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491 products
A debut novel that tells the story of Rasa, a young gay man coming of age in the Middle East
Set over the course of twenty-four hours, Guapa follows Rasa, a gay man living in an unnamed Arab country, as he tries to carve out a life for himself in the midst of political and social upheaval. Rasa spends his days translating for Western journalists and pining for the nights when he can sneak his lover, Taymour, into his room. One night Rasa's grandmother — the woman who raised him — catches them in bed together. The following day Rasa is consumed by the search for his best friend Maj, a fiery activist and drag queen star of the underground bar, Guapa, who has been arrested by the police. Ashamed to go home and face his grandmother, and reeling from the potential loss of the three most important people in his life, Rasa roams the city’s slums and prisons, the lavish weddings of the country’s elite, and the bars where outcasts and intellectuals drink to a long-lost revolution. Each new encounter leads him closer to confronting his own identity, as he revisits his childhood and probes the secrets that haunt his family. As Rasa confronts the simultaneous collapse of political hope and his closest personal relationships, he is forced to discover the roots of his alienation and try to re-emerge into a society that may never accept him.
NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • From the award-winning, bestselling author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists—a haunting story of love and war. • Recipient of the Women’s Prize for Fiction “Winner of Winners” award.
With effortless grace, celebrated author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie illuminates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra's impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in southeastern Nigeria during the late 1960s. We experience this tumultuous decade alongside five unforgettable characters: Ugwu, a thirteen-year-old houseboy who works for Odenigbo, a university professor full of revolutionary zeal; Olanna, the professor’s beautiful young mistress who has abandoned her life in Lagos for a dusty town and her lover’s charm; and Richard, a shy young Englishman infatuated with Olanna’s willful twin sister Kainene.
Half of a Yellow Sun is a tremendously evocative novel of the promise, hope, and disappointment of the Biafran war.
USA TODAY bestseller, #1 international bestseller, and Indie Next Pick
Best of 2023 Pick for Autostraddle and BookPage; a Recommended Reading List Pick for Locus; Locus Award Finalist; Dragon Award Finalist
The sequel and series conclusion to She Who Became the Sun, the accomplished, poetic debut of war and destiny, sweeping across an epic alternate China. Mulan meets The Song of Achilles.
How much would you give to win the world?
Zhu Yuanzhang, the Radiant King, is riding high after her victory that tore southern China from its Mongol masters. Now she burns with a new desire: to seize the throne and crown herself emperor.
But Zhu isn’t the only one with imperial ambitions. Her neighbor in the south, the courtesan Madam Zhang, wants the throne for her husband―and she’s strong enough to wipe Zhu off the map. To stay in the game, Zhu will have to gamble everything on a risky alliance with an old enemy: the talented but unstable eunuch general Ouyang, who has already sacrificed everything for a chance at revenge on his father’s killer, the Great Khan.
Unbeknownst to the southerners, a new contender is even closer to the throne. The scorned scholar Wang Baoxiang has maneuvered his way into the capital, and his lethal court games threaten to bring the empire to its knees. For Baoxiang also desires revenge: to become the most degenerate Great Khan in history―and in so doing, make a mockery of every value his Mongol warrior family loved more than him.
All the contenders are determined to do whatever it takes to win. But when desire is the size of the world, the price could be too much for even the most ruthless heart to bear…
The year is 1764, and following a glowing recommendation from his last employer, Henry Coffey, vampire, takes on a new personal secretary: young Theophilus Essex.
The man is quite unlike any secretary - or any man, for that matter - that Henry has ever met.
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'Heart of Stone' is a slowly unfolding period romance between a vampire and his inimitably devoted clerk: lushly depicted in flowing, lovingly appended prose, we follow the slow understanding these two men grasp of one another, and the cross of their two worlds into each other's.
Craving resounding intimacy but with an ever aware of the polite boundaries for their situation, Coffey and Essex perform a slow dance as they grow closer to one another, and find themselves entangled.
By: Anita Kelly (Author), 2024, Paperback
Mae Kellerman is content. After forty years of ups and downs, she has a meaningful job at a queer community center in Portland, Oregon. She has an apartment full of plants, a ride-or-die group of friends.
Until the day her best friend actually does up and die. Leaving Mae with a hole in her heart—and a shocking amount of money.
But before she can think about that, she has to throw his perfect death party, followed by spreading his ashes on the Oregon Coast. It’s there that she stumbles upon an empty storefront for sale in the tiny whale-watching town of Greyfin Bay. Overnight, an old dream resurfaces…and Mae’s newfound inheritance could make it possible.
If only Dell McCleary didn’t stand in her way.
Dell only sells property to the folks actually invested in the best interests of Greyfin Bay. Not some Portlander with pink hair who breezes in on a whim. A Portlander who, irritatingly, refuses to take no for an answer.
As Mae upends her life for the pursuit of opening a queer-owned bookstore in a conservative coastal town, she and Dell are forced to work together, navigating prejudices and past traumas along the way. But as opening day of Bay Books grows nearer, Mae’s heart grows increasingly tangled with her landlord’s—even if his own heart might already belong to someone else.
Heartwaves is a contemporary queer romance that explores the risks and rewards of life in any landscape, and the freedom to lift the limitations we put on love.
"Anita Kelly's books always burrow deep into my heart and expand it in the most beautiful way...Heartwaves is such a special book and I'm jealous of every person who gets to read it for the first time." - Alicia Thompson, USA Today bestselling author of With Love, from Cold World
Lydia Wraxhall is on her best behavior every day of the year—except one: the annual Bickerton Christmas Poultry Show. On that day she brushes her birds, sharpens her tongue, and engages in the closest thing the village knows to war.
Harriet Boyne is a soldier’s widow reeling from the worst years of her life. She and her friends have inherited a manor on the village outskirts, and Harriet is looking forward to a quiet holiday far from the anguish of the battlefield.
But a dispute over a flock of loose chickens — a rare local breed, which Lydia thinks could be champions and Harriet thinks could be delicious — draws Harriet into the competition under Lydia’s grudging guidance. Harriet’s frozen heart is thawed by Lydia’s gentleness, and lonely Lydia blossoms under Harriet’s keen regard. But the day of the poultry show is fast approaching, and everyone’s drawing up battle lines. And in the contest between secret love and public glory, there can only be one winner.
By: Alison Cochrun (Author), 2024, Paperback
The author of the “sexy, insightful, and utterly charming” (BuzzFeed) Kiss Her Once for Mereturns with a new queer rom-com following once childhood best friends forced together to drive their former teacher across the country.
A long time ago, Logan Maletis and Rosemary Hale used to be friends. They spent their childhood summers running through the woods, rebelling against their conservative small town, and dreaming of escaping. But then an incident the summer before high school turned them into bitter rivals. After graduation, they went ten years without speaking.
Now in their thirties, Logan and Rosemary find they aren’t quite living the lives of adventure they imagined for themselves. Still in their small town and working as teachers at their alma mater, they’re both stuck in old patterns. Uptight Rosemary chooses security and stability over all else, working constantly, and her most stable relationship is with her label maker. Chaotic and impulsive Logan has a long list of misguided ex-lovers and an apathetic shrug she uses to protect herself from anything real. And as hard as they try to avoid each other—and their complicated past—they keep crashing into each other. Including with their cars.
But when their beloved former English teacher and lifelong mentor tells them he has only a few months to live, they’re forced together once and for all to fulfill his last wish: a cross-country road trip. Stuffed into the gayest van west of the Mississippi, the three embark on a life-changing summer trip—from Washington state to the Grand Canyon, from the Gulf Coast to coastal Maine—that will chart a new future and perhaps lead them back to one another.
By: Sarah Macklin (Author), 2024, Paperback
War threatens to consume the Egan empire. Emperor Bakari marches his army northward to Wiluru, ready to make the rebelling kingdom come to heel and bring his traitorous second wife back to her proper place. His will, his commands are to be followed without question and Wiluru will burn for their disobedience. Far to the South, the city-state of Nsongo struggles to choose a new Great Dara before the title is stolen by one of its sister cities with more influence. High Priest Erenemo feels it should be him who ascends to the golden stool and throw out the Egan occupiers. However, his son may be his biggest obstacle. Conflict even brews in the capital of Metkara as the emperor's first wife and his brother the chancellor struggle over who will run the empire is Bakari's absence. Uprisings are starting up in the western hold of the empire, adding to the chancellor's already long list of concerns. But an unlikely ally is sent to him who may set him on the path to reforging the Egan hold on its empire. In the midst of it all, other forces may be at play, forces of a divine nature that may see opposing paths for the future of this land. There is more at stake in this war than even its players understand.
By: Helena Greer (Author), 2024, Paperback
Book 3 of 3 Carrigan's Christmasland
Readers of Mia Sosa and Alexandria Bellefleur will love this swoony, sexy opposites-attract romcom from USA Today bestselling author Helena Greer, where the relationship may be fake, but the feelings are very real!
No-nonsense Tara Sloane Chadwick is practically perfect. An impeccably mannered Southern belle, she’s the youngest to make partner at her law firm and still friends with all her exes. However, when the woman behind her most humiliating breakup invites Tara to her wedding, Tara panics at the thought of showing up alone and impulsively declares she’s bringing her very serious girlfriend.
One issue: Tara is seriously single.
Waitress and wild child Holly Siobhan Delaney may be lusting over Tara—but Tara only dates women she can marry, and Holly’s sworn off relationships. So when Tara needs a fake girlfriend, Holly’s eager to propose a no-strings, temporary fling. Only sharing secrets and steamy kisses show Holly the caring woman beneath Tara’s picture-perfect exterior, tempting Holly to break her own rules. Can these two opposites trust their feelings enough to try for forever—or will their relationship go down in flames?
Novella. London, 1979: a young gay man seeks mentorship from a classmate's flamboyant uncle.
23k, rated M, Gen. Mortimer Jones, a young gay man, comes from Tewkesbury to London where he meets Percival Campbell and, in short order, Percival's beloved uncle - the flamboyant and loquacious Queen B. Uncle B soon takes Mortimer, shy and as-yet uncertain of his place in the world and in the gay community, under his wing, and serves as mentor.
Focus on queer community in the 1970s, discussions of monastic history, science fiction, comedy, art and architecture, pop culture, connection, and cross-age friendship. Lots of body positivity for Mort and B, both fat men, in the aftermath of fatphobic bullying and homophobic isolation; lots of flirtation as a confidence and identity-building exercise even whilst B sets clear boundaries between them in terms of actual sexual activity; references to and discussion of historic and period homophobia throughout, but the tone is generally warm and companionable.
By: Tembe Denton-Hurst, 2023, Paperback
"[A] sharp, charming and passionate debut." —New York Times Book Review
A Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by Elle, USA Today, them, Bustle, Ebony, PopSugar, New York Post, The Skimm, and The Millions.
A Best LGBTQ Book of 2023 by Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, and Cosmopolitan
Urgent, propulsive, and strikingly insightful, Homebodies is a thrilling debut novel about a young Black writer whose world is turned upside down when she loses her coveted job in media and pens a searing manifesto about racism in the industry.
Mickey Hayward dreams of writing stories that matter. She has a flashy media job that makes her feel successful and a devoted girlfriend who takes care of her when she comes home exhausted and demoralized. It’s not all A-list parties and steamy romance, but Mickey’s on her way, and it’s far from the messy life she left behind in Maryland. Despite being overlooked and mistreated at work, it seems like she might finally get the chance to prove herself—until she finds out she’s being replaced.
Distraught and enraged, Mickey fires back with a detailed letter outlining the racism and sexism she’s endured as a Black woman in media, certain it will change the world for the better. But when her letter is met with overwhelming silence, Mickey is sent into a tailspin of self-doubt. Forced to reckon with just how fragile her life is—including the uncertainty of her relationship—she flees to the last place she ever dreamed she would run to, her hometown, desperate for a break from her troubles.
Back home, Mickey is seduced by the simplicity of her old life—and the flirtation of a former flame—but her life in New York refuses to be forgotten. When a media scandal catapults Mickey’s forgotten letter into the public zeitgeist, suddenly everyone wants to hear what Mickey has to say. It’s what she’s always wanted—isn’t it?
Intimate, witty, and deeply sexy, Homebodies is a testament to those trying to be heard and loved in a world that refuses to make space, and introduces a standout new writer.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER - Two young housemates embark on a road trip to discover themselves in this "exceptional, keenly observed meditation on art and love" (People) in a fractured America, by the award-winning author of The Third Rainbow Girl
"Tender, nuanced, and hilarious."--Oprah Daily
15 LGBTQ+ Books to Read for Pride--Time
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: People, The Boston Globe, NBC, Them, Autostraddle, Electric Lit, Kirkus Reviews
This Random House Book Club edition includes a Q&A with Torrey Peters and a discussion guide.
What does it feel like, standing in the moments that will mark your life?
When Bernie replies to Leah's ad for a new housemate in Philadelphia, the two begin an intense and defiantly uncategorizable friendship based on a mutual belief in their art, and one another. Both aspire to capture the world around them: Leah through her writing; Bernie through her photography.
After Bernie's former photography professor, the renowned yet tarnished Daniel Dunn, dies and leaves her a complicated inheritance, Leah volunteers to accompany Bernie to his home in rural Pennsylvania, turning the jaunt into a road trip with an ambitious mission: to document America through words and photographs.
What ensues is a journey into the heart of the nation, bringing the housemates into conversation with people from all walks of life--"the absurd dreamers and failures of this wide, wide country"--as they try to make sense of the times they are living in. Along the way, Leah and Bernie discover what it means to chase their own ideas and dreams, and to embrace what they are capable of both romantically and artistically.
Warm and insightful, Housemates is a story of youth and freedom--a glorious celebration of queer life, and how art and love might save us all.