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🌈 Good morning, my bookish bats, and happy Pride Month!! Struggling to keep up with all the amazing queer books coming out this month? Here are a FEW of the stunning, diverse queer books you can add to your TBR before the year is over. Remember to #readqueerallyear! Happy reading!

[ Release dates may have changed. ]

🌈 Hey Reading Rainbows! It’s time for our recommendation post for next month’s theme!

So here are twenty books that we think also fit the February theme of Dangerous Liaisons. All of these books fall into fantasy, thriller or horror! Common tropes include enemies to lovers and hate to love. These books feature unreliable and dangerous relationships. 

What other book would you add to our Dangerous Liaisons theme?

First Row: The Final Strife by Saara El-Arifi, Gorgeous Gruesome Faces by Linda Cheng, Darknesses by Lachelle Seville, The Wicked & The Willing by Lianyu Tan, Prince of the Sorrows by Kellen Graves, The Wicked Bargain by Gabe Cole Novoa.

Second Row: The Gift of Blood by Vaela Denarr & Micah Iannandrea, Prince & Assassin by Tavia Lark, Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, The Circus Infinite by Khan Wong. 

Third Row: Bloody Spade by Brittany M. Willows, She is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran, Court of the Undying Seasons by A.M. Strickland, My Dear Henry by Kalynn Bayron.

Fourth Row: Unwieldy Creatures by Addie Tsai, The  Scapegracers by H. A. Clarke, Heartbreakers by Zoe Hana Mikuta, Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, My Dearest Darkest by Kayla Cottingham, A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee. 

🌈 What’s COMING OUT (pun intended) this January? Which books are you excited for? Which books are you adding to your TBR? Any other queer releases you know of?

Note: Some dates may have changed. We haven’t read all of these books, so please check reviews for more details on queer identities represented and check StoryGraph for content warnings!

🌈Jan 1 Tentacle Wonderland by Reese Morrison Soren by Miranda Page & Lina Ganef Stars and Soil by Dax Murray

🌈Jan 2 Cupid’s Revenge by Wibke Brueggemann Just Happy to Be Here by Naomi Kanakia Okay, Cupid by Mason Deaver Minor Disturbances at Grand Life Apartments by Hema Sukumar Matsdotter and Adrastus (Adventures in Levena #2) by Aelina Isaacs Deep Sounding Chaos by Adrian J. Smith & Neen Cohen Evergreen by Devin Greenlee Thousand Autumns: Qian Qiu Vol. 3 by Meng Xi Shi and Me Mimo

🌈Jan 4 Destined by Jen Carter

🌈Jan 5 Her Mechanic Bear Mate (Crescent Lake Bears #3) by Arizona Tape

🌈Jan 8 Her Spell That Binds Me by Luna Oblonsky Bioluminescence by Toni Duarte

🌈Jan 9 That Bitter Sting by Melissa Polk Don’t Want You Like A Best Friend by Emma R. Alban Lucky Bounce by Cait Nary How to Share a Cat and Other Life Lessons by Evelyn Fenn

🌈Jan 10 Bachelorette Number Twelve by Jae

🌈Jan 11 Bound by Kate Hawthorne A Sheep in wolf’s clothing by Amy Allen Falling All In by Laina Villeneuve Murder on Castaway Island by Alicia Gael Moonbreak by Lise MacTague

🌈Jan 12 Tadek and the Princess by Alexandra Rowland Amid Our Lines by Zarah Detand

🌈Jan 14 The Butler’s Vessel by S. Rodman

🌈Jan 15 A Doctor’s Touch by A.A. Fairview Never Be a Saint by Mark Runte

🌈Jan 16 Escaping Mr. Rochester by L.L. McKinney Most Ardently by Gabe Cole Novoa. So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole City of Laughter by Temim Fruchter Maude Horton’s Glorious Revenge by Lizzie Pook Eli Harpo’s Adventure to the Afterlife by Eric Schlich Enthralled by Her by Chelsea M. Cameron Knight of Staria by Iris Foxglove The Storm Gathers by Maelan Holladay Fence: Redemption SC by C.S. Pacat and Johanna the Mad Stars of Chaos: Sha Po Lang Vol. 2| by priest and 罐 一 一 Dreamer by Kris Bryant Winter’s Spell by Ursula Klein All Things Beautiful by Alaina Erdell Not Just Friends by Jordan Meadows

🌈Jan 17 Two is a Pattern by Emily Waters

🌈Jan 18 Curse of souls by Niranjan K Voyage of the Damned by Frances White The Principle of Moments by Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson

🌈Jan 19 Shards of Trust by Fox Beckman

🌈Jan 20 A Luminous Heart by Cailee Francis

🌈Jan 22 Curse of the Dragon Shadow by Selina A. Fenech

🌈Jan 23 No Shelter But The Stars by Virginia Black To Cage a God (These Monstrous Gods #1) by Elizabeth May My Fair Brady by Brian D Kennedy The Summer Queen (The Buried and the Bound #2) by Rochelle Hassan Out of Our League by Dahlia Adler and Jennifer Iacopelli Earth and Water by J.L. Gribble

🌈Jan 26 Rend Me, The Wayward Knight by Mary Vanalstine Prince of Endless Tides by Ben Alderson Sweet Wicked Thing by Jessie Walker

🌈Jan 27 Breeze Spells and Bridegrooms by Sarah Wallace and S.O. Callahan

🌈Jan 29 Ocean’s Blood by Thelma Mantey Fallen Thorns by Harvey Oliver Baxter

🌈Jan 30 A Reckless Oath by Kaylie Smith Faded Moon by T.L. Morgan The City of Stardust by Georgia Summers The Invocations by Krystal Sutherland Game On by Amy Aislin Spark of Wrath by E.M. Lindsey Honeybloods by I.S. Belle Love Me At My Worst by Adrian J. Smith

🌈 Hey Reading Rainbows! It’s time for our second artist reveal for the February “Slow Burn” Rainbow After Dark box! Next up is Elisa (@Erisperitas) who has illustrated the endpapers for Pirates of Aletharia by Britney Jackson (@BritneyJacksonAuthor)!

From the artist:

Hi there, I'm Elisa (erisperitas), a Filipino-Canadian illustrator based in Montreal! I'm a fantasy and TTRPG enthusiast and adore reading and thinking about characters going on their extraordinary adventures and seeing wonderful things. I love creating artwork to explore imaginary spaces and people, observe the nuances of expressions and emotions, and find ways to evoke thoughts and feelings of all kinds.

🌈 We are sold out of R.A.D. spots and now on a waitlist system - you can join https://rainbowcratebookbox.com/products/rainbow-crate-after-dark-rad-quarterly!

Breaker of Fates by Vaela Denarr & Micah Iannandrea

“Perilous quests give rise to heroes. And broken songs call for Chosen Ones to be mended.”

Hey y'all~

I wanted to re-share the cover I illustrated for Vaela and Micah (@polyamorous-dragon-lesbian) for their book, Breaker of Fates! They were kind of enough to encourage me to share the art as well! It was an absolute joy and honour to work with them on this!

If you’d like to check out any of their current or other works, I’ll link their stuff below!

Linktree: linktr.ee/VaelaAndMicah

to convert food into red

coal not once but twice

Trap Your Lovers by Vaela Denarr & Micah Iannandrea

"Perilous quests give rise to heroes. And broken songs call for Chosen Ones to be mended."

Hey y'all~

If you didn't catch my reposts/shares of it on my socials, the book cover I illustrated for Vaela and Micah (@polyamorous-dragon-lesbian) for their book, Trap Your Lovers was revealed last week! They were kind of enough to encourage me to share the art as well! It was an absolute joy and honour to work with them on this!

If you'd like to check out any of their current or other works, I'll link their stuff below!

Linktree: linktr.ee/VaelaAndMicah

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/199925666-trap-your-lovers

Preorder Link: https://books2read.com/Trapyourlovers

I.

AM NOT.

ATTRACTED TO MEN.

You can get it here: https://books2read.com/Of-Books-and-Paper-Dragons

It’s the end of May, which means Pride Month is quickly approaching and because of this many creators are sharing queer book lists. Don’t get me wrong, I always love and appreciate people sharing queer books, but I have to admit that it upsets me a little that most people only share a few books, and it’s always the same popular (and traditionally published) ones.

The indie and self-published community offers a great range of identities and diversification that you often can’t find in traditionally published books, but because of people’s prejudice against these books, or because of their laziness in trying to find them, indie books often go unnoticed.

So here I am, asking you to consider indie and self-published books for your reading during Pride Month (and every other month of the year).

Brace yourself, because I’m about to give you a long list of books, divided by identities.

For all the titles and the links to their goodreads pages, please check out my blog post.

(someone reposted my slides here on tumblr without my permission so I'm making my own post, this time with watermarks on the photos. Please don't support reposters).

The dragon romantasy "Fourth Wing" by Rebecca Yarros has taken over the bookish community, so I wanted to give you some recommendations on what to read after you finished it.

Dragonfall by L.R. Lam

Long ago, humans betrayed dragons, stealing their magic and banishing them to a dying world. Centuries later, their descendants worship dragons as gods. But the 'gods' remember, and they do not forgive. Since they were orphaned, Arcady has scraped a living thieving on the streets of Vatra, dreaming of life among the nobility - and revenge. When the chance arises to steal a powerful artefact from the bones of the Plaguebringer, the most hated person in Lumet history, they jump at it, for its magic holds the key to their dreams. But the spell has unintended consequences, and drags Everen - the last male dragon, who was once foretold to save his kind - into the human world. Trapped, and disguised as a human, Everen soon realises that the key to his destiny, and to regaining his true power, lies in Arcady. All he needs to do is convince one little thief to bond with him completely - body, mind, and soul - and then kill them . . . Yet the closer the two become, the greater the risk both their worlds will shatter.

To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose

A young Indigenous woman enters a colonizer-run dragon academy—and quickly finds herself at odds with the “approved” way of doing things—in the first book of this brilliant new fantasy series. The remote island of Masquapaug has not seen a dragon in many generations—until fifteen-year-old Anequs finds a dragon’s egg and bonds with its hatchling. Her people are delighted, for all remember the tales of the days when dragons lived among them and danced away the storms of autumn, enabling the people to thrive. To them, Anequs is revered as Nampeshiweisit—a person in a unique relationship with a dragon. Unfortunately for Anequs, the Anglish conquerors of her land have different opinions. They have a very specific idea of how a dragon should be raised, and who should be doing the raising—and Anequs does not meet any of their requirements. Only with great reluctance do they allow Anequs to enroll in a proper Anglish dragon school on the mainland. If she cannot succeed there, her dragon will be killed. For a girl with no formal schooling, a non-Anglish upbringing, and a very different understanding of the history of her land, challenges abound—both socially and academically. But Anequs is smart, determined, and resolved to learn what she needs to help her dragon, even if it means teaching herself. The one thing she refuses to do, however, is become the meek Anglish miss that everyone expects. Anequs and her dragon may be coming of age, but they’re also coming to power, and that brings an important realization: the world needs changing—and they might just be the ones to do it.

She Who Earned Her Wings by Vaela Denarr & Micah Iannandrea