My Ex-Life
My Ex-Life by Stephen McCauley is the latest novel from the author of Object of My Affection, who the New York Times describes as "a cross between Edith Wharton and Woody Allen." David Hedges makes a living selling college entrance essays to snobby students, who suddenly finds himself on the wrong side of someone else's mid-life crisis. His younger boyfriend has left him for an older and wealthier man, and then he learns his best friend is looking to sell his beautiful Bay Area rental. His ex-wife Julie isn't doing any better on the East Coast. She is working on her second divorce, spends too much money smoking pot, and rents out spare bedrooms on AirBnB just to pay the bills. Not to be outdone, their daughter Mandy is too busy making bad choices to get serious about her college applications. When she lies and says her mother is helping her write her entry essay, David crosses the country and moves back in with Julie with the stated goal of writing the essay that will get Mandy into a good college. Along the way, the pair find they are still best friends -- but also learn that isn't always enough to make a partnership and marriage work. (Flatiron Books)
The Parting Gift
The Parting Gift by Evan Fallenberg is the riveting story of how a love affair can be destroyed by unchecked desire, jealousy, and obsession. Told by an unnamed narrator in the form of a letter to a friend, the story follows a young, intellectual American Jew with a mysterious past who, upon first sight, drops everything and begins an affair with Uzi, a simple and earthy spice farmer. The young man quickly and completely enmeshes himself in the life of the Uzi, from his business to his bedroom. He cooks for him, helps with his troubled children from two previous marriages, and modernizes his business and makes it profitable. However, his passion soon turns to obsession and irrational jealously with devastating consequences for everyone. From first page to last, Fallenberg writes with a quiet yet rising intensity that draws the reader into the story. (Other Press)
The Immortalists
The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin tells the story of four siblings who learn the dates of their own deaths, and how they live their lives in response to this knowledge. Recently optioned for television, the book opens as the brothers and sisters individually learn their fates from a Romani fortune-teller, then quickly switches to separate sections, each focusing on the next sibling to die. This four-part structure allows the reader to become intimately familiar not just with each member of the family but also the period in which they lived. Benjamin is straight-forward about their fates, listing the date of passing at the beginning of each new section. With that mystery revealed, the reader is encouraged to focus instead on the characters' personal stories, as well as the deeper societal issues they come to represent. Benjamin vividly recreates 1980s San Francisco gripped by the AIDS crisis, then quickly switches to issues of suicide and mental illness. Despite the deeper themes flowing within her characters, though, The Immortalists remains at heart a story of compassion, loss, family bonds, and the survival of the human spirit. (Penguin Random House)
A Ladder to the Sky
A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne is the story of an aspiring writer who will do anything in his rise to the top of the literary establishment. Written by the acclaimed author of The Boy In the Striped Pajamas and many other best-selling novels and young adult fiction, the reader follows young Maurice Swift as he uses his sexuality and engaging personality to advance his career to ever-higher reaches, his so-called "ladder to the sky." Along the way, though, the reader learns that this at first seemingly harmless character is just as much a monster as the amoral characters he uses as stepping stones. His first betrayal is the cornerstone of his future successes. His mentor, troubled by his own sexuality, later reveals to Swift his deepest secret --a story of forbidden love and loss in Nazi Germany during World War II. Rather than safeguard this information, the young protege uses it to catapult himself to literary fame when he includes it in his own novel. Set in Ireland and spanning eight decades, A Ladder To The Sky is an epic story that captures humanity at its best and worst. (Penguin Books)
All This I Will Give To You
All This I Will Give To You by Dolores Redondo is a literary thriller from the famed Spanish author of The Baztan Trilogy which sold over 1.5 million copies. The Spanish-language version of the bestseller and 2016 Planeta Prize winner has been translated into English by Michael Meigs. The story revolves around Manuel Ortigosa, a best-selling novelist reeling from the news that his husband Alvaro has been killed in a car crash. He hurries to the vertical vineyards of the famed Ribiera Sacra region to identify the remains. Once there, however, Ortigosa discovers a trail of secrets surrounding his late partner. Led to believe his husband was without family, he is stunned to learn Alvaro was actually the son and heir of a wealthy noble family in Galicia. Worse still, the police abruptly close the investigation and the in-laws begin to shun him. His suspicions roused, Ortigosa teams with a stubborn retired policeman and a priest who was a childhood friend of Alvaro. Together, the trio reconstruct the life of a man whom they all thought they knew and solve the questions surrounding his death. In the end, shocking secrets are revealed about the members of the family and the reasons behind Alvaro's untimely demise. (Amazon Crossing)
In Your Hands
In Your Hands by Ines Pedrosa is the celebrated author's first foray into the English language market. Originally published in 1997, this masterful novel narrates the story of three generations of women struggling to maintain their identities and sense of purpose in a confusing world. Shocking for its content at the time, the story traces the lives of a family beginning in 1935 Portugal, where the country is in the grip of Prime Minister Salazar's authoritarian regime. Upper class Jenny finds herself in a scandalous marriage -- her husband Antonio is charming and beloved, but also gay. To make the situation more confusing, his lover Pedro lives with them. Jenny is clearly the third wheel in the relationship, but helps keep up appearances by hosting salons with her husband for the political and cultural elite. They eventually find common ground and together raise their daughter Camila. Thirty years later, the daughter is a photojournalist who has a brief affair with a guerilla fighter in Mozambique which results in her own daughter, Natalia. These three generations of women are the focus of the narrative as they, and the men they love, navigate the complexities of sexuality, tolerance, and acceptance in an oppressive, patriarchal society. (Amazon Crossing)
The Maze at Windermere
The Maze at Windermere by Gregory Blake Smith is a modern-day epic spanning three centuries and five time periods. It weaves together multiple storylines set in the past and present, handing off each story from one era to the next. Members of a Gilded Age society plot to marry off a closeted gay man to an unsuspecting heiress. Novelist Henry James is ensnared in an unethical triangle. A corrupt major of the King's Army schemes his way through the American Revolution. A young a Quaker woman is faced with a profound quandary in the 1690s. The stories are all grounded in the rich history of their common setting. Newport, Rhode Island looms large throughout the pages like a giant canvas upon which the stories are painted. There are manicured grass tennis courts and lavish summer mansions populated by the nouveau riche, as well as crooked streets and waterfronts filled with sailors, Quakers, slaves, and revolutionaries. The Maze features gay characters, freed and enslaved African-Americans, a Jewish-Portuguese immigrant, and a diversity of others mingling together to produce this dazzling novel that dares to journey into the maze that is the human heart. (Penguin Random House)
The Tiger Flu
The Tiger Flu by Larissa Lai is the author's much-anticipated feminist, cyberpunk thriller. It's a compelling read about ostracization, disease, technology, tolerance, and survival in a society facing extinction from a horrific pandemic. The story focuses on Kirilow, a doctor living in a Grist Village, a community of women expelled by the patriarchal Saltwater City because of their genetic mutations. Together, these outcast women have formed their own society. Her lover Peristrophe is called a "starfish" because of her ability to regrow her own organs, which she uses to help her sisters in Grist. When an outsider from Saltwater City, sick with the tiger flu, arrives in Grist Village, Peristrophe succumbs to the dreaded illness. The grieving Kirilow is forced to travel to the city to find a new starfish -- the only hope to save the village. Along the way, she meets a young woman desperate to save her own family, but the pair are kidnapped and used as test subjects in a sinister new form of conversion therapy meant to cure the mind of the body. Lai spent over sixteen years working on this novel, which she describes as a "Joseph Campbell-type hero's journey." (Arsenal Pulp Press)
After the Blue Hour
After the Blue Hour by John Rechy is the engrossing tale of a young writer fleeing a turbulent life, only to find himself descending into dangerous games of cruelty and eroticism. Twenty-something Rechy accepts the invitation of Paul, a wealthy, older admirer, to join him on a private island with his beautiful mistress and precocious teenaged son. The book's title refers to the evening's blue hour, where the characters gather and converse on the deck of Paul's private yacht. Eventually Rechy learns that Paul is not quite the man he originally thought, as he instigates "dangerous games" meant to intimidate and unsettle, and eventually arouse his guest and family. Set against the backdrop of a mysterious island with a murderous past, the games become more daring and deeply personal until it becomes apparent that Rechy is a pawn in a much deeper game of deception and depravity than he had ever imagined. (Grove Atlantic)
Undiscovered Country
Undiscovered Country by Kelly O'Connor McNees is a fictional novel inspired by the true-life relationship of Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok. Hickok is a top reporter in 1932 New York City who starts each day with a front-page byline and ends it with a bourbon, while planning the next big scoop. When she gets an assignment to cover the campaign of FDR and his wife Eleanor, Hickok finds her hard-won independence challenged on multiple levels. Soon her work and a secret relationship with the new First Lady takes her on an unfamiliar mission to West Virginia. Together, Eleanor and Hickok find themselves working to effect real distributive change to the impoverished coal miners and their families. They soon learn the harsh realities of life, not just in the mines, but also the prejudices of the nation's capital. This unique novel mixes fact and fiction seamlessly, drawing upon historical record as well as the more than three thousand letters Hickok and Eleanor exchanged over thirty years. (Pegasus Books)
Southernmost
Southernmost by Silas House is the story of an evangelical man forced to confront his past and prejudices, and the impact of these choices on those he loves. Asher Sharp is a preacher in a small Southern community. He is a happy family man with a wife and young son, and a man respected in his town. His life and beliefs are thrown into turmoil when he gives shelter to two gay men following a devastating flood. Suddenly, the congregation is divided, his wife gains custody of their son, and hidden family strife returns. Defying authority, Sharp flees with his son to Key West in search of his estranged gay brother, both for sanctuary and a resolution to their unfinished past. House is an award-winning and bestselling author who draws on his own experiences to create this novel to capture the nuances of the changing South with regards to racism, marriage equality, and other social issues. (Algonquin Books)
So Lucky
So Lucky by Nicola Griffith follows the life of Mara Tagarelli as she faces a life-changing medical diagnosis. Professionally, she is the head of a multimillion-dollar AIDS foundation. She is active physically with a rewarding personal life. Then she receives news that she suffers from a debilitating illness without a cure. So Lucky is the story of how Tagarelli is suddenly thrust from benefactor to patient. Her once highly-tuned body now fails her. Family and friends turn away and begin to treat her like a victim. The experience opens her eyes both to the failure of the system to provide treatment and support, but also her own decisions that have done more harm than good. Griffith has written a narrative that lays bare the inadequacies of our society and system in the treatment of the disabled and chronically ill. (FSG Books
Little Fish
Little Fish by Casey Plett is the gritty story of a transgender woman who learns that she might have more in common with her devout Mennonite grandfather than she previously thought. Life is crawling along for thirty-year-old Wendy Reimer. She has a strong circle of friends upon whom she relies, but things are far from perfect. The Canadian transitioned eight years earlier and she has seen it all since then, much of it not good. When her grandmother dies, Reimer receives stunning news. Is it possible her grandfather was also transgender? Unmoved, she ignores the revelation at first. But as her life becomes more volatile and dangerous, she seeks to piece together the fragments of her family history and possibly help heal herself in the process. Plett has captured the multitude of emotions and decisions that can overwhelm our lives, from loneliness and self-destruction to the redemptive power of family and self-love.. (Arsenal Pulp Press)
Into?
Into? by North Morgan tells the story of a thirty-something gay man who finds that living the high life has left him empty and searching for something more. Konrad Platt's life was going well until his boyfriend left him for another man. Heartbroken, he flees London for the warm sun and blue surf of Los Angeles. Running from the turmoil of loss and betrayal rather than coming to terms with his emotions, he fills his days and nights with the best parties, the best drugs, and VIP tickets to the best events. He religiously documents his activities on social media, performing for an audience comprised of the jealous and the judgmental as well as those who simply do not care. Konrad goes from gay bars to gay pride, hopping from one bed to the next, living a life that is unabashedly out and proud. Into? initially paints our protagonist as one of the beautiful people who is far more self-absorbed than self-aware -- but under the surface, he's someone not so much lacking in honest introspection, as much as a person unable to break away from the ultimately destructive lifestyle he has grown accustomed to. (Flatiron Books)
Swearing Off Stars
Swearing Off Stars by Danielle Wong is a story about two women who fall in (and out) of love as young idealistic women, only to reconnect later in life. Lia is one of the first women to study abroad at Oxford University in the 1920s. She feels a liberating sense of independence being away from home and her dominating parents, soon falling for actvist and aspiring actress, Scarlett. Lia is even more thrilled when she is introduced to the gender-equality movement. But when their secret love clashes with politics, their relationship is a casualty. Years later, Lia's memories of their love are faded by time and obscured by the billboards for Scarlett's latest films. Then a mysterious letter throws her back into the unsettled romance. Wong paints a tale more realistic than sentimental, but still is able create characters who those better qualities sometimes hidden in all of us. (She Writes Press)
The Future Won’t Be Long
The Future Won't Be Long by Jarett Kobek is a prequel of sorts to his blockbuster novel I Hate the Internet. Set in 1980s New York City, wealthy young art student Adeline and a young gay man fleeing Wisconsin become friends amid the craziness of the Club Kid scene. She becomes his guardian angel, introducing him to a city not yet transformed by gentrification. She even brings him home to the family, but he soon stands on his own in plotting his life's course. From Michael Alig to James St. James, there's plenty of name-dropping as the drug-fueled scene of the East Village is portrayed in gritty detail. More than a simple period piece, it is the tale of two young idealists from different sides of the tracks forming a lasting friendship as they develop into the artists they never believed they could become. It's a provocative story of drugs, parties, excess, art, sex, and friendship in the twilight days of the East Village before gentrification changed its very nature. (Penguin Random House)
Sugar Run
Sugar Run by Mesha Maren is the story of an out woman returning home to the Appalachians after serving hard time for the murder of her girlfriend. Jodi McCarty was only seventeen in 1989 when she was sent to prison for life on manslaughter charges. Eighteen years later she is paroled and on a Greyhound bus back home. Along the way she meets up with a single mother and her children in a roadside motel. The two become unlikely friends and allies as the pair seek to bring normalcy and purpose to their lives, while also bringing some closure to their past choices and consequences. Jodi also runs into her ne'er do well brother who threatens to drag her down with him before she is able to bring some resolution to her troubled life. Maren grew up in West Virginia, living in a house her father built and writing in a studio the two built from trees planted in the year of her birth. She also joined her father from a young age at a non-profit supporting incarcerated women, so her description of Appalachian and prison life have a feel of authenticity. Maren shows how difficult it can be to come to terms with the past and a hostile community. (Algonquin Press)-DP
The Paternity Test
The Paternity Test by Michael Lowenthal explores the plight of gay men becoming parents through surrogacy. Pat is a textbook author is in an open relationship with Stu, an airline pilot with an involved Jewish family. Ever the struggling romantic, he wants a baby and a closer relationship with Stu. Their relationship is on the rocks due to Stu's habitual flings that leave the sensitive Pat feeling rejected and unfulfilled. Pat convinces Stu to move from their chaotic lives in Manhattan to the slow-paced, small town life of Cape Cod, where he spent his childhood summers. They enlist Deborah, a married Brazilian immigrant to provide the men with a baby, but roadblocks both internal and external block their goals. Stu's more traditional parents become involved, while Pat finds himself perhaps drawn too closely to Deborah. Everyone involved is presented with competing pressures and loyalties, and the problems become more complicated for Pat as he questions his own fitness as a father and a husband. The Paternity Test is a story of love, interfaith relationships, desire, infidelity, and betrayal -- and the struggle that goes into defining and making a family. (University of Wisconsin Press)
Sugar Land
Sugar Land by Tammy Lynne Stoner follows a wise and feisty lesbian woman as she frees herself from her own emotional and physical prison to a place of self-love and acceptance. In 1923 West Texas, Miss Dara takes a job at the Imperial State Prison Farm for men. Trying to keep her sexuality hidden, she works in a man's world and away from townsfolk questioning why she isn't married with children. Within the prison walls, she meets real-life blues legend Lead Belly who eventually sings his way out of prison. So too does Dara when the warden proposes, and she is soon a wife and stepmother. Her life begins a downward trajectory with the death of her husband and Lead Belly. She struggles with her weight and family until she purchases a mobile home she dubs "The Bland Old Opry" and falls in love with a local seamstress and fellow widow. Reunited with her estranged step-daughters and ready to seize her new life, Nana Dara happily finds herself the matriarch of a family of Texas misfits. Stoner had penned a novel that reads like Fried Green Tomatoes and The Secret Lives of Bees, and will touch hearts with its tale of a courageous and determined woman struggling against her own secrets, as well as of the patriarchy and intolerance of small-town, West Texas life. (Red Hen Press)-DP
Pages For Her
Pages For Her by Sylvia Brownrigg is the story of a brief love affair lost, only to be rekindled later in life. Flannery Jansen is a part-time teacher and full-time wife and mother to her artist husband, Charles Marshall, and her six-year-old daughter, Willa. Twenty years earlier, as an undergraduate student, she had a passionate affair with Anne Arden, a graduate student ten years her senior. When Flannery reunites with Anne, who just ended a relationship, at a conference for successful female writers called "Women Write The World," the pair are presented with the chance to rekindle their passion. Brownrigg has divided her novel into three parts: the first narrates from Jansen's point-of-view, the next from Arden's, while the last is that of an objective observer. (Counterpoint Press)
The Diamond Setter
The Diamond Setter by Moshe Sakal is the story of an interracial love triangle, and a diamond of great historical significance. Fareed is a handsome young gay man from Damascus who illegally crosses into Israel. He carries with him a fragment of the famed "Sabakh" blue diamond obtained by his family years before, which he hopes to return to its rightful owner but not before he learns the secret history of its origins. Fareed soon finds himself succumbing to the vibrant Tel Aviv gay scene with its restaurants, clubs, night life, and beautiful bodies. Past is prologue as he quickly falls in love with Honi, an Israeli soldier and his boyfriend Tom, the narrator of the book. Tom's uncle is a local jeweler who fills in the holes of the diamond's provenance, stretching from the finest salons of Europe to Turkish royalty. Fareed learns the secrets of not just the blue diamond, but also the similar love triangle in the 1930s between a Jewish couple and a beautiful Muslim woman hidden deep in his family's past. Then and now, though, the tensions of their relationship and current events threaten to destroy everything. (Other Press)
Leading Men
Leading Men by Christopher Castellani is based on the true-life romance between famed playwright Tennessee Williams and New Jersey truck driver Frank Merlo. Weaving together fact and fiction, Castellani opens with a booze-drenched party in Portofino, Italy thrown by Truman Capote for the literary glitterati. There, Williams and Merlo meet the fictional Anja Blomgren, a young Swedish actress they decide to take under their wing. Leading Men follows the chain of events set in motion by this meeting that eventually changes the courses of their lives. Williams had a turbulent relationship with Merlo, and the author of such classics as The Glass Menagerie, Streetcar Named Desire, and Cat On a Hot Tin Roof wrote his best work while the two were together. The pair were estranged at the time of Merlo's death in 1963, and Williams was never able to capture his literary genius following his passing. Castellani has captured the tumult and passion in their relationship, showing in lurid detail the difficulty of being supportive in the shadow of greatness, and the sacrifice that type of subordination requires. (Penguin Random House)
Sin Against The Race
Sin Against The Race by Gar McVey-Russell is the coming-of-age story of a young African-American gay man who eventually becomes a formidable presence in the community, but on his own terms. Alfonso Rutherford Berry III is the son of a city councilman and grandson of the state's first black legislator. He is the anointed heir to his family's legacy and everyone expects that he will follow in their footsteps and continue their political heritage. The only problem is that Alfonso wants to be a dancer, not a politician, and things only get worse when series of tragedies strike and forces him out of the closet. When his out and proud role model cousin dies, Berry is sent on a path of self-discovery. There he meets an assortment of colorful characters who populate Carver Street, the queer side of his largely Black neighborhood. He finds friends, acceptance, and his first crush, eventually coming to terms with both his sexuality and his place in the community. (Gamr Books)
Blood Communion
Blood Communion by Anne Rice is the famed author's 13th and latest episode of her highly successful Vampire Chronicles. It tells the saga of Prince Lestat coming to rule the vampire world and his eternal struggle to find his place in the universe of the undead. The vampire made famous on the screen by Tom Cruise in Interview With A Vampire tells of his battles with Rhoshamandes, proud Child of the Millennia and reviled outcast, for his senseless murder of the ancient Maharet, before moving on to his struggles to save the entire vampire underworld. This is violent, brutal, yet lyrical novel jumps from the castles of ancient France to the swamps of Louisiana, to the untouched islands of the Pacific, to 18th century St. Petersburg and the court of Catherine the Great. Rice has included illustrations and an appendix of the numerous vampires populating her pages--a fun treat for longtime fans, as well as Vampire Chronicle newbies, who can quickly reference these tools without having to put the book down to google contextual questions (or read the 12 previous installments). Blood Communion is a welcome addition to the series that continues the ancient saga of these horny, often queer, and emotionally complicated undead beings. (Alfred K. Knopf)
Housegirl
Housegirl by Michael Donkor tells the story of a Ghanaian servant girl who is sent to live in London in hopes that she might befriend the daughter of her wealthy employers. Belinda is an adolescent house girl who knows her place and how to follow the rules. She's repressed her memories of her home village and the turmoil she left behind, and instead is intent on doing her job well. Her employers see her as sensible and level-headed -- and entrust her with a perilous task beyond her years. Belinda is sent to London to befriend Amma, the Ghanaian daughter of her employers who seems to have lost her way in an alien world. At first, Amma is cold and distant, not wanting to reveal her own tightly-held secrets. Soon, though, the pair grow close. When Belinda and Amma finally reveal their respective secrets, their relationship is thrown into turmoil. Housegirl is a moving and humorous exploration of family and friendship, shame and forgiveness, perseverance and redemption. Donkor has succeeded in creating a tale that shows the difficulty of coming to terms with one's sexuality, while also bringing awareness to the often overlooked plight of African house girls in England. (Picador)
The Book of Joan
The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch is a feminist reimagining of the Joan of Arc saga in a not-too-distant dystopian future. The year is 2049 and the Earth is now a radioactive wasteland of violence and depravation, populated by hairless, sexless, yet sex-obsessed remnants of human beings. The survivors regroup and escape to the CIEL, a mysterious platform that hovers above the surface of the planet. From the ranks of endless wars emerges the charismatic and cult-like leader Jean de Men, who appoints himself to rule over the CIEL in a nouveau-police state. A group of rebels rises to fight his totalitarian ways led by the heroic child warrior Joan who possesses a force within that communes with nature and ultimately transcends her attempted martyrdom. A riveting and twisting revisiting of the historical icon -- one that questions the meaning of gender and sex, blood and art, and the questioning of the definition of humanity itself. (HarperCollins)
