Adult Fiction

By: Sarah Waters (Author), 2002, Paperback

“Oliver Twist with a twist…Waters spins an absorbing tale that withholds as much as it discloses. A pulsating story.”—The New York Times Book Review  

The Handmaiden, a film adaptation of Fingersmith, directed by Park Chan-wook and starring Kim Tae-Ri, is now available.

Sue Trinder is an orphan, left as an infant in the care of Mrs. Sucksby, a "baby farmer," who raised her with unusual tenderness, as if Sue were her own. Mrs. Sucksby’s household, with its fussy babies calmed with doses of gin, also hosts a transient family of petty thieves—fingersmiths—for whom this house in the heart of a mean London slum is home.

One day, the most beloved thief of all arrives—Gentleman, an elegant con man, who carries with him an enticing proposition for Sue: If she wins a position as the maid to Maud Lilly, a naïve gentlewoman, and aids Gentleman in her seduction, then they will all share in Maud’s vast inheritance. Once the inheritance is secured, Maud will be disposed of—passed off as mad, and made to live out the rest of her days in a lunatic asylum.

With dreams of paying back the kindness of her adopted family, Sue agrees to the plan. Once in, however, Sue begins to pity her helpless mark and care for Maud Lilly in unexpected ways...But no one and nothing is as it seems in this Dickensian novel of thrills and reversals.

By Henry Fry, 2022, Paperback

Danny Scudd is absolutely fine. He always dreamed of escaping the small-town life of his parents’ fish-and-chip shop, moving to London, and becoming a journalist. And, after five years in the city, his career isn’t exactly awful, and his relationship with pretentious Tobbs isn’t exactly unfulfilling. Certainly his limited-edition Dolly Parton vinyls and many (maybe too many) house plants are hitting the spot. But his world is flipped upside down when a visit to the local clinic reveals that Tobbs might not have been exactly faithful. In fact, Tobbs claims they were never operating under the “heteronormative paradigm” of monogamy to begin with. Oh, and Danny’s flatmates are unceremoniously evicting him because they want to start a family. It’s all going quite well.

Newly single and with nowhere to live, Danny is forced to move in with his best friend, Jacob, a flamboyant nonbinary artist whom he’s known since childhood, and their eccentric group of friends living in an East London “commune.” What follows is a colorful voyage of discovery through modern queer life, dating, work, and lots of therapy—all places Danny has always been too afraid to fully explore. Upon realizing just how little he knows about himself and his sexuality, he careens from one questionable decision (and man) to another, relying on his inscrutable new therapist and housemates to help him face the demons he’s spent his entire life trying to repress. Is he really fine, after all?

By: Akwaeke Emery (Author), 2018, Paperback

A National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” Honoree
Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for a Debut Novel
Shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
A New York Times Notable Book

One of the most highly praised novels of the year, the debut from an astonishing young writer, Freshwater tells the story of Ada, an unusual child who is a source of deep concern to her southern Nigerian family. Young Ada is troubled, prone to violent fits. Born “with one foot on the other side,” she begins to develop separate selves within her as she grows into adulthood. And when she travels to America for college, a traumatic event on campus crystallizes the selves into something powerful and potentially dangerous, making Ada fade into the background of her own mind as these alters―now protective, now hedonistic―move into control. Written with stylistic brilliance and based in the author’s realities, Freshwater dazzles with ferocious energy and serpentine grace.

By: Nicole Zelniker (Author), 2024, Paperback

"A kaleidoscopic gem that adeptly showcases how the shameful misdeeds of the past reverberate into modern acts of violence... An emotional tour de force." David Jackson Ambrose, author of Unlawful Disorder

Gabi Keefer flees Holocaust-era Germany with nothing but her husband, her nephew, and the clothes on her back, but that isn't the whole story.

Over generations, her granddaughter, Lena, struggles with drug addiction and an unplanned pregnancy; her sort-of nephew, Zane, grieves for his wife three years after her death in an antisemetic mass shooting; and her great-niece, Miranda, advocates for Palestinian liberation against her family's wishes.

Each character's tale begs the questions: What does it mean to be part of a family, what does it mean to survive, and is that enough?

Trigger warning: Content in this book includes depictions or mentions of ableism, anti-semitism, characters struggling with mental health, death and grief, drug abuse, domestic violence, gun violence, homophobia, misogyny, racism, statutory rape, suicide, xenophobia, and Zionism.

By: Dietrich Stogner (Author), 2023, Paperback

Tomas Greenleaf has dedicated most of his life to becoming one of the finest soldiers in the sprawling Aldarri Empire, but nothing could prepare him for his first assignment: serving as a lone guardian for the frigid and remote village of Lahar. Surrounded by the deadly and unforgiving arctic for hundreds of miles, the people of Lahar have learned to thrive on the shores of the Serao: a river of molten rock holding back the ice. Greenleaf doesn't know why he was sent to this lonely place, surrounded by cold ice and colder stares, but he's determined to learn the dark secret at the heart of Lahar.

When the warmth that has kept Lahar alive for hundreds of years begins to vanish, Greenleaf must set forth on a doomed mission to save those who most want him gone. Across a grueling and dead land, Greenleaf will face the implacable bitter cold of the arctic night to dig into the forbidden past of his Empire and face the creatures that claim the ice as their own. The ordeal will test his every limit, forcing him to battle not just the terrifying nightmares released from the ice, but the ugly truth at the core of all he believes.

By: Mark Daniel Compton (Author), Erin Chandler (Editor), Brooke Lee (Designer), 2023, Paperback

Like the holiday staple, this novel is topped with cherries, filled with nuts and fruit, and doused with a healthy dose of spirits. The ghost from Christmas past in this tale is no Marley; he is an incubus freed from hell and chained to a fruitcake that is continually regifted, causing much havoc in the small Southern town of Dixon. This demon, accidentally released, is on the run from an old domestic housekeeper/voodoo root doctor, the eccentric family she nurtured and raised, and a slew of angelic forces, all determined to send him back to hell from whence he came.

By: Rae McDaniel, 2024, Paperback

A first-of-its-kind practical guide to achieving gender freedom with joy, curiosity, and pleasure for transgender and non-binary individuals, gender explorers, and those who love them—perfect for readers of The Body is Not an Apology and Schuyler Bailar's He/She/They.   

Taking everything they know from more than a decade of work with the queer and trans community, their personal journey of gender exploration, and clinical best practices, licensed therapist, coach, and speaker Rae McDaniel created the Gender Freedom Model. A uniquely supportive narrative for gender exploration and transition grounded in queer joy, their nine-pillar model has helped thousands of transgender and nonbinary individuals explore gender through play, pleasure, and freedom. And now, it can help you too. 
 
Whether you're transgender, non-binary, cisgender, or still exploring, this compassionate and practical guide will help you experience your gender in new, expansive ways by teaching:

• How to move from anxiety, self-doubt, and fear to a confident, proactive state of mind.
• How to navigate discomfort and celebrate your inherent worth as you develop genuine self-love.
• How to design relationships, community, and a sex life that lights you up.
• Practical tools to align your gender identity and expression with your most authentic self through play, pleasure, and possibility. 

Brimming with warmth, celebration, and practical advice Gender Magic is essential reading for anyone who yearns to step into their fullest self and imagine a life beyond gender binaries. Because you—yes YOU—are magic. 

"Rae McDaniel is a leader in their generation, matching compassion with clear-sighted vision for a sex-positive future.” –  Emily Nagoski, Ph.D, author of Come As You Are and Burnout 

By: Tamsyn Muir, 2020, Paperback

15+ pages of new, original content, including a glossary of terms, in-universe writings, and more!

A USA Today Best-Selling Novel, and one of the Best Books of 2019 according to NPR, the New York Public Library, Amazon, BookPage, Shelf Awareness, BookRiot, and Bustle!

WINNER of the 2020 Crawford Award
Finalist for the 2020 Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards

“Unlike anything I’ve ever read. ” ―V.E. Schwab

“Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!” ―Charles Stross

“Brilliantly original, messy and weird straight through.” ―NPR

The Emperor needs necromancers.

The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman.

Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead nonsense.

Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth, first in The Locked Tomb Trilogy, unveils a solar system of swordplay, cut-throat politics, and lesbian necromancers. Her characters leap off the page, as skillfully animated as arcane revenants. The result is a heart-pounding epic science fantasy.

Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape. But her childhood nemesis won’t set her free without a service.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, has been summoned into action. The Emperor has invited the heirs to each of his loyal Houses to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds she will be become an immortal, all-powerful servant of the Resurrection, but no necromancer can ascend without their cavalier. Without Gideon’s sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die.

Of course, some things are better left dead.

THE LOCKED TOMB SERIES
BOOK 1: Gideon the Ninth
BOOK 2: Harrow the Ninth
BOOK 3: Nona the Ninth
BOOK 4: Alecto the Ninth

By:  James Baldwin, 2013, Paperback

In the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence, a young man finds himself caught between desire and conventional morality. 

David is a young American expatriate who has just proposed marriage to his girlfriend, Hella. While she is away on a trip, David meets a bartender named Giovanni to whom he is drawn in spite of himself. Soon the two are spending the night in Giovanni’s curtainless room, which he keeps dark to protect their privacy. But Hella’s return to Paris brings the affair to a crisis, one that rapidly spirals into tragedy.

David struggles for self-knowledge during one long, dark night—“the night which is leading me to the most terrible morning of my life.” With a sharp, probing imagination, James Baldwin's now-classic narrative delves into the mystery of loving and creates a deeply moving story of death and passion that reveals the unspoken complexities of the human heart.

By: James Baldwin (Author), 2013, Paperback

One of the most brilliant and provocative American writers of the twentieth century chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle of self-invention in this “truly extraordinary” novel (Chicago Sun-Times).

Baldwin's classic novel opened new possibilities in the American language and in the way Americans understand themselves. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin tells the story of the stepson of the minister of a storefront Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935. Originally published in 1953, Baldwin said of his first novel, "Mountain is the book I had to write if I was ever going to write anything else."

By: Abigail Tarttelin (Author), 2014, Paperback

"This is a gripping and fully-realized novel." —Emily St. John Mandel, National Book Award-nominated author of Station Eleven


2014 LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FINALIST
WINNER OF THE 2014 ALEX AWARD
BOOKLIST TOP 10 FIRST NOVEL OF 2013
SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF 2013

Max Walker is a golden boy. Attractive, intelligent, and athletic, he’s the perfect son, the perfect friend, and the perfect crush for the girls in his school. He’s even really nice to his little brother. Karen, Max’s mother, is determined to maintain the façade of effortless excellence she has constructed through the years, but now that the boys are getting older, she worries that the façade might soon begin to crumble. Adding to the tension, her husband Steve has chosen this moment to stand for election to Parliament. The spotlight of the media is about to encircle their lives.

The Walkers are hiding something, you see. Max is special. Max is different. Max is intersex. When an enigmatic childhood friend named Hunter steps out of his past and abuses his trust in the worst possible way, Max is forced to consider the nature of his well-kept secret. Why won’t his parents talk about it? What else are they hiding from Max about his condition and from each other? The deeper Max goes, the more questions emerge about where it all leaves him and what his future holds, especially now that he’s starting to fall head over heels for someone for the first time in his life. Will his friends accept him if he is no longer the Golden Boy? Will anyone ever want him—desire him—once they know? And the biggest one of all, the question he has to look inside himself to answer: Who is Max Walker, really?

Golden Boy is a novel you’ll read in one sitting but will never forget; at once a riveting tale of a family in crisis, a fascinating exploration of identity, and a coming-of-age story like no other.

By: Rebecca K Reilly (Author), 2024, Hardcover

A New York Times Editors’ Choice • “A heartfelt portrait of a complex family.” —People • “Laugh-out-loud-funny.” —Harper’s Bazaar • “Quintessential rom-com meets the delicious family sprawl of a Russian classic.” —Vanity Fair

An irresistible, “generous, [and] tender” (The New York Times) international bestseller that follows a brother and sister as they navigate queerness, multiracial identity, and family drama, all while flailing their way to love—for fans of Schitt’s Creek and Sally Rooney’s Normal People.

It’s been a year since his ex-boyfriend dumped him and moved from Auckland to Buenos Aires, and Valdin is doing fine. He has a good flat with his sister Greta, a good career where his colleagues only occasionally remind him that he is the sole Maaori person in the office, and a good friend who he only sleeps with when he’s sad. But when work sends him to Argentina and he’s thrown back in his former lover’s orbit, Valdin is forced to confront the feelings he’s been trying to ignore—and the future he wants.

Greta is not letting her painfully unrequited crush (or her possibly pointless master’s thesis, or her pathetic academic salary...) get her down. She would love to focus on the charming fellow grad student she meets at a party and her friendships with a circle of similarly floundering twenty-somethings, but her chaotic family life won’t stop intruding: her mother is keeping secrets, her nephew is having a gay crisis, and her brother has suddenly flown to South America without a word.

Filled with “kernels of humor and truth” (Elle) and with an undeniable emotional momentum that builds to an exuberant conclusion, Greta & Valdin careens us through the siblings’ misadventures and the messy dramas of their sprawling, eccentric Maaori-Russian-Catalonian family. An acclaimed bestseller in New Zealand, Greta & Valdin is fresh, joyful, and alive with the possibility of love in its many mystifying forms.

By: Shelley Parker-Chan (Author), 2023, Paperback

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. Mulanmeets 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…

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.