Pride Month may be over but the summer is just getting started with our record-breaking heatwave and the hottest LGBTQIA+ books coming out! Escape the heat by travelling across the Atlantic to help a trans detective solve a cold case; fly to Beijing for a beautiful love story; transport yourself back to London in the 1950s or to New York in the 1920s; or simply feel transcended with one of many poetry anthologies.

Before we get into our books, however, a special shoutout to Turnaround Gifts with their brand-new, official Heartstopper merch from Out of Print! The last volume is finally out (not supplied by us unfortunately) and Turnaround Gifts are lucky enough to have these goodies!

Without further ado, here are the queer books coming your way in July, August and September!

We start the third quarter of 2026 off strong with Clowns, the third book in Michelle Tea’s anthology series, following Sluts and Witch.

A blogging dog sitter cringes out on celebrity, Slinkys, and self-promotion. A poet experiences the clowny vulnerability of falling in love. Drunk Muppets ponder the uselessness of art. A transitioning drag queen muses on being ‘the crazy one, the one who doesn’t give a fuck.’ In this anthology of poetry, fiction, screenplay, and more, writers explore and explode the archetype of the CLOWN in all of its humiliating, earnest, magical, subversive glory. With work from Maz Murray, Sophie Robinson, Grace Byron, Andrea Lawlor, Megan Milks, Nicole J. Georges, Jake Hall, Vivek Shraya, and other holy fools.

This one is for the big yearners out there, OR consider themselves personally victimised by the on-off relationship of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham…

Jamie is bad at endings, which is why she’s stuck at a dead-end newspaper job, continuing to have break-up sex with her first ever hetero partner, and haunted by the what-ifs of her ex-girlfriend Mari — a charismatic and brilliant musician — and their former band together, the Maidenheads. Since they (and their band) broke up a decade ago, Jamie hasn’t been able to sing. Then an unexpected opportunity to perform with Mari’s successful new band arises, and Jamie jumps at it. What begins as a return to music becomes a reckoning with the weight of unfinished love, the voice she has long kept buried, and her own complicated past. But as Jamie channels more of her energy into the band, other threads in her life begin to fray, and she must make some urgent choices about her future. Electric, spine-tingling and filled to the brim with tenderness and honesty, The Maidenheads is a novel about the tenacity of first love, the life-changing power of music and the difficult, necessary work of becoming yourself.

In a time of upheaval and uncertainty. it’s important to find peace in any way you can. Embracing the chaos of life has been proven to help rather than fighting against it. Queer Chaos Magick is a primer packed with practical ways that you can channel magick through the everyday life you are living right now, make space for all versions of yourself, and live into your highest potential. All you need is a journal and a willingness to look and imagine. You’ll go beyond binaries to find endless pathways to explore and potential futures to embrace, limited only by your imagination.

Some men love each other. For others, love of something else gets between them. Pádraig Ó’Tuama’s Love Between Men begins in the garden of Eden, recasting Adam, Eve, and God into voices both abrasive and intimate. Then, in seven deadly sonnets, the poet details his own experiences of exorcisms and gay reparative therapies, exploring desire with its promise and fear of fulfilment. These poems by turns, intelligent, funny, devastating, and explosive consider time, the edges of empire, and the limits of the tongue. Here is rage paired with prayer, in punked up forms and broken sequences. Love Between Men celebrates and challenges love: of history, poetry, and language and ultimately, of change.

Time for a ground-breaking 20th century queer novel which helped demonstrate what domestic life was like for queer men and the challenges they faced. A Way of Love charts the charged connection between Bruce, a composed, worldly architect, and Philip, a younger man still wrestling with his identity. Their brief encounter after a concert ignites a bond that neither can forget. Set against the shadows of late-1950s London, the novel follows their attempt to built a life together amid generational differences, emotional volatility, and the pressures of a homophobic society governed by prejudice and restrictive laws.

This is a heart-warming young adult graphic novel about healing, friendship, and first love, set against the high-stakes world of competitive dog shows!

Sixteen-year-old Landon Snyder never expected to spend his summer in the world of dog shows. But after a family illness combined with a breakup sends him to live with his Aunt Iva, who runs a bustling dog rescue, Landon discovers a surprising talent for training – and a bond with Blue, Iva’s champion show dog. Between a cocky rival, a shy new friend who sees him like no one else, and the pressures of the Best in Show, Landon learns that healing doesn’t always come with a ribbon…but sometimes with love, loyalty, and second chances.

The latest poetry collection by the award-winning author of Care Work and The Future Is Disabled. The Way Disabled People Love Each Other is a fierce crip reckoning with all the ways disabled people love each other, in all our complexity. This book that will speak to any kind of griever, but particularly disabled BIPOC queer trans ones sitting with the endless mass grief and possibility of this time. Written over five years of pandemic lockdown, during which time they lost a cherished friend and comrade and met their estranged parents’ end of life, this collection is a road map for survivors looking for something that’s neither a happy Hollywood ending nor a transformative justice fairy tale-not the healing we wished for, but the healing we find anyway.

With sports romance popularity at an all time high, this is the perfect time to initiate Fence world domination! I am slightly biased when it comes to this graphic novel series as it’s by one of my all-time favourite writers. Now’s the chance to read the series if you haven’t!

Scrappy fencer Nicholas Cox has big dreams of following in the footsteps of the father he’s never known, but when he’s accepted into the elite Kings Row private school, he’s thrust into a world of cutthroat competition. Facing down privileged rivals, grueling tryouts, and the seemingly unbeatable Seiji Katayama, Nicholas discovers that it will take more than determination to prove himself worthy of a place on the team. Experience drama, romance, and tension in the breakout GLAAD-nominated comics written by New York Times-bestselling author C.S. Pacat, and brought to life by artist Johanna the Mad! Collected for the first time in three beautifully packaged graphic novels! Collects Fence #1-12.

Another hotly, anticipated fiction release from Cipher Press, from none other than Dean Atta with his adult fiction debut!

Big Man follows the life of Big, a middle-aged, Black British gay man who lives a gentle life with his boyfriend, Little, in their home in East London. Big and Little enjoy evenings out and group holidays with friends, as much as practising yoga together at home, and running side by side along the Hackney canals. Big came of age in the club scene under the watchful eye of Mother, an African American trans woman who made a home and a name for herself in London, her house a refuge for wayward queer youth like Big. When he finds out Mother is releasing a memoir, the two reconnect after decades of distance, and Big finds himself having to Big Man explores themes of identity, aging, sex, family, and trauma, turning a lens on what it means to age as a queer person, while being a double-edged love letter to the people and places that make us.

A trans detective takes on the cold case murder of a local trans woman and her investigation unravels the threads of a county-wide conspiracy as well as a personal mystery that’s haunted her since childhood…

When Lieutenant Lauren Kelly is exiled to the Homicide Cold Case Unit at the DA’s office, she knows her superiors are sticking her there as punishment until she can quietly retire. That way, no one can claim they discriminated against the only trans detective in Donn County. Even though Lauren has enough on her plate already-a teenage daughter struggling with Lauren’s transition, an ex-wife Lauren hasn’t gotten over, a former detective father with Alzheimer’s-she starts looking into the murder of Sherry Darling, a trans sex worker and Lauren’s former high school classmate. As Lauren looks deeper into Sherry’s case, she finds evidence of a cover-up with far-reaching implications that may or may not be tied to the reason her mother left.

From crime to true crime, Shadow Men is a thrilling examination of the murder that captivated Jazz Age America, with echoes of the decadence and violence of The Great Gatsby.

On the morning of May 16, 1922, a young man’s body was found on a desolate road in Westchester County. The victim was penniless ex-sailor Clarence Peters. Walter Ward, the handsome scion of the family that owned the largest chain of bread factories in the country, confessed to the crime as an act of self-defence against a violent gang of ‘shadow men,’ blackmailers who extorted their victims’ moral weaknesses. From the start, one question defined the investigation: What scandalous secret could lead Ward to murder? For sixteen months, the media fuelled a firestorm of speculation. Unscrupulous criminal attorneys, fame-seeking chorus girls, con artists, and misogynistic millionaires harnessed the power of the press to shape public perception. New York governor and future presidential candidate Al Smith and editor of the Daily News Joseph Medill Patterson leveraged the investigation to further professional ambitions. As the bereaved working-class Peters family sought to bring the callous Ward to justice, America watched enraptured. Shadow Men is a story of privilege and power that lays bare the social inequity that continues to influence our system of justice.

Enemies-turned-friends open Pandora’s Box together and search for a place where they can live their truth in this complete-in-one, coming-of-age manga. A must-read for fans of series like Welcome Back Alice, The Flowers of Evil, and Boys Run the Riot.

Peeking in Pandora’s box is not for the faint of heart. Viciously bullied for being gay, junior high schooler Mishima struggles to belong in his hopelessly rural hometown. In fact, the only time he really feels alive is when he dolls himself up with a stolen tube of his single-mother’s lipstick. But that pocket of joy is forever changed when he loses the lipstick, only to find soccer team ace Kirino, one of Mishima’s worst tormenters, trying it on in secret on their school roof. So begins a bittersweet summer of searching for a place where the two can be their true selves, but Pandora’s box is not always so easily opened…

Body horror lovers rejoice! Skin is a dark meditation on power, manipulation, and transformation.

As Tess Bajac welds jagged scraps of salvage metal into brutal, beautiful forms, she dreams that her sculptures might one day move. Bibi Bloss is a dancer in search of sensation, her practice drifting from movement toward a more dangerous kind of performance – one etched directly into the body. When Tess and Bibi’s paths cross, a partnership sparks which quickly becomes defined by obsession and need. As their collaboration grows more intense, both their work and relationship are remade in a dangerous new form. Skin is a haunting exploration of artistic devotion and desire, a descent into the brutal intimacy between artist and muse, and an unflinching examination of how far the body – and the heart – can be pushed before it finally breaks.

Splendor is an ode to queer bodies and introduces readers to five trans and nonbinary poets, with previously unpublished translations from Argentina, Denmark, Korea, Norway, and Quebec. From the irreverent and irresponsible to the quiet and meditative, these poems decentralise our ideas of trans experience and poetics. Splendor presents a sliver of the wide possibilities of what trans literature can offer, and transcends borders and binaries in order to engaging with a messy world.

Next up is another manga masterpiece from one of Japan’s most prominent LGBTQ+ creators, now in a newly designed paperback edition.

Middle School. The threshold to puberty, and the beginning of the end of childhood innocence. Shuichi Nitori and his new friend Yoshino Takatsuki have happy homes, loving families, and are well liked by their classmates. But they share a secret that further complicates a time of life that is awkward for anyone: Shuichi is a boy who wants to be a girl, and Yoshino is a girl who wants to be a boy. Celebrated manga artist Shimura Takako portrays Shuishi and Yoshino’s journey with affection, sensitivity, and gentle humour as they figure out their gender identity and take tentative, age-appropriate steps toward transitioning.

A trailblazing resource for Black and queer people, by Black and queer experts. The first of its kind, this much-needed guide offers insights, strategies, and coping skills for folks at the intersection of Blackness and queerness-identities that come with unique psychological and cultural experiences rarely reflected in mental health research or popular discussion. The authors, therapists Marc Campbell and K. Chelsea Davis, point out that mental health struggles are a perfectly normal response to conditions and systems that are designed to make us unwell. They walk you through the signs of depression, addiction, anxiety, grief, and imposter syndrome and point the way towards effective treatment and recovery. They also cover topics like external and internalised racism, generational trauma, religious abuse, and medical mistrust with compassion, clarity, and humour.

Whether you’re the biggest Tillie Walden fan, or this would be your first forte into her work, this gorgeous new edition of I Love This Part features a brand-new foreword from another LGBTQIA+ comic powerhouse, Alice Oseman!

Two girls in a small town in the USA kill time together as they try to get through their days at school. They watch videos, share earbuds as they play each other songs and exchange their stories. In the process they form a deep connection and an unexpected relationship begins to develop. In graphic novel format, Tillie Walden tells the story of a small love that can make you feel like the biggest thing around, and how it’s possible to find another person who understands you when you thought no one could.

Take your summer reading abroad with this whirlwind gay romance, perfect for fans of Alexis Hall and Casey McQuiston.

Daniel Wu’s life in Amsterdam is far from spontaneous. When his boyfriend dumps him on the same day a work mishap lands him on leave, he breaks all his rules by impulsively escaping to Beijing to visit his best friend Poppy. There’s just one hitch-Poppy isn’t there. Alone in the foreign city his late father grew up in, Daniel wants nothing more than to fly home early. After all, running away is what he does best. But then Poppy signs him up for a tour of the Great Wall. Enter Yang Li, the PhD student moonlighting as a tour guide. A transplant to Beijing, Yang has never felt at home in the bustling capital-or with himself. Cynical and disciplined, he isn’t the least impressed when Daniel shows up to their tour hours late. The tour is painful in more ways than one, but at least it’s a one-time ordeal. Then life pushes them together again and again, until time spent together over stunning sights and mind-blowing eats feels less like vacation and more like finally finding home. From Beijing, to Xi’an, to Tokyo, will they confront their own ghosts—past and present—to find their happily-ever-after?

The hit RPG graphic novel series is now combined into one special edition with a brand-new cover!

It all kicks off with book one, where we meet Jay, Lana, Drew, Walter, and Shen. This tight-knit group of friends began playing Dice & Deathtraps in high school. Now dealing with college and all the twists and turns of their lives, their weekly game has been a wonderful constant. But, as college graduation looms and it feels like their lives are all moving down very different paths, Lana’s thrilled to finally finally complete the party’s unfinished original campaign. But when Jay’s partner Cassandra joins the game, Lana refuses to let her inexperience ruin the best part of her week! But in the end, that may be Lana and the party’s undoing… Then in book two, a new party is formed! Erika, Jacob, Marcelle and Damien have become popular online personas, each with a huge following on their corner of the internet. The only thing they have in common is that they used to be close friends until they drifted apart in high school, leaving their Dice & Deathtraps game unfinished. Now, four years later, their old game master Amina has reached out with a chance to reunite, save the community centre that fostered their creativity and finally finish their abandoned campaign. They have one night to do it, streaming to a live audience and old grudges on the rise. Can they mend their fraying friendship or will this last session cut their ties for good?

The dead want to speak to you. But are you ready to hear their words? Super Castle Fun Park explores the lives of a group of people tending wistfully to their precarious lives. Dario is an aimless pessimist staying at a themed hotel who is tasked with the care of his aunt at the end of her life. Jeremy is Dario’s anxious boyfriend who is trapped in his home, plagued by disturbing visions. Chelsea is an ornery medium who spends her free time on her phone trolling a group of misfits in an online game. Each of them is at the precipice of change, and the people they are interconnected to, including the dead, will be there when it happens. Moving seamlessly between quiet melancholy, wry humour, and the supernatural, Super Castle Fun Park is a novel that defies expectations: a tragicomic, very human story about isolation, ghosts, technology, and our deep, abiding need for connection by the co-editor of Queer Little Nightmares.

As always you can find these tittles and more LGBTQIA+ book recommendations from this year via our Bookshop.org page!