I know I said no book tags before summer, but summer is only a few days away, and for it being the 6th of June, I haven’t seen much Pride content so far, book-related or otherwise. On the other hand, I have a readathon. What do you do if there are 101 prompts and you don’t know which book fits what? (In my current Readathon, there are 50) I’m also having a hard time submitting because of the amount of typing required. The creator of this tag is The Sassy Library Fox
RULES:
- Thank whoever tagged you and link to their blog post.
- Link to the original creator: The Sassy Library Fox! And please credit The Sassy Library Fox if you use (copy & paste) the artwork/ graphics.
- Match books with the given prompts.
- Tag as many people as you like!
- Post the rules and the list of prompts in your tag post.
FEMALE STRENGTH: A book with a lesbian heroine
Goodreads Blurb:
Growing up in the Hasidic community of Brooklyn’s Borough Park, Sara Glass knew one painful truth: what was expected of her and what she desperately wanted were impossibly opposed. Tormented by her attraction to women and trapped in a loveless arranged marriage, she found herself unable to conform to her religious upbringing and soon, she made the difficult decision to walk away from the world she knew.
Sara’s journey to self-acceptance began with the challenging battle for a divorce and custody of her children, an act that left her on the verge of estrangement from her family and community. Controlled by the fear of losing custody of her two children, she forced herself to remain loyal to the compulsory heteronormativity baked into Hasidic Judaism and married again. But after suffering profound loss and a shocking sexual assault, Sara decided to finally be completely true to herself.
CINNAMON ROLL: A book with an adorable gay character
Goodreads Blurb:
Eli Ward hasn’t been back to his suffocating hometown of New Port Stephen, Florida, in ages. Post-transition and sober, he’s a completely different person from the one who left years ago. But when a scandal threatens his career as a TV writer and comedian, he has no choice but to return home for the holidays. He can only hope he’ll survive his boisterous, loving, but often misguided family and hide the fact that his dream of comedy success has become a nightmare.
Just when he thinks this trip couldn’t get any worse, Eli bumps into his high school ex, Nick Wu, who’s somehow hotter than ever. Divorced and in his forties, Nick’s world revolves around his father, his daughter, and his job. But even a busy life can’t keep him from being intrigued by the reappearance of Eli.
Against the backdrop of one weird Floridian Christmas, the two must decide whether to leave the past in the past…or move on together.
BOYS & GIRLS: A book with a bi rep done right
Goodreads Blurb:
Magic forced them apart. Can it bring them back together?
Owen Sanchez doesn’t know what’s going on with the Coffee Cat Cafe. Disembodied voices, disappearing milk, ruined baked goods. He’d say it’s haunted, but he doesn’t believe in magic.
Until Aria walks back into his life.
Twelve years ago, she was his best friend. His first love. Then she disappeared and broke his heart.
Now, she’s his unexpected roommate, and Owen remembers there was always something mystical about her.
Aria Belmonte tried to avoid her past, but a string of bad luck lands her right in Owen’s lap. He doesn’t know she’s a witch, and the magic world she’s a part of is strict. Unforgiving. The secret of magic must be kept at all costs.
With a hunting plaguing Owen’s cafe, it’s only a matter of time until he discovers the truth. Could this be the chance they need to follow their hearts, consequences be damned?
THE BODY & THE SOUL: A book with a transgender character
Goodreads Blurb:
In the weathered lighthouse of Cape Haven, 62-year-old Eleanor has carefully crafted a life of peaceful solitude after her transition. When Diana arrives to heal from a painful divorce that left her questioning who she truly is beyond being someone’s wife, neither woman expects to find connection. As spring storms wash away old certainties, these two souls—each in their own second act of life—discover that authenticity recognizes itself in others. Against the backdrop of crashing waves and sweeping lighthouse beams, they navigate vulnerability, creative reawakening, and the tender possibility that the bravest journeys of self-discovery are better traveled together. A luminous, intimate romance about finding courage to begin again—and the healing power of being truly seen, at any age.
. WE’RE ALL QUEER: A queer rep you’d love to see more often in books
Goodreads Blurb:
Emily is a resilient transgender woman, determined to find lasting happiness and acceptance after overcoming many challenges in her life. When she meets Alex, a charming and seemingly perfect man, Emily believes she has finally found her soulmate in this romantic thriller.
Their short love story unfolds with gripping tension and unexpected twists.
Only Lies A Gripping Transgender Romance and Romantic Thriller explores the depths of love, trust, and resilience. It intricately weaves the emotional depth of a romantic story with the thrilling suspense of a romance thriller. As Emily navigates the twists and turns of their relationship, she learns that true love isn’t always what it seems. Her journey of self-discovery challenges her beliefs about love and the complexities of identity.
This compelling novel delves into complex relationships and the quest for authenticity. Emily’s story is a testament to the strength of a strong transgender woman facing dark secrets and overcoming betrayal. Through unexpected twists and the power of self-acceptance, Emily learns that resilience and hope can lead to unexpected connections and lasting happiness.
Only Lies is a captivating exploration of modern relationships, highlighting the struggles and triumphs of Emily’s journey towards love and self-discovery amidst adversity. It’s a story of resilience, hope, and the transformative power of accepting oneself in the face of deceit and manipulation
ALL ABOUT PRONOUNS: A book with a non-binary character
This is my recent read and it is a powerful one.
Goodreads Blurb:
Beyond the Gender Binary, spoken word poet Alok Vaid-Menon challenges the world to see gender not in black and white, but in full color. Taking from their own experiences as a gender-nonconforming artist, they show us that gender is a malleable and creative form of expression. The only limit is your imagination.
A ROMANTIC ACE: A character that belongs to the aro/ace spectrum
On my TBR
Goodreads Blurb:
She warned of the pain. She did.
But no warning can prepare you.
Nothing can.
Maris has always been intrigued by humans, whether new among them or having lived with them for a year, her curiosity remains. A Harmony of Water and Weald is a collection exploring some of Maris’s darker moments as she learns what it means to be human and a glimpse at what her life and family is like after the Sea Witch’s deadline has passed.
Though her desire to learn about humanity is insatiable, her new life isn’t all sweetness and love. She’s abandoned her sisters to live among a people she doesn’t understand, walking on feet like she was never meant to. Sometimes her life is homesickness, sometimes frustration, often confusion. Always, though, it is wonder and fierce delight at life.
A Harmony of Water and Weald is a companion to Sea Foam and Silence and contains pieces set both during and after events in that verse novel.
ONE BIG FAMILY: A book that features lots of different LGBTQ+ reps
Goodreads Blurb:
For over a century, LGBTQ+ bookshops have been the unsung heroes of queer liberation
Home not only to books but chaotic community noticeboards, vicious rescue cats and countless meet cutes, queer bookshops have always been more than just bookshops, offering friendship, solidarity and sanctuary.
Travelling the world – Shakespeare and Company in Paris, Gay’s the Word in London, the Oscar Wilde Bookshop in New York – A. J. West explores the remarkable history of these bookstores. Tracing their evolution from under-the-counter operations to beloved out-and-proud institutions, West reveals how the queer bookshop stood at the vanguard of LGBTQ+ rights, offering support and vital information through the AIDS crisis and bringing the fight to Section 28 and book bans.
A powerful testament not only to bookshops but to the courage of queer booksellers, from Sylvia Beach hiding books from the Nazis in laundry baskets to Craig Rodwell facing off against the police at the Stonewall riots, A. J. West celebrates the shops and booksellers that brought queer literature and lives into the mainstream.
SAPPHIC LOVE: Your favourite f/f couple
Goodreads Blurb:
A frosty television host, a bubbly bar owner, and a litter of abandoned kittens. The recipe for ratings gold…or heartbreak?
Eve Marlow has her eyes on the a third season of her popular business makeover show, Do Over. But when her ratings take an unexpected dive, Eve needs a blockbuster new client, or she can kiss season three goodbye. She has her work cut out for her, and that’s before she discovers a litter of newborn kittens in a trash can. Now she’s desperate to find someone to take them so she can concentrate on reviving her career.
Josie Swanson had to put her kitten rescue on the back burner when she inherited her father’s bar two years ago. Since then, she’s invested all her time and energy into keeping it afloat, but despite her best efforts, Swanson’s is going under. When she gets a phone call from Eve Marlow, host of the television show Josie applied to earlier that year, the woman she’s convinced can save her bar, Josie hopes her luck has finally turned.
Eve knows what she needs to succeed, and it isn’t Josie—or her bar. There’s no denying the chemistry sizzling between them, though. Josie’s personality is as vibrant as her turquoise-tipped hair. She stirs things in Eve that haven’t been stirred in a long time, but there’s a reason she keeps her heart under lock and key. Eve stands to lose a lot more than her TV show if she lets her guard down, no matter how tempted she is to see if Josie’s love would be worth the risk.
BOYS LOVE: Your m/m OTP
Goodreads Blurb:
Two high school sweethearts-one cisgender, one transgender, both men- find each other again in adulthood and have a second chance at love, but one of them doesn’t know they’ve been in love before.
Tabby, a closeted trans boy in high school, resolves to come out after moving away for his senior year. He worries his boyfriend, Jax, will reject him over the truth and doesn’t share his trans status. On their final date before Tabby moves, still passing as female, he and Jax agree to break up over the distance and promise to give their love a chance if they find one another again.
As an adult, Jax moves to San Francisco in search of a clean slate. Tabby, living in the same city, fills his life with friends and hosts an LGBT D&D group; however, his boyfriend Rob is a poor match for him. When Jax joins Tabby’s D&D group by chance, the two are thrust together again and become fast friends, yet Jax doesn’t recognize Tabby because of his advanced transition.
Jax becomes Tabby’s unofficial confidant and helps Rob be a better boyfriend behind the scenes to satisfy his growing attraction. With every day that Tabby hides the truth-that he is Jax’s missing first love-he risks losing both Rob and Jax to his lies.
SIDE KICK: Your favourite LGBTQ+ side character
The best friend of the main character, it sure is but I did forget her name.
Goodreads Blurb:
Edith Ashworth spent thirty years photographing other people’s wars so she’d never have to face her own. A Pulitzer Prize, a shattered femur, and eleven postcards without a return address — that’s what she has to show for a lifetime of running. Now, broken and out of options, she arrives on the doorstep of the only woman who ever made her feel real — the woman she left without saying goodbye three decades ago.
Winifred Harlow never left their small Vermont town. She never dated again. She built a life of books, solitude, and a dignity so practiced most people mistake it for peace. She kept every postcard. She kept the photograph Edie took of her, laughing in a summer garden. She kept the door open — and she’ll never admit it was for Edie.
When a thunderstorm, a kitchen floor, and three decades of unspoken love collide, these two women must is it too late to step into the frame of your own life? A luminous, deeply sensual second-chance romance about the courage it takes to stop documenting the world and finally live in it.
STEALING THE SHOW: An LGBTQ+ side character couple that rocks your socks
Amazon Blurb:
After three years of grief, Dr. Winifred Aldridge has perfected the art of existing—until a wheelbarrow full of compost and an exuberant gardener named Ethel Whitfield shatter her carefully preserved life.
At seventy-two, Winnie never expected to feel desire again. At sixty-nine, Ethel never expected to experience real love. But in a San Francisco community garden, among tomato plants and bleeding hearts, two widows discover that it’s never too late to bloom.
STRONG BELIEFS: An LGBTQ+ book that deals with religion
I know that the cult isn’t religious, but I had the same vibes.
Goodreads Blurb:
Sixteen-year-old trans boy Benji is on the run from the cult that raised him—the fundamentalist sect that unleashed Armageddon and decimated the world’s population. Desperately, he searches for a place where the cult can’t get their hands on him, or more importantly, on the bioweapon they infected him with.
But when cornered by monsters born from the destruction, Benji is rescued by a group of teens from the local Acheson LGBTQ+ Center, affectionately known as the ALC. The ALC’s leader, Nick, is gorgeous, autistic, and a deadly shot, and he knows Benji’s darkest secret: the cult’s bioweapon is mutating him into a monster deadly enough to wipe humanity from the earth once and for all.
Still, Nick offers Benji shelter among his ragtag group of queer teens, as long as Benji can control the monster and use its power to defend the ALC. Eager to belong, Benji accepts Nick’s terms…until he discovers the ALC’s mysterious leader has a hidden agenda, and more than a few secrets of his own.
RAINBOWS EVERYWHERE: A book with an unapologetic cover
I didn’t enjoy this one, which is pretty sad, since I own two physical copies by mistake.
Goodreads Blurb:
Imogen Quinn is a chaotic bisexual with dreams of becoming a stand-up comedian, crushing stereotypes about autistic people. When she decides to put on a pride festival that’s accessible for everyone, she enlists the help of the openly gay captain of the football team, Ollie Armstrong.
Dealing with the fallout from his parents’ divorce, Ollie is initially hesitant. But it doesn’t take long for him to be swept up by Imogen’s passion, and he’s not the only one. Joined by the (infuriatingly perfect) head girl, musicians, an artist and a star baker – a dream team soon assembles to help plan pride and tackle injustices in their school and beyond. You’d better listen out – they’re getting ready to make some noise.
FUTURE GENERATIONS: Your most anticipated LGBTQ+ release
It will be out on September 8th,
Julian used to be a ghost and now he can’t stop seeing them.
Ever since being sacrificed as part of a forbidden ritual, Julian has been able to see and communicate with the spirits of passed brujx. And that would be okay, if it allowed him to be part of his new boyfriend’s community. But Julian’s also seeing other things: shadows in the corner of his eyes, glowing eyes in the dark, and “dark spots” on people – gaping, black gashes that are somehow wrong. He did ask his new magical boyfriend about it, but Yadriel has never heard of anything like it either, and he’s so busy with his new Brujx responsibilities, trying to figure out where all the new malingos are coming from, that Julian hates for his problems to ruin what little time together they have.
Then, a strange new brujx shows up. Ángel, as a nonbinary brujx, can heal the living and release the dead, but more than that, they can also see the same dark spots as Julian. Despite Yadriel’s reservations, Julian eagerly accepts their help. But, Ángel’s ruthless methods feel wrong to Julian, who wants to move away from hurting others.
With the shadows growing darker, and the discovery of a gaping dark spot on his friend Luca, Julian has to decide who he wants to put his trust in, and just how far he’s willing to go to save what is his.
Tagging:
I wanted to tag people, but I’m running behind on blogging, and I need a nap.