The first thing I read in March was Isn’t It Obvious by Rachel Runya Katz, a bi4bi M/F romance that I really enjoyed. I mean, the main character runs a queer teen book club, so of course I was going to love it.

The book I spent most of March reading was Hell’s Heart by Alexis Hall, a trans sapphic retelling of Moby Dick set in space. It was fun, but it is fairly long and meandering, like the source material, so it took me a while to finish.

I just started The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin, which is a book club pick. I’m only a couple chapters in, so I don’t have a good sense of it yet, but I’ll let you know what I think of it!

As for my April reading plans, my other queer book club is reading Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid, so I’m finally going to pick it up. Better late than never!

For the readathon, here are a few of the options on my TBR stack:

The Singing Hills Cycle by Nghi Vo, which is a fantasy novella series with a nonbinary main character.

The Insiders by Mark Oshiro, a queer middle grade book about a magical room that connects three kids from different schools who all feel like outsiders.

How To Lose a Goblin in Ten Days by Jessie Sylva, a cozy nonbinary romantasy about a halfling and goblin forced to be roommates who end up falling for each other.

The post All the Queer Books I Read in March, and What’s On My April TBR appeared first on Our Story Insight.

Heated Rivalry—a M/M queer and steamy hockey romance adapted from a book of the same name by Rachel Reid—has taken hold of the collective consciousness and not let go. Its season finale garnered 10.6 million US viewers, and its production has even brought talks of republishing a secretly published predecessor written in the ’80s by Don DeLillo.

It has also, unsurprisingly, increased interest in other queer sports romances. We asked our partners at Libby to share with us the most popular queer sports romances that have been checked on the app, which we’ve included below.

Looking at the list, it makes sense that Heated Rivalry is the most popular, followed by other books from the same Game Changers series by Rachel Reid. In fact, Reid accounts for half of the list. If you’re wanting a little more diversity, though, make sure to check out Love and Sportsball by Meka James, Futbolista by Jonny Garza Villa, Check, Please! by Ngozi Ukazu, Out of Step, Into You by Ciera Burch, Team Players by Deanna Grey, The 7-10 Split by Karmen Lee, and Prize Money by Celeste Castro.

The Top 20 Queer Sports Romances on Libby

20. Epic by Elle Kennedy

19. Shoot Your Shot by Lexi LaFleur Brown

18. I’m Your Guy by Sarina Bowen

17. Like Real People Do by E.L. Massey

16. Us by Elle Kennedy

15. The New Guy by Sarina Bowen

14. The Last Guy on Earth by Sarina Bowen

13. Cleat Cute by Meryl Wilsner

12. Just Between Us by Adeline Kon

11. Him by Elle Kennedy

10. Game Changers, Volume 2 by Rachel Reid

9. The Shots You Take by Rachel Reid

8. Time to Shine by Rachel Reid

7. Game Changers Collection by Rachel Reid

6. Common Goal by Rachel Reid

5. Role Model by Rachel Reid

4. Tough Guy by Rachel Reid

3. The Long Game by Rachel Reid

2. Game Changer by Rachel Reid

1. Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid

Keep up with all the latest book news by signing up for the Book Riot Newsletter.

The post Love HEATED RIVALRY? Here Are the Top 20 Queer Sports Romances on Libby appeared first on Our Story Insight.

There have never been more new queer books coming out every week—but that doesn’t mean they’re easy to find. When I put together my round-up of new queer releases each month for Our Queerest Shelves, it requires a ton of research, including sifting through early reviews for any mentions of queerness, because that’s not always included in the book description.

Luckily for you, there is a way to keep track of upcoming queer books without making it a part-time job of queer book investigating, and that’s the New Release Index.

The New Release Index is a database of upcoming books, curated by Book Riot. I’m one of the curators, so you know I add a ton of queer books in!

It’s organized by release date, and you can filter by genre. You can also hit the LGBTQ+ Books toggle to filter by queer books. Because you can combine them, that means you can search just for, say, upcoming queer horror books.

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Here’s how it works: scroll through the covers until you find one that catches your eye. Click on the cover for the book description, and then save the titles you’re interested in on your Watchlist.

The best part is that the New Release Index is included in your All Access subscription. For $6 a month, you not only get the New Release Index, but also all of Book Riot’s paid content.

Sign up for All Access to get started, or you can check out our guide to the New Release Index for more information.

The post The Best Way to Keep Track of New and Upcoming Queer Books appeared first on Our Story Insight.

All Access members, I’m giving you a snapshot of the spreadsheet as it appears right now. (My version is constantly being updated.) As always, it’s organized by release date, title and author, identity, and genre. This time, I’ve also added a Keywords column, which is a grab bag of terms I might want to search later, like “witches,” “ADHD,” or “retelling.” I hope it’s helpful!

All Access members, read on for a link to the spreadsheet.

You can make a copy of this spreadsheet to sort and filter it as makes sense for your reading taste. This is mostly books out in the first half of the year: we should hear more about fall releases in later months.

Since these are upcoming releases, I don’t have all the info. Anything with a question mark means I wasn’t able to get confirmation yet (usually about a specific identity).

The comments section is moderated according to our community guidelines. Please check them out so we can maintain a safe and supportive community of readers!

The post 450+ New Queer Books Coming Out in 2026 appeared first on Our Story Insight.

I’m hoping to pick up Hermaphrodite Logic by Jules Joanne Gleeson, a collection of essays about intersex liberation. I also want to get to The Hollow Half: A Memoir of Bodies and Borders by Sarah Aziza. I read the first few chapters of this queer memoir about the Palestinian diaspora and thought it was beautifully written.

Another option is Who I Always Was by Theresa Okokon, a queer memoir in essays that’s partly about her grappling with not having the complete story about her father’s death.

Those are some options, but most of my TBR for this month is still up in the air.

As for the very first book of the year, I have To Be Taught, if Fortunate by Becky Chambers, a queernorm sci-fi novella, out from the library right now, and at the time of writing this, I’m not sure if I want to have it be my last read of 2025 or my first of 2026.

The post The Queer Books I’m Starting the Year With appeared first on Our Story Insight.

Killing Eve fans, take note. This is a sapphic cat-and-mouse thriller about an actress, Dimple, who accidentally killed her rival, Irene, at a party. Years later, she has put it behind her and is enjoying her newfound success with Irene out of the way. But Irene’s parents have hired a private investigator, Saffi, who invites Dimple to help her on the case. Dimple knows Saffi suspects her, but she plays along, and the two of them keep raising the stakes. Dimple needs Saffi dead, and Saffi needs Dimple behind bars—which makes the sparks flying between them even more dangerous.

The post 14 of the Best Queer Books Out in January 2026 appeared first on Our Story Insight.

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 on a tiny island. They’ve been cursed so that there are only ever two Cole women: when the youngest gets pregnant, her mother walks into the sea. My favourite storyline was, of course, the one with two women falling in love in the 1950s while building a library together. (Check the content warnings on this one, though: it’s definitely not a romance novel.)

My book club convinced me to finally pick up one of the biggest queer books of the year: Atmosphere: A Love Story by Taylor Jenkins Reid. And yes, I cried. At least three times.

The other queer book club I’m in (yes, I’m in two in-person queer book clubs) picked Hungerstone by Kat Dunn, a Carmilla retelling I’ve been excited to pick up. This one was a little disappointing; it felt like the first and second halves didn’t quite fit together.

Finally, I read The Last Session Vol. 2 by Jasmine Walls, Micah Myers, and Dozerdraws. These series follows groups of friends playing D&D together, with the drama playing out both in the game and above the table. I liked the concept and the art in the first volume, but the story didn’t work for me. I’m glad I picked up the second book anyway, because I had a great time with it! It follows a friend group who played together in high school and never finished their campaign. As adults, they try to get back together to finish it, but first they have to resolve the friendship issues that drove them apart.

The post All the Queer Books I Read in November appeared first on Our Story Insight.

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 It Obvious? by Rachel Runya Katz, a bi4bi romance I’ve heard great things about that has a subplot about running a queer book club for teens. My heart!

The other bi romance I’m interested in is You, Again by Kate Goldbeck—partly because the cover is very autumnal, and partly became I’m hooked by the meet cute disaster of the two main characters becoming instant enemies after sleeping with the same woman.

The other picks are all queer holiday reads, especially sapphic romances. I love a seasonal read, and I am a sucker for a sapphic Christmas romance. First up is Yours for the Season by Kate Cochrane, which is another book club selection.

Then there are two sapphic YA holiday books by the same wife-and-wife author duo: Joy to the Girls (this is a sequel to She Gets the Girl) and Make My Wish Come True by Alyson Derrick and Rachael Lippincott.

Another sapphic YA romance on my list is I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm by Mariama J. Lockington.

And finally, I’ve been a fan of Daniel M. Lavery since his Dear Sugar days, so I’m excited to read Christmas at the Women’s Hotel—but first I’ll have to read Women’s Hotel! This one has a bunch of different point of view characters, including a sapphic character.

The post 10 Before the End: Queer Books Edition appeared first on Our Story Insight.

For my book club, I read This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, which has been on my TBR for years. Most of the other people in my book club didn’t love it, but I did! The writing is gorgeous, and I had just read Amal El-Mohtar’s The River Has Roots in September and also really liked that one, so I think I have a new favourite author.

Then I picked up the queer graphic novel retelling of Anne of Green Gables, Dan in Green Gables by Rey Terciero and illustrated by Claudia Aguirre. That one was okay, but it didn’t fully land with me. I think other readers will really like it, but do be prepared to read about homophobia and neglectful/abusive parents.

Sheine Lende by Darcie Little Badger doesn’t have a queer main character, but it’s the prequel to the asexual book Elatsoe, and it has two sapphic side characters. Like Elatsoe, this book had several lines so good that I had to stop and stare into the middle distance for a while. I really need to pick up her other books!

I’ve been eagerly awaiting Pizza Witch by Sarah Graley and Stef Purenins since it was first announced. A lesbian pizza witch graphic novel—need I saw more? If you like these sort of goofy YA fantasy comics, this should be on your radar. But be prepared that this seems to be setting up for a sequel.

Getting into the proper Halloween reads, I finished Queer Little Nightmares edited by David Ly and Daniel Zomparelli. This is a mix of queer monster-themed poetry and short stories. I enjoyed it, but nothing particularly stood out.

In the sapphic gothic department, I really enjoyed My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna van Veen. It’s a blood-soaked, unexpected love story (but not a capital R romance).

Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle is a horror book that’s also about bisexual erasure and existential dread. This is my second Chuck Tingle horror novel, and they always surprise me and give me something to think about. I don’t always love the writing style, but the ideas are captivating enough that they keep pulling me back in.

The book that scared me the most was A Game in Yellow by Hailey Piper, a lesbian erotic horror novel about losing touch with reality after reading the play The King in Yellow. I started to dread reading it because it was getting in my head too much, but I guess that means it succeeded at what it was trying to do!

In case you’re curious, I ended up reading five of the 15 books on my Halloween month TBR, which is honestly higher than I expected. A TBR cannot contain my Halloween reading moods! In my defense, a few of them didn’t come in from the library on time.

The post All the Queer Books I Read in October appeared first on Our Story Insight.

It was a great day, full of snacks, books, and good company. It was pouring rain, which was perfect reading weather. I love how readathon has become more social for me over the years, but it does mean I got a little less reading done than I have in previous years. I also went to bed a little early, which affects my page count: I woke up at 5 a.m. and went to sleep around 2 a.m.

But enough about the vibes, let’s talk books! First, I finished Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove, which I was in the middle of. I always recommend being partway through a book to start readathon, because I don’t want to have to acclimate to a new book at 5 a.m.. I had a good time with it! It feels almost episodic and is mostly narrated by the ship and the medical AI on board, but there is also a sapphic point of view character and several nonbinary characters. If you like pulpy sci-fi and/or classic monster movies, give this one a try.

Next, I picked up House of Beth by Kerry Cullen. This is a bisexual modern gothic that I really enjoyed for reasons that are hard to talk about without spoiling it. As a content warning, it has a main character with harm OCD, which means she has frequent intrusive thoughts about injuring or murdering people (including children). If that’s not a dealbreaker for you, I highly recommend this one, and it was a quick read.

Then I wanted a graphic novel I could get through quickly, so I read Toxic Summer by Derek Charm. This is about two gay teens who get lifeguard jobs for the summer to check out the local beach hunks, but when they arrive, the beach has been contaminated by toxic waste! This was a kind of Scooby Doo-style adventure, which is exactly what I should have expected, but I found it pretty forgettable.

One book I was really looking forward to was I Am the Dark That Answers When You Call by Jamison Shea, the sequel to I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me. I read book one last year and loved this “feral eldritch ballerinas” sapphic YA horror book. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel like it needed a sequel. I am the Dark really dragged for me. I’m not sure if I would have felt differently if I read them back-to-back. I still recommend book one, but it may be stronger as a standalone.

I finished readathon by starting A Game in Yellow by Hailey Piper, which I’m still reading. It’s a shame I didn’t start it earlier in the readathon, because it’s a surreal sapphic erotic horror novel that would be a perfectly mind-melting book to read in the early hours of the morning.

I still have so many short queer horror books out from the library that I’m considering doing a solo, mini readathon on Halloween to get through more of my TBR, including some of the books I shared with you earlier, like Coup de Grâce by Sofia Ajram and Graveneye by Sloane Leong and Anna Bowles. But there’s always next Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon, if I don’t get around to them!

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