(my) most anticipated queer books for 2025/2026
Still here, still queer.
We are living through a frightening time that feels both eerily familiar and completely uncharted. The cultural landscape is backpedaling, between the rise of conservatism, the dawn of generative AI, the ongoing genocide in Palestine, and the passage of laws that target our vulnerable trans siblings. It’s hard not to feel afraid. And yet history reminds us: this isn’t new.
When I am nervous about the future, I look for guidance from the past. Censorship and suppression are old tactics. Queer art has always known that expression is survival. I think often about the queer zines of the 80’s and 90’s—DIY publications stapled together in bedrooms and basements, written in the margins of the mainstream. They were messy, raw, political, sexy. They were made to be passed hand-to-hand, left in cafés and record stores, mailed across state lines. They saved lives. They built community.
That same spirit of radical creation continues today, though it often takes new forms. The books on this list are just a few upcoming titles that have caught my eye—some new releases, some forthcoming, all buzzing with that unmistakable electricity that queer storytelling carries. The descriptions are pulled from official synopses, but the enthusiasm in sharing them is mine.
These books are part of a larger lineage of survival, resistance, and love made visible on the page. Though queer art may not always look the same through the eras, queer art will always exist. There will always be someone writing to us, for us, with us in mind. That’s the power of queer art. It endures.
Happy Pride Month. I love you. I see you. I am so proud of you. Let’s keep fighting and let’s keep reading.
Girls Who Play Dead, Joelle Wellington (11/4/2025)
YA Thriller
When Mikky Graves left his small, stifling hometown of Prophets Lake to live with his estranged mother, he thought nothing could ever make him return for good. Until his sister Kyla’s best friend, Erin, is murdered. Mikky never worried about leaving Kyla behind at their family-owned funeral home so long as she had Erin. But when Mikky heads home, determined to help Kyla grieve, the sister he encounters barely resembles the one he remembers. Mikky decides, then and there, to do the one thing that seems even more impossible than returning: stay. As Kyla spirals further into her rage and secrets, Mikky realizes the only thing that can help his sister is finding the truth about who killed Erin. But the more he investigates, the further he’s pulled into other ugly mysteries of Prophets Lake and the beauty brand that is its lifeblood. The town’s rot runs deep, and everyone has something to hide. Perhaps no one more than Kyla herself.
The Lighthouse at the Edge of the World, J.R. Dawson (7/19/2025)
Fantasy
At the edge of Chicago, nestled on the shores of Lake Michigan, there is a waystation for the dead. Every night, the newly-departed travel through the city to the Station, guided by its lighthouse. There, they reckon with their lives, before stepping aboard a boat to go beyond. Nera has spent decades watching her father—the ferryman of the dead—sail across the lake, each night just like the last. But tonight, something is wrong. The Station’s lighthouse has started to flicker out. The terrifying, ghostly Haunts have multiplied in the city. And now a person—a living person—has found her way onto the boat. Her name is Charlie. She followed a song. And she is searching for someone she lost.
Leaving the Station, Jake Maia Arlow (8/19/2025)
YA Contemporary
Zoe’s life has gone off the rails. She banked on college being a fresh start, but instead she’s leaving for fall break with zero friends and an ex-boyfriend, the latter being a real shock considering she’s a lesbian. On a cross-country train home, Zoe meets Oakley, who is also running away from her mistakes, and Zoe starts to wonder if they just might be able to help each other along before that train finally leaves the station.
Lessons in Magic and Disaster, Charlie Jane Anders (8/19/2025)
Fantasy
Jamie is basically your average New England academic in-training–she has a strong queer relationship, an esoteric dissertation proposal, and inherited generational trauma. But she has one extraordinary secret: she’s also a powerful witch. Serena, Jamie’s mother, has been hiding from the world in an old one-room schoolhouse for several years, grieving the death of her wife and the simultaneous explosion in her professional life. All she has left are memories. Jamie’s busy digging into a three-hundred-year-old magical book, but she still finds time to teach Serena to cast spells and help her come out of her shell. But Jamie doesn’t know the whole story of what happened to her mom years ago, and those secrets are leading Serena down a destructive path. Now it’s up to this grad student and literature nerd to understand the secrets behind this mysterious novel from 1749, unearth a long-buried scandal hinted therein, and learn the true nature of magic, before her mother ruins both of their lives.
You Weren’t Meant to Be Human, Andrew Joseph White (9/9/2025)
Horror
Festering masses of worms and flies have taken root in dark corners across Appalachia. In exchange for unwavering loyalty and fresh corpses, these hives offer a few struggling humans salvation. A fresh start. It’s an offer that none refuse. Crane is grateful. Among his hive’s followers, Crane has found a chance to transition, to never speak again, to live a life that won’t destroy him. He even met Levi: a handsome ex-Marine and brutal killer who treats him like a real man, mostly. But when Levi gets Crane pregnant—and the hive demands the child’s birth, no matter the cost—Crane’s desperation to make it stop will drive the community that saved him into a devastating spiral that can only end in blood. You Weren’t Meant to Be Human is a deeply personal horror; a visceral statement about the lives of marginalized people in a hostile world, echoing the works of Stephen Graham Jones and Eric LaRocca.
The Maiden and Her Monster, Maddie Martinez (9/25/2025)
Fantasy
Uprooted meets The Wolf and the Woodsman in The Maiden and Her Monster, a sapphic retelling of the Jewish myth of golem. As the healer’s daughter, Malka has seen how the forest's curse has plagued her village. But the Ozmini Church only comes to collect its tithe, not to listen to heretics with false tales of monsters in the trees. When a clergy girl wanders too close to the woods and Malka’s mother is accused of her murder, Malka strikes an impossible bargain with a zealot Ozmini priest. If she brings him the monster, he will spare her mother from execution.
When They Burned the Butterfly, Wen-yi Lee (9/21/2025)
Fantasy
A fierce, glamorous sapphic fantasy reimagining the secret societies of postcolonial Singapore, for fans of Jade City, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and the feverish intensity of RF Kuang’s Poppy War trilogy.
Fate’s Bane, C.L Clark (10/30/2025)
Fantasy
The clans of the fens enjoy a tenuous peace, and it is all thanks to Agnir, ward and hostage. For as long as she can remember she has lived among the enemy, learning their ways, growing strong alongside their children. When a burgeoning love for the chieftain’s daughter lures them both to a hidden spring, a magic awakens in them that could bind the clans under one banner at last―or destroy any hope of peace. By working their intentions into leather, they can weave misfortune for their enemies… just like the Fate’s Bane that haunts the legends of the clans. Ambitions grow in their fathers’ hearts, grudges threaten a return to violence, and greedy enemies wait outside the borders, seeking a foothold to claim the fens for themselves. And though their Makings may save their families, the legend that gave them this power always exacts its price.
Into the Midnight Wood, Alexandra McCollum (January 13, 2026)
Romantasy
A pair of mismatched roommates - a prickly accountant and an eccentric tattoo artist - who live next to an enchanted forest must face a malevolent magical entity and an impending family wedding that force them to finally confront their feelings for each other.
The Darkness Greeted Her, Christina Ferko (February 3, 2026)
YA Horror
In this atmospheric sapphic horror, a troubled teen is sent to a remote therapy camp in the Appalachian wilderness, where she must unravel a mystery of deadly occurrences as she battles harmful visions of her abusive father, sinister motives, and a lurking monster.
Child of the Dragon, Ashley Sheesley (Feb 2026*)
YA Fantasy
Legendborn X Fourth Wing. The chosen one is dead, the prophecy left unfulfilled, and the shape-shifting dragons of modern-day Earth are still cursed to be puppets to their dragon kings. It’s now up to a chronically ill ex-assassin, a sarcastic rebel, the chosen one’s granddaughter, and her anxious best friend to take up the mantle and save the dragons once and for all.
*Tentative release date!
Saltswept, Katalina Watt (Feb 2026)
Fantasy
A pirate faces the gallows drop. A farmer is given a terrible ultimatum to save her daughter. An acolyte ascends to priestesshood . . . only to find that a blessing really can be a curse. These unlikely bedfellows band together with an inscrutable pickpocket and a talking ottercat in pursuit of the most hopeless of causes: to sail into the Maelstrom - a raging whirlpool from which no one has ever escaped - and the mysterious treasure hidden within it. The quest will test their fragile allegiance to its limits, but there is more at stake here than getting rich: the magic of the world is in peril, and the barrier between life and death has never been so thin. And in the Bastion, the seat of power in Paranish, the queen has an unquenchable thirst that threatens the world and everyone in it. Can there be honour amongst thieves? Without it, they might never see another sunrise.
The Iron Garden Sutra, A.D. Sui (February 28, 2026)
Sci-Fi
A monk joins a science team in exploring a long-lost spaceship, uncovering its dark and disturbing history—and encountering something beyond human understanding—in this thought-provoking, metaphysical science fiction novel.
Hold Me Like a Grudge, Celine Ong (Early 2026)
Romance
When a rivalry between two professional wrestlers turns into feelings neither wants to deny, both men must fight for what they truly want in an industry with a history of denying queerness and leave a legacy of their own.
The Celestial Seas, T. A. Chan (March 2026)
YA science-fiction
A YA space opera homage to Moby Dick, about a girl who assembles a team of misfits to hunt down an autonomous spacecraft who murdered her former crew, all while torn between the attentions of a mysterious boy and the girl who’s always been at her side.
When You’re Brave Enough, Rebecca Bendheim (Spring 2026)
Middle Grade
Landing the lead in the school musical and preparing for her bat mitzvah push a queer eighth grader to ask big questions about who she wants to be in the world.
The Wives of Herrick Hall, Julie Lew (Spring 2026)
Gothic fiction
When Josephine arrives at Herrick Hall, she thinks nothing could be worse than serving as lady’s companion to the volatile Lady Blake. But when she and her mistress fall in love, the house awakens—and it will do everything in its power to protect its master's property.
Love Galaxy, Sierra Branham (Spring 2026)
Sci-Fi/Fantasy
To keep her family off the streets, a trash collector who detests reality dating shows must go on the empire's 'Bachelor'-style show and make the imperial prince fall in love with her but starts falling for his sister instead. And then contestants start dying.
Homebound, Portia Elan (May 2026)
Debut fiction
A wildly inventive and deeply moving debut spanning seven millennia, following a queer teen in the 1980s, a 400-year-old automaton, a time-slipping astronaut, and a 26th-century pirate—all of whom are linked by a computer game.
Mirrorwoven, Bori Cser (Summer 2026)
YA fantasy
When a runaway princess finds herself playing court-bard to a naïve young queen, she must safeguard both their futures – without breaking the spell that hides her identity by falling in love.
A Prince Among Pirates, Katie Abdou (June 2026)
YA Fantasy
Our Flah Means Death for fans of F.T. Lukens and Aiden Thomas, with the irreverent voice of MY LADY JANE, in which a foppish nobleman accidentally joins a pirate ship and falls for its debonair captain.
Just Ask Elsie, Ari Koontz (June 2026)
Middle Grade
A younger & more joyful take on Netflix's SEX EDUCATION, following 11-year-old Elsie Parker as she uses her creativity and spunk to fight for inclusive puberty education at her public school, while also contending with friend drama, family embarrassment, and her first crush on another girl.
Necrogenesis, Ashia Monet (Fall 2026) [That’s me!]
Fantasy / Horror
A dark academic, gothic fantasy in which a true crime fan ressurects a victim of a massacre to uncover what claimed the lives of seven necromancy students at a secluded manor in the 1970’s.
Not Your Typical Love Story, C.R. Averett (Fall 2026)
YA Romance
You've Got Mail meets Loveless, about a pair of aroace-spec (asexual and aromantic) academic rivals whose future dreams—due to a meddling older sister—become contingent on the two of them fake dating, all while dealing with grief, the weight of family expectations, and a secret online identity that could ruin everything.
Kill Your Darlings, Yuvashri Harish (Fall 2026)
YA Horror
Two teens accidentally unleash the monsters of their favorite horror stories, and the witch who wrote them, on their small town on Halloween night.
The Finalist, Faith Gladwin (Fall 2026)
Horror
Seven ballerinas compete in an intense, month-long audition for a legendary solo, inside a cursed manor, and Eden must survive deadly freak accidents, her chronically ill body, and an obsession with her instructor if she wants to walk away with the solo of a lifetime--or her life at all.
The Ungovernable Heart of Miss Darcy, Erin Edwards (Winter 2026)
Queer Historical Romance
A queer historical romance set directly after the events of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, in which Georgiana Darcy finds her own love story.