As 2024 rapidly dawns on us, we’re sharing our last queer literature preview of the year with you all! Here you’ll find over forty titles that came out this Winter, or are upcoming for December. With superb reads from around the world, telling stories from dozens of talented authors, this is your one-stop-shop for this season’s biggest range of LGBTQIA+ stories.
For our full 2023 list, you can catch up on our other Queer Lit Previews or browse all titles on our Bookshop.org page. Reach out to your sales rep to place your orders now!
Wound
By Oksana Vasyakina & Translated by Elina Alter
9781646221448 | Catapult | Hardback | Out now | £25.99
For fans of Maggie Nelson and Eileen Myles, the lyrical and deeply moving story of a young queer woman’s journey across Russia to inter her mother’s ashes and to understand her sexuality, femininity, and grief.
Shoot the Moon
By Isa Arsen
9780593543887 | Putnam | Hardback | Out now | £24.99
An ambitious and evocative debut novel about one brilliant but lonely NASA secretary’s relentless drive to live a big life in a world that would keep her small. Intelligent but isolated physics graduate Annie Fisk feels an undeniable pull toward space. When she lands a job as a NASA secretary during the Apollo 11 mission, she feels certain this path is her destiny. Annie finds herself torn between her ambition, her heart, and a mysterious discovery that upends everything she knows to be scientifically true.
First to Leave the Party
By Salah Bachir, Jami Bernard, Forewords by Atom Egoyan & Alan Cumming
9780771006111 | Signal | Hardback | Out now | £24.99
A marvellous and compulsively readable collection of stories from the life of Salah Bachir —philanthropist, art collector, movie industry insider — who, through his sheer joy of life, art, giving back, and human interaction, has endeared him to some of the most famous and creative people in recent times. Collected here in this wonderful book are personal stories of them all — some short, some long, some surprising, others juicy, and all fascinating.
How To Get Over the End of the World
By Hal Schrieve
9781644213018 | Triangle Square Press | Hardback | Out now | £14.99
Boldly weird, cool, and confident, this YA novel of LGBTQ+ teen artists, activists, and telepathic visionaries offers hope against climate and community destruction. James Goldman, self-described neurotic goth gay transsexual stoner, is a senior in high school, and fully over it. But when James falls in love with Orsino, a home-schooled trans boy with telepathic powers and visions of the future, he wonders if the scope of what he believes possible is too small.
Something About Her
By Clementine Taylor
9780593544303 | Putnam | Hardback | Out now | £20
A heartfelt and delicately crafted debut novel about two young women who become entangled in one another and embark on a surprising journey of self-discovery and modern love. After meeting at the University of Edinburgh Poetry Society, both of their lives are changed forever. Moving between Ireland, Scotland, and London, Something About Her is a story about the fragility and transformative power of first love.
A Nearby Country Called Love
By Salar Abdoh
9780593653906 | Viking Press USA | Hardback | Out now | £25
Amid the alleyways of the Zamzam neighbourhood of Tehran, a woman lights herself on fire in a desperate act of defiance, setting off a chain reaction of violence and protest. Haunted by the woman’s death, Issa is forced to confront the contradictions within his own family as his brother Hashem, a prominent queer artist in Tehran’s underground, defies their father, a skilled martial artist bound to traditional notions of honour and masculinity. Issa soon finds himself thrown into a circle of people living on the margins of a society at the brink of combusting, negotiating a razor-like code of conduct that rewards loyalty and encourages aggression and intolerance in equal measure.
Touching the Art
By Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
9781593767358 | Soft Skull Press | Hardback | Out now | £25.99
A daringly observant memoir about intergenerational trauma, fine art, and compartmentalization from a Lambda Literary Award winning author. Queer icon and activist Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore’s work interrogates of the possibilities of artistic striving, the limits of the middle-class mindset, the legacy of familial abandonment, and what art can and cannot do.
The Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle: Vol. 1
By Kent Monkman & Gisèle Gordon
9780771061226 | Mcclelland & Stewart | Hardback | Out now | £31.99
From global art superstar Kent Monkman and his long-time collaborator Gisele Gordon, a transformational work of true stories and imagined history that will remake readers’ understanding of the land called North America. The Memoirs Of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle is a genre-demolishing work of genius, the imagined history of a legendary figure through which profound truths emerge – a deeply Cree and gloriously queer understanding of our shared world, its past, its present, and its possibilities.
No One Left But You
By Tash Mcadam
9781641294898 | Soho Teen | Hardback | Out 28th November 2023 | £17.99
Newly out trans guy Max is having a hard time in school. Things have been tough since his summer romance, Danny, turned into his bully. This year, his plan is to keep his head down and graduate. All that changes when new It-Girl Gloss moves to town and he’s swept up in a whirlwind friendship with lethal consequences.
Alcestis
By Katherine Beutner
9781641295512 | SOHO Press | Paperback | Out now | £16.99
For fans of The Song of Achilles, a queer and fiercely feminist retelling of a little-known Greek myth: the ultimate story of sacrifice and forbidden desire — now in a 10-year anniversary deluxe edition. Giving an achingly beautiful voice to the most misunderstood wives of Greek mythology, Alcestis is the Underworld as you’ve never seen it before.
One Sunny Afternoon
By Rowan Jette Knox
9780735244634 | Viking Canada | Paperback | Out now | £16.99
For writer and human rights advocate Rowan Jetté Knox (previously known as Amanda Jetté Knox), the inspiring story of his family’s journey of love and acceptance, when both his child and partner came out as transgender one after the other, was the hopeful beginning to their new lives. But soon their hope is shattered by targeted online attaches against them. One Sunny Afternoon is a searing testament to Rowan Jetté Knox’s extraordinary reckoning with his past and present, to find hope in his future.
Welcome Back, Alice 5
By Shuzo Oshimi
9781647292287 | Vertical | Paperback | Out now | £12.99
From the creator of Flowers of Evil, comes his latest work tackling adolescence with a gender bender twist… Yohei, Kei and Yui are childhood friends and things get complicated when Yohei witnesses Kei and Yui in an intimate moment. But when Kei unexpectedly moves away and returns a few years later to reunite in high school, he seems to be a bit different.
Matchmaker
By Cam Marshall
9798886200294 | Silver Sprocket | Paperback | Out now | £21.99
The complete collection of cartoonist Cam Marshall’s joyful queer slice-of-life webcomic! From global pandemics, to matchmakers and angsty queer baristas, Matchmaker is a stubbornly hopeful and funny comic about the bonds between queer and trans friends, the families we make, and the happiness we find in each other.
Hated for the Gods
By Sean Patrick Mulroy
9781638340713 | Button Poetry | Paperback | Out now | £16.99
Sean Patrick Mulroy’s Hated for the Gods invites the reader to embrace their queer heritage with disarming tenderness, and urges them to celebrate the joy of gay sex without shame. Plaintive and joyous, sexy and ferocious — often all at once — Hated for the Gods is as much a call to action as it is a work of literature. Gorgeously rendered and skilfully constructed both to educate and inspire, Sean Patrick Mulroy’s poetry weaves together stories from his coming of age in the American South of the 1990s with the broader history of gay men in America.
Julian
By Fleur Pierets & Translated by Elizabeth Kahn
9781739452841 | 3TimesRebel Press | Paperback | Out now | £12.99
Belgian artist Fleur Pierets wanted to marry her partner Julian in all countries where two women are allowed to marry. The aim was to raise awareness of equal marriage rights in a positive way. But the ‘world tour of love’ was interrupted: after her fourth marriage, in Paris, Julian was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumour. She died two months later. Julian tells the story of their love, activism and the path that Fleur had to forge on her own following the immense loss of her wife.
Daddy Boy
By Emerson Whitney
9781739220747 | Cipher Press | Paperback | Out now | £10.99
Mixing essay, queer theory, and memoir, a smart, big-hearted and electrifying exploration of masculinity, inherited trauma, queerness, love… and tornadoes. After a decade-long relationship with a dominatrix he called Daddy, Emerson Whitney began to crave something besides submission. Daddy Boy follows Emerson as he packs into a van with a group of strangers and drives up and down America — staying in Days Inns and eating bags of carrots from Walmart and hunting down storms like so many white whales.
Andrion
By Alex Penland
9781999671389 | Knight Errant | Paperback | Out now | £10
Against the backdrop of steampunk antiquity — an Ancient Athens where automatons line the city walls — Kallis sets out to incite a revolution. She’s going to create a world where no one is forced to be someone they’re not: a world where women can be artificers and orators, where one’s future isn’t determined by the track set out by their parents.
Forty Lies
By David Shenton
9780861662913 | Knockabout | Paperback | Out now | £16.99
David Shenton says: Forty Lies is my Queer History from birth in 1949. I was told I was different from very early on because I could knit and my older brother couldn’t, or didn’t want to. This anagram of a book, is a vaguely chronological patchwork of forty(ish) personal stories, that don’t bear too much factual scrutiny, yet are as real and honest as need be, following the trials of Coming Out, the Age of Consent, family rejection, dodgy boyfriends, shaky career prospects, police swoops, the enemy without, queer bashers, and so much more.
Brainwyrms
By Alison Rumfitt
9781739220723 | Cipher Press | Paperback | Out now | £10.99
When a transphobic woman bombs Frankie’s workplace, she blows up Frankie’s life with it. As the media descends like vultures, Frankie tries to cope with the carnage: binge-drinking, fucking strangers, pushing away her friends. Then, she meets Vanya. Mysterious, beautiful, terrifying Vanya. From the author of Tell Me I’m Worthless comes a searing body horror novel of obsession, fetish, violence, and pleasure.
The Blue Mask
By Joel Lane
9781914391057 | Influx Press | Paperback | Out now | £9.99
Neil is a student at Birmingham University, living a typical life of gigs, clubs, politics, sex. One night, after a row with his lover, Neil follows a stranger onto a canal towpath. The stranger turns on him and attacks, viciously carving up Neil’s face and leaving him mutilated beyond recognition. Neil’s recovery is a journey through surgical reconstruction and sexual alienation. First published in 2003 and long out-of-print , The Blue Mask is a hardcore emotional trip exploring the trauma of change and the nature of violence and of love.
It’s a Fabulous Life
By Kelly Farmer
9781639106042 | Alcove Press | Paperback | Out now | £17.99
Perfect for fans of Alison Cochrun and Ashley Herring Blake, this sapphic retelling of It’s a Wonderful Life will make the yuletide gay. After years of putting aside her dreams of travel and adventure, Bailey George is ready to leave Lanford Falls and her responsibilities behind on a long-awaited vacation to New York City. But when the volunteer who took over her leadership position for the town’s Winter Wonderfest has a medical emergency, Bailey finds herself stuck in Lanford Falls. What romantic adventures could possibly happen?!
Confetti Realms
By Nadia Shammas, Nadia, Illustrated by Karnessa & Hackto Oshiro
9781952303333 | Maverick | Paperback | Out now | £14.99
A group of teens are transported from a graveyard to another realm where they must collect teeth — and learn about themselves — in order to return home. Featuring a diverse cast of characters, this Tim Burton-esque, comedic, modern, and high-energy story is written by Eisner Award-winner Nadia Shammas, with art by Karnessa and colors by Hackto Oshiro.
Girlfriends
By Emily Zhou
9781736716847 | LittlePuss Press | Paperback | Out now | £15.99
In seven light-filled prisms of short stories, Emily Zhou chronicles modern queer life with uncompromising and hilarious lucidity. Attending to the intimacy of Gen Z women’s lives, these stories move from the provinces to the metropolis, from chaotic student accommodation to insecure jobs, from parties to dates to the nights after, from haplessness to some kind of power.
My Body Is Distant
By Paige Maylott
9781770416918 | ECW Press | Paperback | Out now | £17.99
In My Body is Distant, Paige Maylott writes about her life — both virtual and IRL — as she explores her authentic self and sexuality through dream-like virtual worlds. While Paige dances in online BDSM clubs and hurls spells on virtual battlefields, she is swept into a fairy tale romance that pushes her into discovery mode: How can she transcend her carefully curated computer universe and manifest that happiness in the real world?
The Family Business: To Paris with Love
By Carl Weber & Eric Pete
9781645565093 | Urban Books | Paperback | Out now | £15.99
Ripped from the pages of The Family Business, a solo story about two popular characters — the bright, sexy, and deadly Paris Duncan and her flamboyant and cunning twin brother, Rio. Packed with family crises, drama and mischief, perfect for any fan of The Family Business.
Sons, Daughters
By Ivana Bodrožić & Translated by Ellen Elias-Bursac
9781911710066 | Seven Stories Press Uk | Paperback | Out now | £17.99
Ivana Bodrožić’s latest award-winning novel tells a story of being locked in: socially, domestically and intimately, told through three different perspectives. Here the Croatian poet and writer depicts a wrenching love between a transgender man and a woman as well as a demanding love between a mother and a daughter in a narrative about liberation of the mind, family, and society.
Atoms Never Touch
By micha cardenas & Foreword by adrienne maree brown
9781849355285 | AK Press | Paperback | Out now | £14
Jumping to alternate realities sounds great, if you’re in control. But what if you’re not? What if you’re propelled away from the people and places you love the most in the blink of an eye? And what if these involuntary journeys happen because your neurochemistry is different, and your brain works differently? Beautiful, compassionate, and resourceful as she is, this is Rea’s problem. A Latina trans woman and an academic, she is beloved by a tight circle of friends, who fully accept her without knowing the cause of her disappearances. But she is haunted by the lovers and family that she cannot trace back to, and fears she might be separated from them forever.
JesusDevil
By Alexis De Veaux
9781849355063 | AK Press | Paperback | Out now | £14
Evocative and experimental, JesusDevil is a nonlinear tale of black life and spiritual expression. Writing in a style she calls ‘a fiction,’ Alexis De Veaux expands and moves beyond traditional narrative, following the adventures of Fhill, a black, queer spirit who has taken human form. Neither male nor female, Fhill moves fluidly and disruptively across concepts of identity, passing through the nine ‘parables’ that comprise the book.
Queer Affirmations Coloring Book
By Joe Carlough & Ally Shwed
9781648412097 | Microcosm Publishing | Paperback | Out now | £16.99
Heteronormative platitudes got you down? Colour these joyful queer affirmations instead! Joe Carlough’s thoughtful and humorous revisions of everyday platitudes pair perfectly with Ally Shwed’s colorable scenarios of all sorts of queer people bonding with each other, expressing their emotions, and learning to love themselves a little more every day.
The Flying Ship Volume 1
By Jem Milton
9781506738444 | Dark Horse | Paperback | Out now | £22.99
Queer adventure, humour, and heartfelt friendships star in this fantastical comics tale that truly feels like it’s for everyone. After being stranded in a forgotten military outpost, grumpy Dobrinia sets out on a quest to marry a princess. But in the vast Tzardom of Glas, where magic has been outlawed, troubled histories can catch up with even a flying ship. The Flying Ship by Jem Milton makes its first foray into print comics! Their fan-favourite story, originally released digitally, is part of the new collaboration between Dark Horse and Tapas.
Fag Hag
By Lola Miesseroff, Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith & Afterword by Helene Hazera
9798887440101 | PM Press | Paperback | Out now | £16.99
Lola Miesseroff’s childhood certainly predisposed her to be a rebel. She was born in Marseilles in 1947 to immigrant parents, her mother a Russian-Jewish social worker, her father an Armenian-Russian with a sandpaper-making workshop in sheds left behind by the Americans. Throughout her life she immerses herself in — and is deeply committed to — women’s liberation, sexual liberation, gay and LGBTQIA+ liberation. This memoir tells the story of her many rebellions and the lessons learned from her life as an activist.
The Chronicle Fantasy
By H.A.
9798886200324 | Silver Sprocket | Paperback | Out now | £28.99
A gorgeously drawn graphic novel reminiscent of stained glass and illuminated manuscripts, telling a story of queer transmasc romance, daring adventure, and (literally) fighting your demons. Jules is a trans man trapped in his life as a nun. The devil that the convent guards against offers him a deal to escape: an illicit tryst and lifelong possession. Jules takes the deal, and begins his new life as a criminal who’s impervious to harm. He soon meets Casper, another trans man and a poetic thief, and together they steal, lie, and cheat their way through bewildering adventures, and develop feelings for each other along the way. But as Jules and Casper’s relationship deepens, so does the devil’s jealous grasp…
When My Ghost Sings
By Tara Sidhoo Fraser
9781551529271 | Arsenal Pulp Press | Paperback | Out now | £18.99
A lucid exploration of amnesia, selfhood, and who is left behind when the past is obliterated. Tara Sidhoo Fraser is thirty-one years old when a rare mutation in her brain causes a stroke. Awakening after surgery with no memory of her previous life, she attempts to piece it all back together through a haze of amnesia. Yet, as memories do begin to surface, they are seen through someone else’s eyes — the person whose body she stole, whom she calls Ghost. Fighting to stabilize her existence, Tara struggles with the gulf between who she was and who she is now, while constantly battling and paying penance to Ghost.
I Love My Queer Kid
By Marc Campbell
9781648412301 | Microcosm Publishing | Paperback | Out 30th November 2023 | £17.99
This workbook is for parents and other caretakers whose child or young adult has come out as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, nonbinary, or any other queer identity. Featuring ten weeks of accessible, thoughtful exercises are designed to help you gain perspective, challenge your assumptions and fears, and better understand and connect with your kid.
The Haunting of Adrian Yates
By Markus Harwood-Jones
9781998898008 | Metonymy Press | Paperback | Out 30th November 2023 | £11.99
Adrian’s best friend and his boyfriend don’t get along. Oh, and his boyfriend is a ghost. On stormy summer nights behind the cemetery’s iron gates, Adrian and Sorel meet in secret and the pair begin to experiment with consensual possession. Despite the warning signs, Adrian is certain he has everything under control — until suddenly he finds himself fighting for his life.
The Child of Hameln
By Max Turner
9781999671396 | Knight Errant | Paperback | Out 30th November 2023 | £10
This supernatural mystery and light horror is a dark fable set in 1980’s small town USA, and is a retelling of the German folktale The Pied Piper of Hameln. Elk Pass is a town cloaked in darkness and plagued by an unknown evil, where twenty years earlier all but one of the town’s children were stolen. That remaining child, now the deputy sheriff, is left to unravel corruption and cover up when his mentor, the town sheriff, dies unexpectedly. The mystery unfolds as a snow storm blows in, threatening to isolate the town, leaving Deputy Bobby Taylor to deal with a plague of rats and the monsters, both human and fae, that follow.
The Bicyclist’s Guide to the Galaxy
By Elly Blue
9781648411861 | Microcosm Publishing | Paperback | Out 5th December 2023 | £12.99
Two strangers and their bike fall through a plot hole and into a fantasy novel, an author attempts to chronicle the solar cycling trend, a 6th grader’s beloved novel is stolen by a horde of bicycling fae, an interstellar book preservationist takes a bike to fit in and gets a wilder ride than she bargained for, and more adventures are set in imagined realities not so different from our own futures, pasts, and present day lives.
Time on Two Crosses: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin
By Bayard Rustin, Edited by Devon Carbado & Don Weise, with Walter Naegle & Barney Frank
9781627783385 | Cleis Press | Paperback | Out 5th December 2023 | £31.99
The collected writings of an openly gay Black civil rights leader, newly revised ahead of the release of Rustin (2023) on Netflix. Widely acclaimed as a founding father of modern black protest, Rustin reached international notoriety in 1963 as the openly gay organizer of the March on Washington. From Gandhi’s impact on African Americans, white supremacists in Congress, and the assassination of Malcolm X to Rustin’s never-before-published essays on Louis Farrakhan, affirmative action, and the call for gay rights, Time on Two Crosses chronicles five decades of Rustin’s commitment to justice and equality.
Rosa Luxemburg: No to Borders
By Anne Blanchard & Translated by Rosie Eyre
9781644213070 | Triangle Square Press | Hardback | Out 7th December 2023 | £9.99
A fictionalized biography of the great Polish-German revolutionary and anti-war activist. Rosa Luxemburg was a Polish-born German revolutionary emboldened by the necessity of acting against imperialism, colonialism, and militarism. In this fictionalized biography of the great activist and revolutionary, we see her actions and ideas through the eyes of her faithful companion, Mimi, an alley cat who has a front row view of this astonishing thinker and mover who railed against building walls between countries and people.
Twilight Out of Focus 4: The Evening Monologues
By Jyanome
9781647292362 | Vertical | Paperback | Out 19th December 2023 | £12.99
Come out? Check. Get a fresh start at an all-boys, boarding high school? Check. Snag a hot, third-year boyfriend?! Check! Now all Shion Yoshino has to do is take his new boo, third-year Rei Inaba, from a piece of doo-doo and mould him into the model manga boyfriend! First-year Shion Yoshino knows exactly what he wants: a boyfriend straight out of a shojo manga! But is this really the love of Shion’s shojo dreams, or is Rei just a pretty face who won’t make room for anyone else in his life? One thing’s is for certain: Shion Yoshino won’t give up without a fight!
The Boys in the Club
By Mondell Pope
9781645564676 | Urban Books | Paperback | Out 26th December 2023 | £16.99
It is said that all work and no play makes life dull. Justin, Keith, Marcus, and Evan love to do both. Partying hard gets easier to do as the pressures of life get the best of them. Drinking, bad decisions, and bad boys are always a recipe for disaster. The club life seems like the perfect escape, but could it consume them?
