With the new year in full swing, I wanted to take some time to look ahead.
If you are like me, then there is nothing quite like the joy of anticipation that comes from pre-ordering a book that speaks to your heart, and then having it arrive days, weeks, or months later . . . like a little present to yourself. There is just something special about a book you have waited for.
So, without further ado, here are the New and Notable releases coming to shelves for Winter and Spring.
If you are like me, then there is nothing quite like the joy of anticipation that comes from pre-ordering a book that speaks to your heart, and then having it arrive days, weeks, or months later . . . like a little present to yourself. There is just something special about a book you have waited for.
So, without further ado, here are the New and Notable releases coming to shelves for Winter and Spring.
Winter 2018 Releases
♥ The House of Impossible Beauties: A Novel
by Joseph Cassara [Feb 6, 2018]
As mother of the house, Angel recruits Venus, a whip-fast trans girl who dreams of finding a rich man to take care of her; Juanito, a quiet boy who loves fabrics and design; and Daniel, a butch queen who accidentally saves Venus’s life. The Xtravaganzas must learn to navigate sex work, addiction, and persistent abuse, leaning on each other as bulwarks against a world that resists them. All are ambitious, resilient, and determined to control their own fates, even as they hurtle toward devastating consequences.
Told in a voice that brims with wit, rage, tenderness, and fierce yearning, The House of Impossible Beauties is a tragic story of love, family, and the dynamism of the human spirit.
by Saundra Mitchell [Feb 27, 2018]
Take a journey through time and genres and discover a past where queer figures live, love and shape the world around them. Seventeen of the best young adult authors across the queer spectrum have come together to create a collection of beautifully written diverse historical fiction for teens.
From a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood set in war-torn 1870s Mexico featuring a transgender soldier, to two girls falling in love while mourning the death of Kurt Cobain, forbidden love in a sixteenth-century Spanish convent or an asexual girl discovering her identity amid the 1970s roller-disco scene, All Out tells a diverse range of stories across cultures, time periods and identities, shedding light on an area of history often ignored or forgotten.
I want to read this for the transgender soldiers and asexual disco girl alone, but there are some big names contributing here, so I am excited to see what the other stories bring. - Sally
♥ She’s Fallen
by Alex Clare [Mar 1, 2018]
Nineteen-year-old Shazia Johar has everything to live for. But when she is found critically injured after plunging from a hotel balcony, DI Robyn Bailley must determine why she fell. Was Shazia pushed or did she jump?
A BROKEN WOMAN
When Robyn’s team investigate the events that led to Shazia’s fall, they discover evidence of violence in the hotel room. What happened and who is responsible?
A DEATH
As Shazia’s life hangs in the balance, Robyn’s team discover the body of another hotel guest. With uncertainty and falsehood disturbing both investigations, Robyn must navigate the web of lies under continued criticism of her new identity from her ex-wife and her daughter.
I still need to read He's Gone, the first book in the series, but I love the idea of a police procedural with an openly transgender protagonist. - Sally
♥ Chaser
by Dharma Kelleher [Mar 2, 2018]
After she’s outed as transgender by a local newspaper, bounty hunter Jinx Ballou is finds herself blackballed by nearly all of the bail bond agents in Phoenix. With the help of her boyfriend and fellow bounty hunter Conor Doyle, she finds a new bail bond agent with a young defendant named Holly Schwartz, who’s jumped bail after being charged with murdering her own mother.
At first, Jinx and Conor think this will be an easy fifty grand. After all, Holly is teenager in a wheelchair and a local celebrity from charity telethons. How hard could she be to find?
But clues lead Jinx to believe that Holly may have been kidnapped by a human trafficking organization led by Milo Volkov, a mobster with ties to the Ukrainian mafia. An attempt to infiltrate one of Volkov’s stash houses goes horribly wrong.
As Jinx chases down new leads on Holly Schwartz’s whereabouts, she begins receiving creepy emails from a stalker who fetishizes her as a trans woman. Jinx ignores them as she zeroes in on Schwartz. But after her truck is vandalized and a body dumped up on her front porch, Jinx realizes her pursuit of her fugitive could cost her her life.
In this new series from the creator of IRON GODDESS and SNITCH, Dharma Kelleher becomes one of the few crime fiction authors writing from a transgender perspective. In her protagonist, Jinx Ballou, Kelleher draws on her experiences as a trans woman and transports them into the gritty, violent world of bounty hunting to create a gripping tale filled with extraordinary characters, heart-pounding excitement, surprise twists, and superb storytelling.
A woman who writes "Crime Fiction From a Trans/Queer Perspective," with a kick-ass transgender heroine? Oh, I so need to read this! - Sally
♥ Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality
by Sarah McBride [Mar 6, 2018]
Before she became the first transgender person to speak at a national political convention in 2016 at the age of twenty-six, Sarah McBride struggled with the decision to come out—not just to her family but to the students of American University, where she was serving as student body president. She’d known she was a girl from her earliest memories, but it wasn’t until the Facebook post announcing her truth went viral that she realized just how much impact her story could have on the country.
Four years later, McBride was one of the nation’s most prominent transgender activists, walking the halls of the White House, advocating the passing of laws, and addressing the country in the midst of a heated presidential election. And, she’d found her first love and future husband, Andy, a trans man and fellow activist, who complemented her in every way... until cancer tragically intervened.
Informative, heartbreaking, and empowering, Tomorrow Will Be Different is McBride’s story of love and loss, a powerful entry point into the LGBTQ community’s battle for equal rights and what it means to be openly transgender. From issues like bathroom access to health care, McBride weaves the important political and cultural milestones into a personal journey that will open hearts and change minds.
The fight for equality and freedom has only just begun.
♥ Miles Away from You
by A.B. Rutledge [Mar 20, 2018]
It's been three years since Miles fell for Vivian, a talented and dazzling transgender girl. Eighteen months since a suicide attempt left Vivian on life support. Now Miles isn't sure who he is without her, but knows it’s time to figure out how to say goodbye.
He books a solo trip to Iceland but then has a hard time leaving the refuge of his hotel room. After a little push from Oskar, a local who is equal parts endearing and aloof, Miles decides to honor Vivian's life by photographing her treasured Doc Martens standing empty against the surreal landscapes. With each step he takes, Miles finds his heart healing--even as he must accept that Vivian, still in a coma, will never recover.
Told through a series of instant messages to Vivian, this quirky and completely fresh novel explores love, loss, and the drastic distances we sometimes have to travel in order to move on.
I know damn well this one is going to make me cry, but I want to know more about this boy who fell in love with a "a talented and dazzling transgender girl." - Sally
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Spring 2018 Releases
by Alex Lidell [Apr 8, 2018]
To protect the throne, seventeen-year-old spy Kali must play a male guardsman trainee by day and royal lady by night.
Orphaned and trained on a spymaster’s remote estate, Kali is a scout who works alone in the shadows. But when a terror group threatens the Dansil throne, the king forces Kali to accept a mission at the palace or forfeit her sister’s life.
Suddenly thrust into the light, Kali must infiltrate high society as the royal Lady Lianna while penetrating the servant ranks as Kal, a male guardsman trainee. It doesn’t help that Trace, the harsh and enigmatic captain of the king’s guard, is soon assigned as both Lady Lianna’s palace escort and Kal’s commanding officer.
As Kali edges closer to the truth behind the violent group’s identity, she uncovers dangerous secrets that could bring her mission to a brutal end. A scout’s job is to observe and report, never to engage . . . but if it means saving her sister and kingdom, Kali may have no choice.
This one just sounds like way too much fun. I have seen plenty of YA fantasy novels where the heroine disguises herself as a man, but a hero disguising himself as a woman is all too rare. - Sally
♥ The Beasts of Electra Drive
by Rohan Quine [Apr 11, 2018]
Jaymi is an independent games designer living on Electra Drive in the Hollywood Hills. Opposed to him are his former colleagues at Bang Dead Games. Their mounting competitiveness regarding his own extravagant game-creation reaches a point where they attack him physically with a flying drone.
Bang Dead is preparing the global release of a game called "Ain’tTheyFreaky!", centring on five tabloid-flavoured social-media “Newsfeeds” for the victimisation of certain people by others – the “Gal Score”, “Guy Score”, “Trivia Score”, “Arts Score” and “Cosy Score”. Jaymi decides to fight back, for self-protection and to counteract this game’s destructive effects.
He takes an irrevocable step: after creating Amber, the most dangerous of the characters (or Beasts, as he calls them) who will populate Jaymi’s project "The Platinum Raven", he releases Amber from that game, such that Amber slithers out of Jaymi’s computer monitor. Appearing human, this now-incarnated Beast is sent to stalk "Ain’tTheyFreaky!’s" creators in real life – Dud, Kelly, Ashley and Herb.
While Amber terrorises them, Jaymi creates a second Beast, Evelyn, from his project "The Imagination Thief". Incarnated too, she joins Amber in sabotaging a Bang Dead venture in the physical world.
As Jaymi’s output spawns three more titles, he jumps into the creation cycles and incarnations of five more human-seeming Beasts: Shigem, Kim, the Platinum Raven, Scorpio and the Jaymi Beast.
Targeted by a more lethal drone attack, he decides his Beasts’ missions must escalate: they will infiltrate the very substance of "Ain’tTheyFreaky!". So Evelyn, Shigem and Kim sneak into one of the game’s visual environments, where they try to put an end to some of its casually-programmed cruelty. Shigem and Kim shame two Bang Dead employees into secretly working for Jaymi instead.
Five Beasts proceed to sabotage "Ain’tTheyFreaky!" at code level, turning its own server farm into a radically different environment. Their sabotage breaks the game down into its constituent glyphs and pixels – then electrifies these, recombining them into brand-new forms of such enchanted love and wickedness and originality that they’d certainly have been forbidden by Bang Dead.
Amid the resultant conflict, a Beast is sent to kill a human; a Beast is arrested, before escaping and wreaking revenge; and another human is lashed to the transmitter tower above the Hollywood Sign, where...
After the ensuing convulsions of destruction and violent creation, Jaymi’s Beasts slip away to their appointed onscreen destinations, one by one; and he is left alone again, just as he was before he brought them into being. As he fires up his newly-completed game "The Imagination Thief" for the first time, however, it is clear that neither he nor the world around him will ever quite be as before.
by J R Greenwell [Apr 5, 2018]
With the help of a big-hearted team of misfits, Chester Davis, a tall, gawky refugee from the Morning Glory Trailer Park in Birmingham, is transformed into Daphne DeLight, an aspiring drag queen with the delusional quest of becoming the next Miss Gay Drag Queen Alabama.
Or is it?
Both Chester and Daphne are blessed with an inspirational naivety and ambition that won't surrender to any humiliation. Quirky, clever, and infused with a Southern gothic campiness, In a Whirl of Delusion is a marvelous series of misadventures on a road toward love and fame.
The cover of this one really caught my eye, and I love how Chester/Daphne is described, but it is the promise of gothic camp that has me hooked. - Sally
♥ Unmasked by the Marquess: The Regency Impostors
by Cat Sebastian [Apr 17, 2018]
Robert Selby is determined to see his sister make an advantageous match. But he has two problems: the Selbys have no connections or money and Robert is really a housemaid named Charity Church. She’s enjoyed every minute of her masquerade over the past six years, but she knows her pretense is nearing an end. Charity needs to see her beloved friend married well and then Robert Selby will disappear…forever.
May not be who you think…
Alistair, Marquess of Pembroke, has spent years repairing the estate ruined by his wastrel father, and nothing is more important than protecting his fortune and name. He shouldn’t be so beguiled by the charming young man who shows up on his doorstep asking for favors. And he certainly shouldn’t be thinking of all the disreputable things he’d like to do to the impertinent scamp.
But is who you need…
When Charity’s true nature is revealed, Alistair knows he can’t marry a scandalous woman in breeches, and Charity isn’t about to lace herself into a corset and play a respectable miss. Can these stubborn souls learn to sacrifice what they’ve always wanted for a love that is more than they could have imagined?
I know this is more crossdressing for convenience, but clearly Charity is not your typical regency heroine. I so desperately want to snuggle into my fave chair and give this a read. - Sally
by Juno Roche [Apr 19, 2018]
In this frank, funny and poignant book, transgender activist Juno Roche discusses sex, desire and dating with leading figures from the trans and non-binary community.
Calling out prejudices and inspiring readers to explore their own concepts of intimacy and sexuality, the first-hand accounts celebrate the wonder and potential of trans bodies and push at the boundaries of how society views gender, sexuality and relationships.
Empowering and necessary, this collection shows all trans people deserve to feel brave, beautiful and sexy.
Jessica Kingsley Publishers has really published some remarkable work over the past year, but this may be the most important for me, a book my wife and I can read together. - Sally
by Michelle Perez and Remy Boydell [May 1, 2018]
Debut writer Michelle Perez and artist Remy Boydell (Emergency!, Recovery Blogger) will release THE PERVERT, which continues the narrative begun in the Eisner-nominated comics magazine ISLAND in full, painted color this April.
A surprisingly honest and touching account of a trans girl surviving through sex work in Seattle, THE PERVERT is an unflinching debut graphic novel that is preoccupied with work—what we put into our work and what it takes from us.
“This graphic novel’s creation went through a relationship—its end, illness, personal hardship, and great triumph,” said Perez. “Remy and I are happy to share it with the world and with anyone who enjoys truth in storytelling and experience. If you hope, you’ll love this book. If you despair, you’ll love this book. If you wanna piss someone off, you’ll love this book.”
“I spent a lot of time working in a comic book store when I was a kid, looking for things I related to,” said Boydell. “I feel like this book is going to be really important.”
by Casey Plett [May 1, 2018]
In this extraordinary debut novel by the author of the Lambda Literary Award-winning story collection A Safe Girl to Love, Wendy Reimer is a thirty-year-old trans woman who comes across evidence that her late grandfather—a devout Mennonite farmer—might have been transgender himself.
At first she dismisses this revelation, having other problems at hand, but as she and her friends struggle to cope with the challenges of their increasingly volatile lives—from alcoholism, to sex work, to suicide—Wendy is drawn to the lost pieces of her grandfather’s life, becoming determined to unravel the mystery of his truth.
Alternately warm-hearted and dark-spirited, desperate and mirthful, Little Fish explores the winter of discontent in the life of one transgender woman as her past and future become irrevocably entwined.
I am already in love with Casey for her work on Meanwhile, Elsewhere, and this just sounds like a fascinating read. - Sally
by Chloe Schwenke [May 4, 2018]
SELF-ish is a narrative drawn from an international life, beginning with some early glimpses out at the world by a girl in a boy’s body. Chloe Schwenke was raised as Stephen in a Marine Corps family, and was sent off at age fourteen to “man-up” at a military academy. Later―and still embodied as a man―she ventured abroad to work in some of the roughest regions of Africa, the Gaza Strip, Turkey, and many other locales. Her far-flung global journey was matched in intensity by an inner identity and spiritual struggle and the associated ravages of depression, before she came to the revelation of being a transgender woman.
At a time when many Americans are just waking up to the reality of the transgender phenomenon, this portrayal of Chloe’s life, her challenging gender transition, and her many accomplishments and adventures along the way (including being among the first three transgender political appointees in U.S. history, under President Obama), creates a poignant story of authenticity, self-discovery, and the meaning of gender set against a fascinating international backdrop.
♥ The Trans Generation: How Trans Kids (and Their Parents) are Creating a Gender Revolution
by Ann Travers [Jun 5, 2018]
Some “boys” will only wear dresses; some “girls” refuse to wear dresses; in both cases, as Ann Travers shows in this fascinating account of the lives of transgender kids, these are often more than just wardrobe choices. Travers shows that from very early ages, some at two and three years old, these kids find themselves to be different from the sex category that was assigned to them at birth. How they make their voices heard—to their parents and friends, in schools, in public spaces, and through the courts—is the focus of this remarkable and groundbreaking book.
Based on interviews with transgender kids, ranging in age from 4 to 20, and their parents, and over five years of research in the US and Canada, The Trans Generation offers a rare look into what it is like to grow up as a trans child. From daycare to birthday parties and from the playground to the school bathroom, Travers takes the reader inside the day-to-day realities of trans kids who regularly experience crisis as a result of the restrictive ways in which sex categories regulate their lives and put pressure on them to deny their internal sense of who they are in gendered terms.
As a transgender activist and as an advocate for trans kids, Travers is able to document from first-hand experience the difficulties of growing up trans and the challenges that parents can face. The book shows the incredible time, energy, and love that these parents give to their children, even in the face of, at times, unsupportive communities, schools, courts, health systems, and government laws. Keeping in mind that all trans kids are among the most vulnerable to bullying, violent attacks, self-harm, and suicide, and that those who struggle with poverty, racism, lack of parental support, learning differences, etc, are extremely at risk, Travers offers ways to support all trans kids through policy recommendations and activist interventions. Ultimately, the book is meant to open up options for kids’ own gender self-determination, to question the need for the sex binary, and to highlight ways that cultural and material resources can be redistributed more equitably. The Trans Generation offers an essential and important new understanding of childhood.
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Watch for my list of New and Notable releases coming to shelves for Summer and Fall at the end of May.
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