Author: Danika Ellis

First up, the All the Books books! There’s Always Next Year by Leah Johnson and George M. Johnson is a cute YA romance with two points of view and two queer romances (M/M and F/F). Almost the entire book takes place on New Year’s Day, and it felt like a teen holiday movie—if those movies starred queer Black teens, which they should. The Curse of the Cole Women by Marielle Thompson was my other ATB pick. It’s a sapphic gothic novel, which I can’t get enough of. This one follows three generations of women who take care of a lighthouse…

There’s Always Next Year by Leah Johnson and George M. Johnson This is a powerhouse, absolute dream of a writing duo. That they’re teaming up to write a holiday rom-com makes my dark heart light up. Andy was going to shed her too-serious persona on New Year’s Eve, but everything she planned fell apart after she got her car stolen, threw up on the person she’s been crushing on, and lost her phone in a fish tank. It’s now time to hurry to do everything she can to save the family business from local gentrification, fix everything that happened the…

First up, I have a couple of books I need to read before 2026. I’m currently reading The Curse of the Cole Women by Marielle Thompson (out December 2nd), a sapphic gothic novel I’m planning to recommend on the December 2nd episode of the All the Books podcast. My other reading obligation is The Lilac People by Milo Todd, a trans historical novel that’s my December book club pick. I’ve been in a romance reading mood as the weather cools off, so I’m hoping to get to a couple of bisexual M/F romances in the next few weeks. There’s Isn’t…

A Game in Yellow by Hailey Piper promises to be a sapphic, mind-melting horror erotica novella, and that definitely earns it a spot on my queer Halloween readathon TBR. I loved Boys Weekend, so I’m excited to pick up Mattie Lubchansky’s new trans horror graphic novel, Simplicity. The reviews say it “blends dystopian science fiction and folk horror,” which is definitely intriguing. Sapphic gothic monster romance? Say no more! But Not Too Bold by Hache Pueyo has been on my TBR since it was announced, and this seems like the perfect time to read it. Right now, I’m midway through…

Easing into the season, I have a couple of haunted house romance novels on my list: Looking for Love in All the Haunted Places by Claire Kann (asexual F/M) and The Most Unusual Haunting of Edgar Lovejoy by Roan Parrish (transmasc NB/cis M). I also have the sapphic asexual monster romance/fantasy/horror Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell on my life. Currently, I’m reading Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle, which is a very weird bisexual horror novel. I’m only a few chapters in, but I’m having a great time. Another one in the genre-blending category on my…

Elatsoe stars Ellie, a Lipan Apache teenager who has learned from her family how to raise the ghosts of dead animals. In this world, different religions and belief systems coincide, with the distant descendants of Greek gods inheriting minor powers and fairy rings of mushrooms providing instantaneous travel around the world. When Ellie’s cousin dies in an apparent car accident, he visits her in her dreams. He tells Ellie that he was murdered and that he’s relying on her to bring the perpetrator to justice. The queer content in this one isn’t the main focus: Ellie mentions in passing that…

Witch of Wild Things by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland Sage Flores left her hometown years ago after her younger sister died, but returns reluctantly when she needs a soft place to land. She slides back into her old gig at the Cranberry Rose Company, where her ability to speak to plants comes in very handy when she’s tasked with tracking down some special plant specimens. There’s just one problem with this mission: Sage is paired with Tennessee Reyes, the boy who broke her heart in high school. Now, on top of her dead sister’s ghost bringing her coffee unbidden and her…

This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Place your preorders and library holds now, because these are the biggest and buzziest queer fantasy books out in the fall. I started writing this list as simply “the most-anticipated queer books of fall,” but I soon realized they were all fantasy novels! There’s something about fall that lends itself to fantasy reading, I think. Several of these are sequels, because do we ever anticipate a new release more than when it’s the next installment of a beloved series? There are also some…

In 2021, I wrote a list called Queernorm Worlds: 35 Fantasy Books With No Homophobia or Transphobia. I always intended to make a complementary queernorm sci-fi list, and four years later, I finally have! “Queer normative” or “queernorm” stories are set in worlds where transphobia and homophobia doesn’t exist. After all, if you’re creating a universe from scratch, it doesn’t need to replicate our prejudices. The trouble with finding queernorm books is that it’s mostly about what isn’t there. I consider a book queernorm only when the concept of prejudice against queer and trans people doesn’t exist. So, even if…

The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong “Because to remember is to fill the present with the past, which meant that the cost of remembering anything, anything at all, is life itself. We murder ourselves, he thought, by remembering.” “You see, carrots become bright orange because it’s so dark in the ground. They make their own light because the sun never reaches that far—like those fish in the ocean who glow from nothing? So when you eat it, you take in the carrot’s will to go upward. To heaven.”