Our Pride Month Reading List: Queer Fiction from 2025!
New & Upcoming LGBTQIA+ Books for Your Summer Reading List!
Happy Pride Month everyone!
2025 has been a tough year for the LGBTQIA+ community. Around the globe, our community has been under a barrage of constant attacks by politicians and pundits, and in the U.S. and the U.K. we are witnessing our hard-won civil rights actively being stripped away by a wave of intolerance that is threatening us all (especially those of us who are trans and/or nonbinary).
NOW is the time to support LGBTQIA+ books and authors! So what’s on your summer reading list? We have some ideas . . .
Fortunately, 2025 has thus far been an amazing year for LGBTQIA+ literature! A joyous abundance of fantastic, intriguing, and important queer books, penned by a staggering array of diverse and necessary voices, have been published already (with even more on the release schedule).
Our TBR (to-be-read) pile keeps growing each week, which is why we’ve decided Pride Month is the perfect moment to share all of the new and upcoming queer books on our big summer reading list. This week we’ve chosen 40 fascinating fiction picks, and next week we’re spotlighting 40 intriguing nonfiction picks from across the beautiful LGBTQIA+ rainbow.
And all of these recently published (or soon to be published) books are new to us! We haven’t read them yet, but they’ve all piqued our interest for one reason or another, so don’t be surprised if quite a few of these eventually show up on our Aesthetic Arrest podcast. Let’s dive in to the list . . .
Our Pride Month Reading List: New Queer Fiction from 2025!
(in alphabetical order by author)
Arc of the Universe by Nikki Alexander
“Alexander’s smart, provocative novel engages with the exciting premise of life on Mars while keeping its feet firmly planted in the realities of our Earth, exploring the complexities of human nature, governance, and more that would inevitably travel with us to a new world.” — BookLife
Seven Days in Tokyo by José Daniel Alvior
“Seven Days in Tokyo is the tantalising almost-kiss you know to be better than the kiss. An open-hearted, honest search for love and human connection. Drenched in the hectic culture of Tokyo and New York, yet entirely unmarred by cynicism. Alvior finds islands of peace within the chaos of modern life and love. This earnest gem of a novel too, is an island of literary respite.” — Leo Vardiashvili, author of Hard by a Great Forest
The Unbecoming of Margaret Wolf by Isa Arsén
“With sensitivity to a range of queer relationships as well as to Margaret’s unraveling psyche, Arsén paints a vivid portrait of 1950s backstage culture. The demands and compulsions of theater life create a satisfying backdrop for historical fiction that works as a page-turner. The play’s not the only thing here; Arsén’s players intrigue as well.” — Kirkus Reviews
The South by Tash Aw
“Like Chekhov’s Russia, Aw’s Malaysia is both a universally resonant vision of a timeless and placeless lost world, and a historically precise portrait of a country undergoing rapid modernisation.… [Aw] emerg[es] as a Proustian chronicler of momentary bodily and mental experience writing on a compressed, exquisite scale . . . blending the timeless and the historical to reinvent what an epic can be.” — Lara Feigel, The Guardian
Spent: A Comic Novel by Alison Bechdel
“[S]elf-deprecating and delightful . . . Bechdel takes a gentle approach toward her well-meaning characters, but wields a razor-sharp scalpel when it comes to the indignities of modern life. For Bechdel’s fans, it’s a dream to see her skewer fame with such hilarious precision.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
In the Absence of Men by Philippe Besson
“Philippe Besson’s dreamy wartime love story was first published in 2002, and the reissued version is just as perfect for summer reading … lyrical.” — People Magazine
“In the Absence of Men is a short, bold and original novel which beautifully captures the romance and amorality of gilded youth. It is particularly notable for a totally convincing portrait of Proust.” — Independent
Isaac's Song by Daniel Black
“Isaac's Song is a beautiful, all-consuming novel about the complex relationships between fathers and queer sons, loss, grief, identity, friendship and love. I will read anything Black writes.” — De'Shawn Winslow, award-winning author of In West Mills and Decent People
Ancestors: A Grievers Novel (Grievers Trilogy, Book 3) by adrienne maree brown
“A timely narrative ... This post-industrial, post-pandemic, post-apocalyptic novel examines the collective struggle for harmony in the face of personal and collective trauma. ... Ancestors delivers tender conjecture full of somatic healing, spiritual fortitude, and human re-connection. This is the book we need.” — Nandi Comer, Michigan Poet Laureate and author of Tapping Out
We Are Green and Trembling by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara
“Based on the life of Antonio de Erauso, a real figure of the Spanish conquest, We Are Green and Trembling is a queer baroque satire and a historical novel that blends elements of the picaresque with surreal storytelling. … It is a masterful subversion of Latin American history with a trans character at its center, finding in the rainforest a magical, surreal space where transformation is not only possible but necessary.” [Source]
Songs of No Provenance by Lydi Conklin
“Lydi Conklin has gathered up slippery ideas about art-making and desire and mentorship and gender and plunged an antihero for the ages through the heart of them all. Songs of No Provenance is a raw, empathetic novel of exceptional power.” — Carmen Maria Machado
Your Body of Water by Siouxzi Connor
“[A]n interweaving of autofiction with hydro-feminist mythologies, exploring via the emotional landscapes of four rivers and four ‘tragic feminine characters’ (Ophelia, Leda, the Lady of Shalott and Sappho) the author’s own real life journey, with a dose of tongue-in-cheek humour – through coming out in Australia, an abusive relationship in Berlin, and navigating queer love in the context of a world literally burning around us – and finding hope for the future in the stories of her ancestors before her.” [Source]
Disappoint Me by Nicola Dinan
“Nicola Dinan’s first novel, the Lambda finalist Bellies, was a gorgeous tale of platonic entanglement and first love. In Disappoint Me, Dinan builds on her astute portraits of romance to tell the story of Max, a trans woman in her 30s fed up with the way her life has turned out.” — Vulture, “28 Books We Can’t Wait to Read This Summer”
The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar
“... a marvelous story that pulls on old Grimm fairy tales of violence and truth telling, of what it means to be sisters in a story of fae and folklore, and of the kind of true love that exists between sisters.” — Booklist, starred review
“A lyrical embodiment of language and song, The River Has Roots is dreamy and lush, lyrical and vivid. Amal El-Mohtar is a sorceress.” — Ananda Lima, author of Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil
Notes from a Regicide by Isaac Fellman
“A triumphant and blistering chronicle of found family, love, and resistance. Brimming with wit and queer joy amidst the violence of rebellion, Notes from A Regicide is a multigenerational saga set in a distant (but eerily recognizable) future.” — Booklist, starred review
A Language of Limbs by Dylin Hardcastle
“Vivid and poignant, with flashes of the experimental and poetic, the novel serves as a record of queer life in Australia in the ’70s and ’80s and asks us to consider how and why we love.” — Booklist
Loca by Alejandro Heredia
“In this remarkable debut, Alejandro Heredia traces young lives from the streets of Santo Domingo to the streets of the Bronx, capturing the heartbreak of queer youth, a woman’s rebellion against the confines of motherhood, and, above all, the pain and power of friendship that extends across seas, and borders, and the struggle of working people to survive in America. It is the most generously written novel I have read in a very long time, and that generosity is a beautiful thing.” — Adam Haslett, Pulitzer Prize and National Award Book Award finalist for Imagine Me Gone and You Are Not A Stranger Here
Open, Heaven by Seán Hewitt
“A searchingly poignant and beautiful novel about how a first love can shape a whole life, Open, Heaven is a deeply felt, lyrical and impossibly tender read. Hewitt exquisitely conjures the passage of time and all the complexities of growing up queer, perfectly captures the way places and events become stitched into memory, and elucidates with rare power how transfixing, incandescent, and transfiguring a first love can be. It made my heart hurt in the best ways.” — Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk
The Fantasies of Future Things by Doug Jones
“A rare and powerful work that reshapes the canon and expands our collective imagination. Jones knows Black queer characters deserve to take up boundless space on the page and in our imaginations. I am changed after reading his debut, and I know you will be too.” — Darnell Moore, Lambda Literary Award-winning author of No Ashes in the Fire
The English Problem by Beena Kamlani
“In elegant, evocative prose, Beena Kamlani evokes both the British understanding of India and the Indian understanding of Britain—each culture admiring yet misapprehending the other—and the life of a man who was of both cultures and of neither. It contains darkness, loneliness, even tragedy; but also an almost Gandhian narrative of peaceable, unrelenting hope.” — Andrew Solomon, National Book Award winner and New York Times bestselling author of Far from the Tree and The Noonday Demon
The Manor of Dreams by Christina Li
“Li’s adult debut beautifully intertwines historical fiction, mystery, and romance, including an LGBTQ love story, in this multigenerational saga. A bewitching Chinese American gothic for fans of female-centric thrillers and ghost stories.” — Booklist
Amplitudes: Stories of Queer and Trans Futurity by Lee Mandelo (editor)
“Amplitudes is a tidal wave of excellent science fiction, brought up from the deep sea of trans and queer talent in our genre. Every story is like a pearl, birthed in grit but shining in perfection, each one strung after the other masterfully by editor Lee Mandelo. Lee knows better than most that our mere existence is resistance, and to look into our future is transcendental. This book is so good. Cherish it.” — Cecilia Tan, award-winning author of Black Feathers
Sympathy for Wild Girls: Stories by Demree McGhee
“Demree McGhee’s Sympathy for Wild Girls is an atmospheric short story collection about the restlessness of Black girls and women.” — Foreword Reviews
“McGhee writes in between the real and surreal, mixing dreamlike elements with stark realism, striking a balance that infuses each story with inventive and effective storytelling. A promising debut.” — Booklist
These Heathens by Mia McKenzie
“A one-of-a-kind, urgently needed novel about choosing the life you want to lead . . . Set against the backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement and Atlanta’s queer Black community, Mia McKenzie vividly depicts how Black women create circles of trust, freedom, and autonomy with one another.” — Leila Mottley, author of Nightcrawling and The Girls Who Grew Big
Florenzer by Phil Melanson
“It’s hard to say what I loved more—the luminous prose, the spectacularly layered research, or the tenderness with which Melanson approaches young Leonardo’s sexual and artistic awakening. Readers who love Italy or Renaissance art will revel in all the lush details that bring 1400s Florence to life, but one needn’t be an Italophile for this breathtaking piece of historical fiction to leave you utterly transfixed.” — Rachel Beanland, author of The House Is on Fire and Florence Adler Swims Forever
The Sun Was Electric Light by Rachel Morton
“Disillusioned with her life in New York, Ruth returns to a lake town in Guatemala where she had been happy a decade earlier. There, in Panajachel, she meets two very different women: the calm and practical Emilie, and the turbulent and intoxicating Carmen. … The Sun Was Electric Light is a sublime novel about searching for belonging and a life that makes sense.” [Source]
When the Harvest Comes by Denne Michele Norris
“Epic, intimate, brutal, and tender . . . Denne Michele Norris has written a breathtaking testimony about the boundlessness of love. This is the arrival of a major new American voice.” — Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
Emerald Road by Orlando Ortega-Medina
“With a special appeal for readers with an affinity for magical realism, LGBTQ & migration themes — this is a novel that is raised to an impressive level of literary excellence by the imaginative talents of its author.” — Midwest Book Review
Necessary Fiction by Eloghosa Osunde
“[A] kaleidoscopic view of queer Nigerian life in this vibrant tale of a diverse group of friends and relatives and their internal struggles … Osunde shines in their voice-driven narration, smoothly integrating Nigerian Pidgin into the novel’s crystalline prose … there’s much to love in this bighearted novel.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Luminous by Silvia Park
“Luminous is full of complex characters, damaged and broken and beautiful. It’s a novel full of pleasures, big and small, gorgeous sentences from which Park weaves a rich, layered story of family and work, of history and speculation, of Korea, past, present and future. A bold exploration of what it means to have a mind, a body, a self, and even a soul. An impressive debut.” — Charles Yu, author of National Book Award winner Interior Chinatown
Ten Incarnations of Rebellion by Vaishnavi Patel
“A fascinating, innovative, and suspenseful alternate history of India’s freedom struggle . . . Readers will fall in love—as I did—with the heroine, Kalki, who is at once intelligent, courageous, and vulnerable.” — Chitra Banerjree Divakaruni, author of The Palace of Illusions
Stag Dance: A Novel & Stories by Torrey Peters
“This inventive, boundary-pushing follow-up to Detransition, Baby . . . [takes] on gender, transness and lives on the margins in all of their gorgeously complicated glory.” — People
But Not Too Bold by Hache Pueyo
“Pueyo knows exactly how to blend darkness and evil with cuteness and gorgeous prose. . . . A master of Latin American dark fiction.” — Renan Bernardo, Nebula finalist and author of Different Kinds of Defiance
The Hymn to Dionysus by Natasha Pulley
“A bittersweet and magical historical fiction reimagining of the story of the Greek God of ecstasy and madness that feels as much like a fantasy as it does a strict mythological retelling. Thoroughly captivating in every way.” — Paste Magazine
Liquid: A Love Story by Mariam Rahmani
“Hirsute, heuristic, and humorous, Liquid is an electric read. From Los Angeles to Tehran, past to present, academia to the bedsheets, Rahmani navigates these journeys with undeniable verve, serious street-smarts, and a glowing charismatic cool. The smoothest, smartest book I’ve read in quite some time and the dawning of a literary force.” — Paul Beatty, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sellout
Woodworking by Emily St. James
“This story of a trans woman coming out in small town South Dakota in 2016 isn’t just earnest and moving, but surprisingly funny and joyful — all without pulling any punches about the struggle to be yourself in a world that may not want you to be.” — Crooked Media Reads
Living in Your Light by Abdellah Taïa
“Living in Your Light is one of Taïa’s most impressive works to date for its ability to tightly capture the struggles of a woman’s independence in Morocco, headed by Malika’s determination to control her own life, and continually thwarted by the forces of poverty, war, and colonization.” — Asymptote
The Lilac People by Milo Todd
“A heartbreaking chronicle of the rise of Nazi Germany’s trans community and its swift eradication . . . With this beautiful, necessary story, full of enthralling action and sharp moral questions, The Lilac People reminds history of what happened to the trans community during WWII, and asks us to see it as a warning for what might be happening in this country today. Happily, it also announces an important new voice in American fiction.” — Jeffrey Condran, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Separate Rooms by Pier Vittorio Tondelli
“Separate Rooms is a classic in Italy: a story of love and youth and pain that will have you clutching at your heart. I want everyone to read it; I want to press it into people’s hands. Surely one of the best novels I’ve ever read.” — Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less and Less Is Lost
The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
“The Emperor of Gladness is a poetic, dramatic and vivid story. Epic in its sweep, the novel also handles intimacy and love with delicacy and deep originality. Hai and Grazina are taken from the margins of American life by Ocean Vuong and, by dint of great sympathy and imaginative genius, placed at the very center of our world.” — Colm Tóibín, author of Long Island and Brooklyn
Tramps Like Us by Joe Westmoreland (introduction by Eileen Myles)
“A gem from the queer underground canon.” — Emma Alpern, New York Magazine
“Searing and breathless . . . redolent of its era without ever being a relic of it . . . Westmoreland’s blend of noise and sights, romance and friendship, render a portrait of queer joy as a hard-earned victory of survival.” — Joel Danilewitz, The Brooklyn Rail
There you have it! Don’t forget to check back next week for our nonfiction picks! All of the books on this list were first published (in the U.S.) in 2025, and can be purchased or pre-ordered from a local independent bookstore near you! (Need helping finding a bookstore that’s not owned by an amoral billionaire? Try the Indie Bookstore Finder!)
And if you must order your books online, please consider clicking the links below each book cover to purchase your books via Bookshop.org. All of these books (and most of the books we’ve ever linked to here on our Substack) can be purchased via our Epicurean Vagabonds storefront at Bookshop.org. If you purchase books from Bookshop.org via our links (or *any* books — even ones we haven’t mentioned — after visiting our storefront here), we will receive 10% of your purchase! And another matching 10% of your purchase will go directly to support independent brick-and-mortar bookstores. Bookshop.org has raised over $39 million for local bookstores! Let’s keep bookstores alive!
Click here to order or read more about every single book on this list: Our Pride Month Reading List: New Queer Fiction from 2025!
And once again, Happy Pride Month everyone! June is a perfect month to celebrate and be proud of our beautiful LGBTQIA+ community, as well as enjoying and sharing the brilliant voices of queer writers and artists from around the globe. It’s an ideal time for educating ourselves and others about our community’s history and our stories, our struggles and our achievements, our chronicles of the past and our visions for the future. It’s the moment for organized resistance, strategizing, and solidarity. Great books can help us do all of these things. So what’s on your summer reading list?