Archives de catégorie : LGBTQ+

TRESPASS AGAINST US de Leon Kemp

Perfect for fans of Ace of Spades and The Taking of Jake Livingston, this young adult horror debut is told in dual timelines: following a group of teens as they visit an abandoned school for troubled youth and then return two years later to confront the supernatural evil they awoke there.

TRESPASS AGAINST US
by Leon Kemp
HarperTeen, June 2024

Two years ago, Riley visited the abandoned and allegedly haunted religious reform school Dominic House with his boyfriend Ethan, and his best friends Colton and Vee. Ethan never came out. Colton’s leg will never quite heal, Vee is branded as hysterical, and Riley has horrific scars as a reminder of that night. Now at eighteen, Riley hasn’t exactly moved on, but he’s kept away from all things paranormal. Until legendary ghost chaser Jordan Jones shows up with an offer: return to Dominic House with her to film an episode of her Spirit Seekers tv show. Riley may have vowed never to return, but he has unfinished business at Dominic House. With a reluctant Colton and Vee at his side, Riley is determined to find out what happened to Ethan once and for all. But as the night wears on, Riley realizes he isn’t just revisiting the most terrifying night of his life he’s reliving it.

Leon Kemp lives in Melbourne, where they achieved a Bachelor of Arts with a major in creative writing. They hope to continue weaving stories about queer kids surviving both the kindest and cruelest extremes the world has to offer. When not writing, Leon spends most of their time watching, playing, and reading all things horror. TRESPASS AGAINST US is their debut novel.

RULES FOR GHOSTING de Shelly Jay Shore

RULES FOR GHOSTING combines the humor, fraught-but-loving family dynamics, and obsession with death seen in books like Mostly Dead Things, One Last Stop, and Fun Home. It is the gay, Jewish, Six Feet Under we’ve all been waiting for.

RULES FOR GHOSTING
by Shelly Jay Shore
Ballantine, Summer 2024
(via Frances Goldin Literary)

Twenty-eight-year-old Ezra Friedman is only a little bit clairvoyant, but enough to make growing up in a funeral home miserable. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if his Zayde’s ghost didn’t keep giving him this look of betrayal and disapproval as he went through an HRT-induced second puberty, or if the dead’s hands weren’t so cold. But, it’s no wonder that Ezra would want to get as far away as possible from the family business.
With his parents’ marriage imploding, Ezra finds himself pulled back into the effort to help save the Friedman Family Memorial Chapel from financial ruin. That means long days of puzzling out his mom’s cryptic filing systems while surrounded by the ghosts no one else can see, while balancing his role as referee between the warring factions of his family. Add in his unfortunate crush on the cute funeral home volunteer who just happens to live downstairs from where Ezra and his ex are now living together as friends, and the new ghost who keeps breaking every spectral rule Ezra’s managed to figure out about the dead, and Ezra’s more than ready to make another run for the hills.
The more Ezra learns about the tangled web of secrets that haunt the Chapel’s halls, the harder it is to maintain the distance that (he thought) kept him sane. As the pressure mounts to figure out how to keep the funeral home from being snapped up by a corporate “body farm”, Ezra is forced to do something he never thought possible.

Shelly Jay Shore (she/they) is a writer, digital strategist, and nonprofit fundraiser. Their writing on queer Jewish identity has been published by Autostraddle, Alma, and the Bi Resource Center. RULES FOR GHOSTING is her debut novel.

SOME STRANGE MUSIC DRAWS ME IN de Griffin Hansbury

A poignant and provocative story of transgender awakening in a working-class American town.

SOME STRANGE MUSIC DRAWS ME IN
by Griffin Hansbury
W. W. Norton, March 2024
(via Sterling Lord Literistic)

In the summer of 1984, teenage Mel becomes entranced with the trans woman who appears in her blue-collar American town. Through the world-expanding time she spends with the woman, Sylvia, and the changes of adolescence, Mel soon discovers she is not the girl she thought she was—in fact, she might not be a girl at all. In the wake of this revelation, Mel navigates gender, sexuality, and an intense friendship with her childhood best friend in a hostile time and place for both girls and queers.

Moving back and forth to 2019, Mel has become Max, a middle-aged trans man. He returns to his hometown in the wake of his mother’s death, still reeling from his own politically-incorrect, gender-related scandal at his workplace, and bearing the burden of guilt from that pivotal teenage summer. As he reunites with his wayward older sister, spends time with his preteen great-niece and reckons with his past, Max works to come to terms with what it means to be a flawed and forgivable human being amidst constantly changing social norms.

“This gorgeous, propulsive novel is filled with beauty and danger, youth and wisdom and the life-saving lifelines of counterculture. With writing so tense and honest and real, I recognized this place and these people deeply, and felt them all in my heart long after the book was finished.” ―Michelle Tea, author of Knocking Myself Up

Griffin Hansbury is the acclaimed author of Vanishing New York (Dey Street, 2017), based on the celebrated blog written under the pen name Jeremiah Moss. As Hansbury he is the author of The Nostalgist, a novel, and Day For Night, a collection of poems. A two-time NYFA fellow, his writing has appeared in n+1, The New York Times, The New York Daily News, and online for The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, The Village Voice, Salon, and The New York Review of Books.

GIRLS LIKE GIRLS de Hayley Kiyoko

Trailblazing pop star, actor and director, Hayley Kiyoko debuts her first novel, a coming-of-age romance based on her breakthrough hit song and viral video, Girls Like Girls.

GIRLS LIKE GIRLS
by Hayley Kiyoko
Wednesday Books/St. Martin’s Press, May 2023

It’s summertime and 17-year-old Coley has found herself alone, again. Forced to move to rural Oregon after just losing her mother, she is in no position to risk her already fragile heart. But when she meets Sonya, the attraction is immediate.
Coley worries she isn’t worthy of love. Up until now, everyone she’s loved has left her. And Sonya’s never been with a girl before. What if she’s too afraid to show up for Coley? What if by opening her heart, Coley’s risking it all?
They both realize that when things are pushed down, and feelings are forced to shrivel away, Coley and Sonya will be the ones to shrink. It’s not until they accept the love they fear and deserve most, that suddenly the song makes sense.
Based on the billboard-charting smash hit song and viral music video GIRLS LIKE GIRLS, Hayley Kiyoko’s debut novel is about embracing your truth and realizing we are all worthy of being loved back.

Hayley Kiyoko is an award-winning American singer, dancer, and actress. « At the forefront of an unapologetically queer pop movement » according to Rolling Stone, Hayley is a passionate advocate for LGBTQIA+ rights. Her debut novel, GIRLS LIKE GIRLS, is based on her hit single and music video of the same name.

NO BOY SUMMER d’Amy Spalding

Lydia and her younger sister Penny make a pact to avoid boy drama for the summer—but Lydia can’t help looking for a loophole when she falls for a cute girl.

NO BOY SUMMER
by Amy Spalding
Amulet Books/Abrams, April 2023
(via KT Literary)

Lydia Jones and her younger sister Penny have had it with boy drama. Last year was marred by relationship disasters for both of them, threatening Lydia’s standing with her school’s theater tech club and Penny’s perfect GPA. Penny has, naturally, diagnosed the problem and prescribed a drastic solution: a summer off from boys.
Lydia and Penny decide to stay with their Aunt Grace and her boyfriend Oscar in Los Angeles while their parents are off on a European cruise. Penny follows her future-business-school dreams with an internship at Oscar’s office, and Lydia gets a part-time job at Grace’s neighborhood coffeeshop, Grounds Control.
Even when they spent hours, days, weeks dissecting their various boy drama, Lydia’s never felt this connected to her sister before, and it makes her wonder what else in her life could be different. She finds herself drawn to a group of friends she meets through her Grounds Control coworker, Margaret, as well as an intriguing customer, Fran, an aspiring filmmaker and—while not the first girl Lydia finds herself attracted to—the first girl who has mutual feelings for her. But she’s not breaking her pledge to Penny, right? That was just about boys. Even though in her heart Lydia knows she’s bending the rules, she hasn’t had a connection with anyone as strong as her connection with Fran, so she thinks it can’t be wrong. And Penny won’t mind as long as she’s happy . . . Right?

“Buoyant and genuinely funny. A love letter to summer friends, summer girls, and the city of Los Angeles.”―Rainbow Rowell, No. 1 New York Times bestselling author of Scattered Showers

“Lydia’s relationship validates the bisexual experience through an enjoyable romance. This body- and sex-positive story will hold readers’ interest until it eventually reaches its satisfying conclusion. A cute, queer romance plus a sweet exploration of the special bond between sisters.”―Kirkus Reviews

Amy Spalding is the author of several novels, including Kissing Ted Callahan (and Other Guys), The Summer of Jordi Perez (and the Best Burger in Los Angeles), and We Used to Be Friends, which Becky Albertalli called “complex, earnest, and unflinching.” She lives in Los Angeles.