Pride Month Fiction
New and featured LGBTQIA+ fiction titles you'll want to read this Pride Month. Includes titles recommended by GPPL staff.
Arden High. Book 1, Twelfth grade night
Booth, Molly, author
2022
New student Vi finds herself falling for Orsino, even though he wants Vi's help asking Olivia to the school dance.
Back in a spell
Harper, Lana, author
2023
"An awkward first date leads to a sparkling romance between one of the most powerful witches in town and a magical newbie Even though she won't deny her love for pretty (and pricey) things, Nineve Blackmoore is almost painfully down-to-earth and sensible by Blackmoore standards. But after a year of nursing a broken heart inflicted by the fiancée who all but ditched her at the altar, the powerful witch is sick of feeling down and ready to try something drastically different: a dating app. At her best friend Jessa's urging, she goes on a date with Morty Gutierrez, the nonbinary, offbeat soul of spontaneity and owner of the Shamrock Cauldron. Their date goes about as well as can be expected: awkward and terrible. To make matters worse, once Morty discovers Nina's last name, he's far from a fan; it turns out that the Blackmoores have been bullishly trying to buy the Shamrock out from under Morty and his family. But when Morty begins developing magical powers--something that usually only happens to committed romantic partners once they officially join a founding family--at the same time as Nina's own magic surges beyond her control, Nina must manage Morty's rude awakening to the hidden magical world, uncover its cause, and face the intensity of their own burgeoning connection"-- Provided by publisher.
The celebrants : a novel
Rowley, Steven, 1971- author
2023
It's been twenty-eight years since their graduation and 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. Over the years they've reunited - but this reunion is different. A deeply honest tribute to the growing pains of selfhood and the people who keep us going, this is a moving tale about the false invincibility of youth, and the beautiful ways in which friendship helps us celebrate our lives, even amid the deepest challenges of living.
A day of fallen night
Shannon, Samantha, 1991- author
2023
For fifty years, Tunuva Melim, sister of the Priory, has trained to slay wyrms. Sabran the Ambitious has married the new King of Hróth, narrowly saving both realms from ruin. Their daughter, Glorian, trails in their shadow. Dumai has spent her life in a Seiikinese mountain temple, trying to wake the gods from their long slumber. When the Dreadmount erupts, bringing with it an age of terror and violence, these women must find the strength to protect humankind from a devastating threat.
Endpapers : a novel
Kelly, Jennifer Savran, 1974, author
2023
It's 2003, bookbinder Dawn Levit feels - wrong. Wherever she turns, her gender identity clashes with the rest of her life. One day at work, Dawn finds the cover of a '50s lesbian pulp novel. On the front is a campy illustration of a woman looking into a handheld mirror and seeing a man's face. And on the back is a love letter. As Dawn searches for the letter's author, she tries to understand how to live in a world that doesn't see her as she truly is, how to get unstuck in her gender and she can't shake the feeling that the note's author might be able to help guide her to the answers.
Flux : a novel
Chong, Jinwoo, author.
2023
Four days before Christmas, 8-year-old Bo loses his mother in a tragic accident, 28-year-old Brandon loses his job after a hostile takeover of his big-media employer, and 48-year-old Blue, a key witness in a criminal trial against an infamous now-defunct tech startup, struggles to reconnect with his family. A blend of neo-noir and speculative fiction as the lives of Bo, Brandon, and Blue begin to intersect, uncovering a vast network of secrets and an experimental technology that threatens to upend life itself.
Grandmaster of demonic cultivation. 1
Moxiangtongxiu, author
2021
Wei Wuxian was once one of the most outstanding men of his generation, a talented and clever young cultivator who harnessed martial arts, knowledge, and spirituality into powerful abilities. But when the horrors of war led him to seek a new power through demonic cultivation, the world's respect for his skills turned to fear, and his eventual death was celebrated throughout the land. Years later, he awakens in the body of an aggrieved young man who sacrifices his soul so that Wei Wuxian can exact revenge on his behalf. Though granted a second life, Wei Wuxian is not free from his first, nor the mysteries that appear before him now. Yet this time, he'll face it all with the righteous and esteemed Lan Wangji at his side, another powerful cultivator whose unwavering dedication and shared memories of their past will help shine a light on the dark truths that surround them.
In the lives of puppets
Klune, TJ, author
2023
In a strange little home 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. 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. When Gio is captured and taken back to his old laboratory, the rest of Vic's assembled family must journey across an unforgiving and otherworldly country to rescue Gio from decommission, or worse, reprogramming.
The late Americans
Taylor, Brandon (Brandon L. G.), author.
2023
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. At the group's centre are Ivan, Fatima, and Noah who are buffeted by a cast of poets, artists, landlords, meat-packing workers, and mathematicians who populate the cafes, classrooms, and food-service kitchens of Iowa City. As each prepares for an uncertain future, the group heads to a cabin to bid goodbye to their former lives - a moment of reckoning that leaves each of them irrevocably altered.
The librarian of burned books : a novel
Labuskes, Brianna, author
2023
"For fans of The Rose Code and The Paris Library, The Librarian of Burned Books is a captivating WWII-era novel about the intertwined fates of three women who believe in the power of books to triumph over the very darkest moments of war" - amazon.ca.
She is a haunting
Tran, Trang Thanh, author
2023
Seventeen-year-old bisexual Jade Nguyrn is spending the summer in Vietnam at the French colonial house her estranged father is fixing up as a vacation rental, but unbeknownst to her family, the house and its ghosts have other plans.
The skin and its girl : a novel
Cypher, Sarah, author
2023
In a Pacific Northwest hospital far from the Rummani family's ancestral home in Palestine, the heart of a stillborn baby begins to beat and her skin turns a vibrant, permanent cobalt blue. The family matriarch and keeper of all Rummani lore, Aunt Nuha, believes that the blue girl embodies their sacred history, harkening to a time when the Rummanis were among the wealthiest soap-makers and their blue soap was a symbol of a legendary love. Decades later, Betty is faced with a difficult decision, but will find her answers in partially translated notebooks that reveal her aunt's complex life.
Something wild & wonderful
Kelly, Anita (Romance author), author.
2023
"When Alexei Lebedev finally comes out to his conservative community, it does not go well. That's how he ended up on the rugged Pacific Crest Trail, hoping he can figure out a new life plan in the thousands of miles it'll take to walk the famed hike. He's prepared for rattlesnakes, blisters, and months of solitude. What he's not prepared for is the ray of sunshine named Ben Caravalho. Charismatic and outgoing, Ben's personality and infectious laughter is a stark opposite to Alexei's quiet, reserved demeanor. But no matter how determined Alexei is to hike the trail alone, it seems he and Ben can't avoid being drawn to each other. Through snow crossings and close calls with coyotes, Alexei inches closer to letting Ben in. As Alexei learns of Ben's loving family and supportive friends, he begins to get a taste of what found family and belonging could truly feel like. But just as Alexei starts to let down his defenses, a sudden change in plans reawakens his fears-and he must discover if he has the courage to face something even scarier than the trail less traveled: letting himself fall in love"-- Provided by publisher.
To Shape a Dragon's Breath : The First Book of Nampeshiweisit.
Blackgoose, Moniquill.
2023
A young Indigenous woman enters a colonizer-run dragon academy and quickly finds herself at odds with the approved way of doing things in the first book of this brilliant new fantasy series. 'To Shape a Dragon's Breath' is set in an alternate 1842 New England, in which America was colonized by the Vikings and not the Europeans. Moniquill Blackgoose is an enrolled member of the Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe, and a lineal descendant of Ousamequin Massasoit.
The wicked bargain
Novoa, Gabe Cole, author.
2023
On Mar Leon de la Rosa's sixteenth birthday, el Diablo comes calling. Mar is a transmasculine nonbinary teen pirate hiding a magical ability to manipulate fire and ice. But their magic isn't enough to reverse a wicked bargain made by their father, and now el Diablo has come to collect his payment: the soul of Mar's father and the entire crew of their ship. When Mar is miraculously rescued by the sole remaining pirate crew in the Caribbean, el Diablo returns to give them a choice: give up their soul to save their father by the harvest moon, or never see him again.