Rainbow Reads for Adults

"In Box Hill, a vivid coming-of-age novel, a young man suddenly wakes up to his gay self-on his eighteenth birthday, when he receives the best gift ever: love and sex. In the woodsy cruising grounds of Box Hill, chubby Colin literally stumbles over glamorous Ray-ten years older, leather-clad, cool, handsome, a biker, and a top. (Colin, if largely unformed, is nevertheless decidedly a bottom.) Colin narrates his love-conveying how mind-blowing being...

"A whirlwind romance between a vampire archivist and a grieving widow explores what it means to be at home in your own body in this clever, humorous, and heartfelt novel"--

Twelve-year-old Fee is a shy Korean American boy and a newly named section leader of the first sopranos in his local boy's choir. But when Fee learns how the director treats his section leaders, he is so ashamed he says nothing of the abuse, not even when Peter, his best friend, is in line to be next. When the director is arrested, Fee tries to forgive himself for his silence. But when Peter takes his own life, Fee blames only himself. In the years...

"Combining the social commentary of The Handmaid's Tale with the white-knuckled thrills of Red Rising, this epic space opera follows a comfort woman as she claims her agency, a soldier questioning his allegiances, and a non-binary hero out to save the solar system. First Sister has no name and no voice. As a priestess of the Sisterhood, she travels the stars alongside the soldiers of Earth and Mars-the same ones who own the rights to her body and...

In The Gospel of Breaking, Jillian Christmas confirms what followers of her performance and artistic curation have long known: there is magic in her words. Befitting someone who "speaks things into being," Christmas extracts from family history, queer lineage, and the political landscape of a racialized life to create a rich, softly defiant collection of poems. Christmas draws a circle around the things she calls "holy": the family line that cannot...

"A debut memoir about coming of age as a gay, Latinx man in a culture of machismo, Gomez's High-Risk Homosexual opens in the ultimate anti-gay space: his uncle's cockfighting ring in Nicaragua, where he was sent at twelve years old to become a man. The story then moves through the queer spaces where he learned the joy of being gay and Latinx, including Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, a drag queen convention in Los Angeles, and the doctor's office where...

"A magical island. A dangerous task. A burning secret. Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages. When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he's given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel...

"A chance to rewrite their ending is worth the risk in this swoony romantic comedy from Kosoko Jackson. It's been months since aspiring journalist Kian Andrews has heard from his ex-boyfriend, Hudson Rivers, but an urgent text has them meeting up at a café. Maybe Hudson wants to profusely apologize for the breakup. Or confess his undying love. . . . But no, Hudson has a favor to ask-he wants Kian to pretend to be his boyfriend while his parents are...

""A bold and passionate new collection… Intimacy is rarely conveyed as gracefully as in Bass's lustrous poems." -Booklist Indigo, the newest collection by Ellen Bass, merges elegy and praise poem in an exploration of life's complexities. Whether her subject is oysters, high heels, a pork chop, a beloved dog, or a wife's return to health, Bass pulls us in with exquisite immediacy. Her lush and precisely observed descriptions allow us to feel...