Pride is here and we must uplift queer voices more than ever before. If you are ready to submerge yourself in worlds where LGBTQIA characters are the norm and you feel heard, seen, and cared for, we have the perfect list for you.
If you have read the books in our LGBTQIA picks for May, we have 7 new titles to add to your TBR list. Rory Power, Rae Wilde, and Shoshana von Blanckensee are among the authors we highlight this month.
In order of release date, here are 7 LGBTQIA books we are looking forward to reading this June:
1. Kill Creatures by Rory Power – June 3
What happens when the narrator of the story is the killer? Kill Creatures is narrated by Nan, a year after the summer in which her friends disappeared in Saltcedar Canyon. The twist? Nan killed her friends.
Things get complicated when, during the vigil to remember the lost lives, one of the murdered girls returns alive. What can Nan do now to avoid any consequences for her actions?
Book Description: From the bestselling author of Wilder Girls and queen of twisty narratives, Rory Power, comes her highly anticipated new Young Adult thriller.
Last summer, Nan’s three best friends disappeared into Saltcedar Canyon.
She’s spent the year since grieving their loss and avoiding questions about what happened that night. Now, on the anniversary, she’s ready to say goodbye, and so are the girls’ families, who have reconvened to hold a memorial. But their vigil is interrupted by the shocking return of one of the missing girls alive.
Everybody is overjoyed. Everybody, that is, except Nan, who was pretty sure they were dead.
After all, she’s the one who killed them.
Atmospheric, fast-paced and vividly realised, Kill Creatures is a book about secrets, jealousy, violence and revenge. Perfect for fans of A Good Girls Guide to Murder and Gone Girl.
2. Ready to Score by Jodie Slaughter – June 3
Jade has been working very hard to get to the top of her high school football career by finally becoming the head coach. However, in a small southern town, the only way to get to the top is by knowing the right people. She thinks she will finally have an in when she is invited to a coveted poker game. Things change when she meets Francesca, the only one capable of beating her.
Francesca is now trying to put the pieces of her life back together after losing love and is attempting to settle into her new life. She thinks she can get to the head coach position as well, but things change when she meets Jade.
Book Description: Cleat Cute meets Friday Night Lights in this funny, spicy, emotional new sapphic romance from Jodie Slaughter.
Jade Dunn has spent years trying to climb her way to the top of the southern high school football food chain. Now, the only thing standing between her and that future head coach spot is years of small-town good ‘ol boy politics. When she scores an invite to a highly coveted monthly poker game perfect for networking, she jumps at the chance for a seat at the table. Only to find the one person with the ability to shake her there. An infuriatingly sexy art teacher who plays her cards like she’s gunning for Jade’s deserved spot.
Francesca Lim never thought she’d be happy in a small town, not after living and breathing hardcore Texas football her whole life. But two years ago, the promise of forever love had her leaving behind a burgeoning coaching career for a new life – only for it to burst into flames. Now, she has a chance to gain back a piece of her life she thought she’d left in Houston. The only one standing in the way? The prickly assistant coach that Francesca can’t keep her mind or hands off of.
Not wanting to risk losing out on a dream job, Jade and Francesca can’t afford to give in to the iron hot attraction that simmers beneath their biting interactions, so they try desperately to ignore it. Too bad their hearts don’t seem to be as on board with the game plan.
Jodie Slaughter’s Ready to Score shows how sometimes you have to go big or go home to get the life – and love – you deserve.
3. I Can Fix Her by Rae Wilde – June 3
Johnny and Alice broke up a while back, and she is still angry over it since Alice ghosted her. However, she can’t help herself and accepts an invitation back to Alice’s apartment after they run into each other. That night, they promise each other a life of change and love. The next morning, they seem to be living the same life except their dog doubled in size.
As the days go by, more bizarre things continue to happen, leading Johnny to believe they could change how they were. However, as their relationship expands, they realize their reality might be leading them to inevitable doom.
Book Description: This is How You Lose the Time War meets Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke in this fast-paced queer horror novel in which an obsessive woman stumbles upon a second-chance romance with her flighty paramour, but it quickly deteriorates into a dark spiral of destruction.
Johnny spots her ex, Alice, at the local cafe with a vague sense that she’s been there before. Though she’s still angry about their breakup and Alice’s subsequent ghosting, Johnny can’t resist the draw of a second shot at their relationship and accepts Alice’s invitation back to her apartment. Once there, promises are exchanged. There’s talk of wonder and change and dreams made real. But after spending the night together, they face a morning in which Alice is still Alice, Johnny is still Johnny, and the dog has doubled in size.
Over the course of a week, increasingly bizarre changes in the world around them force Johnny to consider whether the pair can change just as easily, if they can change at all. Or if both her relationship and the bounds of reality are destined to implode. The narrative of I Can Fix Her operates on nightmare logic, putting forth an irresistible tale in which the world, the narrator, and time itself are not to be trusted.
4. Winging It with You by Chip Pons – June 10
Right before the beginning of a travel competition reality show, Asher is dumped by his boyfriend at the Boston airport. As he drowns his feelings in mimosas and mozzarella sticks, he wonders what he could possibly do to go on the show without his former partner. That is when he meets Theo, a pilot.
Theo is being forced to create a better work-life balance for himself or give up his wings. That is why he doesn’t hesitate when Asher mentions the reality show, asking him to be his fake boyfriends for the cameras. As the show begins, they wonder if their chemistry is just for the cameras or if there are feelings brewing between them.
Book Description: Popular bookstagrammer Chip Pons’s gay rom-com about two men who impulsively pose as a couple to compete in a reality show contest just minutes after meeting at an airport, and their run-in with the very real feelings that start to simmer between them.
Catching flights…& feelings…has never been more complicated.
Asher Bennet thought his relationship was just fine. Until he’s unceremoniously dumped at the Boston airport ahead of the world-wide travel competition reality show, The Epic Trek. Armed with only a ticket and righteous indignation, Asher finds the closest solace he can: a mimosa and mozzarella sticks combo at an airport TGI Fridays. Still, Asher is determined to find a new partner and luckily, right in front of him is a smooth-talking airline pilot ready for takeoff.
Theo Fernandez has been grounded. He’s the only pilot that has never taken a vacation and the edict has been passed prove you’re prioritizing a work-life balance or say goodbye to your wings. As he struggles to bask in his new downtime, without reconnecting with his family, he stumbles upon the perfect opportunity. The handsome guy who “stole” his mozzarella sticks at his favorite terminal eatery has a sudden opening for a partner . . . on a nationally televised reality show.
Theo and Asher buckle up to fake date for the cameras, but as they do the undercurrents of attraction make them wonder if their on-screen chemistry hints at something bigger. Do they have the courage to leave behind their baggage, and wing it together for another chance at love?
5. If I Told You, I’d Have to Kiss You by Mae Marvel – June 10
Yardley Whitmer is also known as Unicorn at the international spy agency where she works. She is great at her job, but is struggling to keep her life a secret from her girlfriend while living together. Her girlfriend, KC Nolan, is also known as Tabasco, but has no idea that the secret she is trying to keep is the same one her girlfriend is keeping from her.
As their relationship continues to struggle among the lies, Yardley and KC discover they have been working for the same agency all these years. Now, they must work together to salvage their mission, stay alive, and put the pieces of their love back together. Can they do it?
Book Description: Ms. and Ms. Smith meets The Pairing in this heart-racing romance of secrets, spies, and steam.
A few rules for the international superspy:
(1) Never blow your cover.
(2) Never accept the first plan.
(3) Never fall for anyone at the agency. Especially if she’s your ex-girlfriend.Second-generation spy Yardley Whitmer, code name “the Unicorn,” can do no wrong. With her combination of debutante-style charm and expert spycraft, she’s become an instant legend in the field. If only finally moving out of her girlfriend’s home were as easy as rappelling off the Eiffel Tower. But living a full-time cover story has slowly eroded her relationship with KC until there’s nothing left but lies.
KC “Tabasco” Nolan, hacker extraordinaire, can crack anything—except the code that would tell her the right moment to confess her secret job to Yardley.
Now it’s too late, and she’s in danger of losing the best chance at love she’s ever had.
When an undercover shakedown goes wrong, Yardley and KC discover the unbelievable truth—that they are Unicorn and Tabasco, and they’ve both been working with the agency for years. To salvage the mission, they’re compelled to partner up and fly across oceans, race through winding European streets, and give in to inconvenient passion while hiding in an ambassador’s linen closet. But can they throw away their Plan A and fight through the betrayal and secrets to fall in love with each other’s true selves?
6. Amelia, If Only by Becky Albertalli – June 10
Amelia is in what her friends call a parasocial relationship with YouTuber Walter Holland. She thinks if the two of them could meet, sparks would fly, and she would be able to invite him to prom with her. After deleting the YouTube comment and finding Walter is holding a meet and greet, she decides to travel to ask him in person.
Amelia’s best friend, Natalie, decides to go with her on this trip to meet Walter as their last adventure before graduation. However, as the road trip begins, Amelia realizes that maybe the sparks were already flying with someone other than Walter.
Book Description: Amelia Applebaum isn’t in love with Walter Holland. He just happens to be her favorite moderately famous, chaotically bisexual YouTuber. Who she just happened to invite to prom. (But it’s fine. No, for real. If you delete the post, it didn’t happen.)
Okay, maybe her friends are right: She’s slightly parasocially infatuated. But Amelia just knows sparks would fly—if only she could connect with Walter for real.
If only he would host a meet and greet.
If only it were just a short road trip away.
And if only Amelia could talk her best friends into making it the perfect last hurrah before graduation—even her newly single, always-cynical, guitar-toting best friend Natalie.
One thing’s for sure: All roads lead to butterflies.
But what if Amelia’s butterflies aren’t for Walter at all?
7. Girls Girls Girls by Shoshana von Blanckensee – June 17
Hannah comes from an Orthodox Jewish family that has plenty of expectations. In 1996, she decides to move from Long Beach to San Francisco with her secret girlfriend, Sam. To stay afloat, the girls start working at a strip club. While Hannah knows this is what she has to do not to disappoint Sam, she hates stripping and wants to do something different.
That is when she meets Chris, an older lesbian taken by her, and proposes her an escort arrangement. As Hannah begins to work for Chris and Sam meets new queer people, their relationship begins to suffer. Now, Hannah must figure out who she is outside her relationship with Sam.
Book Description: “Girls Girls Girls floored me. . . . It’s completely extraordinary.” —Catherine Newman, New York Times bestselling author of Sandwich.
A vibrant queer Jewish debut “teeming with heart, angst, love, and self discovery” (Emily Austin) about a young woman who, caught between the expectations of others and her own evolving desires, is forced to make a series of fraught life-altering decisions.
It’s the summer of ’96 and best friends (and secret girlfriends) Hannah and Sam are driving across the country from Long Beach, New York, to the fabled queer paradise of San Francisco, free from the harsh gazes of their neighbors and the stifling demands of Hannah’s devout Orthodox Jewish mother. In San Francisco, they will finally be together as a real couple, out in the open, around other queer people. Even if the move means leaving behind Hannah’s beloved Bubbe.
When the financial strains of West Coast living push the girls to start stripping at The Chez Paree—yet another secret Hannah must keep from her family—Hannah feels trapped. Sam wants her at the club, but Hannah hates stripping nearly as much as she hates disappointing Sam. Then Hannah meets Chris, an older butch lesbian, who is immediately taken with her. Desperate to stay in San Francisco, but away from the leering men at the club, Hannah proposes an escort arrangement.
But as Hannah falls deeper into Chris’ world and Sam starts to meet new queer friends, a rift forms between them. Without Sam, who is Hannah? And what becomes of San Francisco to Hannah alone—a space rich with queer possibility, or an intimidating, unfamiliar place, just as lonely as the one she’d left behind? An achingly tender and resonant story of survival, first love, and growing up queer in the ’90s, Girls Girls Girls is a piercing exploration of the choices we make in the thrilling and often confounding search for ourselves and home.
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What will you be reading in June? Share your picks in the comments below!
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Lara Rosales
By day, Lara Rosales (she/her) is a solo mom by choice and a bilingual writer with a BA in Latin-American Literature who works in PR. By night, she is a TV enjoyer who used to host a podcast (Cats, Milfs & Lesbian Things). You can find her work published on Tell-Tale TV, Geek Girl Authority, Collider, USA Wire, Mentors Collective, Instelite, Noodle, Dear Movies, Nicki Swift, and Flip Screened.
