Category: Lesbian/Queer

I Hope You’re Listening

By Tom Ryan

In her small town, seventeen year-old Delia “Dee” Skinner is known as the girl who wasn’t taken. Ten years ago, she witnessed the abduction of her best friend, Sibby. And though she told the police everything she remembered, it wasn’t enough. Sibby was never seen again.At night, Dee deals with her guilt by becoming someone else: the Seeker, the voice behind the popular true crime podcast Radio Silent, which features missing persons cases and works with online sleuths to solve them. Nobody knows Dee’s the Seeker, and she plans to keep it that way.When another little girl goes missing, and the case is linked to Sibby’s disappearance, Dee has a chance to get answers, with the help of her virtual detectives and the intriguing new girl at school. But how much is she willing to reveal about herself in order to uncover the truth? Dee’s about to find out what’s really at stake in unraveling the mystery of the little girls who vanished.

Representation: sapphic MC and love interest.

Our Dreams at Dusk: Shimanami Tasogare (series)

By Yuhki Kamatani

Not only is high schooler Tasuku Kaname the new kid in town, he is also terrified that he has been outed as gay. Just as he’s contemplating doing the unthinkable, Tasuku meets a mysterious woman who leads him to a group of people dealing with problems not so different from his own.

Representation: gay MC; queer, questioning, asexual/aromantic, nonbinary, and trans side characters.

Ownvoices: for nonbinary and asexual representation.

A Tropical Fish Yearns for Snow (series)

By Makoto Hagino

Volume 1 of this yuri manga series introduces Konatsu Amano, a new girl in a small seaside town in Japan. Finding herself in a new town and a new school is tough, but then she meets Koyuki, an older girl who is the sole member of the Aquarium Club. Konatsu finds it hard to open up to new people and make friends, but she thinks Koyuki might be worth getting to know better.

Representation: sapphic MCs.

Life Is Strange (series)

By Emma Vieceli

The adventures of Max, Chloe, and Rachel, from the hit game Life is Strange, continue into a new era!

Description of v.1:

Mysteriously gifted with the power to rewind time, young photography student Max Caulfield became entangled in the dark secrets of Arcadia Bay. She used her strange new abilities to reconnect with her oldest friend, Chloe Price, and to bring to justice the men who had murdered Chloe’s closest confidante, Rachel Amber.

Max’s temporal abilities came at a cost, however, creating a once-in-a-generation hurricane that threatened the town with total destruction, if Max didn’t allow the original timeline – in which Chloe died of a gunshot wound – to play out. In one sequence of events, Max chose to save Chloe’s life, sacrificing Arcadia Bay.

And in a multiverse of infinite possibilities, this is one version of what happened next.

Representation: sapphic MCs.

The Avant-Guards (series)

By Carly Usdin

Description for vol.1:

When Charlie transfers to the Georgia O’Keeffe College of Arts and Subtle Dramatics, she struggles to find her feet, but winds up exactly where she belongs…in the school’s (terrible) basketball team.

As a transfer student to the Georgia O’Keeffe College for Arts and Subtle Dramatics, former sports star Charlie is struggling to find her classes, her dorm, and her place amongst a student body full of artists who seem to know exactly where they’re going. When the school’s barely-a-basketball-team unexpectedly attempts to recruit her, Charlie’s adamant that she’s left that life behind…until she’s won over by the charming team captain, Liv, and the ragtag crew she’s managed to assemble. And while Charlie may have left cut-throat competition in in the dust, sinking these hoops may be exactly what she needs to see the person she truly wants to be.

Representation: Black, Latinx & Chinese American MCs; trans, nonbinary, and queer characters.

War Girls

By Tochi Onyebuchi

The year is 2172. Climate change and nuclear disasters have rendered much of earth unlivable. Only the lucky ones have escaped to space colonies in the sky.

In a war-torn Nigeria, battles are fought using flying, deadly mechs and soldiers are outfitted with bionic limbs and artificial organs meant to protect them from the harsh, radiation-heavy climate. Across the nation, as the years-long civil war wages on, survival becomes the only way of life.

Two sisters, Onyii and Ify, dream of more. Their lives have been marked by violence and political unrest. Still, they dream of peace, of hope, of a future together.

And they’re willing to fight an entire war to get there.

Representation: Black cast; Black MC; Muslim MC; Muslim side characters; f/f relationships.

Ownvoices: Black representation.

Rules for Vanishing

By Kate Alice Marshall

In the faux-documentary style of The Blair Witch Project comes the campfire story of a missing girl, a vengeful ghost, and the girl who is determined to find her sister–at all costs.

Once a year, the path appears in the forest and Lucy Gallows beckons. Who is brave enough to find her–and who won’t make it out of the woods?

It’s been exactly one year since Sara’s sister, Becca, disappeared, and high school life has far from settled back to normal. With her sister gone, Sara doesn’t know whether her former friends no longer like her…or are scared of her, and the days of eating alone at lunch have started to blend together. When a mysterious text message invites Sara and her estranged friends to “play the game” and find local ghost legend Lucy Gallows, Sara is sure this is the only way to find Becca–before she’s lost forever. And even though she’s hardly spoken with them for a year, Sara finds herself deep in the darkness of the forest, her friends–and their cameras–following her down the path. Together, they will have to draw on all of their strengths to survive. The road is rarely forgiving, and no one will be the same on the other side. 

Representation: bisexual MC; Black lesbian love interest; Asian side characters.

Queerleaders

By M.B. Guel

Mackenzie is used to being different from other kids―and to being bullied for not fitting into the rigid social expectations of her Catholic High School. Luckily, Mack’s best friend Lila has her back so school isn’t the total hell it could be. But it’s pretty damn close.

Until something very mysterious happens―Mack becomes a cheerleader magnet. Even she has a hard time believing it. And Lila is not too happy about her friend’s sudden popularity with the cool kids.

Is Mack being set up for an epic fail? Or is she finally headed for acceptance–and maybe even romance…

Representation: queer MC.

Ownvoices: queer representation.

Home Home

By Lisa Allen-Agostini

Moving from Trinidad to Canada wasn’t her idea. But after being hospitalized for depression, her mother sees it as the only option. Now, living with an estranged aunt she barely remembers and dealing with her “troubles” in a foreign country, she feels more lost than ever.

Everything in Canada is cold and confusing. No one says hello, no one walks anywhere, and bus trips are never-ending and loud. She just wants to be home home, in Trinidad, where her only friend is going to school and Sunday church service like she used to do.

But this new home also brings unexpected surprises: the chance at a family that loves unconditionally, the possibility of new friends, and the promise of a hopeful future. Though she doesn’t see it yet, Canada is a place where she can feel at home–if she can only find the courage to be honest with herself.

Representation: Trinidadian MC with lesbian aunts.

Ownvoices: Trinidadian representation.

Into the Tall, Tall Grass

By Loriel Ryon

Yolanda Rodríguez-O’Connell has a secret. All the members of her family have a magical gift—all, that is, except for Yolanda. Still, it’s something she can never talk about, or the townsfolk will call her family brujas—witches. When her grandmother, Wela, falls into an unexplained sleep, Yolanda is scared. Her father is off fighting in a faraway war, her mother died long ago, and Yolanda has isolated herself from her best friend and twin sister. If she loses her grandmother, who will she have left?

When a strange grass emerges in the desert behind their house, Wela miraculously wakes, begging Yolanda to take her to the lone pecan tree left on their land. Determined not to lose her, Yolanda sets out on this journey with her sister, her ex-best friend, and a boy who has a crush on her. But what is the mysterious box that her grandmother needs to find? And how will going to the pecan tree make everything all right? Along the way, Yolanda discovers long-buried secrets that have made their family gift a family curse. But she also finds the healing power of the magic all around her, which just might promise a new beginning.

Representation: Latinx MC; sapphic side characters.

Ownvoices: Latinx representation.