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Pride Month is well and truly here, and what says pride better than a bookshelf full of rainbows? The world of contemporary fiction has seen something of a revolution in recent years, with an influx of authors crashing into the LGBTQ+ scene to tell their stories and be themselves without apology. With the help of social media platforms like TikTok, the world has had its eyes opened to LGBTQ+ books that are then made into movie and TV show adaptions and have climbed to the top of bestseller lists again and again.
If you’re a reader looking to add to your collection this month – and every month – then look no further than these five excellent reads for Pride Month.
5. Here For The Wrong Reasons (2024)
Released in 2024, Here For the Wrong Reasons by Annabel Paulsen and Lydia Wang follows Krystin, a down-on-her-luck rodeo star who joins “Hopelessly Devoted,” a reality TV competition where she and dozens of other women compete to win the heart of Josh Posen. While on the show, Krystin meets fellow competitor Lauren, an up-and-coming social media darling, and sparks are definitely flying on set – but not toward the male lead. Will Krystin and Lauren allow their views about themselves to be challenged, or will they see this dating show to its end?
Here For the Wrong Reasons is Paulsen and Wang’s debut novel, with generally high ratings across Amazon and Goodreads, especially among other LGBTQ+ books. If you’re a fan of swoony rom-coms and The Bachelor, be sure to check this one out.
4. One Last Stop (2021)
From the desk of Casey McQuinston, author of Red, White & Royal Blue, comes One Last Stop, a book about a girl who discovers the power of believing on her way to finding love. One Last Stop follows August Landry, a jaded twenty-three-year-old who’s just moved to New York City in an attempt to strike out on her own and prove that happy endings don’t really exist. And then there’s Jane, the mysterious leather-jacket-wearing girl who gets August to believe that maybe she can find love after all. There’s just one problem: Jane’s a girl who is out of time, originally from the 1970s, and she needs August’s help to get back home.
Fans of McQuinston’s most popular LGBTQ book, Red, White, & Royal Blue should definitely check out this book – there’s definite similarities in the style of the two works, but One Last Stop isn’t afraid to ask its audience what it really means to believe in something, or someone, and how to work toward a happy ending all on your own.
3. She Who Became the Sun (2021)
Fans of Mulan will love She Who Became the Sun, a 2021 LGBTQ+ historical fiction book by Shelley Parker Chan. The novel follows Zhu, a female monk living in 1345 in the Central Plains of China. Per the standards of the time, her younger brother, Zhu Chongba, is given a destiny full of greatness. After a bandit attack leaves her brother dead, Zhu seizes her own chance at greatness by taking on her dead brother’s identity and going to war with the Mongols to claim his great destiny for herself; along the way, she clashes with Yuan General Ouyang, a eunuch who’s got his own schemes running in the background.
She Who Became the Sun is the first in Shelley Parker-Chan’s Radiant Emperor duology, and it’s been applauded for the way it explores gender and sexuality in a story that relies so heavily on gender-bending and societal roles.
2. Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea (2022)
Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne first hit bookstore shelves in 2022 and immediately became a hit among romance-fantasy fans. The novel tells the story of Reyna and Kianthe, who only want to be together and open the cozy tea cafe-bookshop of their dreams. There’s only one problem: Reyna is trapped under the Queen’s iron fist as a royal guard, and Kianthe is the most powerful mage in the kingdom. After Reyna is kidnapped by assassins, she and Kianthe decide they’ve had enough of responsibility and run away to open their shop together – but where they go, mystery, mayhem, and a murderous queen are sure to follow.
Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea is the first book in the Tomes & Tea series, a three-part series that follows Reyna and Kianthe through their adventures at the bookshop – adventures which, at some point, also include baby dragons. Thorne’s series comes highly recommended by fans of Travis Baldree’s Legends & Lattes series.
1. Iron Widow (2021)
Like its protagonist, Xiran Jay Zhao’s Iron Widow was making waves as soon as it crashed onto the literary scene. Set in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi world inspired by Pacific Rim and The Handmaid’s Tale, Iron Widow centers around Wu Zetian, an eighteen-year-old girl who offers herself up to pilot a Chrysalis, a giant mecha piloted by a boy and a girl in a psychic link. But Zetian’s got a darker motive – she’s trying to kill Yang Guang, the ace pilot responsible for draining her older sister’s life force. After she succeeds, she finds herself paired with Li Shimin, an equally dangerous and unpredictable pilot for whom Zetian falls – right alongside her childhood best friend, billionaire heir Gao Yizhi.
Described as “thrilling [and] brutal,” Iron Widow was an instant bestseller. It provides a refreshing take on love triangles using polyamory, as well as a no-holds-barred examination of the interaction between gender roles and societal norms. Its sequel, Heavenly Tyrant, is scheduled for release in December.
