The goal is always to keep pride alive year-round, so we have a list of new titles and authors that you should keep in mind. This is your opportunity to return to worlds or dive into new ones with characters who share similar stories or characteristics as you.
If you have read the books in our LGBTQIA picks for June, we have 6 new titles to add to your TBR list. Craig Montgomery, Elle Sprinkle, and Tess Sharpe are among the authors we highlight this month.
In order of release date, here are 6 LGBTQIA books we are looking forward to reading this July:
1. Double Hit by Katie Steele – July 1
Kai Reid has spent the last year trying to get over his boyfriend. This task seems to have become impossible even after hooking up with volleyball superstar Atticus Mills. While Atticus has given up to being stuck in the friendzone forever, Kai reaches out to him to ask for a place to stay.
As they become roommates, they get closer, and Atticus’s friends begin to wonder if this will ever be more than a fling. Atticus wonders this himself as he and Kai take in a stray kid and Kai spends time rejecting his ex’s offers of friendship.
Book Description: A year has passed since gaming streamer Kai Reid watched his longterm relationship crumble to pieces, and he’s still struggling to stitch himself back together. Even an incredible hookup with volleyball star Atticus Mills, the NVA’s resident playboy, couldn’t pull Kai out of his past.
Six months after their one night stand, Atticus has resigned himself to the friendzone. But when Kai suddenly needs a place to crash for a week, right before the start of the season, Atticus jumps at the opportunity to offer up his spare bedroom. What’s the worst that could happen? They are friends, after all.
But the more time they spend together, the harder it becomes for Atticus to hide his feelings, especially when his teammates think Kai is just another fling-of-the-week. Even Kai struggles to ignore the physical attraction building between them, while fending off offers of friendship from his ex that threaten to keep him tethered to the painful past he wants to escape. All while, together, they take in a stray kitten who turns out to be an absolute menace.
Can Atticus break past the reputation he’s built for himself and convince Kai that there is something more between them? Can Kai finally come to terms with the fact that his life irrevocably changed a year ago? And will they ever come to an agreement on a name for their new pet?
2. Like a Power Play by Elle Sprinkle – July 7
Peyton Clarke is the starting center on her university’s hockey team, trying to prove she is more than the daughter of a retired NHL star. Darcy Cole is a former rising star who had to give up her hockey dreams due to rheumatoid arthritis. Now, she is the student assistant coach to her mom’s team.
While Peyton has no idea of Darcy’s past, the two continue to butt heads as one continues to be reckless and the other cautions. As they fight to see who is right, their chemistry starts to grow, and something more than coaching happens between them.
Book Description: From Elle Sprinkle, author of bestselling lesbian romance Puppy Love, comes Like a Power Play, a sapphic college hockey rom-com about a team captain who butts heads with her new student coach, until she begins to fall for her.
The student coach. The team captain. They’re skating on thin ice— until one of them falls.
Peyton Clarke has everything to prove. As the starting center for Greenrock University’s women’s hockey team, she’s determined to earn her place—no handouts, no shortcuts. Being the daughter of a retired NHL star, Peyton is desperate to show she’s more than just a product of her father’s fame. But when her relentless drive starts to blur the line between dedication and recklessness, she risks everything, including her future.
Darcy Cole never thought she’d return to hockey. Once a rising star at Michigan State, her dreams were shattered when rheumatoid arthritis forced her to quit the sport she loved. Now, thanks to her meddling head coach mother, she’s stuck as a student assistant coach, a role she never asked for. Darcy has sworn off the ice, keeping her past as a player a secret. But when Peyton Clarke’s reckless playing style clashes with her cautious approach, something sparks— and it’s not just chemistry.
To Darcy, Peyton is a reminder of everything she had to give up. To Peyton, Darcy is just the coach’s daughter who has no business telling her how to play. But Darcy is no stranger to the ice—and when their worlds collide, they both start to realize that maybe they have more in common than they think—both on and off the ice.
3. A Sky So Hollow by Craig Montgomery – July 7
Craig Montgomery continues The Stardust Duology with A Sky So Hollow. The second book finds Casper a few months after saving Novilem. While a strange sickness spreads through the city, Casper has visions of the tower Jacob sent to the surface. Thanks to Helix’s advice, he decides to bring his concerns to the Estellar council.
However, Casper realizes they haven’t uncovered everything the council is hiding. Now, Casper and Helix must confront their inner darkness to help save Novilem and prevent them from leaving their home.
Book Description: Some wounds never heal…
It’s been a few months since Casper Bell saved Novilem from crumbling under the pressure of revolution. The dust hasn’t settled, and neither has his nerves.
A strange sickness is spreading in the city, and Casper is having visions about the tower Jacob sent to the Surface. Helix convinces him to bring his concerns to the Estellar council, but Helix’s trust in the system backfires. They send the pair to the last place Casper wants to be: Earth.
Casper’s past is right where he left it and corrupted aether still creeps on the streets of Chicago. When they find someone who is aether sick, it is clear they haven’t finished uncovering the council’s secrets.
With their friends and family falling sick, the fragile peace in Novilem collapsing, and the council ready to abandon the home they have fought so hard to protect, Casper and Helix must confront their inner darkness before Novilem is lost forever.
4. The Lavender Blade: An Exorcist’s Chronicle by E.L. Deards – July 8
Colton and Lucian know the work they do is dangerous, even more so as they keep their romance a secret. Together, they deceive desperate individuals with fake exorcisms. Lucian poses as the charm and Colton as the trick. This is how they have always managed to survive.
Things take a turn when Lucian becomes possessed. As he realizes the powerful, horrific demon has taken over his lover, Colton needs to learn magic and break the rules to attempt what he believes to be impossible. If he doesn’t, he might lose the love of his life.
Book Description: Colton and Lucian make a living conning the desperate with fake exorcisms—Lucian is the charm, Colton the trick, and together, they’ve turned deception into survival. Their work is dangerous, their romance even riskier, but they’ve always found a way to stay ahead.
Until Lucian is truly possessed.
A powerful demon takes hold, twisting his body into something unnatural, horrific, wrong—and no priest, no con, no desperate lie can fix it. With time running out and Lucian slipping further away, Colton has no choice but to learn real magic, break every rule, and attempt the impossible.
Because if he fails, Lucian won’t just be lost. He’ll be something else entirely
5. No Body No Crime by Tess Sharpe – July 15
Many years ago, after a horror-show sweet 16 party, two girls left in love and with a buried secret in the ground. Now, years later, one of them has become a rural PI and finds herself chasing after the woman she once loved and once committed murder with. Is it possible that they didn’t bury their secret too well?
Book Description: A queer romantic thriller pitched as The Lost City meets a modern Thelma & Louise, in which a rural PI finds herself on the trail of the one who got away with her heart, and with murder; years after a horror-show sweet 16 party that ended with the girls in love and that good-for-nothing boy in the ground, the two women find that they didn’t bury him–or their feelings for each other–deep enough.
6. The Other Wife by Jackie Thomas-Kennedy – July 15
Now that she has hit the fourth decade, Zuzu wonders if she’s made the right choices in her life. She wonders if she did right by staying with her mother instead of her father after the divorce. Becoming a lawyer instead of an artist. Marrying Agnes instead of Cash.
As she heads back to her hometown after an unexpected loss, Zuzu is confronted by all the regrets she’s been thinking about.
Book Description: Susan “Zuzu” Braeburn is almost forty. She has the life she’s always dreamed of – a beautiful house, a child, a successful partner. But something between her and her wife has been off for a long time, and she can’t help but wonder if she’s chosen wrong at every turn. Choosing to live with her white mother over her Black father after their divorce, choosing to become a lawyer rather than an artist, and most importantly, choosing to marry Agnes despite her unrequited feelings for her male best friend Cash. When an unexpected loss takes her back to her hometown, the “what-ifs” in her mind become too loud to ignore.
The Other Wife is a brazen and heartfelt debut about love and regrets.
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What will you be reading in July? 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 known as a Media Relations Expert. 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, W Spotlight, Collider, USA Wire, Mentors Collective, Instelite, Noodle, Dear Movies, Nicki Swift, and Flip Screened.
