda (Sapphic Fantasy Graphic Novel)

Young Adult

YA Contemporary & Historical Fiction

A Clash of Steel by C.B. Lee (YA Pirates/Historical Fiction)

Two intrepid girls hunt for a legendary treasure on the deadly high seas in this YA remix of the classic adventure novel Treasure Island.

1826. The sun is setting on the golden age of piracy, and the legendary Dragon Fleet, the scourge of the South China Sea, is no more. Its ruthless leader, a woman known only as the Head of the Dragon, is now only a story, like the ones Xiang has grown up with all her life. She desperately wants to prove her worth, especially to her mother, a shrewd businesswoman who never seems to have enough time for Xiang. Her father is also only a story, dead at sea before Xiang was born. Her single memento of him is a pendant she always wears, a simple but plain piece of gold jewelry.

But the pendant’s true nature is revealed when a mysterious girl named Anh steals it, only to return it to Xiang in exchange for her help in decoding the tiny map scroll hidden inside. The revelation that Xiang’s father sailed with the Dragon Fleet and tucked away this secret changes everything. Rumor has it that the legendary Head of the Dragon had one last treasure―the plunder of a thousand ports―that for decades has only been a myth, a fool’s journey.

Xiang is convinced this map could lead to the fabled treasure. Captivated with the thrill of adventure, she joins Anh and her motley crew off in pursuit of the island. But the girls soon find that the sea―and especially those who sail it―are far more dangerous than the legends led them to believe.

• Margaret and the Mystery of the Missing Body by Megan Milks
• The Night When No One Had Sex by Kalena Miller
• Before We Were Blue by E.J. Schwartz

YA Mystery/Thrillers

To Break a Covenant by Alison Ames (Lesbian YA Thriller)

Debut voice Alison Ames delivers with a chilling, feminist thriller, perfect for fans of Wilder Girls and Sawkill Girls.

Moon Basin has been haunted for as long as anyone can remember. It started when an explosion in the mine killed sixteen people. The disaster made it impossible to live in town, with underground fires spewing ash into the sky. But life in New Basin is just as fraught. The ex-mining town relies on its haunted reputation to bring in tourists, but there’s more truth to the rumors than most are willing to admit, and the mine still has a hold on everyone who lives there.

Clem and Nina form a perfect loop―best friends forever, and perhaps something more. Their circle opens up for a strange girl named Lisey with a knack for training crows, and Piper, whose father is fascinated with the mine in a way that’s anything but ordinary. The people of New Basin start experiencing strange phenomena―sleepwalking, night terrors, voices that only they can hear. And no matter how many vans of ghost hunters roll through, nobody can get to the bottom of what’s really going on. Which is why the girls decide to enter the mine themselves.

• The Convincing Hour by Ann Roberts (F/F YA Thriller)

YA Horror

The Girls Are Never Gone by Sarah Glenn Marsh (Bisexual)

The Conjuring meets Sadie in this queer ghost story, when seventeen-year-old podcaster Dare finds herself in a life-or-death struggle against an evil spirit.

Dare Chase doesn’t believe in ghosts. But as the host of Attachments, her brand-new paranormal investigation podcast, she knows to keep her doubts to herself if she wants to win over listeners.

Her first season’s subject is the Arrington Estate—a sprawling manor rumored to be haunted by the spirit of Atheleen Bell, who drowned in its lake almost thirty years ago. Dare’s more interested in investigating the suspicious circumstances of Atheleen’s death, which she thinks point to a decades-old murder, not something supernatural.

But Arrington is full of surprises. As Dare is drawn deeper into the mysteries of the estate, she’ll have to rethink the boundaries of what is possible. Because if something is lurking in the lake…it might not be willing to let her go.

YA Fantasy

A Dark and Starless Forest by Sarah Hollowell (Bisexual)

When her siblings start to go missing, a girl must confront the dark thing that lives in the forest—and the growing darkness in herself—in this debut YA contemporary fantasy for fans of Wilder Girls.

Derry and her eight siblings live in an isolated house by the lake, separated from the rest of the world by an eerie and menacing forest. Frank, the man who raised them after their families abandoned them, says it’s for their own good. After all, the world isn’t safe for people with magic. And Derry feels safe—most of the time.

Until the night her eldest sister disappears. Jane and Derry swore to each other that they’d never go into the forest, not after their last trip ended in blood, but Derry is sure she saw Jane walk into the trees. When another sibling goes missing and Frank’s true colors start to show, feeling safe is no longer an option. Derry will risk anything to protect the family she has left. Even if that means returning to the forest that has started calling to Derry in her missing siblings’ voices.

As Derry spends more time amidst the trees, her magic grows more powerful . . . and so does the darkness inside her, the viciousness she wants to pretend doesn’t exist. But saving her siblings from the forest and from Frank might mean embracing the darkness. And that just might be the most dangerous thing of all.

Some Faraway Place (A Bright Sessions Novel) by Lauren Shippen (F/F)

Rose Atkinson’s mother can see the future. Her father can move things he doesn’t touch. Her brother Aaron can read minds. And Rose, well, she makes a mean spaghetti bolognese.

Everyone else in her family is Atypical, which means they manifested an ability that defies the limits of the human experience. At nineteen, well past the average age of manifestation, Rose is stuck defending her decision not to go to college and instead working in the kitchen of a local restaurant, hoping to gain the experience she needs to become a chef.

When a rollerblading accident sends her to the hospital, she meets a girl she can’t forget and she starts to feel like maybe her life isn’t quite so small. But when she starts falling asleep mid-conversation, she thinks, then again maybe I’m doomed to never have good things.

Rose should be happy to learn that she’s Atypical after all―that diving into dreams makes her a part of her family in the way she always wanted. But the more time she spends in the dreamworld, the more complicated her ability becomes. Trying to balance her work, her power, and a girlfriend who doesn’t know about Atypicals, Rose seeks help. But she soon discovers that being Atypical comes with dangers she never could have imagined. Even her carefully constructed dreamworld isn’t safe.

This is the story of Atypical Rose, who discovers that your dreams coming true isn’t always a good thing.

The Lost Girls by Sonia Hartl (Sapphic YA Paranormal)

Getting over Your Vampire Ex is as Easy as Killing Him and Stealing His Girlfriend

Holly Liddell has been stuck with crimped hair since 1987 when she agreed to let her boyfriend, Elton, turn her into a vampire. But when he ditches her at a gas station a few decades into their eternity together, she realizes that being young forever actually means working graveyard shifts at Taco Bell, sleeping in seedy motels, and being supernaturally compelled to follow your ex from town to town–at least until Holly meets Elton’s other exes.

It seems that Holly isn’t the only girl Elton seduced into this wretched existence. He turned Ida in 1921, then Rose in 1954, and he abandoned them both before Holly was even born. Now Rose and Ida want to kill him before he can trick another girl into eternal adolescence, and they’ll need Holly’s help to do it. And once Holly starts falling for Elton’s vulnerable new conquest, Parker, she’ll do anything to save her.

To kill Elton for good, Holly and her friends will have to dig up their pasts, rob a bank, and reconcile with the people they’ve hurt in their search for eternal love. And to win the girl, Holly will have to convince Parker that she’s more than just Elton’s crazy ex–even though she is trying to kill him.

• The Scratch Daughters (Scapegracers #2) by Hannah Abigail Clarke (Sapphic)
• Sisters of Shadow by Katherine Livesey (Sapphic)
• Witch Rising (B*WITCH #2) by Paige McKenzie & Nancy Ohlin (Sapphic)
• The Hollow Heart (Forgotten Gods #2) ​by Marie Rutkoski (Sapphic)
• The Other Merlin by Robyn Schneider (Bisexual)

YA Sci Fi

Iron Widow ​by Xiran Jay Zhao (Bisexual)

Pacific Rim meets The Handmaid’s Tale in this blend of Chinese history and mecha science fiction for YA readers.

The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn’t matter that the girls often die from the mental strain.

When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it’s to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister’s death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected—she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead.​

To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia​. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way—and stop more girls from being sacrificed.

YA Graphic Novels

Stars in Their Eyes by Jessica Walton & Aśka

Maisie has always dreamed of meeting her hero, Kara Bufano, an amputee actor who plays a kick-arse amputee character in her favourite show.

Fancon is big and exciting and exhausting.

Then she meets Ollie, a cute volunteer who she has a lot in common with.

Could this be the start of something, or will her mum, who doesn’t seem to know what boundaries are, embarrass her before she and Ollie have a chance?

Children

Middle Grade

A Touch of Ruckus by Ash Van Otterloo (Sapphic Main Character, Non-Binary Love Interest Middle Grade Fantasy)

A laugh-out-loud, ghostly Southern mystery that’s perfect for fans of Cassie Beasley and Natalie Lloyd.

Tennessee Lancaster has a hidden gift. She can pry into folks’ memories with just a touch of their belongings. It’s something she’s always kept hidden — especially from her big, chaotic family. Their lives are already chock-full of worries about Daddy’s job and Mama’s blues without Tennie rocking the boat.

But when the Lancasters move to the mountains for a fresh start, Tennie’s gift does something new. Instead of just memories, her touch releases a ghost with a terrifying message: Trouble is coming. Tennie wants to ignore it. Except her new friend Fox — scratch that, her only friend, Fox — is desperate to go ghost hunting deep in the forest. And when Tennie frees even more of the spirits, trouble is exactly what she gets… and it hits close to home. The ghosts will be heard, and now Tennie must choose between keeping secrets or naming an ugly truth that could tear her family apart.

Magic and mayhem abound in this spooky story about family legacies, first friendships, and how facing the ghosts inside can sometimes mean stirring up a little bit of ruckus.

• One Life: Young Readers Edition by Megan Rapinoe (Middle Grade Memoir)

Nonfiction

Poetry

• Passion by June Jordan (reprint)
• Gumbo Ya Ya by Aurielle Marie

General Nonfiction

• The Audacity of a Kiss: Love, Art, and Liberation by Leslie Cohen
• On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint by Maggie Nelson

Check out more LGBTQ new releases by signing up for Our Queerest Shelves, my LGBTQ book newsletter at Book Riot!

Support the Lesbrary on Patreon to get queer books in the mail throughout the year!

I follow hundreds of queer book blogs to scout out the best sapphic book news and reviews! Many of them get posted on Tumblr and Twitter as I discover them, but my favourites get saved for these link compilations. Here are some of the posts I’ve found interesting in the last few weeks.

Here are 56 LGBTQ-Owned Bookstores You Can Be Proud to Support.

Speaking of queer bookstores, Gay’s the Word bookstore has seen a lot of support from its community during the pandemic! Also, they have secret celebrity customers.

Autostraddle crowd-sourced a bookshelf of A+ queer book recommendations! (I contributed a few.)

Read some bisexual books.

These books help tweens figure out sexual orientation and gender identity.

Reads Rainbow continues with its “in the intersection” series with Latine LGBT Lit, Indigenous LGBT Lit, LGBT Lit and Faith, and Neurodiversity and Disability in LGBT Lit.

Here are some Book Rioters’ favourite new LGBTQ books.

It’s not Pride month anymore, but you should still read these Canadian LGBTQ2S+ books.

Read these queer YA comics and these middle grade LGBTQ graphic novels!

Speaking of comics, here are the best F/F superhero couples (and the only F/F superhero movie relationship).

Book Riot continues strong with the Pride posts in this post recommending queer historical fiction.

If you’re a fan of retellings, you’ll want to read these 30+ queer fairy tale retellings.

This is a beautiful reflection on Virginia Woolf’s life.

This post has the covers linked to their Amazon pages. If you click through and buy something, I might get a small referral fee. For even more links, check out the Lesbrary’s Twitter! We’re also on Facebook, Goodreads, Youtube and Tumblr.

Support the Lesbrary on Patreon at $2 or more a month and be entered to win a queer women book every month! $10 and up patrons get guaranteed books throughout the year!

I follow hundreds of queer book blogs to scout out the best sapphic book news and reviews! Many of them get posted on Tumblr and Twitter as I discover them, but my favourites get saved for these link compilations. Here are some of the posts I’ve found interesting in the last few weeks.

This Pride month, take a look back at 50+ years of LGBTQ lit with picks from every decade from 1970 to now!

Here’s a “short, selective, and incomplete” history of queer publishing, from the last 80s to now.

At Bustle, 21 LGBTQ+ authors (including Kristen Arnett, Casey McQuiston, and Sarah Gailey) talk about the books they wish they’d had as teenagers. On a similar note, The New York Times has an article about the reparative power of reading positive queer YA as an adult. (Sadly, it’s behind a paywall.)

The author of the photography book Queer Love In Color talks representation, love, & Pride month.

Your rage read of the day: Hungary has banned teaching about “homosexuality” in schools.

What would your dream queer anthology look like? Laura Sackton at Book Riot discusses the stories she’d select in her own.

Read this essay: How Audre Lorde’s Genre-Blurring Zami Spoke My Truth Into Existence.

Casey discusses 8 books about queer people dealing with cancer over at Autostraddle.

Here are 8 queer books in translation to read now.

Reads Rainbow has been doing some intersectional queer book lists, including East Asian LGBTQ lit, West Asian LGBTQ lit, Southeast Asian LGBTQ list, and South Asian LGBTQ lit. Relatedly, here are some Indian novels to read this Pride!

Do we need queerphobia for a queer identity? (Nah.) But Tor.com discusses whether there is a place for imagining a queer future in literature that still has prejudice. I do think there’s room for both utopian queer SFF/queernorm worlds as well as SFF stories with characters who fight prejudice, but I don’t think we should base our identities on others’ hatred of us.

OurShelves is a diverse, LGBTQ-inclusive children’s book subscription box.

This post has the covers linked to their Amazon pages. If you click through and buy something, I might get a small referral fee. For even more links, check out the Lesbrary’s Twitter! We’re also on Facebook, Goodreads, Youtube and Tumblr.

Support the Lesbrary on Patreon at $2 or more a month and be entered to win a queer women book every month! $10 and up patrons get guaranteed books throughout the year!

I follow hundreds of queer book blogs to scout out the best sapphic book news and reviews! Many of them get posted on Tumblr and Twitter as I discover them, but my favourites get saved for these link compilations. Here are some of the posts I’ve found interesting in the last few weeks.

The Lambda Literary Awards were announced!

It’s Pride Book Fest on YouTube! Check out 90+ queer creators talk queer books!

June 19th is the start of the Queer Blackathon! It’s a 48 hour readathon that centers queer Black books! There are some prompts, but you’re also encouraged to join in reading any queer Black books you’re interested in.

This Pride month, support queer bookstores, like these ones in the U.K.

For some heartwarming news, this community group funded 10 “Rainbow Little Free Libraries” with 500 LBGTQ children’s books!

Here’s a history of LGBTQ lit publishing, from 1980-1995.

Read some Black, African, and Caribbean LGBTQ lit!

Sapphic YA has exploded in recent years–to the point that it can be hard to find adult sapphic lit! If you’re more accustomed to YA F/F romance than the adult version, this guide to Adult sapphic romance for beginners will be useful for you.

If mysteries and thrillers are more your speed, these queer crime novels are worth reading all year round.

Buzzfeed has recommendations for 47 Science Fiction And Fantasy Novels Starring LGBTQ+ Characters, and here are more queer fantasy novels for Pride month.

And these sapphic SFF books are “spectacularly queer!”

This title speaks for itself: What To Read When You Want a Fat and Queer Summer.

This one is unfortunately behind a paywall, but it’s worth the read if you have a NYT subscription: a bisexual librarian thinks about how her and her marriage to a man would be classified under the Dewey decimal system.

Stjepan Šejić, the author of Sunstone (a BDSM F/F comic) is offering the first 6 volumes as free PDFs while he works on volume 7.

Here’s a definitive reading list on theory of queerness and work.

These are some 2021 queer YA books by authors of color you should add to your TBR!

For fans of the fake dating trope, try these queer YA fake dating romances!

If you like queer YA thrillers, take this quiz to decide which one to read next!

Here is how Pride has been depicted in kids books over the past three decades–plus a database of 700+ LGBTQ-inclusive kids’ books! Speaking of, here are the NYPL’s recommendations of picture books and board books for Pride.

Since we’re talking about queer kids’ books, here’s 11 facts about Harriet the Spy, including why it resonates with queer readers

This post has the covers linked to their Amazon pages. If you click through and buy something, I might get a small referral fee. For even more links, check out the Lesbrary’s Twitter! We’re also on Facebook, Goodreads, Youtube and Tumblr.

Support the Lesbrary on Patreon at $2 or more a month and be entered to win a queer women book every month! $10 and up patrons get guaranteed books throughout the year!

I usually do these link round ups every 2 weeks, but I fell behind for… oh, about 6 months. Here is part 3 of my catch-up on the queer women lit content worth reading on the rest of internet that came out in the last 6 months. This is all the genre-specific sapphic lit links worth clicking! Part 1 is 2021 new releases and posts about specific authors and books. Part 2 is lists, essays, and more general posts. And if you want even more bi and lesbian lit links, check out the Lesbrary Tumblr and Twitter!

First are some sapphic fantasy recommendations! Adrienne Tooley, author of Sweet & Bitter Magic, wrote about Five Sapphic Fantasies That Helped Me Find My Freedom. Rainbow Reads offered up some Lesbian Adult Fantasy recs. They also have tons of queer high fantasy recommendations. Finally, it’s never a bad time for a queer witchy read: These 24 Queer Witch Books Will Cast a Spell on You.

I missed rounding up the LGBTQ Halloween reads posts in October, but these queer horror recs are good all year. Book Riot offered some spooky queer book recommendations and Sapphic Book Club has sapphic ghosts, witches, necromancer, and other spooky book recs. This one is probably preaching to the choir, but: Carmilla Is Better Than Dracula, And Here’s Why

Looking for more LGBTQ graphic novels? Reads Rainbow has you covered. Look out for these 5 Queer Graphic Novels and Memoirs You Won’t Want to Miss in 2021. And CBR has 10 LGBTQ+ Marvel Superheroes You Didn’t Know About.

If you like yuri manga, you have to be following Okazu. They put out two informational videos worth watching about yuri: Own Voices – Are There Queer Creators Creating Yuri? and Why Is There More Boy’s Love than Yuri? Plus, check out their picks for the Top Yuri Manga of 2020. Not sure where to start? Try this beginner’s guide to modern LGBTQ+ manga.

I have a soft spot for old school lesbian cookbooks (that’s why I own The Butch Cook Book). Here’s How Lesbian Luminaries Put Together a Groundbreaking Cookbook. Continuing with nonfiction recommendations, Autostraddle has Books on Queer Sex That Answer Questions You Never Got To Ask. I loved this Book Riot post, which has lots of great complex, messy, realistic representations of being queer: 20 Must-Read Queer Essay Collections.

If you’re a reader of YA, catch up with some of the foundational titles with 9 Classics of Queer YA Literature. Here are 6 YA Books That I Needed as an Anxious Queer Teen. Check out YA Contemporary That Isn’t About Coming Out. Then try this tongue in cheek post from Book Riot: YA LGBTQ+ Book Recommendations Based on Your Attachment Style.

Here are the groups helping get LGBTQ-inclusive books into the schools that need them! Because Kids Need Queer Books. I wrote this post about 14 LGBTQ Board Books to Diversify Your Baby’s Bookshelves! For slightly older kids, there’s Children’s Books About LGBTQ+ Heroes & Events That Changed The World. And a step above that is 17 Great LGBTQ+ Middle Grade Novels You Need In Your Life and Reads Rainbow’s Book Recs for Middle Grade.

This post has the covers linked to their Amazon pages. If you click through and buy something, I might get a small referral fee. For even more links, check out the Lesbrary’s Twitter! We’re also on Facebook, Goodreads, Youtube and Tumblr.

Support the Lesbrary on Patreon at $2 or more a month and be entered to win a queer women book every month! $10 and up patrons get guaranteed books throughout the year!

I fell behind on collecting sapphic book links, so here is part of my catch-up on the queer women lit content worth reading on the rest of internet that came out in the last 6 months. This post is lists, essays, and more general posts. Part 1 is 2021 new releases and posts about specific authors and books. Stay tuned for part 3! And if you want even more bi and lesbian lit links, check out the Lesbrary Tumblr and Twitter!

If you want queer lit in the mail, check out The Best LGBTQ+ Book Subscription Boxes. (Or support the Lesbrary Patreon for exclusive email list giveaways and regular books in the mail for the $10+ levels!)

Author Niamh Murphy has compiled 11 Awesome BookTubers Who Review Lesbian and WLW Fiction, including me! For more queer lit videos, check out 11 Glorious Spoken Word Poems By Queer Poets.

Book Riot continues to knock it out of the park when it comes to queer book content, if I do say so myself. I would like this post even if it didn’t say nice things about me in the first paragraph: 20 Must-Read Contemporary Sapphic Novels.

Arsenal Pulp Press is my favourite publisher because of all their queer, Indigenous, social justice, and other diverse books! Here are 14 Queer and BIPOC Books From Arsenal Pulp Press to Read Right Now.

If you want to diversify your queer book list, 20 Must-Read Queer Books in Translation from Around the World is a must read. This post is amazing and gives me real reader envy!

Casey Stepaniuk does so much for promoting queer lit, both on her blog and Autostraddle. I know you want found family books, so start with 8 Books Featuring Big Queer Families, Found and Otherwise and follow it up with 8 Fat Positive Queer Books Featuring Queer Fat Characters in All Their Glory.

Speaking of sapphic readers’ kryptonite tropes, here are recommendations for queer Enemies to Lovers books and a Guide to Lesbian Workplace Romances. Or turn things up a notch with Books With Lesbian Sex: 38 Great Reads with Lesbian Sex.

For fairytale lovers, these are must-reads: 10 Beautiful Audiobook Fairytale Retellings For Women Who Love Women and 10 Amazing Classics and Fairytale Queer Retellings You Need to Read.

This post made me and basically every other Book Riot employee cry: Lil Nas X, Unapologetic Queerness, and the Books I Wish Upon My Past Self.

Autostraddle posted an in-depth reexamination of the Fingersmith reimagining: “The Handmaiden” Dares You to Look.

Let’s celebrate queer book history! The World’s Oldest LGBTQ Bookstore Is Still a Toronto Icon.

I love lesbian pulp! I wrote Show Your Pride With These Lesbian Pulp Decorations and Accessories! and you can also take a quiz on Autostraddle: Quiz: Which Lesbian Pulp Book Cover Are You? If you’re not familiar with it, they also have a primer: No Adam for Eve: The Quiet History of Lesbian Pulp Fiction.

One of the months I’m catching up on is February, which means there were Black History Month posts that are still worth checking out now! LGBTQ Reads and YA Pride both have a list of resources and recommendations they update every year. On Book Riot, I gathered up all the 2021 LGBTQ Books by Black Authors I could find. Here are 25 Black and Sapphic Comic Book Characters You Should Know. The Black Lesbian Literary Collective amplify Black lesbian and queer authors all year round and posted We Won’t Be Tokenized.

If you’re looking for bisexual books, here are January-June 2021 Books With Bi Protagonists. Somebody was obnoxious on twitter about bisexual people in M/F relationships not being queer, which resulted in these posts: M/F Romances Featuring Bi+ Women Whose Queer Identities and Communities are Front and Center, Queer M/F Recs , and Bi MCs and M/F Romance.

Dahlia Adler put together a recommendations list for Bi Visibility Day Casey wrote 8 Books Featuring Bi+ People in Longterm Relationships for Bi+ Week at Autostraddle. Also check out these books with BIPOC Bi MCs.

LGBTQ Reads also has a post for Lesbian Day of Visibility! And here are Reads Rainbow’s Lesbian Lit recs. Top it off with these “defiant and essential” lesbian books.

This post has the covers linked to their Amazon pages. If you click through and buy something, I might get a small referral fee. For even more links, check out the Lesbrary’s Twitter! We’re also on Facebook, Goodreads, Youtube and Tumblr.

Support the Lesbrary on Patreon at $2 or more a month and be entered to win a queer women book every month! $10 and up patrons get guaranteed books throughout the year!

If you’ve been following the Lesbrary for a while, you probably are familiar with the bi-weekly link round ups. They’re when I share all the queer sapphic stuff happening on the rest of the internet worth checking out. If you’re new here, though, you probably have no idea what I’m talking about, because I fell a little bit behind… Like 6 months behind. And because I am stubborn, I refused to just let it go. I kept saving up links for an eventual round up. I’ve finally gone through them all, though, and I’m ready to share them with you–in 3 parts! This one is 2021 new releases and posts about specific authors and books. If you want even more bi and lesbian lit links, check out the Lesbrary Tumblr and Twitter!

First off, we have all the LGBTQ+ books you should have on your radar for 2021–even though we’re well into the year now. Still, many of these have yet to be released, and the ones that have certainly haven’t gone bad since then! Check out Cosmo’s 30 New LGBTQ+ Books to Add to Your Reading List in 2021, Advocate’s 22 LGBTQ+ Books You Absolutely Need to Read This Year, and Oprah’s 42 LGBTQ Books That Will Change the Literary Landscape This Spring. For some upcoming releases, try Logo’s 17 Exciting Queer Books to Savor This Summer.

KA Doore’s 2021 Queer Adult Science Fiction & Fantasy Books list just came out, which is always a highlight for me. They find and document so many books I’ve never heard of before, plus all the bullet points that make you excited about reading a book, like “gay heist book!!! Slowburn sapphic romance!!!”

And now, all the queer 2021 YA book lists: Buzzfeed’s 30 LGBTQ+ Young Adult Books We Think You Should Read This Spring, LGBTQ Reads’s 2021 LGBTQ YA Starring People of Color, and Publisher’s Weekly’s Children’s and YA LGBTQ Books: Spring 2021–including a Afro-Latinx non-binary middle grade Choose Your Own Adventure book!!

Remember 2020? Wish I couldn’t! Still, there were some great queer books published that year that didn’t get the attention they deserved, so check out Autostraddle’s 67 of the Best Queer Books of 2020.

Did you know Simone De Beauvoir wrote a same-sex love story that wasn’t published until now?

New biographies of a few authors came out, so read about Loise Fitzhugh–the lesbian author of Harriet the Spy--on Washington Post, NY Post, New Republic, and Jezebel. Did you know she wrote a lesbian YA as her follow-up book, but the publisher wouldn’t take it and it’s been lost to time?

Also read about Patricia Highsmith, who was a terrible person but a fascinating author. Emily M. Danforth says Highsmith’s The Price of Salt has the best sex she ever read.

Read about Audre Lorde in The New Republic’s Audre Lorde Broke the Silence.

There are no authors quite like Carmen María Machado, but if you liked her books, you’ll probably enjoy these authors, too.

Adrienne Rich is a part of lesbian literary history, so read about her in The Many Lives of Adrienne Rich and The Long Awakening of Adrienne Rich, but remember that Adrienne Rich was also involved with the transphobic book The Transsexual Empire.

Do you like Sappho? Do you want to decorate your home and clothing with images of Sappho? Of course you do: Suffering Sappho! Sappho of Lesbos Decor and Accessories to Collect. (I wrote this!)

Speaking of complicated sapphic literary history: Untangling the Legacy of “The Color Purple”.

Alison Bechdel discusses the perfection of the love letters of Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West.

Tamsyn Muir had so much written about her that she gets her own section. Read this one with her about cyberpunk lesbian gunslingers. And this one about the butch lesbian sci-fi aesthetic. And this one where the author of Gideon the Ninth explains herself.

Here’s Gideon the Ninth, broken down trope by trope. Harrow the Ninth is about profound grief and terrible puns. Gideon and Harrow show the value of problematic relationships in fiction.

Can’t wait for the next book in the Locked Tomb series? Read These 10 Books Like GIDEON THE NINTH and buy these GIDEON THE NINTH Goodies for Locked Tomb Fans (I wrote this one!)

This post has the covers linked to their Amazon pages. If you click through and buy something, I might get a small referral fee. For even more links, check out the Lesbrary’s Twitter! We’re also on Facebook, Goodreads, Youtube and Tumblr.

Support the Lesbrary on Patreon at $2 or more a month and be entered to win a queer women book every month! $10 and up patrons get guaranteed books throughout the year!

I follow hundreds of queer book blogs to scout out the best sapphic book news and reviews! Many of them get posted on Tumblr and Twitter as I discover them, but my favourites get saved for these link compilations. Here are some of the posts I’ve found interesting in the last few weeks.

       

If you want to do some good in the world by getting LGBTQ picture books into pre-K to grade classrooms, support Pride and Less Prejudice! They use donations to send free age-appropriate book bundles to teachers who request them.

And for more ways to spend your money supporting queer books, LGBTQ Reads has a list of queer books available at various indie bookstores, complete with buy links! It couldn’t be easier to pick up some new to you authors while giving indie bookstores the support they need right now.

Looking to blow up your TBR pile/preorder list? Check out Sasha and Amber Read’s 2021 – The Year of Sapphic Excellency. There’s also Hsinju’s Lit Log’s 2021 Sapphic Releases from LGBTQ+ Indies for even more. If you can’t preorder all the titles you’re interested in, I recommend putting them in your Google Calendar and sending a reminder the day before. Then you can put it on hold at the library! That’s how I keep my library holds always maxed out.

       

Of course, if you want to be aware of queer books coming even further out, there’s LGBTQ Reads’s August Book Deal Announcements post, which includes books that may not be out for years.

If you’d rather check out new releases that are coming out soon, try Autostraddle’s 65 Queer and Feminist Books Coming Your Way in Fall 2020.

Now that you’ve spent all your money ordering and preordering books, you can get instant gratification with Book Riot’s 12 of the Best Queer Webcomics You Can Read For Free. I used to be a big webcomics fan, so this is reminding me that I should jump back in!

@ellelillylew

#diversebookrecs #queerbookrecs the straights have had that trope forever. It’s our turn now

♬ original sound – ellelillylew

Now I have to share the post that had me clicking the fastest: 15 TikTok Accounts That’ll Help You Dive Into LGBTQ+ Literature. I blame Pop Sugar for me now contemplating getting TikTok. No one told me there were queer book TikTokers!

YA Pride interviewed teenagers about how queer books have affected their lives at Teens Talk About LGBTQIAP+ YA. If you, like me, are over 25, you will feel old reading these. But either way, they are heartwarming, and include how some of these teens explored and discovered their identity through books.

       

Lambda Literary posted Queer Diaries Are Celebrations of a Secret History, which looks at the history of Lou Sullivan’s, Anne Lister’s, and Mary MacLane’s diaries–as well as a suggested queer diary reading list.

Reads Rainbow has a rapid-fire recommendation post of Sapphic YA Fantasy Recs, with the reasons you should read each pick.

The always-wonderful Casey wrote 8 Queer YA Novels With Coming of Age Hope to Relive Alice Wu’s “The Half of It”–and if you haven’t watched The Half of It on Netflix yet, run and do that first! I loved it. These books include: “falling in love through letter writing, figuring out your queer identity, keeping secrets, new friendships, small towns, and slowly getting to new your new girl crush.” Who can resist?

       

YA Pride’s The Path to Publication: Writing the Queer Black Girls of Cinderella Is Dead has Kalynn Bayron describe the obstacles to publishing Cinderella is Dead, including being told in writers’ groups that it wasn’t mainstream enough, while agents insisted the fairy tale retelling was overdone: “It’s not standard practice to reply to an agent at all, much less with the question, ‘How many of those reimaginings center BIPOC? And how many of them are also queer?'”

Fiona Zedde posted on Woman and Words Black LesBiQueer Books, Y’all!, highlighting some recent releases by Black queer women, including lots of romance and erotica recs!

Oprah Magazine has a list of 5 Best Audre Lorde Books to Read Right Now, because there’s never been a better time to read them. Speaking of Audre Lorde, Autostraddle’s Year of Our (Audre) Lorde continues with August’s New Spelling of My Name, which contemplates Zami and how it relates to Jehan’s own relationship with New York City.

   

The Atlantic’sThe Groundbreaking Female Artist Who Shaped Manga History, about Kuniko Tsurita, whose “Occupants” depicted a lesbian relationship, and who included gender noncomformity and queer coding in her work.

If you are a lesbian literature nerd like me, you will love this story that was posted on twitter: Resurfaced medieval tale has the most incredible queer plot twist. Explicitly queer medieval lit! With no real judgement of them!

Speaking of queer lit crit, did you know that one of the most popular board books of all time has a queer backstory? If you didn’t, you need to read Lambda Literary’s ‘Goodnight Moon’ and the Queer Love Story of the Great Green Room.

This post has the covers linked to their Amazon pages. If you click through and buy something, I might get a small referral fee. For even more links, check out the Lesbrary’s Twitter! We’re also on Facebook, Goodreads, Youtube and Tumblr.

Support the Lesbrary on Patreon at $2 or more a month and be entered to win a queer women book every month! $5 and up patrons get guaranteed books throughout the year on top of the giveaways!

I follow hundreds of queer book blogs to scout out the best sapphic book news and reviews! Many of them get posted on Tumblr and Twitter as I discover them, but my favourites get saved for these link compilations. Here are some of the posts I’ve found interesting in the last few weeks.

           

Over at Medium, Elizabeth Andre shared 79 Black Lesbian (and Bi, Queer, Trans, and Non-binary) Fiction Authors You Should Know, so there’s no excuse to not be reading Black queer books! If you’re a non-Black person, we should be reading both books that educate us about anti-Blackness as well as stories about Black joy. This list includes a lot of Romance authors, so that’s a great place to start!

Along the same lines, also check out Book Riot’s 20 Must-Read Black Authors of LGBTQ Books. I always look through these LGBTQ lists to make sure they’re not mostly m/m books, so rest assured there are lots of sapphic books to add to your TBR here.

If you’re looking for something a little more political, Electric Literature posted A Syllabus for the Uprising, which recommends books to get read for the queer Black revolution.

I’ve been mentioning this every round up, but that’s because you should be aware of Autostraddle’s Year of Our (Audre) Lorde, where Jehan reads Audre Lorde poems and connects them to what’s happening in the world right now. Last month was July Is a Black Unicorn.

Speaking of Black sapphic reads, Sometimes Leelynn Reads created The Cinderella is Dead Book Tag, so if you read and loved Cinderella is Dead and have a book blog/bookstagram account/booktuber channel, give this tag a try, and let me know what your answers are!

       

The Lesbrary New Releases posts promote sapphic books of all kinds, but sometimes you’re looking for a particular identity. For the bi+ bibliophiles, check out reads rainbow’s Book Releases: July-December 2020 Books With Bi Protagonists.

And for pan page-turners, there’s also Book Riot’s 5 Books With Pansexual Main Characters.

Of course, I’m not forgetting the literary lesbians. Here’s Audible’s Best Lesbian Listens by Queer Authors.

Audiobooks are a great way to squeeze in reading during commutes or chores or just when the world is on fire and you can’t concentrate on the page. For more recs, try Book Riot’s 15 LGBTQ YA Audiobooks to Listen to in the Second Half of 2020.

       

Casey Stepaniuk is also providing awesome queer book recommendations, and her latest is at Autostraddle: 8 Great Queer Scandinavian Books, from Tender Novels to Supernatural Horror.

If you’re already eagerly anticipating fall, Book Riot’s 12 Queer Witch Books to Bring the Magic to Your TBR would make for excellent books to stock up on before those breezy Autumn nights.

Over at Electric Literature, Jessica Xing wrote about equating her queerness with monstrousness as a young closeted person, and how pulp helped with that, in Lesbian Pulp Novels Made Me Feel Normal.

OZY wrote about Nobuko Yoshiya, the first writer of Yuri, who is an amazing historical figure more people need to know about: The Daring Feminist Writer Who Inspired Manga.

And for another historical exploration, check out ‘Paris-Lesbos’: the Vibrant Lesbian Community Where Women in the 1920s Thrived to learn about the literary lesbian salons of Paris in the 1920s, and how queer authors flourished at that particular point in history.

This post has the covers linked to their Amazon pages. If you click through and buy something, I might get a small referral fee. For even more links, check out the Lesbrary’s Twitter! We’re also on Facebook, Goodreads, Youtube and Tumblr.

Support the Lesbrary on Patreon at $2 or more a month and be entered to win a queer women book every month! $5 and up patrons get guaranteed books throughout the year on top of the giveaways!