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All We Hide
by Robyn Gigl
When Lieutenant Lauren Kelly is exiled to the Homicide Cold Case Unit at the DA's office, she knows her superiors are sticking her there as punishment until she can quietly retire. That way, no one can claim they discriminated against the only trans detective in Donn County. Even though Lauren has enough on her plate already--a teenage daughter struggling with Lauren's recent transition, an ex-wife Lauren hasn't gotten over, a former detective father with Alzheimer's--she starts looking into the murder of Sherry Darling, a trans sex worker and Lauren's former high school classmate. As Lauren looks deeper into Sherry's case, she finds evidence of a cover-up with far-reaching implications that may or may not be tied to the reason her mother left decades earlier.
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Be Still My Unbeating Heart
by Josh Winning
Bastian is a vampire who doesn't bite. Not anymore, at least. These days, he just wants to live his best undead life with Whitby, his best friend (and magical talking cat) by his side. What he doesn't want? To stumble across a dead body on the beach who appears to have been killed by a vampire. It wasn't Bastian, but the local police chief doesn't trust him, or any vampire, so he assigns the gorgeous, mysterious detective Nico De Luca to keep an eye on him until his trial. Things only get worse when the police chief calls the Vampire Council. If the real killer is still at large when they arrive, the whole town could be in danger. As more bodies begin to pile up, Bastian, Whitby, and De Luca must get to the bottom of who is framing vampires, before it's too late.
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The Case of Elmwood Ranch
by Deanna Grey
Elmwood Ranch is Octavia Daniel's dream. A safe place to land after years on the road. But once she signs the paperwork and receives the keys, the nightmare begins.Shadows move on their own, strange accidents become the norm, and injured ranch hands refuse to work a second longer. Octavia doesn't believe in ghosts, but she can't deny something's wrong with the land she's sunk her entire savings into.Rae Jones is in the business of ending nightmares. She comes from a family of successful paranormal investigators. But she's set herself apart from the Jones sisters by making their legacy into a commercial success.After years of enjoying said success, she's hit a wall. Whether it's burnout or a full-blown existential crisis, she doesn't know. One way to try to avoid a downward spiral? Take every interesting job she can get. And that includes one from a very stand-offish, nonbelieving horse rancher who thinks she's a scam artist and the things she hunts don't exist.Octavia and Rae must figure out how to work together if they have any hope of solving what's truly going on at Elmwood. As they build trust, they begin to build something more. Something that could either help or harm their chances of making it out of this haunting alive.
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Crocodilopolis
by John Manuel Arias
Seth Oreamundo dreams of vengeance. For the past ten years, he's been exiled in D.C., prohibited from returning home to Costa Rica, where he was once a high-ranking government official but now is disgraced and despised. Osario Oreamundo, his younger brother, is to blame. When a macabre nature show about a crocodile that unexpectedly and viciously attacked a cast member reminds Seth of a childhood memory he's all but erased, Seth hatches a plan-one that involves a crocodile infested-river-to return to his rightful place among Costa Rica's elite. Alternating between Seth's wily murder plot and the boys' privileged upbringing on a sprawling coffee estate in politically fraught 1970's and 80's Costa Rica, Crocodilopolis is an engaging exploration of archetypes (the exiled prince, sibling rivalry, and the anti-hero) that questions whether people have the power to escape the roles they are cast into at birth.
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The Divine Gardener's Handbook: Or What to Do If Your Girlfriend Accidentally Turns Off the Sun: A Novel
by Eli Snow
In a Jenga-stacked megacity where glowing blue flowers hum in the dark and palace doors open into secret worlds, getting a job in the Divine Gardens is almost impossible, but Cyprin has spent her whole life trying. Her only chance is winning the annual flower pageant, dominated for five years by Purcell: her unbearable rival, and the one person Cyprin can't stop thinking about. When Cyprin cheats her way to victory, she's thrust into a world of sentient plants, ancient secrets, and a God who turns out to be just some exhausted man with a very good garden. What begins as rivalry spirals into something much more dangerous. As the truth beneath the Gardens begins to unravel, Cyprin and Purcell find themselves caught between ambition, obsession, and the terrifying possibility of understanding each other completely.
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Don't Cross Mo Ellery
by Birdie Horne
Mo Ellery manages to get fired, dumped, and kicked out of an overpriced Chicago apartment all by her 29th birthday. Luckily, a sign appears to guide Mo to her new life: “Looking for flexible part-time work? Become a school crossing guard!” How hard can it be? A few weeks later, Mo is adjusting to her new job, her bisexual reawakening, and her new neighborhood’s wacky characters, including Poodle Dude, a guy with an SUV full of poodles who speeds through her intersection each morning. . . until the day he speeds into a sinkhole and dies. Some of the locals are convinced that Poodle Dude was murdered. Mo, desperate for distractions, agrees to help investigate. When a second local dies under mysterious circumstances, it’s going to take all of Mo’s broadly applicable and transferable skills to find the killer!
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The Felicity Complex
by August Clarke
Welcome to the Felicity Complex. Constructed during the height of the Cold War, our unique hotel is prepared to protect you, the billionaire class, from nuclear annihilation. Shielded from radiation and supplemented with closed air systems and hydroponic gardens, this resort bunker offers a prime existence underground. Meet Hallelujah! Grown in a lab and educated in the ways of concierge hospitality, she believes in her duty to comfort the Lord-anointed refugees of the apocalypse. (Even if her lover Anastasia disagrees. Even if her creator Dr. Younghusband is disappointed in her.) Hallelujah and her sister specimens have waited ages for you. Never mind the secrets other rich survivalists may be hiding. Just make sure they don't notice the violent intentions behind our staff's wide, wide smiles...
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For the Love of the Quest
by Alexandra Ammon Parthun
Lady Edith Darling is supposed to live a quiet life in her family's manor, not go unchaperoned on a quest to find Excalibur. Meanwhile, Thomasin Shaw, with the local constabulary in her back packet, leads the most feared gang in London. But after a scandal involving the chief inspector's wife, Thomasin needs to find an enormous sum of money or risk losing the protection of the police along with her criminal empire. When the rich Lady Edith waltzes into her life seeking an escort for a treasure hunt, Thomasin sees a massive ransom. As Edith's clues lead them to underground chambers booby-trapped with arrows, doors locked with arcane puzzles, and even Arthur's fabled round table, Thomasin and Edith find themselves drawn to one another. But the chief inspector won't let Thomasin forget her crimes, and Edith's father is intent on bringing her home. Every legendary quest has an ending, but finding Excalibur might not be enough to make this a happy one.
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Fruit Fly
by Josh Silver
Mallory Maddox is buried under seven years of writer's block. With her status as a literary sensation fizzling, she'll do anything she can to resurrect her career. Inspiration needs to strike--and fast. Enter Leo. He's a struggling addict sleeping under bridges and trading sex for survival. He's vulnerable. He's enigmatic. He's exactly what Mallory has been looking for. Mallory needs Leo if she wants another bestseller. The world needs Leo's story right now, and Mallory believes she deserves to tell it. Really, it's her story--she's the one who wrote it, after all. But as secrets threaten to unravel more than just her career, Mallory must decide how far she will go to pen the perfect story.
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I Have This Thing for Flowers: Essays on the Roots of Relationships
by Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn
Six months before her wedding, Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn's fiance broke off their engagement. Stunned and newly uninsured, Alysia married her friend Sarah in an arrangement that secured them both free health insurance. They moved in together in the midst of the pandemic, and with time and while tending a garden, their marriage of convenience grew into a marriage of love. It's easy to admire something beautiful, like a garden, but it takes a discerning eye to appreciate the effort that went into nourishing and tending to that beauty. In both gardening and relationships, one cannot expect to fill your garden with flowers if you are unwilling--or unable--to put in the work they need to thrive. Sawchyn does just that, likening the many flowers she has grown in her gardens to relationships and moments of her life, reflecting on topics from motherhood to perfumery to scientific illustration.
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In What World
by Bridget Morrissey
Total opposites, Marlowe Jenkins and Priscilla Covington-French hated each other in high school. Now in their thirties, Marlowe is barely scraping by while Priscilla is wildly successful. The only thing they have in common is their mutual mentor, drama teacher Dallas Winthrop. Their unending tension has nothing to do with the fact that they've kissed. More than once. When Dallas goes missing, each woman believes she can figure out where he is. Except this is no ordinary disappearance. Dallas has found a way to explore alternate versions of reality. While trying to follow him, Marlowe and Priscilla find other versions of themselves instead, some with very strong feelings for one another. The more Marlowe and Priscilla are forced to rely on each other, the harder it becomes to ignore their simmering attraction. Do they play it safe and hide behind their rivalry, or take a chance on each other that could permanently change the world as they know it?
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The Marriage Rebound
by Meka James
Atlanta Cannons star Courtney Bradford should be soaring after a winning season. However, off the court, things are falling short. Courtney loves her gorgeous, fiery wife, but the passion that brought them together is no longer enough. Sasha Adams-Bradford gave up her life as an exotic dancer to become a doting housewife. But she hadn't expected the woman she loves would be on the road more than she's home. Sasha's loneliness turns into retail therapy, adding strain to their marriage. When an injury forces Courtney to sit out the European League, Sasha finally has the one thing she's longed for. If they can learn to listen to each other and work as a team, the time together could be the rebound they need. After all, they're playing for the greatest prize there is...
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Meet Me in the Garden
by Nina Lacour
New Orleans, 1944. Odette has always been one of the Honore sisters, glamorous and admired in their Creole community. Odette's sisters are content to be wives and mothers, but Odette wants something else. It is only with her beloved cousin, Delphine, that Odette can tell her secret: she is in love with a woman and longs to be an artist. Delphine has a secret lover, too, a white man. In a hidden garden, Odette and Delphine dream of free, passionate futures. But five years later, Odette's life is nothing like she'd planned. She's a widowed mother, living in Los Angeles, and she and Delphine, who is passing as white, have spiraled away from each other. When Delphine reaches a breaking point, Odette must make a shattering choice to try to hold her family together.
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The Salt King
by Natasha Pulley
Jesuit priest Avelyn Brocken was born into a mining family in Hreodwater, a small, isolated salt town in England. At 16, after a mining disaster killed his family, he fled. When a fellow priest is miraculously healed only to then be turned to salt after a visit to Hreodwater, Avelyn is sent to investigate. When he arrives, the town's doctor, Jericho, tells him that the priest is not the only one experiencing strange cures--and may not be the only one in danger from a substance in the mine that the locals call "salt light." As Avelyn and Jericho team up to protect the Hreodwater from salt light, strange happenings occur at mines around the world. As salt light devastates cities around the world, Avelyn must decide whether his faith is strong enough to withstand an apocalypse.
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She Haunts Me Still
by De Elizabeth
Mallory Webb is ready to start fresh as a theater major at her mother's alma mater, a sanitarium turned liberal arts university in Rhode Island. Landing the lead role in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet feels like a dream--until the blood-soaked spirit she suspects caused her mother's death resurfaces after years of quiet. With nothing to go on but cryptic symbols in an old college notebook, Mallory hopes the reason behind her mother's haunting lies somewhere on campus, and resolves to find answers before she meets the same fate. She's surprised to make an unexpected ally in Ezra Pierce, the magnetic fourth year directing the play, and takes solace in their undeniable chemistry. But Ezra is a master secret-keeper, and it's clear he knows more than he's letting on about Saskia Garin, Mallory's elusive understudy whose past eerily mirrors her own. When an ancient, bloodthirsty evil calls to collect on a bargain that dates back to the New England vampire panic, Mallory, Ezra, and Saskia will have to untangle the tragic ways in which their histories are linked--and face the devastating consequences of their own star-crossed love story.
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Unprecedented Times
by Malavika Kannan
Which comes first: experience or narrative? Rishi thinks she knows the answer as she arrives on campus for her first year at Stanford. A burnt-out youth climate activist, she used to want to save the world, but now she just wants to have gay sex. Her plan is set--she's going to leave behind the strict trappings of her Indian American childhood in Florida, study literature, experiment with love, and write all about it. Within a few months, she makes her first best friend, falls in love with her situationship, and promptly gets her heart broken. What is not a part of Rishi's plan is the onset of the COVID pandemic. As the outside world becomes a terrifying place, she increasingly finds solace in the friendships she's made. Instead of virtual college, however, Rishi and her classmates join a farm collective, where their political discussions and growing disillusionment collide with sexual tension and responsibility. It's only when those relationships start fracturing that Rishi begins to question her own story.
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Bite Me: A Graphic Novel
by Jennifer Dugan
Poe never imagined that during her senior year of high school she would be attacked by a pair of vampires and turned into one herself. And she never dreamed her longtime crush, Jolie--who seemed to maybe actually like Poe back--would turn out to be a slayer. When Jolie drives a wooden stake into her chest, Poe's heart is broken at the betrayal. But somehow she survives the slaying, and when she awakens, it's unclear which is stronger inside her: the thirst for blood, or the thirst for revenge on Jolie. Now the hunter has become the hunted. But, when the girls come face to face again, Jolie seems overjoyed that Poe is still alive. And beneath Poe's rage remains a burning passion of a different sort. Can a vampire and a slayer ever be more to each other than predator and prey?
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Bound by Fury
by Noelle Monét
Harper grew up loving her grandma Gigi's stories about pretty brown girls with magic from the stars, but they were just that--stories...until Gigi's sudden death awakens a dangerous power building beneath Harper's skin. Harper finds herself drawn to the elite boarding school Black Mountain Academy in the Appalachian Mountains, which Gigi herself attended. Harper is determined to learn about her burgeoning power, even if that means dealing with Kai, her grumpy ex-best friend, and his cousin Lucas, who won't let her forget the almost-kiss from last summer. But Black Mountain Academy was built on sinister secrets, and when Harper unearths a chilling local legend about the gruesome deaths of twelve witches on campus, someone will do anything to keep them from getting out.
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Death Card
by Jasmine Smith
When eighteen-year-old witch Mikaela pulls the Death card during a tarot reading, she decides to spend more time with her soon-to-be murderer to uncover her motives, only to discover that dark magic is spreading as witches around her begin to lose their powers.
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Find My Way Down to You
by Julian Winters
Eighteen-year-old August is trying to navigate life after the sudden death of his boyfriend. Years after the tragic accident, August mistakenly stumbles into a world beyond his own--the Underworld. Unlike his own existence, the underworld is a lavish place, full of mystery and charismatic gods, all curious about August's arrival in their world. Realizing the opportunity in front of him, August goes searching for his lost love, guided by Cary, the smoldering, broody ferrier of souls. But the more time August spends down below, the more his intentions begin to blur. Is he visiting this realm to reunite with his soulmate? Or is he desperately, inexplicably, intoxicatingly drawn to Cary? With his own world in pieces and a dangerously seductive realm promising him a new existence at a heavy cost, August must choose: a life with grief or a love that might destroy him.
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The Hardest Ones to Fool
by Christina Li
Amelia Wu is great at relationships. So great, in fact, that she's in three of them. Why choose one when she can be with them all? The catch? None of them know about each other. It works perfectly. They're in love with her--or the versions of her that they get. And she's in love with the lavish dinners, fancy yacht trips, and expensive gifts. Times three. But schemes always get complicated, don't they? When Amelia's best friend ends up dead, her alleged murder shocks their placid beachside city. And soon, Amelia's carefully planned relationships start to dangerously unravel. In a fit of desperation, Amelia teams up with her academic nemesis Jackie, the editor-in-chief of the school newspaper and a self-proclaimed true crime junkie, to get to the bottom of this. After all, Amelia needs to keep her boyfriends close and her enemies closer if she wants to keep her scam--and herself--afloat.
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Hollow Magic
by Mars Lauderbaugh
Raised in the world of fey, seventeen-year-old Rosefinch has the ability to lift curses with nothing but a twist of her fingers. But when a witch's magic is left long enough in the fey realm, it becomes supercharged, painful to use, and potentially even dangerous. Following a rumor that the village of Harp is home to a witch who might be able to help control her magic, Rosefinch discovers an ancient ruined castle with the inhabitants long gone; the only remaining soul a knight cursed to stand a frozen guard at the entrance. The magic she uses to free them melts more than just the ice, and soon, Rosefinch is falling for this charming stranger. But Thierry has secrets of their own, as do other members of the Harp family still hidden within the castle walls. The Harp witch's wicked magic ripped this family apart for a reason, and Rosefinch must find a way to stop the curse or she'll lose Thierry--and the chance to learn the truth about her magic--forever
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Immortal Game
by Allison Saft
Six years ago, Shea Fury's sister was whisked away by the High King of the Otherworld, the ruler of the treacherous land of fae. Although Shea has spent the years since dreaming of rescuing her sister from captivity, the Iron Veil that separates the human world from that of the fae has made it only a wish. That is, until an invitation to participate in a once-in-a-lifetime chess tournament in the Otherworld arrives on Shea's doorstep. The winner of the tournament may ask the High King to grant one wish, and Shea is finally within reach of hers.But entering the tournament and winning it are two different matters. Dark magic lurks around every corner in the Otherworld, and Shea's cutthroat opponents are willing to bend the rules to make their own wishes come true. To make it to the end--and to find her sister--she is forced to strike an alliance with her longtime rival, the sharply beautiful fae princess, Ciara of Bri Leith. One wrong move, though, and Shea could lose more than just the competition: She'd lose her sister, her dignity, and maybe even her life.
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Just Another Summer
by Tilly & Susan Bridges
Eager for a break from their brutal schedules as A-list actors, teen sisters Hayley and Becky Huxley sneak out to experience LA on their own terms. After a big mistake gets them fired from their gig on a hit TV show, they're sent to a dairy farm in Montana to learn a little humillity! Sparks fly when Hayley meets farm hand Jake, who can't believe he has to babysit some pampered rich girls all summer! But Becky's very into the cute girl at the local diner, and Hayley and Jake start to realize that they have more in common than they think. Even though she's a cis city girl and he's a trans country boy -- they might just be falling for each other.
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Queens of the Crypt, Vol 1: A Graphic Novel
by Dom&ink
There is a crypt that sits in the darkness. A crypt that exists across multiple realms, that houses your worst fears... And it's coming to Widow's Creek. When 17-year-old Barnaby Jones comes out to their parents as nonbinary, they expect that to be the toughest part of their day. But it turns out the toughest part might actually be when their best friend, Fi, is kidnapped by a faceless killer who's been abducting teens all across the small town of Widow's Creek. Or is it when Barnaby unwittingly summons the undead and fabulous Queens of the Crypt through a portal in their bedroom closet? Either way, the Queens--the Phantom, the Countess, Lady Invisible, the Creature, and the Bogeywoman--are here to help. As the horrors creep closer, can Barnaby work together with the scream queens to save Widow's Creek from destruction and unmask the Faceless Frightener?
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Survival Show
by Juno Dawson
The world just seems to take and take from Taryn Beck, but there's one thing it'll never have: her voice. Only when she's singing does Taryn feel like she can escape her reality--free from the aftermath of the War, free from the Scottish refugee camps where she and her family now live, and free from the responsibility of making ends meet for the sake of her sick brother. Taryn's voice is her one ticket out, and that's why she enters to be a contestant on the world's most watched television program: Starmaker, where kids from the New Peace Global Alliance compete for the chance to join an all-singing, all-dancing pop group. Rise to the top, and a life of luxury, stardom, and money awaits. There's only one small catch. The lowest ranking face a televised public execution. Starmaker thanks their participants for their noble sacrifice to Project Population. Taryn's about to sing for her life.
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There Are Ghosts Here
by Adrienne Tooley
Willa Childs doesn't know why she's at Dorsey House. The tragic accident that banished her to the mysterious reformatory perched at the edge of the sea is lost in the recesses of her murky memory. The Dorseys themselves offer no answers, and the only other wards, Caroline and Ivy, seem intent on keeping Willa in the dark--and on the outside of their obsessive friendship. Yet as the days pass, it begins to feel like the sinister twosome knows Willa better than she knows herself. And as her memories gradually return to focus, the girls become even stranger, doing their best to convince Willa that she's been at Dorsey House before. Only, that's impossible. Or is it? If they're telling the truth, Willa can no longer trust her own mind. The line between reality and nightmare begins to blur. Willa is certain Dorsey House is haunted, but by what? And if she can't remember leaving, how will she ever escape?
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We Were Never Here
by Sophia Hannan
Georgia Perry and Jules Park--secret girlfriends, covert art thieves, and cohosts of a popular YouTube ghost hunting show--step into a haunted house to steal a priceless painting. A few short hours later, there's a knife in Jules's chest and Georgia wakes up in a pool of blood with no memory of how she got there. Now Georgia is struggling and avoiding her old crew like the plague. When the three remaining thieves get a call from the man who paid to keep them out of jail, demanding that they finish the job, Georgia has no choice but to return to her old life. As the estranged friends scramble to steal the painting, they quickly realize that something is very wrong. Between strange shadows that trail them and the nightmares plaguing Georgia's sleep, only one thing is certain: something followed them home from De Lys manor, and it will do anything to keep them from going back.
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