Book Lists, Category, Contemporary, Historical, LGBTQIA, Mystery, Romance, Science Fiction, Thriller

A Few Reads for Pride Month

Posted onAuthorK. Imani Tennyson

It’s June so it’s officially Pride month! And because there is a plethora of books across all genres with LGBTQ leads, I thought I’d give a quick book list to help your TBR shelf this month (though you should be reading books with LGBTQ leads all year long.)

Mystery/Thrillers

I Don’t Wish You Well By Jumata Emill

Five years ago, the infamous Trojan murders turned the small town of Moss Pointe, Louisiana into a living nightmare. Four teen boys—all star players on Moss Pointe High’s football team—were murdered one after the other by a Trojan-mask wearing killer.

Eventually, the murderer was unmasked. But the community has never forgotten—and some folks in town still wonder whether the police got it right.

Eighteen-year-old Pryce Cummings is one of them. An aspiring journalist, Pryce is pretty sure he just stumbled upon evidence that throws the killer’s guilt into question. It’s the perfect story for his own podcast, and a reason to go back to the hometown he’s avoided since coming to terms with his sexuality while at college.

But in Moss Pointe, digging into the past is anything but welcome. There’s so much more to what happened there five years ago, and Pryce is ready to crack it all wide open . . . if he lives to tell the tale.

Read what contributor Audrey thought of the book: Review: I Don’t Wish You Well

Contemporary Romance

The cover of the book queerleaders. There are three young people in yellow and white and dark green or black uniforms with a large hornet on the chest. They have yellow pom poms. The one on the right (light skin and light brown wavy hair) and the one on the left (Black with braided and a bun) are staring into each other's eyes. The third has brown skin and is standing on their thighs. Her face is not visible.

Queerleaders By Olivia A. Cole and Ashley Woodfolk

Oak Haven High doesn’t have cheerleaders—it has queerleaders.

It’s a fun coincidence that every new varsity cheerleader since Davie Cathee took the squad by storm three years ago is—or soon comes out as—queer.

But when a rumor sparks that this season, newly minted captain Davie has been specifically recruiting queer members only, Davie is accused of “discrimination” against straight students. She’s given an ultimatum: recruit a straight athlete for the team or the funding for their competitive cheer season will take a major tumble.

Enter Kendall Hayes, the edgy, mysterious new girl. When Davie sees that Kendall has a boyfriend, she quickly convinces her to join the squad. Problem solved.

Until she finds out that Kendall’s actually bisexual…and newly single.

Now Kendall and Davie are faced with having to keep those details under wraps until nationals, which only gets more complicated when they start falling hard and fast for each other. Can Kendall go back in the closet long enough to save the squad? Or will Davie find the courage to love her new crush out loud, even if it might mean the end of the queerleaders?

Contemporary Literary Fiction

Book cover of In Between Days. A drawing of a young Black woman takes up most of the cover. She has both eyes open and is looking out at the reader. Across the book it appears that three pieces have been torn across the drawing. Behind the tears is plain graphing paper.

In Between Days by Camryn Garrett

When her mother refuses entry to a stranger named Richard at her father’s funeral, 17-year-old Mira Howard doesn’t understand why. But snooping through her father’s things reveals that Richard was her father’s boyfriend—a boyfriend she never knew about. In fact, Mira never even knew for sure that her dad was gay. Hoping to feel more connected to her late father, Mira reaches out to Richard without telling her mom, who is still angry from the divorce. As Mira and Richard become closer, Mira gains more and more insight into the side of her father that she never got to see.

Grieving that she never got to connect with her dad about their shared queerness, Mira asks that Richard teach her “how to be queer” while she navigates a new crush on her co-worker, which brings her out of her diary and into the real world.

But as Mira grows more confident in herself, she finds it hard to keep her relationship with Richard a secret, questioning why her family never talked about her father’s sexuality in the first place. Soon Mira has to decide if she wants to keep the peace or honor her father’s memory by being her truest self.

Read what contributor K. Imani thought of the book: Review: In Between Days

Historical Fiction

The cover of the book the disillusionment of Nick and Jay. Against a night sky, a young black man wearing a pageboy cap and white dress shirt is looking forward with city lights off in the near distance. The top of the book shows another young Black man in front of a large dorm or other building with lights on in the windows. The top of the cover is upside down though. The young men appear to be staring into each other's eyes but one is upright and one is upside down.

The Great Disillusionment of Nick and Jay by Ryan Douglass

Seventeen-year-old Nick Carrington wants nothing more than to leave Greenwood, Oklahoma, behind and make a name for himself in the papers. But when tragedy strikes, dreams turn into a twisted reality. Forced to start anew in Harlem, only a letter of acceptance from the prestigious West Egg Academy is able to pull him back into the world.

But the supposedly integrated private boys’ school is more of a catchy headline than a fact, with the same prejudices Nick left behind back home. And his secret but growing feelings for the founder’s wickedly charismatic son, Jay Gatsby Jr.— who dances past society’s conventions with practiced ease—only add more complications.

When Nick’s cutting pen exposes dangerous truths about West Egg and leads to perilous consequences, he and Jay must decide whether to spend a lifetime outrunning trouble or be the ones to light the match. Can they not only fight back but triumph? Or will the powers that be win yet again?

Read what contributor K. Imani thought of the book: Review: The Great Disillusionment of Nick and Jay

Science Fiction/Fantasy

Cover of the book The Celestial Seas by T.A. Chan. A brown skinned person with dark hair fills most of the image. They are in profile facing the right and their head is tilted down a bit. They seem to be thinking. The clothing of the person may be a jacket, but instead of being a real piece of clothing, it is a window into a colorful landscape. There are rocks that are yellow and hot pink along with some blue ground. There are two dark silhouettes in the scene.

The Celestial Seas By T. A. Chan

Ishara Ming is the sole survivor of a spacefaring whaler destroyed by the Ballena, a legendary sentient spacecraft that haunts the darkness between stars. The fatal encounter left her with a metal-plated arm, a faulty memory chip, and a burning need for revenge.

To take on the Ballena, Ishara assembles a crew of capable misfits. Among them is Quinn–her trusted first mate, the girl with wildfire eyes, and the only person who always stands by her side, even when everyone else thinks Ishara is a delusional captain who hallucinated the Ballena.

That is, until Augustus, a ship mech armed with his own mysterious reasons for vengeance, convinces Ishara to let him join the crew. He brings the one thing Ishara’s never had before: a tracking method tailored for finding the Ballena. Pulled between Quinn’s and Augustus’s gravitational forces, the pressure to issue increasingly risky orders, and the feeling that her past is rapidly catching up with her future, Ishara has to decide what–or who–she is fighting for before she loses another ship.

Thriller/Horror

The book cover of Doe. It is a dark cover with an almost glowing face of a young Black woman. On the right side she has a blue eye, but the other eye is very dark in a shadow or is blackened. She has antlers on her head. There are flowers in front of her dark eye and they are fiery colors. In the large O of the title it says be careful what you cheer for.

Doe by Rebecca Barrow

Maris Larsen is the captain of the West Eaton High cheer team. She’s Coach’s favorite and the team worships her. Being on the team makes her feel special—powerful. When she’s leading the girls on the mat, Maris doesn’t have to think about her dead-end life in a dead-end town. She can forget about her depressed mother and absent father and the fact that her girlfriend doesn’t really love her. But when newcomer and Coach’s new golden girl, Genevieve Ray, joins the team, the only thing going right in Maris’s life is suddenly in jeopardy. A bitter rivalry develops between the two, but Maris is determined to take Genevieve down. The knife she needs to wield comes to Maris in her dreams.

While sleepwalking, Maris is visited by a monstrous, decaying beast in the shape of an enormous deer. Doe is an ancient, tired creature who has been wandering, trapped in her current form for decades. She cannot die, but she cannot go on living as she has. Only a girl related by blood to those who bound her in this form can free her, but those girls she loved died years ago—murdered in a fire.

But Maris is somehow linked to Doe’s beloved girls—linked by blood—and so she has the power to free Doe, to unleash her immense power. In Maris’s dreams, she and Doe form a bond, but Maris doesn’t know the creature from her dreams is real. Maris doesn’t understand the danger she’s in. She only knows Doe has promised her a way to win her battle with Genevieve. But for Maris to win, someone has to die, and the only real winner in the end will be Doe.

This novel will be released June 23rd.