This Summer’s Hottest Queer Fiction & Poetry

Stuck waiting for the hot weather to finally get here? Let us heat you up with some of this summer’s hottest queer book releases instead… 🔥 Summer is the season of steamy new romances, escapist sci-fi, and some of the most cutting-edge lit fic you can find on your bookshop shelves. Keep reading to discover over 30 new summer titles from the best and brightest LGBTQIA+ authors.*

Tryst Six Venom

By Penelope Douglas

Berkley — US / Paperback / 9780593641989 / Out April 2024 / £12.99

It’s away games, back seats, and the locker room after hours in this spicy new adult romance, now with bonus material.

Selamlik

By Khaled Alesmael & translated by Leri Price

World Editions / Paperback / 9781642861488 / Out April 2024 / £16.99

An emotional and unflinching story about Arab masculinity and homoeroticism.

Amma

By Saraid de Silva

Weatherglass Books / Paperback / 9781739260149 / Out April 2024 / £12.99

1951, Singapore. Josephina is 10. She is sexually assaulted — and then kills her attacker.

Juliet The Maniac

By Juliet Escoria

Melville House Publishing / Paperback / 9781685891275 / Out April 2024 / £16.99

A confident and raw novel from a talented young writer, portraying the unravelling of teenage girl as she plunges into self-destruction.

A Fondness For Truth

By Kim Hays

Seventh Street Books / Paperback / 9781645060833 / Out April 2024 / £18.99

Honesty isn’t always the best policy in Kim Hays’ third Linder and Donatelli Mystery novel as two detectives dig into the mysterious circumstances around outspoken Andi Eberhart’s hit and run.

Gay Heaven Is A Dance Floor But I Can’t Relax

By charles theonia

Archway Editions / Paperback / 9781648230523 / Out April 2024 / £14.99

The breakout poetry collection of a soon-to-be major poet in a multiform, poetic conversation between queer and trans artists and writers.

Remain Silent

By Robyn Gigl

Verve Books / Paperback / 9780857308597 / Out April 2024 / £10.99

Erin McCabe’s years as a criminal defence attorney have prepared her for almost anything — except for being on the opposite side of the interrogation table.

These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart

By Izzy Wasserstein

Tachyon Publications / Paperback / 9781616964122 / Out April 2024 / £14.99

In a queer, noir technothriller of fractured identity and corporate intrigue, a trans woman faces her fear of losing her community as her past chases after her.

Bad Girls

By Camila Sosa Villada & translated by Kit Maude

Other Press / Paperback / 9781635424409 / Out April 2024 / £15.99

Gritty and unflinching, yet also tender, fantastical, and funny, a trans woman’s tale about finding a community on the margins.

The Sins On Their Bones

By Laura R. Samotin

Random House Canada / Paperback / 9781039007567 / Out May 2024 / £16.99

Set in a Jewish folklore-inspired reimagining of 19th century Eastern Europe, this queer dark fantasy debut pits two estranged husbands and a daring spymaster on opposite sides of a civil war. Perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo, C.S. Pacat, Ava Reid, and Katherine Arden.

SLUTS

Edited by Michelle Tea

Cipher Press / Paperback / 9781917008006 / Out May 2024 / £14.99

An exploration of what it means to be sexually promiscuous in contemporary culture, edited by cult-favourite author Michelle Tea.

Lost In The Garden

By Adam S. Leslie

Dead Ink / Paperback / 9781915368485 / Out May 2024 / £10.99

‘Like an old wives’ tale, like a piece of wisdom passed down through generations which no one questioned or even thought about too hard. Like folklore. It was just something everyone knew, a rule to be followed. Don’t go to Almanby.’

Bikes, The Universe, And Everything

By Elly Blue

Microcosm Publishing / Paperback / 9781648412646 / Out May 2024 / £12.99

Ever gotten lost in a book? Or on your bicycle? Or both at once, by falling through a portal on the page? Anything is possible in this collection of fifteen very short stories and one comic.

El Ghourabaa

Edited by Samia Marshy & Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch

Metonymy Press / Paperback / 9781998898022 / Out May 2024 / £14.99

A collection of fun, playful, vulgar, inventive, sexual, and weird writings from queer and trans Arab writers.

I’m A Fool To Want You

By Camila Sosa Villada & translated by Kit Maude

Other Press / Paperback / 9781635423853 / Out May 2024 / £16.99

These dazzling stories from the internationally acclaimed author of Bad Girls erase the fine line between fantasy and reality, and establish her as an impressive literary voice.

More Bugs

By Em Reed

Knight Errant / Paperback / 9781916665033 / Out June 2024 / £12.99

Even the most dull neighbourhoods have something curious and sinister lurking just beneath the perfectly manicured lawns. Over a dull, torrid summer in the Pennsylvania suburbs, strange lights linger on the horizon, and subterranean connections reach out their tendrils in the dark, signalling another, otherworldly, possibility…

The Milkman’s On His Way

By David Rees

Lurid Editions / Paperback / 9781739744144 / Out June 2024 / £9.99

One of the first queer YA novels to appear in the UK, available again after many years out of print, with a new introduction and afterword.

The Future Was Color

By Patrick Nathan

Counterpoint / Hardback / 9781640096240 / Out June 2024 / £23.99

A dazzling novel about the inextricable link between the personal and the political set against the decadence of Hollywood and postwar Los Angeles.

Lockjaw

By Matteo L. Cerilli

Tundra / Hardback / 9781774882306 / Out June 2024 / £12.99

Death is neither the beginning nor the end for the children of Bridlington in this debut trans YA horror book for fans of Rory Power and Danielle Vega.

Old Enough

By Haley Jakobson

Dutton / Paperback / 9780593473023 / Out June 2024 / £14.99

A debut novel about a young bisexual woman who is pulled between the new life she’s creating for herself and the life she worked so hard to escape.

Trust And Safety

By Laura Blackett & Eve Gleichman

Verve Books / Paperback / 9780857308818 / Out June 2024 / £9.99

A wry yet tenderhearted novel about a couple who attempt to buy their way into a ‘wild and precious’ existence in the Hudson Valley, where they become entangled with a queer couple living the dream analog life.

A Shore Thing

By Joanna Lowell

Berkley — US / Paperback / 9780593549728 / Out June 2024 / £16.99

A delightful queer Victorian love story, featuring a boldly brash trans hero, the beguiling botanist who captures his heart, and a buoyant bicycle race by the British seaside — from the author of The Duke Undone.

Four Squares

By Bobby Finger

Putnam / Hardback / 9780593713556 / Out June 2024 / £25.99

From the beloved author of The Old Place comes a tender, funny, and fresh novel spanning the 1990s and present day, about a young writer and the community he builds in New York City, and his lonely life 30 years later when an unexpected injury lands him at the local queer senior centre.

A Fate Worse Than Death

By Nisha Patel

Arsenal Pulp Press / Paperback / 9781551529455 / Out June 2024 / £17.99

Poems that interrogate the complexities of disability, based on the author’s evaluation of her own medical records.

Perfect Little Angels

By Vincent Anioke

Arsenal Pulp Press / Paperback / 9781551529431 / Out June 2024 / £20.99

A brilliant, beautifully imagined story collection set largely in Nigeria, exploring themes of masculinity and suppressed queerness through the lens of (un)conditional love.

Deliver Me

By Elle Nash

Verve Books / Paperback / 9780857308610 / Out June 2024 / £9.99

From the author of Nudes and Animals Eat Each Other comes an unsettling story of motherhood, manipulation and murder.

The Night Of Baba Yaga

By Akira Otani & translated by Sam Bett

Soho Crime / Hardback / 9781641294911 / Out July 2024 / £26.99

A fierce mixed-race fighter develops a powerful attachment to the yakuza princess she’s been forced to protect in this explosive queer thriller.

High Jump As Icarus Story

By Gustav Parker Hibbett

Banshee Press / Paperback / 9781739397951 / Out July 2024 / £10.99

This stunningly accomplished debut poetry collection deconstructs and redefines notions of Blackness, queerness, and masculinity through the lens of myth, pop culture, and the high jump.

Above Us The Sea

By Ania Card

Dead Ink / Paperback / 9781915368515 / Out July 2024 / £10.99

It’s after a night in Cardiff’s loudest gay bar that Toni first lays eyes on Gav, a retired Welsh boxer, and his boyfriend Karol, an aspiring Polish photographer. The trio soon fall into an intimate, ambiguous love triangle.

Yoke Of Stars

By R.B. Lemberg

Tachyon Publications / Paperback / 9781616964184 / Out July 2024 / £14.99

In this newest novella from the queer, mystical Birdverse, an apprentice assassin and an inquisitive linguist share their tales in order to make a fateful decision.

The Woman In The Portrait

By Juliet Jacques

Cipher Press / Paperback / 9781917008020 / Out July 2024 / £11.99

The collected short fiction of Juliet Jacques, one of the UK’s most pioneering transgender writers.

There’s No Murder Like Show Murder

By M.S. Greene

Crooked Lane Books / Hardback / 9781639108190 / Out July 2024 / £28.99

Tasha Weaver has seen her fair share of divas come and go while working as the costume shop head at the Eastbrook Playhouse, but her beloved theatre is put at risk when the star of the show is killed in this fun but deadly debut. Perfect for fans of Ellery Adams and Kellye Garrett.

To Paris With Love

By Carl Weber & Eric Pete

Urban Books / Paperback / 9781645566519 / Out July 2024 / £8.99

Travel with Weber and Pete to Europe, to see how Paris and Rio became the dynamic duo of the Duncan clan.

Brother & Sister Enter The Forest

By Richard Mirabella

Catapult / Paperback / 9781646222179 / Out August 2024 / £15.99

Opening like a fairy tale and ending like a nightmare, this cannonball of a queer coming-of-age novel follows a young man’s relationship with a violent older boyfriend — and how he and his sister survive a terrible crime.

The Whitewashed Tombs

By Kwei Quartey

Soho Crime / Hardback / 9781641295888 / Out September 2024 / £26.99

Vicious hate crimes are rocking the LGBTQ+ community in Accra, and prejudice and politics threaten to stymie PI Emma Djan’s efforts to find the killer.

No One Left But You

By Tash Mcadam

Soho Teen / Paperback / 9781641295772 / Out September 2024 / £11.99

A trans teen is swept up in a whirlwind friendship with lethal consequences in this taut YA thriller, for fans of Sadie, Andrew Joseph White, and HBO’s Euphoria.

Wound

By Oksana Vasyakina & translated by Elina Alter

Catapult / Paperback / 9781646222346 / Out September 2024 / £15.99

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.

I’ll Get Back To You

By Becca Grischow

Penguin Books — USA / Paperback / 9780143138419 / Out September 2024 / £17.99

A charming home run of a queer holiday romance where two former classmates’ plan to fake-date their way to freedom goes immediately awry — but, perhaps, exactly the way they need it to.

The Seemingly Impossible Love Life Of Amanda Dean

By Ann Rose

Berkley — US / Paperback / 9780593815953 / Out September 2024 / £16.99

It’s her wedding day, the happiest day of her life… isn’t it? A self-proclaimed bi disaster who has had her heart broken more times than she cares to count, can Amanda Dean finally answer the question — is this “the one”?