9 New LGBTQ+ YA Books For Your TBR

If you’re looking for a cozy Sapphic romantasy, you’ll do no better than this new paperback original.

Sage Bishop is a plant witch, and her dream is to run her family’s apothecary. The challenge is that it has to survive long enough for her to take over the business from her nana–things are tough. Sage decides that what she needs to do is create some kind of magical brew that will put the shop on the map and help it survive.

The problem is Ximena Reyes. She’s the latest apothecary shop hire, and she’s also Sage’s ex. Immediately, Sage is distracted by Ximena, and she flees. The shop is then broken into, and the secret brew Sage has been working on is gone.

To keep the shop from being shut down forever–and Sage’s dreams of owning it down the road dashed–Sage has to put aside her feelings for Ximena to track down the thief. But those feelings will be hard to shove down entirely as they try to solve the mystery and save the shop.

If you’re looking for a sapphic enemies-to-lovers read set on the ice, look no further.

Charlie is a force on the hockey rink as much as she’s also a force off the ice. The brawl she begins on accident after a game, though, has cost her more than she could have ever imagined. She’s been suspended from school and can’t play hockey this season. It’s not just any season, either: it’s the season she should be seen by D1 scouts for her college gaming future.

Alexa’s skating partner was harmed in the brawl and now she’s out of commission. Alexa’s panicking; there are only four months until their next competition and she’s got no partner. Alexa’s got a plan. She’s going to convince Charlie to be her partner and then use her mom’s powerful connections to get Charlie in front of scouts.

Charlie’s never figure skated before, but that’s hardly the worst of it. The two are as different as can be. Can they make their new configurations work? Maybe the better question is whether or not their new pairing is a little too good.

Our Queerest Shelves Newsletter

Sign up for bookish LGBTQ+ news and recommendations!

When the Storm hit, Liz holed up in the now-abandoned bookstore where she’d worked. In it, she trades books for supplies, hoping to survive.

But as a second Storm brews, Maeve barges into the bookstore hoping for safety. Immediately, she and Liz are at odds until they realize that each holds a special skill that can help them survive.

The girls grow closer as they weather the Storm, but will the secrets, worries, fears—and quickly devolving world around them—keep them from truly seeing and loving one another? Can they survive not only the Storm but each other?

Cassie Perera is a junior at St. Luke’s, and she’s always been a stellar student. As she’s starting the new year, she’s surprised to see her former best friend Ben back at St. Luke’s. He was bullied for being gay, and Cassie believes that she could have done more at the time to help him.

So she’s decided to be proactive this time around. Cassie has teamed up with the local public school to create an underground Gender and Sexuality Alliance. It’ll help Ben, maybe, while also really and truly being an opportunity where Cassie can become a little more honest about her own identity.

But as Cassie’s new friends are helping her find who she truly is, she’s finding herself in a sticky spot of balancing her new found freedoms and happiness with the responsibilities she feels she has to be a perfect daughter, perfect student, and perfect Catholic girl.

Riley left her church a year ago because it was not a welcoming place for a bisexual girl like her and because of how the church treated her sister when she got an abortion.

So when Riley is sent to the principal’s office for smacking a girl who was talking poorly about her sister, she doesn’t anticipate being given the opportunity to avoid suspension by attending a church camp. She’ll take that option, in part because her best friend Julia will be there, too.

But Julia’s dad is in charge of the camp, and Riley has no interest in repenting. Instead, she’s going to use the week-long camp to dive deep into the seven deadly sins. It might help her peers understand that life doesn’t need to be about strict piety to be good.

There’s a hitch in the plan though, and it’s a big one. Riley is falling for Julia and hard.

After a destructive hurricane in Mercy, Louisiana, a red algae bloom has taken over the town. It’s always been a monstrous town but made worse so with the rising tides. This is truest at the center of town in the Cove.

While Noon and her mom found a way to create a life, it requires them to keep the harbormaster at bay by feeding it mutated wildlife. Though it’s hard, it’s a distraction for Noon. Noon had a life-altering experience at a party in the Cove just before the hurricane hit.

With her mother, Noon is navigating Mercy as they search for what her mother believes are the members of the dead family reincarnated as sea life. But her past at the Cove and her belief that she is not in the right shape herself are haunting Noon more than she can admit. With a new storm approaching and the town’s predatory leader breathing down her shoulders, Noon’s going to have to do something about her past in order to have a future.

Howard is so ready to get to college. He’s ready to escape his current life and he’s ready to see how things get better. It’s been a promise he’s heard over and over. It gets better. It gets better.

What Howard did not anticipate was meeting George. He’s smitten immediately, entranced by everything about George, including his fashion, intellect, and formality.

George is not necessarily single, though. He’s been in a relationship with James for 20 years. Except because George is a vampire and James is human, George realizes that James’s time on Earth is almost done.

But as Howard and George grow closer, they start to recognize how well they work together. How what they’re feeling is real and supportive and safe. But can Howard give up mortality in exchange for the love of his young life or will the world around them take away the opportunity before he can even make such a decision?

Ari is dead, and the investigators on the case called it an accident. Milo, her best friend, refuses to believe that. There are too many suspicious elements, including why she was in the woods the night of the big fire. Milo’s obsession with getting an answer is why he decides to return to Yates Academy for another school year.

Liam has always had it pretty good at Yates. He’s seen as royalty, but when he begins to get anonymous letters stating that he was the reason behind Ari’s death, Liam worries that his good times are about to end. He wants to keep his reputation clean, so Liam asks Milo to help him clear his reputation and help track down what happened to Ari.

Milo’s game, until he, too, becomes suspicious of Liam. Liam is hiding something, but what? And what REALLY happened that night in the woods? There are a lot of secrets, and it’s not just Liam holding onto things that need to be said.

You want your dark academia very very queer? This one’s for you.

Ofelia wants nothing more than to enter Le Château Enchanté. It’s a mysterious court that’s been blessed by the gods. Within its court, the shadow monsters that abound in Ofelia’s land never enter.

Lope is a knight who has worked to keep Ofelia’s homeland safe from the shadow monsters.

When the shadows get a little too close for comfort, Lope and Ofelia need to flee. Their escape leads them to Château Enchanté, where they will discover that this purported place of magic may be the epicenter of the raging shadows.