8 Brand New Queer August Book Releases

by Jillian Brenner

The world is a scary place. Aliens are real, Ariana is dating Spongebob, and there is so little left to look forward to now that Barbenheimer is over. What good news could August possibly bring us?

Oh, that's right. More gay shit.

Another month, another round of new queer releases to fill your color-coordinated bookshelves or claim a hold on your Libby account. Sci-fy gays? Got em. Power lesbians in the city? Check. Queers with crossbows? Bulls-eye.

Plus, every preorder helps out your new favorite queer author.

All books are available for pre-order from Bluestockings, a collectively-run activist center, community space, and feminist bookstore.

1. Prophet

by Helen Macdonald & Sin Blaché

What if your very best memories could be made concrete? That diner you visited with your father, your favorite carnival ride, that lost toy -- all re-created right in front of you? This is what Prophet does. And Prophet is a weapon.

When unlikely partners Adam and Sunil are called to investigate a mysterious death, they find themselves on the most dangerous and otherworldly mission of their lives. As the two officers grow closer in this genre-bending sci-fy thriller, they must learn that while Prophet can betray us with the past, love might just save the future.

2. Learned by Heart

by Emma Donoghue

It's New York in 1805 and Eliza Raine, an orphaned heiress banished from India, just fell secretly and dangerously in love with the brilliant Anne Lister at the Manor School for Young Ladies. Based on the real Anne Lister's five-million-word secret journal, Emma Donoghue combines fact with fiction to uncover this timeless and long-buried love affair. In turns both passionate and heartbreaking, the best-selling author of Room and The Wonder once again delivers an extraordinary tale about humanity's capability for love and loss.

3. Lush Lives

by J. Vanessa Lyon

In the second season of Sex & the City, the world was introduced to Power Lesbians--a group of cool, impossibly chic queers that hung out in art galleries. Lush Lives is the better, sexier spiritual sister of those Power Lesbians, but set in Harlem and told with more nuance than 2000's television gave gays or people of color. It's a match made in Lesbos when Parkie de Groot, an ambitious auction appraiser, meets Glory Hopkins, a restless artist who recently inherited her aunt's brownstone--along with all of her aunt's many things. Secrets beget secrets as the two women dive into the house's trove and unearth not only Lucille's past, but those of Harlem's distinguished residents as well. Torn between the high-stakes world of art and auction and the complex history of Harlem, can Parkie and Glory make their relationship last?

4. Congratulations, the Best Is Over!: Essays

by R. Eric Thomas

R. Eric Thomas can handle chaos; after all, writing about chaotic political news is how he went viral. What he can't handle is moving back to Baltimore, the one place he never wanted to return to (including for burial). But when things don't go according to plan--ranging from blood-splattered urgent care visits to gay frog invasions to the horror of 20-year reunions--Thomas finds himself on familiar ground. Told with his signature insight, humor, and hope, Congratulations documents the wild details of the life he longed to leave behind with the future of a new one.

Sometimes, the best place to go is home.

5. Sordidez

by E.G. Condé

In this stunning adult fiction debut, Vero, a trans man, searches for hope and regrowth in a near-future decimated by an ecological disaster of man's own making. When Puerto Rico is abandoned by the United States after a devastating hurricane, Vero goes to the Yucatan to appeal to the government. Instead, he finds more destruction--and Loba Roja, a fierce and violent revolutionary who yearns for a new era of Mayan power. Vero must decide: could an Indigenous uprising be humanity's last hope for the future? And what is he willing to sacrifice to see it through?

7. I Will Greet the Sun Again

by Khashayar J. Khabushani

K has a lot of identities: Iranian-American, the youngest brother of three, a Muslim, and (if his feelings for his best friend are any hint), queer. But all he wants to be is "a boy from LA." When K's father steals K and his brothers back to Iran in the dead of night, he finds himself in an ancestral home he doesn't know and his return to LA months later doesn't feel quite feel like a homecoming. Torn between two countries, two parents, and his own shy and secret romance, K must choose, for himself, who he is. Both heartbreaking and hopeful, I Will Greet the Sun Again is a gorgeous fiction debut about the identities that make us who we are.

7. The Water Outlaws

by S. L. Huang

Anarchy, crossbows, and queers! The Water Outlaws is the sapphic, fantasy retelling of the classic "Water Margins" you didn't know you needed. Lin Chong wants little: to keep her head down, train the Emperor's soldiers for battle, and do her job. When unthinkable tragedy instead sends her disgraced, marked as a criminal, and on the run for her life, Lin Chong makes a radical choice. She knows the Bandits of Liangshan, a group of mountain outlaws on the fringe of society, are murderers and thieves--but what if they're her best hope for justice? What if, together, they could bring down an empire?

8. Bellies

by Nicola Dinan

Tom has his future with his beloved boyfriend, Ming, all mapped out. That map, Tom soon finds out, is missing its key when shortly after moving to London, Ming begins her own plan to transition. In a journey that traipses all over the world, Ming and Tom navigate the changes in their relationship and friend circle as Ming becomes who she was always meant to be. Funny, youthful, and with a vast array of characters, Bellies asks the question so many millennials have wondered: "Is it worth losing a part of yourself to become who you are?"

In a world gone wild, these 8 stunning reads are the perfect distraction to get lost in. Whether you're looking for hope, a bold romance, or perhaps even something to match your own melancholia, there is a queer story for everyone. So, turn on your Lana, crank the AC if you're lucky enough to have it, and take the only trips exorbitant flight prices have left us: the incredible world of books.