Books

By Jordy Rosenberg, 2019 Paperback

Jack Sheppard and Edgeworth Bess were the most notorious thieves, jailbreakers, and lovers of eighteenth-century London. Yet no one knows the true story; their confessions have never been found.

Until now. Reeling from heartbreak, a scholar named Dr. Voth discovers a long-lost manuscript—a gender-defying exposé of Jack and Bess’s adventures. Is Confessions of the Fox an authentic autobiography or a hoax? As Dr. Voth is drawn deeper into Jack and Bess’s tale of underworld resistance and gender transformation, it becomes clear that their fates are intertwined—and only a miracle will save them all.

Writing with the narrative mastery of Sarah Waters and the playful imagination of Nabokov, Jordy Rosenberg is an audacious storyteller of extraordinary talent.

By: Ed Gordon (Author), 2021, Paperback

An award-winning journalist envisions the future of leadership, excellence, and prosperity in Black America with this "urgent and pathbreaking" work (Marc Lamont Hill).

Hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and inspiring, Conversations in Black offers sage wisdom for navigating race in a radically divisive America, and, with help from his mighty team of black intelligentsia, veteran journalist Ed Gordon creates hope and a timeless new narrative on what the future of black leadership should look like and how we can get there.

In Conversations in Black, Gordon brings together some of the most prominent voices in black America today, including Stacey Abrams, Harry Belafonte, Charlamagne tha God, Michael Eric Dyson, Alicia Garza, Jemele Hill, Iyanla VanZant, Eric Holder, Killer Mike, Angela Rye, Al Sharpton, T.I., Maxine Waters, and so many more to answer questions about vital topics affecting our nation today, such as:

• Will the black vote control the 2020 election?
• Do black lives really matter?
• After the Obama presidency, are black people better off?
• Are stereotypical images of people of color changing in Hollywood?
• How is "Black Girl Magic" changing the face of black America?

Bombarded with media, music, and social media messages that enforce stereotypes of people of color, Gordon sets out to dispel what black power and black excellence really look like today and offers a way forward in a new age of black prosperity and pride.

By: Dahlia Adler, 2023, Paperback

Lara finally lands the guy of her dreams, only to have her unexpected(ly female) summer fling transfer to her school, in Dahlia Adler's beloved award-winning YA queer romance, now in paperback!

Lara's had eyes for exactly one person throughout her three years of high school: Chase Harding. He's tall, strong, sweet, a football star, and frankly, stupid hot. Oh, and he's talking to her now. On purpose and everything. Maybe...flirting, even? No, wait, he's definitely flirting, which is pretty much the sum of everything Lara's wanted out of life.

Except she’s haunted by a memory. A memory of a confusing, romantic, strangely perfect summer spent with a girl named Jasmine. A memory that becomes a confusing, disorienting present when Jasmine herself walks through the front doors of the school to see Lara and Chase chatting it up in front of the lockers.

Lara has everything she ever wanted: a tight-knit group of friends, a job that borders on cool, and Chase, the boy of her literal dreams. But if she's finally got the guy, why can't she stop thinking about the girl?

Dahlia Adler's Cool for the Summer is a young adult story of self-discovery and new love. It’s about the things we want and the things we need. And it’s about the people who will let us be who we are.

By: Alexandria Bellefleur (Author), 2022, Paperback

"Bellefleur has a droll, distinct voice, and her one-liners zing off the page, striking both the heart and funny bone... There's a sparkling quality here, one that mirrors the starry title. Bellefleur writes as if she's captured fairy lights in a mason jar, twinkly and lovely within something solid yet fragile." – Entertainment Weekly

Following Written in the Stars and Hang the Moon, Lambda Literary Award winner and national bestselling author Alexandria Bellefleur pens another steamy queer rom-com about former best friends who might be each other's second chance at love…

Margot Cooper doesn’t do relationships. She tried and it blew up in her face, so she’ll stick with casual hookups, thank you very much. But now her entire crew has found "the one" and she’s beginning tofeel like a fifth wheel. And then fate (the heartless bitch) intervenes. While touring a wedding venue with her engaged friends, Margot comes face-to-face with Olivia Grant—her childhood friend, her first love, her first… well, everything. It’s been ten years, but the moment they lock eyes, Margot’s cold, dead heart thumps in her chest.

Olivia must be hallucinating. In the decade since she last saw Margot, her life hasn’t gone exactly as planned. At almost thirty, she’s been married... and divorced. However, a wedding planner job in Seattle means a fresh start and a chance to follow her dreams. Never in a million years did she expect her important new client’s Best Woman would be the one that got away.

When a series of unfortunate events leaves Olivia without a place to stay, Margot offers up her spare room because she’s a Very Good Person. Obviously. It has nothing to do with the fact that Olivia is as beautiful as ever and the sparks between them still make Margot tingle. As they spend time in close quarters, Margot starts to question her no-strings stance. Olivia is everything she’s ever wanted, but Margot let her in once and it ended in disaster. Will history repeat itself or should she count her lucky stars that she gets a second chance with her first love?

By: Rachel Lacey (Author), 2024, Paperback

Rachel Lacey, author of Stars Collide, serves up a steamy tale of Hollywood fame and subterfuge about a glamorous actress and the sexy bodyguard posing as her girlfriend.

Natalie Keane is one of Hollywood’s top leading ladies, but she’s paid a steep price for her fame. After she was stalked eight years ago, the ensuing media frenzy almost broke her. So when a new threat arises, Natalie agrees to extra security, but she wants to keep it under wraps. The last thing she needs is another tabloid spectacle, especially during awards season.

Taylor Vaughn has made a career as a bodyguard to the stars, but an injury has kept her sidelined for the past three months, jeopardizing her future in the job she loves. When an opportunity arises to work for Natalie Keane, Taylor jumps at the chance―even before knowing the details of the assignment.

From the moment they meet, Natalie knows this could work: Taylor, the bodyguard, masquerading as her girlfriend. The perfect cover story. But as circumstances push the two women closer, the lines between fantasy and reality begin to blur.

By Nina Varela, 2020, Paperback

From debut author Nina Varela comes the first book in a richly imagined epic fantasy duology about an impossible love between two girls—one human, one Made—whose romance could be the beginning of a revolution.

Perfect for fans of Marie Rutkoski’s The Winner’s Curse as well as Game of Thrones and Westworld.

After the War of Kinds ravaged the kingdom of Rabu, the Automae, designed to be the playthings of royals, usurped their owners’ estates and bent the human race to their will.

Now Ayla, a human servant rising in the ranks at the House of the Sovereign, dreams of avenging her family’s death…by killing the sovereign’s daughter, Lady Crier.

Crier was Made to be beautiful, flawless, and to carry on her father’s legacy. But that was before her betrothal to the enigmatic Scyre Kinok, before she discovered her father isn’t the benevolent king she once admired, and most importantly, before she met Ayla.

Now, with growing human unrest across the land, pressures from a foreign queen, and an evil new leader on the rise, Crier and Ayla find there may be only one path to love: war.

By: Laura R. Prieto (Editor), Stephen R. Berry (Editor), Stephen Berry (Editor), Sandra Slater (Foreword), 2020, Hardcover

A collection of essays detailing how individuals remapped race, gender, and sexuality through their lived experiences and in the cultural imagination

For centuries the Atlantic world has been a site of encounter and exchange, a rich point of transit where one could remake one's identity or find it transformed. Through this interdisciplinary collection of essays, Laura R. Prieto and Stephen R. Berry offer vivid new accounts of how individuals remapped race, gender, and sexuality through their lived experience and in the cultural imagination. Crossings and Encounters is the first single volume to address these three intersecting categories across the Atlantic world and beyond the colonial period.

The Atlantic world offered novel possibilities to and exposed vulnerabilities of many kinds of people, from travelers to urban dwellers, native Americans to refugees. European colonial officials tried to regulate relationships and impose rigid ideologies of gender, while perceived distinctions of culture, religion, and ethnicity gradually calcified into modern concepts of race. Amid the instabilities of colonial settlement and slave societies, people formed cross-racial sexual relationships, marriages, families, and households. These not only afforded some women and men with opportunities to achieve stability; they also furnished ways to redefine one's status.

Crossings and Encounters spans broadly from early contact zones in the seventeenth-century Americas to the postcolonial present, and it covers the full range of the Atlantic world, including the Caribbean, North America, and Latin America. The essays examine the historical intersections between race and gender to illuminate the fluid identities and the dynamic communities of the Atlantic world.

By: Sander T. Jones (Author), 2023, Paperback

Does communicating about needs and boundaries with multiple partners seem like a labyrinth of emotional landmines?

Discover a comprehensive yet easy to understand method for communicating that will have partners compassionately making room for the needs of multiple relationships, and ethically defining and respecting each person's boundaries.

Are you tired of feeling like metas are competing for scarce resources, or that your needs come last? How can you meet the needs of all partners when some of their needs seem to conflict?

Sander T. Jones is a licensed psychotherapist with well over a decade of experience living polyamory and helping clients in non-monogamous relationships.

And now Sander is sharing this unique system for repairing relationships and nurturing harmony.

Drawing from polyvagal and attachment theories, Cultivating Connection is written with practical application in mind and exercises to help you and your partners practice new skills together.

Within Cultivating Connection, you'll discover:

• How to communicate compassionately with partners, and come together as a team to solve problems in a way that meets each person's needs.
• How personal boundaries need to adhere to specific principles to be ethical rather than coercive.
• How to overcome our individual obstacles to creating and enforcing the boundaries we need to live authentically within our relationships.
• Four simple questions to tell when we are overstepping a partner's rights and need to focus on our own growth and change.
• How to know when relationship agreements are healthy and support the needs of all the people impacted in our multiple relationships.

Cultivating Connection is your comprehensive guide for bringing harmony and joy to your multiple relationships while taking responsibility for the impact we have on others, living authentically, and continuing to grow as individuals. It's also solidly affirming of LGBTQ+, BIPOC readers, and readers engaged in relationships that are unequal by design.

If you liked Polysecure, Power Circuits, and Unf*ck Your Boundaries, you'll love Sander T. Jones' invaluable roadmap to collaborative, clear, loving communication. Buy Cultivating Connection, today!

By: Chencia C. Higgins (Author), 2022, Paperback

A New York Times best romance pick
A Today Show best romance pick from New York Times bestselling author Jasmine Guillory

D’Vaughn and Kris have six weeks to plan their dream wedding.
Their whole relationship is fake.

Instant I Do could be Kris Zavala’s big break. She’s right on the cusp of really making it as an influencer, so a stint on reality TV is the perfect chance to elevate her brand. And $100,000 wouldn’t hurt, either.

D’Vaughn Miller is just trying to break out of her shell. She’s sort of neglected to come out to her mom for years, so a big splashy fake wedding is just the excuse she needs.

All they have to do is convince their friends and family they’re getting married in six weeks. If anyone guesses they’re not for real, they’re out. Selling their chemistry on camera is surprisingly easy, and it’s still there when no one else is watching, which is an unexpected bonus. Winning this competition is going to be a piece of wedding cake.

But each week of the competition brings new challenges, and soon the prize money’s not the only thing at stake. A reality show isn’t the best place to create a solid foundation, and their fake wedding might just derail their relationship before it even starts.

By: Brene Brown (Author), 2015, Paperback

The #1 New York Times bestseller. More than 2 million copies sold!

Look for Brené Brown’s new podcast, Dare to Lead, as well as her ongoing podcast Unlocking Us!

From thought leader Brené Brown, a transformative new vision for the way we lead, love, work, parent, and educate that teaches us the power of vulnerability.
 
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; . . . who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”—Theodore Roosevelt

Every day we experience the uncertainty, risks, and emotional exposure that define what it means to be vulnerable or to dare greatly. Based on twelve years of pioneering research, Brené Brown PhD, MSW, dispels the cultural myth that vulnerability is weakness and argues that it is, in truth, our most accurate measure of courage.

Brown explains how vulnerability is both the core of difficult emotions like fear, grief, and disappointment, and the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, empathy, innovation, and creativity. She writes: “When we shut ourselves off from vulnerability, we distance ourselves from the experiences that bring purpose and meaning to our lives.”

Daring Greatly is not about winning or losing. It’s about courage. In a world where “never enough” dominates and feeling afraid has become second nature, vulnerability is subversive. Uncomfortable. It’s even a little dangerous at times. And, without question, putting ourselves out there means there’s a far greater risk of getting criticized or feeling hurt. But when we step back and examine our lives, we will find that nothing is as uncomfortable, dangerous, and hurtful as standing on the outside of our lives looking in and wondering what it would be like if we had the courage to step into the arena—whether it’s a new relationship, an important meeting, the creative process, or a difficult family conversation. Daring Greatly is a practice and a powerful new vision for letting ourselves be seen.

By: David Bowie (Author), 2016, Paperback

A revealing collection of interviews with the shape-shifting, genre-bending, wildly influential musician and song writer
 
David Bowie was an icon, not only his stunning musical output, but also his fascinating refusal to stay the same—the same as other trending artists, or even the same as himself.
 
In this remarkable collection, Bowie reveals the fierce intellectualism, artistry, and humor behind it all. From his very first interview—as a teenager on the BBC, before he was even a musician—to his last, Bowie takes on the most probing questions, candidly discussing his sexuality, his drug use, his sense of fashion, his method of composition, and more.
 
For fans still mourning his passing, as well as for those who know little about him, it’s a revealing, interesting, and inspiring look at one of the most influential artists of the last fifty years.

By: Christopher Cantwell (Author), Jeremy Holt (Author), A.L. Kaplan (Author), Greg Lockard (Author), Mildred Louis (Author), 2024, Hardcover

DC Pride is back again with a brave, bold, and all-new collection of stories starring DC’s stable of fan-favorite LGBTQIA+ characters—many of whom will find themselves in thrilling team-ups the likes of which you’ve never seen before!

DC Pride 2023 is a stunning collection of books and comics will be available at your local comic book shop, bookstore, library, and beyond, delivering bold stories, brave characters, and more pride than ever. 

DC Pride 2023, DC’s annual anthology containing all-new stories spotlighting LGBTQIA+ fan favorites will feature an introduction by Phil Jimenez. These creative teams will be creating stories featuring:

• Tim Drake and Connor Hawke by Nadia Shammas and Bruka Jones
• Circuit Breaker and the Flash of Earth-11 by A.L. Kaplan
• Midnighter, Apollo and Alan Scott Green Lantern by Josh Trujillo and Don Aguillo
• Ghost-Maker and Catman vs. Cannon and Saber by Rex Ogle and Stephen Sadowski
• Jon Kent and John Constantine by Christopher Cantwell and Skylar Patridge
• Natasha Irons and Nubia by Mildred Louis
• Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, and Crush by Leah Williams and Paulina Ganucheau
• Multiversity by Grant Morrison and Hayden Sherman

By: Vita Ayala (Author), Sina Grace (Author), Sam Johns (Author), Danny Lore (Author), Nicole Maines (Author), 2024, Hardcover

DC celebrates Pride with this incredible collection starring fan-favorite LGBTQIA+ characters Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Midnighter, Extraño, Batwoman, Aqualad, Alan Scott, Obsidian, Future State Flash, Renee Montoya, Pied Piper, and many more!

DC Pride: Love and Justice collects DC Pride #1, Mysteries of Love in Space #1, New Year's Evil #1,Young Monsters in Love #1!

In DC Pride #1 find the thrilling introduction of new hero DREAMER in the DCU (as seen on The CW’s Supergirl), along with a pinup gallery with art by Travis Moore, Kris Anka, Kevin Wada, Sophie Campbell, Nick Robles, and more! Not to mention, six exciting new profiles of DCTV’s LGBTQIA+ characters and the actors who play them!

Mysteries in Love #1 knows that sometimes love can make you feel like you’re from another planet...but what if you actually were? Join Superman, The New Gods, Green Lantern, Starro, Hawkgirl and even the Teen Titans’ new sensation Crush for eight tales of romance that will whisk you to the moon and back! 

New Years Evil #1 is a holiday special unlike any other...because it’s all about the folks on Santa’s naughty list! Folks like the Joker, Sinestro, Toyman, Harley Quinn, and even an appearance from that timely rascal the Calendar Man. Come sledding with your favorite villains!

Young Monsters in Love #1 shows us it's hard being a monster…and even harder being a monster in love. Sparks will fly and hearts will be broken when the ghouls and ghosts of the DC Universe assemble to bring you the Valentine’s Day Special that no one saw coming!

By: J.R. Yussuf (Author), Da'Shaun L. Harrison (Foreword), 2024, Paperback

An unapologetic guide for readers who are Black, masc, and bi—unlearning biphobia, coming out, combatting erasure, and embodying your whole self

Through cutting social analysis, personal stories, and need-to-know advice, Dear Bi Men reclaims bi+ visibility in a culture of erasure—and unapologetically centers Blackness in a practical and deeply researched guide to navigating life, work, and relationships as a Black bi+ man.

Popular representation of bi and pansexual men is growing, but we’re not there yet: It’s mostly white. It collapses bisexual identity into tired, hypersexualized tropes. And it fails to interrogate the deeply entrenched stereotypes that insist: You’re confused. You just don’t know you’re gay. You’re greedy. You must be great in bed.

Author, peer counselor, and creator of #bisexualmenspeak J.R. Yussuf pushes back against these stigmas and misconceptions, exploring how white supremacy reinforces biphobia and dictates what society thinks it means to “be a man.” He contextualizes discourse around queerness and bisexuality within a larger framework that honors readers’ intersecting identities. And he offers deeply practical advice, sharing how to:

• Unlearn internalized biphobia and homophobia
• Navigate an increasingly hostile digital landscape
• Think about coming out: who to tell, why to tell them, and how to do it
• Fight back against erasure and stigma
• Navigate sex, dating, partnerships, marriage, friendship, and work
• Understand your bi+ sexuality through a political lens
• Process Black bi+ representation

Rich with personal narratives, insightful analysis, and practical advice, this book is a powerful resource for Black bi+ men to reclaim their identity, counter biphobia, and get empowered—and an offering to all readers looking to fight back against the erasure and dehumanization wrought by patriarchy.

By: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Author), 2018, Paperback

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The award-winning author of We Should All Be Feminists and Americanah gives us this powerful statement about feminism today—written as a letter to a friend.

A few years ago, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie received a letter from a childhood friend, a new mother who wanted to know how to raise her baby girl to be a feminist. Dear Ijeawele is Adichie’s letter of response: fifteen invaluable suggestions—direct, wryly funny, and perceptive—for how to empower a daughter to become a strong, independent woman. Filled with compassionate guidance and advice, it gets right to the heart of sexual politics in the twenty-first century, and starts a new and urgently needed conversation about what it really means to be a woman today.