Us bookworms are in for plenty of treats this August, from sapphic romances to dark fantasy stories. Read on to discover which queer books we're most looking forward to reading this month.
On the 6th of August, dive into queer urban fantasy Regna Born by Erick Holmberg.
Beneath the veneer of everyday life, a clandestine world thrives in the shadows, filled with powerful telepaths who call themselves adepts. These superbeings have guarded their secrets for millennia, but when a brilliant scientist, Joe Martin, maps and prepares to publish their genome in a famous medical journal, the adepts realize they can’t hide forever and further exposure to the human world threatens their existence.
Gabriel Kelly has his life turned upside down when someone murders Joe, his ex, and the race to find the genetic map begins. Gabriel, an average adept, enlists the help of his best friend Sellers, who has his own secrets, in exposing the killer and securing the map.
Gabriel finds himself caught between the human cops who think he killed Joe and don’t know about the map, and rival adepts who don’t care who killed Joe but want the map for their own ends. Will Gabriel be the key to preserving the secrecy of adept society, or will the revelation of their existence alter the course of history forever?
On the 13th, enjoy a steamy lesbian summer romance from Eule Grey with Wild Ginger in the Rhubarb.
What’s a butch to do—Follow the rules or fall in love?
The rules for ex-undercover cops are clear: No girlfriend, no sex, no snuggles—too risky for everyone concerned. After a year of spying on gangsters, tough Charlie couldn’t agree more. She doesn’t want a girlfriend or a relationship; she only needs power tools and a job in her brother’s bike shop.
Still, it’s difficult to leave the past behind. Charlie feels bad about betraying the gangster's trust. Guilt comes with the job. So what? When a gorgeous gin artist becomes a neighbour, wanting to help is natural. Fix the fridge—yeah. Sexual attraction? Nope. Girlfriend? Double nope. All that matters is following the rules: No girlfriend, no sex, no sharing. Repeat.
Rose loves summer flowers, gin, pretty clothes, and butch lesbians. Owning a cocktail shop is a dream come true, even if the responsibility is tricky for one person to bear. If only she had friends and family! A caring friend would be extremely welcome to fix the fridge and put up the shelves. It’s strange how Charlie smells of wild ginger and Rose of sweet rhubarb, like an award-winning gin.
Rose has secrets, too, about the past. She doesn’t intend to cuddle up with Charlie. It’s just that the heart wants what the heart wants. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
One thing is certain… When wild ginger gets in the rhubarb, nothing can stop it.
Also on the 13th comes an adult fantasy by K.M. Enright. Mistress of Lies features bisexual MCs, a polyamorous M/M/F relationship, and a transgender man love interest, as well as Filipino characters.
The daughter of a powerful but disgraced Blood Worker, Shan LeClaire has spent her entire life perfecting her blood magic, building her network of spies, and gathering every scrap of power she could. Now, to protect her brother, she assassinates their father and takes her place at the head of the family. And that is only the start of her revenge.
Samuel Hutchinson is a bastard with a terrible gift. When he stumbles upon the first victim of a magical serial killer, he's drawn into the world of magic and intrigue he's worked so hard to avoid – and is pulled deeply into the ravenous and bloodthirsty court of the vampire king.
Tasked by the Eternal King to discover the identity of the killer cutting a bloody swath through the city, Samuel, Shan and mysterious Royal Blood Worker Isaac find themselves growing ever closer to each other. But Shan's plans are treacherous, and as she lures Samuel into her complicated web of desire, treason and vengeance, he must decide if the good of their nation is worth the cost of his soul.
Helen Pryke's A Whisper Of Magic releases on the 14th, promising magical realism with an ace protagonist.
Somewhere beyond the veil, between our world and other realms, is the Shallows, a lonely, barren place from which few return. What more lies beyond a legend lost to the mists of time?
“That moment you let go of everything you believe is true, is when you will go beyond this world and step into the other realms.” When Ria reads these words in her grandmother's Book of Shadows, she has no idea that she is about to be immersed in the world of Tarot, magic, and witchcraft.
Desperate to find her two sisters and fulfill the final part of an ancient legend, Ria must trust the cards and set out on the search for her sisters, who were lost years before when they entered the Shallows.
But someone is determined to stop her. Someone who wants to bring chaos and destruction to all the worlds. Someone who wants to destroy the symbiosis between nature and the beings that inhabit the realms.
As the veil thins, Ria must find her sisters before it’s too late. If the veil is broken, the worlds will never be the same again.
Ria has her friends… and magic. Will it be enough?
The Scales of Seduction by Rien Gray is released on the 15th. This mythical Ancient Greek erotic romance includes a butch trans lesbian protagonist, a cis femme lesbian love interest, and transfemme side characters.
Seeking to change her body, Petra Kruos, a mercenary and the last living Basilisk, strikes a deal with the goddess Cybele in exchange for recovering Perseus’ divine armaments from his grave.
The hero’s corpse rests within the lair of the legendary Medusa, who lives in exile surrounded by a vicious and deadly gauntlet. Surviving to reach the gorgon is perilous enough, but the potent lure of a fellow serpent threatens to undo everything Petra holds dear.
The Scales of Seduction is a F/F erotic romance novella between a butch trans woman and a feral cis femme, focused on lesbian desire and reclaiming the flesh from those who would destroy it.
Get ready for Katherine Blakeman's new novel on the 24th! A Different Kind Of Pride is a contemporary sapphic romance with asexual, lesbian, and questioning rep.
Victoria Berry is known in the Cornish village of Miltree for being cold. As headteacher of the local primary school, she conducts her career with the same iron fist with which she controls the rest of her life. She’s perfectly content how she is: single, stony and intimidating. But what she doesn’t realise is that this can’t last forever.
Anastasia Savchenko is not known in the village of Miltree at all. She’s only been there for a year, having left her nursing career post-burnout in order to take over the village florist. Her head full of the business of flowers, she hasn’t even had time to make friends. And even if she had, the least likely person would be her next-door-neighbour, Scary Miss Berry.
A catastrophic car accident forces Anastasia and Victoria together, and before they know it, their relationship goes from complete strangers to carer and charge. But what they don’t realise is that as Victoria recovers, their relationship may run deeper than either of them bargained for…
Sapphic YA romance A Bánh Mì for Two by Trinity Nguyen releases on the 27th.
In this sweet sapphic romance about two foodies in love, Vivi meets Lan while studying abroad in Vietnam and they spend the semester unraveling their families' histories—and eating all the street food in Sài Gòn.
In Sài Gòn, Lan is always trying to be the perfect daughter, dependable and willing to care for her widowed mother and their bánh mì stall. Her secret passion, however, is A Bánh Mì for Two, the food blog she started with her father, but has stopped updating since his passing.
Meanwhile, Vietnamese American Vivi Huynh, has never been to Việt Nam. Her parents rarely even talk about the homeland that clearly haunts them. So Vivi secretly goes to Vietnam for a study abroad program her freshman year of college. She’s determined to figure out why her parents left, and to try everything she’s seen on her favorite food blog, A Bánh Mì for Two.
When Vivi and Lan meet in Sài Gòn, they strike a deal. Lan will show Vivi around the city, helping her piece together her mother’s story through crumbling photographs and old memories. Vivi will help Lan start writing again so she can enter a food blogging contest. And slowly, as they explore the city and their pasts, Vivi and Lan fall in love.
We can't wait to read YA horror Come Out, Come Out by Natalie C. Parker on the 27th!
A spine-tingling LGBTQIA+ YA horror about queer teens who accidentally invoke a twisted spirit who promises help but delivers something sinister. Perfect for fans of Kayla Cottingham, Andrew Joseph Smith, and Aiden Thomas.
It's never been safe for Fern, Jaq, or Mallory to come out to their families. As kids their emerging identities drove them into friendship but also forced them into the woods to hide in an old, abandoned house when they needed safety. But one night when the girls sought refuge, Mallory never made it back home. Fern and Jaq did, but neither survivor remembered what happened or the secrets they were so desperate to keep.
Five years later, Fern and Jaq are seniors on the verge of graduation, seemingly happy in their straight, cisgender lives—until a spirit who looks like Mallory begins to appear, seeking revenge for her death, and the part Fern and Jaq played in it. As they’re haunted, something begins to shift inside them. They remember who they are. Who they want to love. And the truth about the vicious secrets hiding in their woods.
This delightfully dark and pointed novel calls out the systems that erase gay and queer and trans identity, giving space to embrace queerness and to unleash the power of friendship and found family against the real monsters in the world.
Also on the 27th, read lesbian romance Hers for the Weekend by Helena Greer.
The relationship is a lie but the sparks are real in this laugh-out-loud, sparkling rom-com where a no-nonsense lawyer fakes a relationship with her barista to avoid going solo to her ex-girlfriend's wedding.
No-nonsense lawyer Tara Sloane Chadwick is perfectly fine with going to her ex’s wedding—the break-up was congenial, and Tara is nothing if not well-mannered. But after one too many reminders of her dismal dating track, Tara panics when asked if she'll need a plus-one and declares she's bringing her new girlfriend. One Tara is seriously single. Thankfully, Holly, the waitress she's been crushing on, happily offers to be her fake date . . .
Only Holly's offer isn't quite selfless—she's been lusting over Tara for ages, but Tara only dates women she can marry. And Holly has no interest in settling down with anyone or in any one place. A temporary arrangement is the perfect Holly and Tara can enjoy a no-strings fling for the wedding and part ways after. However, between sharing kisses and hotel beds and cuddling under the mistletoe, Tara begins to dream of a life with Holly in Charleston . . . just as Holly starts wishing she could travel with Tara by her side. Soon, neither can see a future without the other, but can they find a path forward where they both can thrive?
Prefer graphic novels? Full Shift by Jennifer Dugan and Kit Seaton is out on the 27th and features a sapphic supernatural YA story.
In this queer, supernatural YA graphic novel from the author of Some Girls Do and the illustrator of Wonder Warbringer, a reluctant teen werewolf would do anything to be human—if that's what it takes to win her crush's heart.High school senior Tessa doesn't fit in anywhere. Not at school, where she can't figure out how to confess the feelings she's had for her best friend Maddie since the fourth grade. And definitely not at home, where the rest of her family of werewolves make her feel like an outcast because she can't even shift into her full wolf form yet. Sometimes she thinks her whole life would be easier if she was normal, like Maddie and everyone else at school.When word gets out that a group of werewolf hunters has infiltrated her pack's territory, and that they've developed a treatment that can make werewolves become human, Tessa thinks she's found the answer to her problems. But when it turns out there might be more to the hunters' plans than anyone knows, it's up to Tessa to put herself on the line to protect the lives of those she loves the most.
August 29th is a special day for us: Kindling by Bonnie Woods, AKA our co-host Rach, releases. It promises an autumnal steamy romance with a bi, plus-size MC!
Sparks will fly, even without firewood…When city-girl Harper arrives in the Caledonian Forest in Scotland, her hopes for her holiday are quickly dashed. She’d planned a whimsical, autumnal writing retreat, to finish her novel. But ghosted by her scammer rental host, she discovers that the cosy log cabin she’d booked for her solo getaway does not actually exist. Miles away from any hotel, she wanders through the woods until she finds the hot local woodcutter Fraser.
The last thing Fraser needs right now is a pretty girl distracting him, but he can’t leave Harper stranded. So he reluctantly allows Harper to stay in his tiny lumberjack’s cabin for the night. He will sleep at his house outside the forest, then return tomorrow to turf Harper out so he can get back to his strenuous task of splitting logs for the locals’ firewood.
But once Harper sees Fraser's axe swing, she is determined to cut through his gruff exterior. She has a feeling this man might be the perfect cure for her writer’s block.
Fraser can’t help inviting Harper to extend her one-night stay to two, then three, then four. And with every tree he fells, he's starting to wonder if he's falling harder.
This spicy autumnal romance features a HEA ending with BookTok's hottest lumberjack love interest.
A.L. Davidson's paranormal romance, He Hears Death, releases on the 30th and features a gay couple with a character who is hard of hearing.
He Hears Death tells the morbid tale of an embalmer who can no longer hear the world as it is, but as Death does. Cursed with the ability to hear the voices of the deceased who linger in his quiet hometown, The Fool finds himself struggling to hold onto his sanity. Reeling from the murder of his Lover four years prior, he spends his days fixing up the dead and the nights sewing up his own damaged soul amidst the anxiety and loneliness in his life. His only safe haven is his apartment - the place where his Lover's spirit still lingers - but the trek home each night is a dangerous one indeed...
A violent, malicious entity stalks the halls of the high-rise, and every time The Fool steps through his doorway he risks it being his last. Wrestling with his future, his desire for reunion, and his spiraling anxiety, The Fool's story is one of grief, loneliness, and lost love. His near-obsessive romance with the literal ghost of his past grows ever stronger as his inability to move on throttles his will to live until all hell breaks loose. When an unforeseen crisis hits the neighboring city, The Fool finds himself trapped within the confines of The Tower, forcing him to face not only the hell-bent monstrosity in the hall and Death's presence in the shadows, but the finality of life as he knew it.
Also on our radar
This Ravenous Fate by Hayley Dennings, out on the 6th | historical sapphic fantasy
Through the Midnight Door by Katrina Monroe, out on the 13th | gothic thriller
Take Her On by Emily Wright, out on the 14th | sapphic romance
Nightstrider by Sophia Slade, out on the 17th | dark fantasy with a bi FMC
Don't Let it Break Your Heart by Maggie Horne, out on the 27th | YA | lesbian/sapphic romance
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