It’s hard to believe there are only 3 more months of 2026. Have you reached your reading goal yet? There’s still time, and with these hot, new (and queer) releases, it’s going to be hard to decide what book to end the year with. These next few months bring darker, messier, and more enticing tales of queer sci-fi thrillers, dystopian manga classics, murderous lesbians, problematic gays, and, of course, vampires! And while you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, please do judge these ones as they really are works of art… let’s dive right in!

Starting off the list strong with this gorgeous cover alone, Paradise Burns sees two best friends pursue a future worth believing in, in a rapidly deteriorating world.

When Rita and Liton meet at a party, they quickly form a bond that will indelibly shape their lives. Theirs is not an easy world: most wildlife is extinct and the earth is tormented by drought and floods; the last vestiges of natural life are kept under lock and key in a mysterious greenhouse a day’s travel away. Like the other young men of the Service, Liton is frequently enlisted to put out the seemingly never-ending fires that tear through the valley; Rita lives perched on a hill in the Colony, where other men, including her father, empty an almost barren mine. Yet their bond grounds them. Together they navigate the love affairs, setbacks, and thwarted idealism of their twenties, finding in each other a vital reprieve for their disillusionment — that is, until Liton, like other gay men, falls sick. Unravelling back and forth across time, and told through the voices, conversations, and letters of a tapestry of characters, Paradise Burns is a poetic, riveting exploration of an uncanny familiar ecological and existential grief, and a lament for an entire generation forced to inherit a world they feel unable to change.

Ever since Heated Rivalry graced our screens last winter, ice hockey has entered the spotlight in ways nobody could have predicted. Yet, the conversations around its phenomenal success are happening at a cultural moment when queer and trans folk in sports are being bullied and scapegoated. Examining the game through a queer lens, Daniel Gawthrop reveals how hockey has evolved from the bastion of straight white male machismo it used to be into a sport where women and players of all ethnicities are welcome and where gender-diverse people now have safe places to play. At the same time, hockey’s powers that be—from scandal-ridden Hockey Canada to the overly cautious NHL—have been reluctant to embrace change, especially in light of the growing social pushback against queers in sport. Cutting Edge is a fascinating probe into the role of gender, masculinity, and sexuality in defining—and too often demeaning—Canada’s national sport.

A chance encounter in a flea market carpark embroil two Vietnamese German siblings in a mission to save a desperate young Vietnamese woman from her pursuer. Nirvana is Here is a contemporary crime thriller that has adventure, diasporic, coming-of-age, and love story elements. Set in Berlin’s working-class Lichtenberg district against a backdrop of very current social issues, Mikael Ross’s empathetic, cartoonishly expressive kids interact against and within the realistically depicted urban environments.

A revenge fantasy novella in which two sex workers fall in love and go on a ruthless murder spree? Say no more.

When Leila meets Silvia during a booking with Silvia’s long-time client, the infatuation is instant. Silvia is older, glamorous, charming, and has been working for a lot longer than Leila, who is still new to sex work. Later that evening the two run into each other at a hotel bar, and after a messy night of drugs and sex, begin a romantic relationship that takes a turn when they start murdering clients together. Traversing the spaces of queer East London and the corporate city, Choke is a propulsive and sexy revenge fantasy mash up of black comedy, psychological (un)realism and literary essay that bends tropes and explores the essence of fantasy, from BDSM and kink to wealth and class to bodies and transness.

Fifteen years on from her bestselling memoir The Chronology of Water (and a year after its movie adaptation, directed by Kirsten Stewart), Lidia Yuknavitch weaves together past and present, fact with fiction, to create an immersive and honest exploration of memory and trauma that is impossible to put down.

Haunted by her father’s abuse, her complicated dynamic with her disabled mother and the death of her child, Yuknavitch revisits her past with an author’s gaze. At the age of sixty, her outlook on herself has changed. She wonders differently, remembers differently. She comes to discover that — like any narrative — her memories are open to interpretation, to being reimagined from different perspectives. And as Yuknavitch rewrites and reclaims her early life, she unburdens herself of old wounds and alters her future. With Yuknavitch as our guide, we see clearly that creativity is not only crucial to healing, but to gaining a deeper understanding of ourselves.

It wouldn’t be an LGBTQIA+ blog without vampires being mentioned…

Struggling to deal with the familial trauma of her Catholic upbringing, hotel cleaner, Noelle, travels to the Isle of Bute. There, she meets a man who claims to be a vampire, and a relationship blooms between them based solely on confession. But as talk turns sacrilegious, and the weather outside grows colder, Noelle struggles to come to terms with her blasphemous sexuality. She becomes hounded by memories of her past: her mother’s affair with the local priest, and the part she played in ending it. Bridging the gaps between contemporary gothic fiction, queer fiction and magical realism, Fragile Animals lures readers into Noelle’s loose grasp on her world and immerses them in some of Scotland’s most harsh and claustrophobic environments.

How about 2 vampire stories? This manga follows an unassuming worker in a long-established public bathhouse, who is really the lustful 450-year-old vampire Ranmaru Mori!

The heir to this esteemed Koi No Yu Bathhouse, Rihito Tatsuno, is a fifteen-year-old virgin — who is about to fall in love for the first time with a girl in his class! Ranmaru begins to weave a desperate plan to prevent Rihito from losing his virginity and to make him fall for himself instead, so the bloodsucker can eventually have pure, eighteen-year-old virgin blood for his own vampiric self! This odd, hilarious, boys love manga series from seinen mangaka Hiromasa Okujima has already been adapted into a Japanese anime series and a live-action film!

In this crackling collection of stories, Sloane Murphy shows a beautiful and wrecked scene of young trans women in Chicago.

Agnes can’t deal with the coke and the whiskey. Joan’s been getting a little success, it’s not really working out for her. Sybil’s still insane, I saw her last week at the bars, she was screaming at Sara. Maybe actually someone screamed at her when she tried to make fun of Clara for not shaving her eyebrows correctly. It was just before she got hit by that car. Jenny and Joan had to pick her up from Thorek Memorial. Freddie’s still Freddie, but I heard her mom showed up at some point. Just on her doorstep. Orla and Kate finally got around to dating. They broke up though. Carolina? Well she got that job with the Sanitation department, and she hasn’t really been around since. With the clairvoyance of Michelle Tea and the precision of Raymond Carver, Shut Up, I Love You, I’ll Call You Tomorrow is a conduit of bleary electricity inside a stubborn, still-beating heart.

Sport romances are at an all-time high, so why not try this swoony sapphic romance, featuring a fake relationship between a rising influencer and a WNBA star.

Chelsea has never cared about sports. But when she’s invited to sit courtside at a New York Rebels game, she welcomes the break from her usual routine. What she doesn’t expect is a basketball nearly colliding with her face—or the six-foot-four hottie who jogs over, flashing a heart-stopping grin, to retrieve it. Adrienne “AD” Daniels is a player on and off the court, notorious for their inability to stay in a relationship. Still, something about Chelsea sticks with them—even though their instant connection can’t bring AD to offer more than one night. But AD’s agent makes a pitch: Chelsea should pretend to be AD’s girlfriend. It’s a strategic move. AD, hoping to retire after this season, needs to lock down some brand deals—but their identity as a Black, nonbinary lesbian with a messy dating history makes sponsors wary. As the ruse starts to work and their connection deepens, Chelsea finds herself on unsteady ground. Falling for AD wasn’t part of the plan, and if she follows through, she just might lose her heart and the future she’s finally starting to build.

Let the Dead Bury the Dead is an unforgettable collection of 12 literary short stories in the Southern Gothic tradition that encapsulate what it means to be poor, Black and queer in America’s South, from one of the country’s most singular literary voices.

In Tim’s Creek, Kenan’s imagined eastern Carolina hamlet, the past lingers as a constant beneath the surface and, on occasion, breaks through to assert itself upon the present. Founded by runaway slaves, Tim’s Creek exists somewhere between rural idyll and forgotten backwater, but through Kenan’s deft excavation of Southern life it becomes a place of myth and national reckoning. A three-year-old child becomes a vessel for the voices of the dead; a demagogue preacher raises an army from the grave; a mother is undone by a drowning that may have been no accident; a pig speaks. Moving with grace and traditional folk cadence, scholarly oral history and lyric realism, Randal Kenan gathers an unforgettable chorus of Black and white, rich and poor, the living and the long-departed.

Three teen dragon tamers face their greatest monsters and fight to be happy together in this shamelessly queer coming-of-age graphic novel, set in a historical Philippines.

Ten years ago, the Great Tamers saved the people of Punong Panday from a giant hydra, turning the once savage beast into a peace-keeper. Now, these three men are known across the land as legends. But for Dima, Espie, and Keris, the Great Tamers are more than legends… they’re their fathers. And to become worthy successors, the young friends must each prove themselves in a physical contest against the hydra, Matutum. Dima is too meek and untalented, especially compared to the short-tempered Espie. Even their cool mentor Keris never stood a chance at winning. When their dreams become a deadly game of pride, they have to find a way out together — with their blades drawn, and their fathers’ legacies burnt to ashes.

In 1970s Mississippi, a Black detective and his partner are assigned to a case that shifts from murder to paranormal conspiracy with life-altering repercussions.

Wenton, Mississippi: A man enters the bathroom of a local gay bar and doesn’t come back out. Instead he’s found cold, on the floor, and facing the wall. And no one seems to know how this happened. Samuel Barkley is Wenton’s only Black detective. Assigned to the case, Samuel’s one goal is to keep his head down with eyes on moving up in the police ranks. But it’s not easy with Harvey, a new, temporary partner who Samuel can’t seem to like… or hate. Nor with the cold, questioning eyes and fake smiles from those in town. Persistent. Judging. Wrong. Samuel is reaching his breaking point. As his investigation leads him to a curious plane crash cover-up, Samuel’s placid existence is turned on its head. Because what crashed in Wenton isn’t a plane. There are others here. They like it here. And if Samuel can’t stop them, they will find a way to stay…

Travel back in time with this bleak yet hilarious portrait of what it means to be queer in 2016 Britain, from a hugely talented young debut author.

It’s the end of 2015. For our narrator, every day is mostly the same; a visit to the local corner shop to retrieve a blue plastic bag of wine and off-brand cheese puffs before falling into the sofa crevice to get drunk, get high, and stare at the television. He was ‘normal’ once — he held up a job at a fashion magazine (that his mother got him) and wore nice clothes and showered and cleaned his teeth and bitched about his boss. Now, the only people who visit are his busy, narcissistic mother, his annoying stepsister, Olivia, and the men he finds on Grindr to pay for his meals. When one of his dates leads to assault, he finds himself suddenly sober and back at his mother’s, a fancy suburban townhouse that betrays her Scouse roots. At once a propulsive and hilarious debut that charges towards oblivion, and a dissociated depiction of queer loneliness and self-destruction, In Out gives us a new kind of antihero grappling with life in the
runup to the Brexit referendum, exploring what it means to be untethered along with ideas of masculinity,
class, family, and addiction.

A collection of short stories by an NYT bestselling author exploring intersections of climate change, reproductive justice, queer identities, and family trauma.

Whether fantasy, science fiction, or terrifyingly close-to-home, the worlds of these stories are inhabited by flawed characters whose lives are profoundly impacted by climate change and environmental degradation. Arranged in a progression from dystopian to utopian worlds, the stories chart a path from climate despair towards resilience and revolutionary optimism. Even in the bleakest of futures, however, Kern offers reasons to hope, connect, and keep fighting for a better world.

For fans of Killing Eve and This Is How You Lose the Time War, this sapphic sci-fi thriller a love letter to hope in the bleakest of times.

On a near-future Earth devastated by climate change, Dr. Cassandra Barlowe is right where she wants to be: working on an island of floating trash in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, as far away from Dr. Yana Gulsvig as possible. Cas’ research on plastic-dissolving fungi is undervalued and underfunded, thanks to the invention of deleria, a drug that allows glimpses into different timelines. For the average user, it’s a way to view lost loved ones or experience a different life, but it also offers a glimpse into worlds where humanity has solved its many global crises. Now, most science funding is dedicated to trawling these different timelines, searching for a reality with the solution to the climate devastation. But when Yana is killed in a mysterious explosion in the hub of deleria research, taking the hope of reversing climate change with her, Cas is arrested on charges of domestic terrorism. Cas must delve through timelines to piece together what happened, while watching other versions of herself and Yana live out the life they could have had — happier, more in love.

An elegiac manga about gender, community, family, control, class, love, and what makes life worth living at the end of the world.

It is the near future and only a few women are still able to menstruate, and even fewer men will be born to them. Reproduction is limited to medical intervention controlled from on high, and the structures and lives of the past hold no weight: they are only hinted at through the remaining scraps of a world that no longer exists. Life can be good, though, if you fall in line, and the women of The City live bright, happy, tightly controlled lives. But complete obedience isn’t for everyone. For the women across the river, who live in a rundown shantytown, viewing the opulence of the city from afar each night, life is different. It is humble, and often dangerous, but it is free. It is here that Sanada, a young acupuncturist, lives with the mysterious Reiho, the only male she’s ever met, and who sells himself to the rich women who sneak across the river for something they’ve never experienced… The two form a small ‘family,’ taking in other young women ousted from the city. But a real, living, breathing male might be too precious to leave to the shabby streets. When Reiho is kidnapped at gunpoint and taken to the breeding programme in the city, Sanada must join with the other outcasts to try and rescue him, and learn the difficult truths of love, self-actualisation, society, community, safety, and the future itself.

A liberating book for Mad, neurodiverse, and disabled QTBIPOC folks to create a more equitable and playful future in institutions and systems that were not made for them.

Based on her own experience as an educator, Shayda Kafai reveals how ‘mess’ is at the heart of this book and her life. Mess is a Mad, queer, and decolonial tool that intervenes in oppressive structures in institutions. Informed by the genre-bending works of Alice Wong and adrienne maree brown, A Mad Mess centres the imperfect, defiant, and tender Mad resistance strategies to our thriving that are always, above all, messy. Part love letter and part aspirational guide, A Mad Mess amplifies the Mad dreaming and mourning we need if we are to create a liberatory future that truly embraces and supports us.

In the tradition of The Talented Mr. Ripley and Lolita, sexual obsession and unrequited love collide in a claustrophobic North London house share.

When Dr. Hugh Clore, a literature professor of precarious means and obsessive temperament, becomes the lodger of the boyish and beautiful Arthur Rose he’s instantly besotted. Recently orphaned, Arthur drifts through a life of claustrophobic privilege, having inherited his parents’ wealth and a grand Georgian terraced house on Highbury Fields. Hugh plots to make Arthur fall in love with him, adopting the role of mentor and taking charge of Arthur’s education. But his carefully laid plans are disrupted when Arthur’s girlfriend, Georgia Groad, moves in. At twenty-one, a year older than Arthur, Georgia becomes Hugh’s nemesis — an obstacle to his aspic paradise. Hugh, delusional but effective in his manipulations, sets his sights on Georgia, drawing her into his orbit as his second pupil, scheming to replace her in Arthur’s life. One thing is for certain: it can’t end well.

Another unforgettable sapphic story (and title) where grief gives way to desire, and the wilderness becomes its own language.

An isolated travel writer—grappling with the death of a lover—has a crisis of identity that sends her from Ljubljana to Buenos Aires to Tierra del Fuego, along the way finding liberating love with a captivating Argentinian woman and connection with the natural world. This erotic and meditative novel is at once an unconventional sapphic love story and a poetic ode to the wilderness, as animals speak for themselves and landscapes transform their inhabitants.

A trio of male college students are caught in a three-way stalker disaster in a hilariously obsessive BL love triangle story unlike any other!

Itaru Hachimori, Yamato Mitsunaga, and Hiromasa Tate have a few things in common, such as attending the same university, suffering from hopeless crushes, and… being actual stalkers?! Itaru is stalking Yamato, Yamato is stalking Hiromasa, and Hiromasa is stalking Itaru! With so many arrows going so many different directions and no mutual interest of any kind, how is anyone possibly going to be able to sort anything out?!

As always, you can find the rest of our LGBTQIA+ titles from this year here.