7 New LGBTQIA Books to Read This October: Carrying, Fangs and All, and more

With three months left in 2026, the LGBTQIA books keep coming out and are ready for you to pick up. If you are looking for what to read next, we might have the perfect title for you.

If you have read the books in our LGBTQIA picks for September, we have 7 new titles to add to your TBR list.  Samantha Josephs, Tas Mukanik, and Courtney Gould 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 October:

1. Carrying by Samantha Josephs – October 6

Samantha Josephs tells the story of Martha, a trans woman who’s spent her entire life as a housewife hiding her real identity from everyone, including her husband. When she is hit with a mysterious illness, Martha begins to experiment with treatments until she discovers she is pregnant.

Book Description: An audacious, inventive debut and a cult classic in the making, from a thrilling new talent in fiction.

Martha is a trans woman and the picture-perfect Los Angeles housewife, though she is concealing her identity even from her own husband. When she is struck down by a mysterious illness, she begins a series of bizarre experimental treatments that awaken strange new appetites in her and even leave her seemingly – impossibly – pregnant. Equal parts inventive, funny and compulsive, Carrying mixes the sensational body horror of The Substance with the transgressive camp comedy of John Waters in a style that’s all its own, and announces the arrival of a thrilling new talent in fiction.

2. Fangs and All by Tas Mukanik – October 6

If Hotel Transylvania is your kind of movie, Tas Mukanik’s newest graphic novel will be your favorite new comic. The story follows Sam as she decides to join her girlfriend for a weekend back at home. However, things take a different turn when Sam discovers Boots’s family is made up of monsters. Can the couple survive the weekend?

Book Description: Meet the Parents meets Wednesday in this queer, tongue-in cheek YA graphic novel about every young couple’s worst meeting the family.

Sam and Boots are relationship stupidly cute, super supportive, and so in love. Of course, the natural next step is for Sam to join Boots for a weekend back home. So what if Boots says her family is a little weird and that they’d never expect her to bring a girlfriend home? Sam is sure she’ll win them over. Besides, meeting the parents is a big deal, but it’s not life or death, right?

Wrong! Because it turns out the Blackwoods aren’t just weird, they’re monsters—literally. Soon enough, Sam isn’t just dealing with the realization that her girlfriend is a vampire but also dodging a myriad of family members who can’t help but try to curse, hunt, drown, or eat her. And while Boots grapples with her own monstrous tendencies, Sam struggles to be supportive…while also staying alive. This not-so-perfect-after all couple will have to fight tooth and claw if they want to escape the weekend with their relationship and their humanity intact.

3. Until the Last Light Goes Out by Courtney Gould – October 13

If mystery, horror, and murder are your cup of tea, Courtney Gould’s newest story is the perfect next read. It focuses on Paige Keller, the daughter of one of the five survivors of the Kaleidoscope Key massacre. Even though Paige wants nothing to do with it, she’s foced to face her parent’s past when her best friend, KJ, goes missing on the 25th anniversary of the massacre.

Book Description: Flickering neon lights and hot Miami nights turn deadly in this gothic horror about a daughter investigating her best friend’s disappearance at an abandoned island resort.

You may not escape, but the truth will.

Twenty-five years ago, the Ripley Memorial High School senior class entered the luxurious Kaleidoscope Key resort deep in the remote Florida Keys. Despite international intrigue and years of investigation, no one truly knows how the 183 students died. And they never will, since the five survivors of the massacre have never spoken a word about what happened to them that night.

Paige Keller, daughter of one of the Kaleidoscope Key Massacre’s infamous survivors, has grown up determined to steer her life away from the resort and the unsolved mysteries her ex-best friend, KJ, can’t leave alone. Paige has moved to a fancy new college and it seems that, finally, she’s banished the shadows of Kaleidoscope Key completely. But when she’s called home on the 25th anniversary of the massacre, she finds that KJ has gone missing.

Paige knows there’s only one place KJ could be: her obsession, the now-abandoned resort. When Paige and the remaining Survivors’ Kids go in after her, they’re forced to confront their―and their parents―pasts once and for all.

Kaleidoscope Key is waiting, and it’s starving. Once they find their way inside, there may not be a way out. And one way or another, the truth of the massacre will come to light.

Captivating and chilling, Courtney Gould’s Until The Last Light Goes Out is a horror story, a love story, and an ode to the pain passed between generations that you won’t soon forget.

4. Setting the Stage for Christmas: A Novel by Tanya Boteju – October 13

Picture a Hallmark movie where the main characters were high school sweethearts until one of them ghosted the other. Now, they must come together to save the town. Bo by putting on the perfect Christmas play to earn enough money to save their historic landmark, and Val by designing the perfect set for the play. What could possibly go wrong?

Book Description: A sizzling yet sweet festive rom-com about a small-town theatre director forced to put her faith in the woman who once shattered her heart, so they can save not only the show, but their whole community, too.

In Cedar Creek, Christmas is no joke, and the annual seasonal play is the centerpiece of the festivities. As director, Bo Amaratunga is not only filling the boots of her mother, but fulfilling her role as community organizer—bringing people together for a night of queer joy and merriment.

When a local landmark goes up for sale, and the town looks to Bo to save it, she does exactly what her mother would draws up plans to produce the loudest, most magical play to save the day—or at least bring in enough ticket sales to fend off any prospective buyers. To pull it all off, Bo needs a set builder who can bring her vision to life, but the only option seems to be the newly returned Val Morales, Bo’s long lost high school sweetheart. Sure, Val’s incredibly talented, more than willing to help, and still makes Bo’s pulse race, but how can she trust the girl who ghosted her and left her devastated ten years ago? And why did Val come back after all these years, anyway?

Val Morales didn’t think she’d ever find herself back in Cedar Creek. Freshly divorced, unemployed, and floundering, she was glad to take the lifeline when her demanding parents offered her a job helping out with their realtor business. When they ask her to find a buyer for their lucrative property in Cedar Creek, she jumps at the opportunity to escape their disappointment at her life’s recent downturn and hopefully even impress them. She wasn’t expecting to run into Bo, her first, most pivotal love, or for Bo to ask for her help designing the set for the annual holiday play. When Val realizes the property she’s trying to sell is the same one the play is trying to save, she is forced into an impossible place—will she break Bo’s heart all over again?

As the past and their longing for one another creeps up on them, Bo and Val must figure out a way to maneuver around their conflicting goals and pressures.
At once an utterly delightful holiday romcom and a tender exploration of past, present, and future selves, Tanya Boteju’s adult debut Setting the Stage For Christmas will warm hearts in any season.

5. False Face by Josh Galarza – October 20

Rusty believes Todd is a figment of his imagination, breaking into musical numbers and trying to get the attention of the cutest guy in school. But when Todd’s behavior puts Rusty in danger, it’s the same cute boy the only one who can save him. Why? Because Burt is a secret agent who works rescuing vulnerable queer kids.

Book Description: From National Book Award Finalist Josh Galarza comes a moving new young adult novel full of self-discovery, forgiveness, and acceptance.

Rusty is positive Todd with two D’s is a figment of his troubled mind. That’s the only explanation for why he breaks into musical numbers and lurks in the school bleachers to stare unabashedly at Burt, the cutest guy in school. But when Todd’s antics go a little too far, Rusty quickly finds himself in a dangerous situation. Little does Rusty know, the boy he’s head over heels for just might be the one to save his life.

By day, Burt Espinoza is the only out kid in school who’s ever maintained his social status. But by night, he is a real a secret agent rescuing vulnerable queer kids in danger. His handlers (also his adoptive moms) are concerned he’s pushing himself too hard to be the man he thinks he needs to be. Now Burt has to prove that he’s ready for his biggest mission saving the only boy he’s ever hurt.

Raw, surreal, and timely, this novel is perfect for fans of Rex Ogle and Randy Ribay.

6. You’re No Better by Andrew Joseph White – October 27

In Andrew Joseph White’s newest book, Morgan Slaughter is working as hard as he can to prove to his mother and the documentary crew following them around that he isn’t like the father he helped put in prison for murder. Trying to show he is better than his serial killer father, Morgan goes after her father’s final victim to solve the mystery. However, things get complicated when a classmate finds out Morgan was his father’s accomplice.

Book Description: Bestselling author Andrew Joseph White returns with another horrific YA thriller: a profound portrait of a struggling teen trying to convince the world—and himself—that he’s better than the serial killer who raised him.

Morgan Slaughter, a seventeen-year-old trans boy with autism, put his serial killer father in prison years ago. Despite that, everyone thinks Morgan will grow up to be just like his dad: including his volatile mother, the documentary crew following their family, and maybe himself.

Desperately, Morgan latches onto his father’s final victim—the only one who was never identified—hoping that if he unravels the mystery, he’ll finally prove he’s better than the man who hurt him. But this puts Morgan in the crosshairs of classmate Felicity Keating, who knows the truth about Morgan’s childhood—that he wasn’t just a witness to his father’s brutality, he was an accomplice. And if he doesn’t let them help with his investigation? They’ll tell everyone.
Forced to confront his past, Morgan’s ugly but carefully controlled world unravels. The film crew is manipulative. His mother’s temper spirals into malice, then violence. And Morgan and Felicity may be more tightly intertwined than either of them can stomach . . .

You’re No Better is a gritty and unapologetic coming-of-age suspense about teens who grew up surrounded by cruelty and are clawing their way to adulthood the only way they know how.

7. Our Infinite and Inevitable Ends by A.D. Sui – October 27

Even though Cas thinks she’s living her best life on a floating trash island on a planet destroyed by climate change, things will soon change. As she investigates a plastic-dissolving fungus, her ex is killed in a mysterious explosion. That is when Cas is arrested on charges of domestic terrorism, and her addiction to deleria, a drug that allows her to view different timelines, gets worse. Now, she has to choose where (or when) she wants to live.

Book Description: This sapphic cli-fi thriller is a love letter to hope in the bleakest of times, combining the multiverse-bending drama of This Is How You Lose the Time War with the cat-and-mouse chase of Killing Eve.

On a near-future Earth devastated by climate change, Dr. Cassandra Barlowe is right where she wants to be: working on an island of floating trash in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, as far away from Dr. Yana Gulsvig as possible. Cas’s research on plastic-dissolving fungi is undervalued and underfunded, thanks to the invention of deleria, a drug that allows glimpses into different timelines. For the average user, it’s a way to view lost loved ones or experience a different life, but it also offers a glimpse into worlds where humanity has solved its many global crises. Now, most science funding is dedicated to trawling these different timelines, searching for a reality with the solution to the climate devastation.

But when Yana — the world’s leading expert on deleria and Cassandra’s ex-lover — is killed in a mysterious explosion in the hub of deleria research, taking the hope of reversing climate change with her, Cas is arrested on charges of domestic terrorism. Cas must delve through timelines to piece together what happened, while watching other versions of herself and Yana live out the life they could have had — happier, more in love. As brutal government agents close in and her addiction to deleria grows, Cas has to make a choice: live in the spiraling branches of reality, seeking closure for Yana’s death until the drug shatters her mind, or live in the now, even if that means embracing her own damaged self and fighting, however hopelessly, for her own future and that of humanity.

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What will you be reading in October? Share your picks in the comments below!

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