24 of the Best LGBTQ Books Out This Week

As the title suggests, this literary novel is told in a series of letters from the main character in Las Vegas to her lover in Italy, written in a beautiful, stream-of-consciousness style. The letters touch on betrayal, sex, the immigrant experience, class, and more. This is a sensual, surprising novella that is, in turn, funny, disturbing, and poetic.

This 320-page novel is all set during 24 hours of Natwest’s life, as he waits for a “deeply embarrassing package” to be delivered to his house so he can intercept it before he leaves for university. Meanwhile, we get glimpses into the minds and lives of the other characters in his life, from a dentist who pursues his dream of being an artist by painting human mouths to an imam tortured by his complicated relationship with the vicar. This promises to be an “outrageously funny and tenderly moving” story that shows how we’re all connected.

You might know Amber Rose Gill as the winner of the fifth season of Love Island, but she’s also a romance author. This is her second novel. It follows Kya, who has been working flat-out to achieve success working in tech in Silicon Valley. She’s finally giving herself a break by taking a vacation in Miami…and then finds out she’s been fired on the flight out. In a Miami bar, she meets Jade, a DJ who lives a very different life. It was supposed to just be a summer fling, but that quickly gets complicated.

Caro De Robertis is a beloved author of queer lit, including Cantoras. In their newest book, they retell the Greek myth of Psyche and Eros. Psyche is tied to a rock by her father to be sacrificed to the gods, but Eros — the nonbinary deity of desire — saves her instead, hiding her in an idyllic palace. There, they fall in love during the nights they spend together, though Eros must fly off every morning. But Psyche begins to doubt Eros, forcing them into a reckoning that could change the worlds of gods and mortals.

There are actually two queer retellings of the Psyche and Eros myth out this week, so also check out Oath of Fire by K Arsenault Rivera!

Fans of queer cozy fantasy, you need to have this on your radar! Aila is the phoenix keeper at a magical zoo. She’s trying to get the resources to restart their breeding program to save this endangered species, but that means asking the know-it-all griffin keeper, Luciana, for help — and Luciana thinks the phoenixes should be performing instead. As poachers and other threats close in, Aila will have to fight for the future of the species.

This book looks tailor-made for me! I love a sapphic cozy fantasy novel, and I’m always looking for more fantasy books about magical/fantasy/mythological animals. I’m so excited to read this.