I’m usually a romance and sci-fi gal, but over the last hew years I’ve been working to broaden my reading. So here’s a roundup of some of my fave non-genre fiction about queer folks, heavily weighted towards work by queer authors, that I’ve been super-impressed by in the last few years. (Disclosure: Amazon links are affiliate links.)
Any book on this list I loved at the time I read it, whether I had a chance to write a review or not. (And sometimes I get really behind at writing reviews!) Obviously a re-read years later might reveal a problematic aspect I didn’t pick up on back then. Please let me know via my contact form if you find something yikes in a book I recommend.
Bind You Mine by Poppy Dale (Amazon / Goodreads)
The blurb starts like this: “Anna landed in London with a suitcase, dual citizenship, and a pale strip of skin on her left ring finger. Oh, and a shiny new autism diagnosis that has both made sense of and shaken her entire world.” So that’s a big change. We meet Anna as she’s been in London for a while, but finally has to start (re)building a life and a nurturing community for herself. Along the way, there’s also a lovely sapphic romance subplot.
It’s one of those books where the main character and the people around them are just so *nice*, and you enjoy seeing them bond, open up to each other, and find ways to get what they need.
Stars Still Fall by Jules Kelley (Amazon / Goodreads)
Gorgeous, as always from Jules Kelley. I loved the small-town setting that feels so real, I loved how healing and hope find a way to sneak into the main character’s life even with so much pain and grief, and I loved how both Lilly Ann and Jolene found people who could truly see them.
“1995. A young woman. Her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend. The small Alabama town neither of them can escape. And a ghost.
Lilly Ann Guthrie is living with a man she isn’t married to; she can’t hold down a job, and she can’t sit in a moving vehicle without having a panic attack. It isn’t the life she once imagined for herself, but she can’t complain. She has a roof over her head and food on her table, and she doesn’t owe either of those things to her only living relative, an aunt whose disdain almost makes her wish she’d died in the same car wreck that claimed her brother and parents. So it could be worse.
But in late summer, life decides it has other ideas. Her boyfriend’s infamous ex, Jolene, comes back to town and turns everything on its ear, including Lilly’s ability to be satisfied by her current circumstances, and strange things start happening around her house. Voices in empty rooms, fleeting glimpses of someone in her peripheral vision. Is she on the verge of losing everything, including her mind, or is she standing on the precipice of having even her most secret wishes granted?”
Retirement Plan by Martha Miller (Amazon / Goodreads)
Darkly humorous (at times) crime fiction about a retired lesbian couple in dire financial straits who turn to contract killing, and the detective who’s trying to solve the murders while being responsible for her elderly mother who’s in decline. I really enjoyed this, and I thought it had a lot to say about society, coming out, and family.
“What do you do when you fall through the loopholes in the system and all you have to rely on are your own wits?
Lois and Sophie have scrambled and saved for years, planning for their retirement in Florida. But now they’ve lost it all, and Lois’s sniper training from her long-ago service as an Army nurse leads to a desperate career choice.
When Detective Morgan Holiday is assigned to investigate a spate of sniper killings, it’s just one more stress point in her already overburdened life. But as she grows increasingly solitary - coping with an Alzheimer’s-plagued mother who refuses to be confined to a nursing home, and a police partner counting the days to retirement – she comes to realize that these murders may cut close to home.
A modern morality tale of justice, retribution, and women who refuse to be politely invisible.”
Doubting Thomas by Matthew Clark Davison (Amazon / Goodreads)
I loved this queer litfic book so much that I appear to have purchased it twice from the publisher after reading it from the library. The premise is that Thomas, a middle-aged gay male elementary school teacher at a private school in Portland that congratulates itself on being progressive, is accused of child sexual abuse by a parent. He is 100% innocent, but even though he’s cleared, he is pushed out of his job. While this is the plot/catalyst, the book is maybe even moreso a character study of Thomas as this and other crises in his personal life and family effectively shake his whole life to pieces, externally and internally, and he has to rebuild. That involves asking himself a lot of difficult questions about his experience as a gay man, and his relationship to queer communities.
I first read this on my tablet in an app that strains my eyes, and I was still so drawn in that I read most of it in one evening and polished it off the next morning. Highly recommended.
The Right Thing To Do At The Time by Dov Zeller (Amazon / Goodreads)
A queer Jewish New York City retelling of Pride and Prejudice centered around 20-something trans guy Ari Wexler and his best friend, cis dude Itche Mattes. It’s a book about love of so many different kinds: friendship, romantic love, familial love. On one level it’s a romantic comedy, but it’s deeper than I usually expect those to be, kind towards every member of its large cast, and full of a sense of wonder at the world and humanity. Despite all the interpersonal drama, it has a very relaxed feel; you know everything really will be okay in the end. I really enjoyed reading it despite having zero knowledge of Pride and Prejudice.
The Cash Braddock series by Ashley Bartlett (Amazon / Goodreads)
As the cover of the first book says of our lesbian anti-hero, “Cash Braddock just wants to hang out with her cat, fall in love, and deal drugs. What’s the problem with that?” I’m going to struggle to rec this without spoiling, but I can say this: Cash does fall in love, with the woman of her dreams, and that’s what just about ruins her life. I don’t know quite how to classify this series, but it’s well worth your time.
Cash isn’t be a particularly moral person, but she has her own code. The money laundered from Cash’s dealing of various “light” pills (Adderall, Xanax, etc.) subsidizes her beloved uncle’s growing organic farm and pays college tuition for her assistant. She’s close friends with her neighbor and the neighbor’s awesome lesbian daughter. She’s a nice person. If you ignore the illegal business. When she meets Laurel, she’s smitten, and Laurel is smitten back. Cash worries that Laurel will eventually decide dating a drug dealer isn’t for her. However, as their relationship develops, it starts to seem like Laurel’s the one holding back a secret that will break them up.
The first two books of the series revolve around investigations into problems related to Cash’s business. They’re suspenseful in parts, emotionally raw where it fits – especially at the end of the first book, ow! – but by the end of the second book I felt okay again about Cash’s life and even hopeful for her. I loved the importance of friendships here, especially female friendships, and how messy and painful Bartlett was willing to make things for Cash to create conditions for her to grow.
(As a side note, this is a small thing in book two but so emotional: I appreciated the spotlight on how men sometimes don’t believe women about other men’s violence, and how brutal that is for women.)
The third and fourth books were great, and honestly I think this is one of the most underrated queer series out there.
Handmade Holidays by ‘Nathan Burgoine (Amazon / Goodreads)
Comforting, cozy holiday novella about the evolution of a queer found/chosen family, and it ends in a romantic HEA as well. Burgoine is one of my auto-buy authors, and this only reinforced that status.
“At nineteen, Nick is alone for the holidays and facing reality: this is how it will be from now on. Refusing to give up completely, Nick buys a Christmas tree, and then realizes he has no ornaments. A bare tree and an empty apartment aren’t a great start, but a visit from his friend Haruto is just the ticket to get him through this first, worst, Christmas. A box of candy canes and a hastily folded paper crane might not be the best ornaments, but it’s a place to start.
A year later, Nick has realized he’s not the only one with nowhere to go, and he hosts his first “Christmas for the Misfit Toys.” Haruto brings Nick an ornament for Nick’s tree, and a tradition—and a new family—is born.
As years go by, Nick, Haruto, and their friends face love, betrayal, life, and death. Every ornament on Nick’s tree is another year, another story, and another chance at the one thing Nick has wanted since the start: someone who’d share more than the holidays with him.”
Of course, Nick might have already missed his shot at the one, and it might be too late. Still, after fifteen Christmases, Nick is ready to risk it all for the best present yet.”
Probation by Tom Mendicino (Amazon / Goodreads)
One of the messiest, most painful, ultimately hopeful books I’ve read. Andy Nocera is a gay man married to a woman. When he’s arrested for public indecency after truck stop sex with a man, he loses his wife, his home, and his job, and is sentenced to probation that includes a year of therapy. Socially isolated, living with his dying mother, it’s tough to see how anything in his life will ever get better. But it does. Not with a sudden light bulb moment, not with sustained optimism and hard work, but through a series of small changes, painful revelations in therapy, and finally at least some degree of self-acceptance.
An unflinching look at the damage homophobia and toxic masculinity inflict on men, but intensely compassionate towards its main character and his healing.
The Cranberry Hush by Ben Monopoli (Amazon / Goodreads)
Two mid-twenties guys who graduated from college but can’t seem to figure out adulthood. Not usually my cup of tea, but Ben Monopoli knows how to break my heart in a good way. Vince, who is bi, had an unrequited crush on his straight best friend Griff that was so painful, he ended their friendship before graduation without explanation. When Griff shows up unexpectedly at Vince’s house during a snowstorm, Vince can’t help but hope (against logic!) that it means more than Griff needing a place to stay. But if anything, Griff’s more lost than Vince, since inheriting money means he doesn’t even need a job to help tether him to reality.
As the two spend time together, and with Vince’s other crush Zane, Vince has to figure out how to untangle his grief and his various kinds of love for the two men in his life. IMHO this is the antithesis of the gay-for-you trope in romance novels, and it honors lifelong love that is not romantic or sexual as well as the difficulty of having people in your life in a way that doesn’t match society’s script for how love and family should be organized. Sometimes hard to read, but well worth it.
The Very Nice Box by Laura Blackett and Eve Gleichman (Amazon / Goodreads)
Satirical send up of woo-woo corporate culture mixed with a deeply personal story of grief and learning to trust again mixed with harsh commentary on toxic masculinity, and it’s also a thriller. I was so drawn to Ava and her carefully ordered world, and I could really understand why Mat being so different from her was part of what cracked some of her defensive shell. Wonderful book.
“Ava Simon designs storage boxes for STÄDA, a slick Brooklyn-based furniture company. She’s hard-working, obsessive, and heartbroken from a tragedy that killed her girlfriend and upended her life. It’s been years since she’s let anyone in.
But when Ava’s new boss — the young and magnetic Mat Putnam — offers Ava a ride home one afternoon, an unlikely relationship blossoms. Ava remembers how rewarding it can be to open up—and, despite her instincts, she becomes enamored. But Mat isn’t who he claims to be, and the romance takes a sharp turn.
The Very Nice Box is a funny, suspenseful debut—with a shocking twist. It’s at once a send-up of male entitlement and a big-hearted account of grief, friendship, and trust.”
Marriage of a Thousand Lies by S.J. Sindu (Amazon / Goodreads)
Not an easy read, but I loved this novel about a Sri Lankan-American lesbian, Lucky, who’s in a sham marriage to a gay man. Lucky reconnects with her first lover, Nisha, right as Nisha’s about to get not-sham married to a man so she can continue pretending to be heterosexual. Lucky doesn’t want Nisha to get married, while Nisha wants Lucky but also safety…
The ending is bittersweet but left me feeling good about where Lucky was headed. Really powerful book that stayed in my thoughts for quite some time after the last page.
I also appreciated Suchi’s review on Goodreads.
Little Fish by Casey Plett (Amazon / Goodreads)
Gorgeously raw while still being deliberately and beautifully crafted. I really believe for cis folks (such as myself) this is so worth sitting down with and letting yourself feel it and reflect on it. In addition to just enjoying the heck out of a good novel! There’s a reason this book has won multiple literary awards.
“Wendy Reimer is a thirty-year-old trans woman who comes across evidence that her late grandfather–a devout Mennonite farmer–might have been transgender himself. At first she dismisses this revelation, having other problems at hand, but as she and her friends struggle to cope with the challenges of their increasingly volatile lives–from alcoholism, to sex work, to suicide–Wendy is drawn to the lost pieces of her grandfather’s life, becoming determined to unravel the mystery of his truth. Alternately warm-hearted and dark-spirited, desperate and mirthful, Little Fish explores the winter of discontent in the life of one transgender woman as her past and future become irrevocably entwined.”
Reviews I thought were helpful: this review by never and this review by Max, both on Goodreads.
Plett’s next book, the short story collection A Dream of A Woman, was so amazing that I had to take breaks several times to let what I’d read so far sink in. Casey Plett is so unbelievably talented. Not an easy read, because the various characters go through *so* much, but I was blown away by this book. I can’t wait to see what she publishes next.
Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir by Kai Cheng Thom (Amazon / Goodreads)
This book is fantastic. A magical realism pseudo-memoir that’s nonetheless a true story. I thought Casey the Canadian Lesbrarian’s review of it was quite good.
“The highly sensational, ultra-exciting, sort-of true coming-of-age story of a young Asian trans girl, pathological liar, and kung-fu expert who runs away from her parents’ abusive home in a rainy city called Gloom. Striking off on her own, she finds her true family in a group of larger-than-life trans femmes who live in a mysterious pleasure district known only as the Street of Miracles. Under the wings of this fierce and fabulous flock, Dearly blossoms into the woman she has always dreamed of being, with a little help from the unscrupulous Doctor Crocodile. When one of their number is brutally murdered, the protagonist joins her sisters in forming a vigilante gang to fight back against the transphobes, violent johns, and cops that stalk the Street of Miracles. But when things go terribly wrong, she must find the truth within herself in order to stop the violence and discover what it really means to grow up and find your family.”
Invert by Clinton W. Waters (Amazon / Goodreads)
I was completely engrossed by this historical dystopian noir that revolves around police entrapment of queer people and conversion therapy. Highly recommended if you’re in a place where the subject matter works for you, especially if you’re a fan of alternate histories, interpersonal intrigue, and main characters who are doing the best they can to maintain a life under an oppressive system. Waters is a talented writer and I’ll be digging into more of their work, for sure.
“In an alternative history 1950s, where atomic war was waged on the US during World War II, birth rates are dangerously low. As a result, The Department of Virtue was founded to ensure that not only are people procreating, but they’re doing it the right way. The Virtuous Family is a ubiquitous reminder of all that Americans should strive to be.
Greer’s life is ruled by the DOV. An invert reformed in one of the nation’s many Sanctuaries, he is employed as a “Screw” (Sex Crime Worker). It’s his job to entrap other men into making advances so they can be arrested and similarly “reformed”. His wife, Alice, is a cured invert as well, prescribed by the state and ordered to attempt procreation. By chance, they have met another invert couple, Bill and Sally. Their romance must remain a secret, or else they may not be given another chance. For Greer, there are eyes in every window and shadows down every side street waiting to catch him slip.
When Greer is assigned Matthews as a new partner, he has to wonder if this man is a plant, meant to keep an eye on him, or if this new Screw is just another victim of Virtue.”
Knots by Myles McDonough (Amazon / Goodreads)
“The 29th Amendment guarantees everybody one monogamous romantic and sexual partner. As a detective with the Boston Police Department’s Intimacy Allocation Unit, Sean hunts down the hoarders who violate this law.
Sean likes his job. It’s the perfect cover.
But when Sean gets invited to an underground play party, his safe, simple life becomes…complicated. Every hour he spends with these outlaws, leading their life — the life he could have had — makes them seem less like targets, and more like people.
His people.
With career — and life — on the line, Sean must decide whether his loyalties lie with his job, his friends, and his old way of doing things — or with a group of complete strangers who somehow feel like family.”
Proud Pink Sky by Redfern Jon Barrett (Buy direct from Bywater Books / Amazon / Goodreads)
Fantastic alt-history queer speculative fiction by a nobinary author. The alternate history here is that Berlin became the world’s first (and so far only) gay state near the end of World War II. Barrett digs into the utopia/dystopia it’s become. Berlin is only a paradise if you’re the right kind of queer, though those who don’t fit find ways to create community and also to resist the government – which is basically respectability politics incarnated into a bureaucracy.
Really loved this and I look forward to Barrett’s next book.
Future Fish by Conor Sneyd (Amazon / Goodreads)
Fun light entertainment with a big heart! Mark McGuire lost his job and ends up answering customer service emails at a pet food company in the greyest small town in Ireland. The CEO is kinda weird, but the cute receptionist seems to be flirting with him, so maybe that’s good? Unfortunately the company’s new top-secret product becomes the subject of a YouTuber’s alien conspiracy theory… and then things get even more complicated.
Part hapless office dude comedy, part caper/heist, part finding your place in the world. I don’t even remember how I found this book, but I’m so glad I did, and I’ll be looking for more from Sneyd.
The Space Ace of Mangleby Flat by Larre Bildeston (Amazon / Goodreads)
This ace novel with a romance subplot is a difficult read at times, but I found it so rewarding. CW: on-page suicide attempt by one character.
“On paper, things look fine. Sam Dennon recently inherited significant wealth from his uncle. As a respected architect, Sam spends his days thinking about the family needs and rich lives of his clients. But privately? Even his enduring love of amateur astronomy is on the wane. Sam has built a sustainable-architecture display home for himself but hasn’t yet moved into it, preferring to sleep in his cocoon of a campervan. Although they never announced it publicly, Sam’s wife and business partner ended their marriage years ago due to lack of intimacy, leaving Sam with the sense he is irreparably broken.
Now his beloved uncle has died. An intensifying fear manifests as health anxiety, with night terrors from a half-remembered early childhood event. To assuage the loneliness, Sam embarks on a Personal Happiness Project:
1. Get a pet dog
2. Find a friend. Just one. Not too intense.
As Sam comes to terms with the shameful family secrets revealed in a series of letters left to him by his deceased uncle, Sam falls in love again: first with his adopted poodle-cross, and then, much more slowly, with a kind and generous trans woman from his tennis club.
Reina is so visibly and proudly queer Sam can’t imagine the two of them share a single thing in common. If only humans came with a guide book…”
After Francesco by Brian Malloy (Amazon / Goodreads)
“The year is 1988 and 28-year-old Kevin Doyle is bone-tired of attending funerals. It’s been two years since his partner Francesco died from AIDS, an epidemic ravaging New York City and going largely ignored by the government, leaving those effected to suffer in silence, feeling unjustifiable shame and guilt on top of their loss.
Some people might insist that Francesco and the other friends he’s lost to the disease are in a better place, but Kevin definitely isn’t. Half-alive, he spends his days at a mind-numbing job and nights with the ghost of Francesco, drunk and drowning in memories of a man who was too young to die.
When Kevin hits an all-time low, he realizes it’s time to move back home to Minnesota and figure out how to start living again—without Francesco. With the help of a surviving partners support group and friends both old and new, Kevin slowly starts to do just that. But an unthinkable family betrayal, and the news that his best friend is fighting for his life in New York, will force a reckoning and a defining choice.”
Tooth & Claw by Summer Doyle (Amazon / Goodreads)
“Courtney Joseph loves fantasy worlds but doesn’t believe in her own happily ever after.
A struggling writer, a shopgirl with no prospects, and the anchor of a family slowly sinking into gloom, Cort is resigned to living an unremarkable life in the small New England town she grew up in. Sex is her escape, and she isn’t too troubled about the gender of her partners, as long as they can take her out of her head for a while. Her carefully constructed walls protect her from further disappointments and keep her guarded from anyone who might try to get too close. But when a childhood friend blows back into her life, she’s forced to confront the choices that have gotten her here. Is it worth the risk to let him in? Can Cort envision a world outside her walls to find her own happy ending?”
In Tongues by Thomas Grattan (Amazon / Goodreads)
“A young gay man upends the lives of a powerful art-world couple in this steamy novel of self-discovery.
It’s 2001, and twenty-four-year-old Gordon—handsome, sensitive, and eager for direction—takes a bus from Minnesota to New York City because it’s the only place for a young gay man to go. As he begins to settle into the city’s punishing rhythm, he gets a job walking rich Manhattanites’ dogs. But it isn’t until he stumbles into the West Village brownstone of two of his clients, the powerful gallery owners Phillip and Nicola, that Gordon learns how much the world has hidden from him—and what he’s capable of doing in order to get it for himself.
A lush, heart-quickening novel about family and art, sex and class, and the terror of self-discovery, Thomas Grattan’s In Tongues chronicles Gordon’s perilous pursuit of belonging from the Midwest to New York and, later, to Europe and Mexico City. As he floats further into Phillip and Nicola’s exclusive universe, and as lines blur between employee, muse, lover, and mentor, Gordon’s charm, manipulation, and growing ambition begin to escape his own control, in turn threatening to unravel the lives, and lies, of those around him.”
Reaction Time by Emily O’Beirne (Amazon / Goodreads)
“A contemporary coming-of-age lesbian novel about discovering who you want to be and finding how to live with your past — without repeating it.
City girl Luce May’s first year out of high school has been the worst. When she escapes her turbulent life in Sydney to start over at a university in the middle of nowhere, the last thing she wants is anyone in her new life to know of her past. Especially that to escape her chaotic, alcoholic mother, Luce also had to abandon her teenage sister.
As Luce slowly starts to find another version of herself in this place, she also finds a new family in her eclectic group of friends. She even begins to find solace and possibility in her budding relationship with Eva, the girl who loves trees so much she travelled across the world to live among them.
But when Luce’s sister back home starts to follow Luce’s own wild footsteps, and Luce’s guilt starts to grow, she finds it harder to keep her old and new worlds apart. Can Luce find a way to embrace this new life and take care of her family without returning to her old destructive ways?”
How To Fly by Alyson Greaves (Buy from author on itch.io / Kobo Plus / Amazon / Goodreads)
I enjoyed this first book of a series about two teenagers very compelling, and I’m looking forward to the next book. If your tolerance is low for Very Teenager impulsive decisions and in-depth internal analysis of feelings, this may not be for you, but for anyone else I’d recommend giving it a look! Romance fans be aware, though, the romance is so slow burn that in this fairly long book, it’s just people having crushes on each other.
“Max is a gymnast who can no longer pursue his passion. Taylor is a cheerleader with passion to spare.
A brutal attack put an end to Maxwell Giordano’s gymnastics career and ruined his junior year. So he and his family moved across the country for a fresh start, and now all he wants is to keep his head down and graduate in peace with the rest of the class of 2004.
Taylor Scott made cheer captain! And her greatest dream is to take the squad to regionals. Maybe even nationals! Except none of the other cheerleaders share her ambition, so she’s resigned herself to another year of cheering for the worst football team in the state.
And then a new boy moves in next door, and he’s everything she’s been dreaming of! If she can just convince him to join the squad, the two of them could take it all the way. But complications loom: Taylor’s jealous boyfriend, Max’s overprotective family, and then there’s the small matter of Max’s current gender…
HOW TO FLY is the first book of WHEN YOU FELL FROM HEAVEN, a slow-burn cheerleading trans romance from the author of THE SISTERS OF DORLEY”
And here are two bonus recommendations for y’all that don’t quite fit the list, one short story and one non-fiction storytelling collection, because I love them both and I have no other blog post where they could live!
I Am The One Who Has You Now by M. Arbon (Amazon / Goodreads)
This is by one of my auto-buy authors, and I adore it.
“‘I love him,” Cai argued. “Just, lately things have been…’
‘What?’
Cai put his bottle on the floor and pushed himself up on one knee. ‘It’s nothing.’
Maryanne wrapped her hand around his arm. ‘I’m pretty sure you don’t think it’s nothing.’
He sagged back to the floor. ‘It’s just that lately, he’s been…’
‘Distant? Cold? Acting suspicious?’
Cai sighed. ‘He’s been really irritating.’
Struggling with the ‘long-term’ part of ‘long-term relationship,’ Cai attends a party where he evades his partner, bitches to his best friend, makes the same resolution for the dozenth time, and has an intimate encounter with someone who may or may not be a mysterious stranger.”
Missed Her by Ivan Coyote (Amazon / Goodreads)
I meant to read this a couple of stories at a time, but it didn’t happen. Just kept reading. I walked away from this collection feeling better about the world, which as I’m writing this in July 2023 is hard to come by.
“Ivan E. Coyote is a master storyteller; her beautiful, funny stories about growing up a lesbian butch in the Canadian north attract audiences both gay and straight. In her fifth collection, Ivan addresses issues of family, queer youth, and homophobia with a trenchant and wistful eye.”
Update: I then read Coyote’s Rebent Sinner, and loved it just as much.
And that’s the list!