Oof! Time sure does fly when you’re busy reading, doesn’t it? Half the year has passed us by, and it’s already time for the second part of our 2022 queer lit preview. You know the drill by now: we walk you through all of the fab new LGBTQIA+ fiction coming out (pardon the pun) for the rest of the year, and you get to expand your TBR pile to new and exciting lengths!
This year our preview has fallen on pride month, so you can expect some more gay blog treats later this month (a little birdy told me that a Heartstopper-themed list could be in the pipeline…), so follow us on Instagram and Twitter to keep up with our new posts! For now, sit back and peruse our selection of queer fiction with gay abandon!
As usual, you can find the entire 2022 Queer list on Bookshop.org and if you want to stock your bookshop shelves with anything on this list then please reach out to your local Turnaround sales rep! 💖 (Please note that some of these titles may not yet be available to pre-order for the general public)
June
What did you eat yesterday vol. 18 by Fumi Yoshinaga
(9781647290900, Out now, Vertical, £10.99)
A casual romance between two 40-year-old men and the many meals they share together. Changes are afoot at Kenji’s salon and Shiro’s law firm, but the one constant is that there’s always good food and great company to be enjoyed. A thoughtful and unique manga that incorporates food into the narrative while providing readers with the recipes.
Summer in the City of Roses by Michelle Ruiz Keil
(9781641293860, Out now, SOHO Press, £9.99)
Inspired by the Greek myth of Iphigenia and Grimm fairy tales, a novel about separated siblings struggling to find each other in early ’90s Portland.
Blessed Cure by Mario Cesar
(9781908030542, Out now, Soaring Penguin Press, £24.99)
Blessed Cure is an awarded LGBTQ+ graphic novel by Brazilian author Mario Cesar that portrays what it is like to have a life marked by homophobia and the effects of sexual reversal therapies that try to cure something that is not a disease…
Queering the Map of Glasgow (2nd Edition). Ed. By Nathaniel Kunitsky
(9781999671358, Out 30/06/2022, Knight Errant Press, £6.99)
Queering the Map of Glasgow was inspired by the community-generated mapping project Queering the Map. This is a map unlike any other: adding detail and fable it is neither complete nor fixed, it is a fold in the world. And a queer one at that. Twelve Scotland-based authors explore queer Glasgow through short stories, poetry and an essay in this small collection.
July
That Summer Night on Frenchmen Street by Chris Clarkson
(9781643795010, Out 07/07/2022, Lee & Low, £18.99)
A modern-day, young adult reimagining of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Being there for her family is the most important thing to Jessamine Monet. And her family is complicated. Her twin brother Joel has a secret boyfriend, and her transgender cousin Solange is flourishing, despite the disapproval of Solange’s dying mother. So when Tennessee Williams – a rich white boy named after the writer – asks her out, she hesitantly says yes. While she fights her attraction to him, Tennessee is pulled into her inner family circle and develops a friendship with Joel’s boyfriend, Saint Baptist.
The Last Fallen Moon by Graci Kim
(9781368073141, Out 07/07/2022, Rick Riordan Presents, £14.99)
A thrilling second instalment in Graci Kim’s magical and mysterious Gifted Clans trilogy, from Rick Riordan Presents. Featuring LGBTQ+ characters, this is a brilliant fantasy for ages 8-12.
The Passion Of Gengoroh Tagame: Master Of Gay Erotic Manga Vol 1 by Gengoroh Tagame
9781683965275, Out 14/07/2022, Fantagraphics, £24.99)
The often violent, visceral, and always provocative style of Japanese manga legend Gengoroh Tagame, one of the originators of Japanese bear culture, comes to life like never before in The Passion Of Gengorah Tagame, a new edition of the artist’s first English-language collection.
The Passion Of Gengoroh Tagame: Master Of Gay Erotic Manga Vol 2 by Gengoroh Tagame With Chip Kidd, Anne Ishii & Graham Kolbeins
(9781683965275, Out 14/07/2022, Fantagraphics, £24.99)
Kings, monks, cops, athletes: no manly man is safe from the deliciously depraved fantasies of gay manga master Gengoroh Tagame. In this unabashedly adult collection of BDSM comics, Tagame serves up what his fans love best: elaborate, sensational, beautifully rendered erotica. The long-awaited follow-up to Tagame’s breakthrough collection, the second volume features a treasure trove of long and short stories previously unpublished in English.
After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz
(9781913111243, Out 15/07/2022, Galley Beggar Press, £9.99)
Sarah Bernhardt – Colette – Eleanora Duse – Lina Poletti – Josephine Baker – Virginia Woolf… these are just a few of the women sharing the pages of a novel as fierce as it is luminous. Lush and poetic; furious and funny; in After Sappho, Selby Wynn Schwartz has created a novel that celebrates the women and trailblazers of the past – their constant efforts to push against the boundaries of what it means, and can mean, to be a woman – that also offers hope for our present, and our futures.
I Think Our Son Is Gay 03 by Okura
(9781646091263, Out 21/07/2022, Square Enix, £10.99)
A doting mother and her two beloved sons, one of whom she thinks is probably gay, go about their daily lives in this hilarious and heartwarming LGBTQIA+ friendly family comedy.
The Poe Clan Vol. 2 by Moto Hagio
(9781683965725, Out 21/07/2022, Fantagraphics, £35.99)
This groundbreaking young adult vampire series was created by a pioneer of the shojo/shonen-ai manga genres and one of the world’s most influential cartoonists. In our concluding second volume, an amnesia-stricken Edgar is found alone on a snowy night in England. Separated from his “vampirnella” clan, who feed on the energy of the living and while away the centuries in a village of roses, he struggles to remember his own name. Will Edgar regain his memory and be reunited with them?
August
Nine Stones Vol. 1 by Samuel Spano
(9781953414199, Out 25/08/2022, Behemoth Comics, £19.99)
The queer supernatural webcomic with over 40 thousand monthly subscribers and 5 million views, collected in print in English for the first time. Disturbing dreams shake Alistair ‘Allie’ Jacobi’s nights. But his daytime life is not much better. His father, the boss of a criminal organisation, has decided that it’s time for his son to gain experience in the underworld. So Allie, 19, finds himself doing an ‘internship’ in a convenience store run by the man who, under the cover of home deliveries, is selling drugs to the entire city.
September
Vera Kelly Lost and Found by Rosalie Knecht
(9780857308283, Out 15/09/2022, Verve Books, £9.99)
The third instalment of the brilliant Vera Kelly series sees Vera Kelly and her girlfriend, Max, leave their cosy Brooklyn apartment for an emergency visit to Max’s estranged family in Los Angeles. As family tensions boil, Vera wakes up to find Max is missing. In Vera Kelly Lost and Found, Rosalie Knecht gives Vera her highest-stakes case yet.
Johnny Would You Love Me If My Dick Were Bigger by Brontez Purnell
(9781739784911, Out 22/09/2022, Cipher Press, £9.99)
Recounting the life of an artist and ‘old school homosexual’ who bears more than a small resemblance to author Brontez Purnell, Johnny Would You Love Me takes us cruising in late night parks and bath houses, searching for sex and intimacy in a newly gentrified city where even the gays are getting fancy. A collection of short, hilarious, profound, and filthy vignettes, Johnny Would You Love Me is a radical thrill ride through the nuances of queer sex and queer love.
October
Twelfth Grade Night (Arden High Book 1) by Molly Booth & Stephanie Kate Strohm, Illustrated by Jamie Green
(HB: 9781368062398, PB: 9781368064651, Out 13/10/2022, Disney-Hyperion, HB: £20.99, PB: £12.99)
Vi came to Arden High for a fresh start and a chance to wear beanies and button-ups instead of uniform skirts. And though doing it without her twin feels like being split in half, Vi finds her stride when she stumbles (literally!) into broody and beautiful poet-slash-influencer, Orsino. Soon Vi gets roped into helping plan the school’s Twelfth Grade Night dance, and she can’t stop dreaming about slow dancing with Orsino under the fairy lights in the gym. The problem? All Vi’s new friends assume she’s not even into guys. The course of true love never did run smooth… and neither does school in this new graphic novel series for fans of Heartstopper and The Prince and the Dressmaker.
Last Gender 1 by Rei Taki
(9781647291914, Out 13/10/2022, Vertical, £10.99)
An exciting new manga featuring the stories of sexual minorities gathering at a chic spot called BAR California looking for their sexuality and love. Welcome to ‘BAR California’, a place where people with different genders, propensities, and sexual orientations gather to find a certain ‘something’.
(cover coming soon)
The Carnivorous Plant by Andrea Mayo & translated by Laura McGloughlin
(9781739823634, Out 20/10/2022, 3TimesRebel Press, £14.99)
What makes a carnivorous plant trap you? How can we avoid it? How can we escape from it devouring us? For the protagonist of this story, it is already too late when she realises that she is completely trapped in a toxic relationship with her partner Ibana. The Carnivorous Plant is divided into 9 sections and 81 short chapters, all of which begin with the number 1, as a metaphor for the main character being in a labyrinth with no way out.
The Consequences: Stories by Manuel Muñoz
(9781911648475, Out 20/10/2022, The Indigo Press, £10.99)
The Consequences is a collection of short stories set in the Mexican-American community of California’s Central Valley, depicting the lives of farmworkers and their children who contend with limited opportunities, queerness and the challenges of intimacy.
X by Davey Davis
(9781739784935, Out 27/10/2022, Cipher Press, £10.99)
An electrifying novel about the creeping reality of political terror, and the violent pleasures found in Brooklyn’s queer heartlands. Part noir, part erotic thriller, X is a vivid, moody and darkly funny portrait of those living on the margins of an increasingly hostile society.
November
The Marble Queen by Anna Kopp & Gabrielle Kari
(9781506728124, Dark Horse, 24/11/2022, £16.99)
A sapphic YA graphic novel with sword fighting, political intrigue and magic where the princess takes up a unique marriage alliance for the welfare of her kingdom.
Men I Trust by Tommi Parrish
(9781683966500, Out 22/11/2022, Fantagraphics, £29.99)
This sophomore graphic novel from Australian cartoonist and painter Tommi Parrish establishes them as one of the most exciting voices in contemporary literature. Eliza is a thirty-something struggling single mother and poet. Sasha, a twenty-something yearning for direction in life, just moved back in with her parents and dabbles as a sex worker. The two strike up an unlikely friendship that, as it veers toward something more, becomes a deeply resonant exploration of how far people are willing to go to find intimacy in a society that is increasingly not conducive to it. Parrish’s gorgeously painted pages showcase a graceful understanding of body language and ear for dialogue, brilliantly using the medium of comics to depict the dissonance between the characters’ interior and exterior experiences.
Best Lesbian Erotica of the Year, Volume 7 Ed. By Sinclair Sexsmith
(9781627783279, Out 08/12/2022, Cleis Press, £15.99)
The latest enthralling instalment in Cleis Press’s Lambda-nominated series of the very best in lesbian erotic writing.
The Perfume Burned His Eyes by Michael Imperioli
(9781636140698, Out 08/12/2022, Akashic Books, £14.99)
Matthew is a sixteen-year-old living in Jackson Heights, Queens, in 1976. After he loses his two most important male role models, his father and grandfather, his mother uses her inheritance to uproot Matthew and herself to a posh apartment building in Manhattan. Matthew soon befriends (and becomes a quasi-assistant to) Lou Reed, who lives with his transgender girlfriend Rachel in the same building. Written from the point of view of Matthew at age eighteen, two years after the story begins, the novel concludes with an epilogue in the year 2013, three days after Lou Reed’s death, with Matthew in his fifties.
In The Key of Dale by Benjamin Lefebvre
(9781551529035, Out 15/12/2022, Arsenal Pulp Press, £13.99)
For fans of Heartstopper: a disarming coming-of-age novel about a queer teen music prodigy who discovers pieces of himself in places he never thought to look.
Queer Little Nightmares Ed. By David Ly & Daniel Zomparelli
(9781551529011, Out 15/12/2022, Arsenal Pulp Press, £15.99)
A striking and playful anthology of fiction and poetry that removes queer monsters from the subtext and places them front and center. Pushed into the shadows as objects of fear, revulsion and hostility, these characters have long conjured fascination and self-identification in the LGBTQ+ community, and over time, monsters have become queer icons. In Queer Little Nightmares, creatures of myth and folklore seek belonging and intimate connection, cryptids challenge their outcast status, and classic movie monsters explore the experience of coming into queerness.
