In honor of Pride Month I’ve put together a list of LGBTQ+ books I’ve enjoyed. I’m a cishet white woman so you may wonder why I’ve read a good number of LGBTQ+ books. Most of the time it’s just coincidental, I enjoy a good story. However, much of my life I’ve felt stifled by society’s expectations for me as a woman. It’s nice to read stories where people get to be their true selves.
Most of these books are science fiction or fantasy, because that’s primarily what I read, but there are a couple of exceptions. The list is ordered based on when I read the book with the newer books listed first. Though, for series, I’ve listed the first book in the series instead of my most recent read. I’m going to split this list into multiple parts because it’s time for me to go to bed but I have so many more to mention.
Six Angry Girls by Adrienne Kisner
Potential library options: Libby Audiobook | Libby eBook
Genre: YA Fiction
This is a delightful book about an all-girl mock trial team which forms due to one girl being dumped by her boyfriend and the other being dumped by her long-time mock-trial team. In addition to mock-trial, there’s a fair amount of anatomical knitting.
Direct Descendant by Tanya Huff
Potential library options: Hoopla Audiobook | Libby Audiobook | Libby eBook
Genre: Romance, Cozy Horror
Tanya Huff has been writing great SFF for decades. This is her newest book and it’s charming. A teacher takes a side job as a private investigator and goes to the little town of Lake Argen to figure out what happened to a woman’s grandson. The town is full of mysteries, such as why one can get 5 bars of cell coverage in the middle of nowhere.
The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo
Potential library options: Hoopla Audiobook | Libby Audiobook | Libby eBook
Genre: Fantasy
This is the first novella in the Singing Hills Cycle. This is fantasy inspired by East Asian and Southeast Asian history and mythology. It follows the adventures of cleric Chih who wanders around collecting stories. All the books are novellas so they’re pretty fast reads.
Rules for Ghosting by Shelly Jay Shore
Potential library options: Libby Audiobook | Libby eBook
Genre: Contemporary Fantasy, Romance
Ezra’s family owns a funeral home which is really inconvenient because Ezra can see ghosts. This is a sweet journey of discovery and romance with a side of intense family drama.
Voyage of the Damned by Frances White
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Genre: Fantasy | Mystery
This is one of those books where I kept reading even though I knew I should go to bed. A bunch of young aristocrats are journeying together on a ship when they start being murdered. Ganymedes Piscero has a secret and was planning to get himself disgraced and kicked off the ship to avoid anyone finding out. However, he decides he needs to figure out what’s going on. It reads like a YA book to me, though apparently it isn’t.
Navigational Entanglements by Aliette de Bodard
Potential library options: Libby eBook
Genre: Science Fiction, Romance
I find it very relaxing to read about characters who aren’t particularly comfortable around people. Việt Nhi is not great with people but has been sent, along with four other people, to deal with a deadly space creature. Depending on how you count, this is either a long novella or a short novel. Either way, it’s a fast read.
Metal from Heaven by August Clarke
Potential library options: Hoopla eBook | Libby eBook
Genre: Officially fantasy but feels more like science fiction to me
I’m not sure I liked this book but it was definitely an experience. I was a little surprised it wasn’t a Hugo Award finalist as I had been hearing a lot of buzz about it. Regardless, this is not a cozy read. One blurb says it’s an “anti-capitalist howl of rage” which is pretty accurate.
A Pale Light in the Black by K. B. Wagers
Potential library options: Hoopla Audiobook | Libby Audiobook | Libby eBook
Genre: Science Fiction (Space Opera)
This is the first book in the NeoG series. It’s basically the Coast Guard in space. I listened to this book in 2020 driving down from Washington to California, with wildfires on either side of me. The book is full of kind people which is what I really needed to listen to at that time in my life. Book four of the series came out last year.
Lavender House
Potential library options: Hoopla Audiobook | Libby eBook
Genre: Mystery, Historical Fiction
This book was a bit different than my normal read. It’s a mystery set in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1950s. The detective has just been kicked out, literally, from the police force for being gay and has been asked to discretely figure out how a rich woman died. If you look at the books above, most of them have LGBTQ+ characters who are more or less accepted for who they are. This is certainly not the case for the characters in this book. This book really emphasized to me how dangerous it was, and unfortunately sometimes still is, to be gay.
Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh
Potential library options: Hoopla Audiobook | Libby Audiobook | Libby eBook
Genre: Science Fiction (space opera)
This book won the 2024 Hugo Award for Novel. It was a hard book for me to start. Kyr buys in so completely to what is clearly, to the outside observer, a warped society. However, then it betrays her and she goes on the run, looking for redemption, and only gradually realizes that she may not be fighting on the right side. Once I got past the first quarter of the book I couldn’t put it down.