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Bright Lines by Tanwi Nandini Islam

A vibrant debut novel, set in Brooklyn and Bangladesh, follows three young women and one family struggling to make peace with secrets and their past. For as long as she can remember, Ella has longed to feel at home. Orphaned as a child after her parents' murder, and afflicted with hallucinations at dusk, she's always felt more at ease in nature than with people. She traveled from Bangladesh to Brooklyn to live with the Saleems: her uncle Anwar, aunt Hashi, and their beautiful daughter, Charu, her complete opposite. One summer, when Ella returns home from college, she discovers Charu's friend Maya--an Islamic cleric's runaway daughter--asleep in her bedroom. As the girls have a summer of clandestine adventure and sexual awakenings, Anwar--owner of a popular botanical apothecary--has his own secrets, threatening his thirty-year marriage. But when tragedy strikes, the Saleems find themselves blamed. To keep his family from unraveling, Anwar takes them on a fated trip to Bangladesh, to reckon with the past, their extended family, and each other.

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Acid by Sangeetha Sreenivasan

Life is a brief, waking dream-but who casts the spell? Two striking women, Kamala and Shaly, helm an unusual household, fuelled by their intense, tempestuous romance in a rapidly changing Bangalore. Downstairs, Kamala's sons take care of each other in their own way-the twins are bound together by an early accident that paralysed Shiva, making Aadi his brother's caretaker. Beautiful Shaly is the object of more than one person's affections-and she, too, has a complicated past. When Kamala's mother dies, she returns to Kerala-to an ancestral house of horrors which lies next to the cremation grounds in Cochin's outlying reaches: a place which, nevertheless, is home. However, nothing can prepare her for the devastation that ensues in this lyrical, hallucinatory trip of a story. Utterly gripping and powerfully unsettling, Sangeetha Srinivasan's phenomenal debut subverts received ideas about society, individuality and motherhood. Acid unravels the secrets that lurk beneath the surface oif our lives, and marks the entry of a searing new voice in the Indian literary landscape.

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Zara Hossain Is Here by Sabina Khan

Seventeen-year-old Pakistani immigrant, Zara Hossain, has been leading a fairly typical life in Corpus Christi, Texas, since her family moved there for her father to work as a pediatrician. While dealing with the Islamophobia that she faces at school, Zara has to lay low, trying not to stir up any trouble and jeopardize their family's dependent visa status while they await their green card approval, which has been in process for almost nine years. But one day her tormentor, star football player Tyler Benson, takes things too far, leaving a threatening note in her locker, and gets suspended. As an act of revenge against her for speaking out, Tyler and his friends vandalize Zara's house with racist graffiti, leading to a violent crime that puts Zara's entire future at risk. Now she must pay the ultimate price and choose between fighting to stay in the only place she's ever called home or losing the life she loves and everyone in it.

CW/TW: Racism, Islamophobia, Gun violence, Homophobia, Biphobia, Hate crime, Cursing, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs

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The DOS and Donuts of Love by Adiba Jaigirdar

Shireen Malik is still reeling from the breakup with her ex-girlfriend, Chris, when she receives news that she's been accepted as a contestant on a new televised baking competition show. This is Shireen's dream come true! Because winning will not only mean prize money, but it will also bring some much-needed attention to You Drive Me Glazy, her parents' beloved donut shop. Things get complicated, though, because Chris is also a contestant on the show. Then there's the very outgoing Niamh, a fellow contestant who is becoming fast friends with Shireen. Things are heating up between them, and not just in the kitchen. As the competition intensifies, Shireen will have to ignore all these factors and more-- including potential sabotage--if she wants a sweet victory!

CW/TW: Racism, Fatphobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Bullying, Toxic relationship

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Tell Me How You Really Feel by Aminah Mae Safi

The first time Sana Khan asked out a girl-Rachel Recht--it went so badly that she never did it again. Rachel is a film buff and aspiring director, and she's seen Carrie enough times to learn you can never trust cheerleaders (and beautiful people). Rachel was furious that Sana tried to prank her by asking her on a date. But when it comes time for Rachel to cast her senior project, she realizes that there's no more perfect lead than Sana--the girl she's sneered at in the halls for the past three years. And poor Sana--she says yes. She never did really get over that first crush, even if Rachel can barely stand to be in the same room as her. Told in alternative viewpoints and set against the backdrop of Los Angeles in the springtime, when the rainy season rolls in and the Santa Ana's can still blow--these two girls are about to learn that in the city of dreams, anything is possible--even love.

CW/TW: Car accident, Sexism, Panic attacks/disorders, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Addiction, Sexual content

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Rani Choudhury Must Die by Adiba Jaigirdar

Meghna Rahman is tired of constantly being compared to her infuriatingly perfect ex best friend now rival. Everyone, except, at least, her boyfriend Zak, seems to think that Rani Choudhury can do no wrong--even her own parents! It doesn't help that Rani is always accepted into the Young Scientist Exhibition, while Meghna's projects never make it. But this year, she finally has a chance at defeating Rani in something.

Rani Choudhury is tired of feeling like she doesn't have much say in her life--not when it comes to how her mom wants her to look and act or how her parents encourage her to date incredibly charming close family friend Zak. She would much rather focus on her coding, especially once she places high enough at the Young Scientist Exhibition to go on to the European Young Scientist Exhibition.

When Meghna and Rani figure out that Zak has been playing them both, they decide to do something no one would see coming: they team up. They'll compete in the EYSE as partners, creating an app that exposes cheaters and a project that exposes Zak. But with years of silence and pressure between them, working together will prove difficult. Especially once each girl starts to realize that the feelings they had for the other may have been more than platonic… Hey, no one ever said science was easy!

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Babyji by Abha Dawesar

Sexy, surprising, and subversively wise, Babyji is the story of Anamika Sharma, a spirited student growing up in Delhi. At school she is an ace at quantum physics. At home she sneaks off to her parents' scooter garage to read the Kamasutra. Before long she has seduced an elegant older divorcée and the family servant, and has caught the eye of a classmate coveted by all the boys. With the world of adulthood dancing before her, Anamika confronts questions that would test someone twice her age. Ebullient, unfettered, and introducing one of the most charming heroines in contemporary fiction, Babyji is irresistible.

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Imago: A Dystopian Gothic by Matthew Zakharuk

Forsake the world that hates you. Embrace its monster. Tresor Institute accepts only the worthy, and Ada Călinescu is anything but. Intractable, mannish, a child of convicted terrorists, she can at best hope to be overlooked. Yet somehow the Institute accepts her application for transfer. Her ticket to the polar town of Heilung, home of the Institute, arrives free of charge. Her only chance to forge a brighter future.

Except Heilung welcomes Ada with news of a brutal murder. Militiamen stalk the town, keen to fill their arrest quotas-and Ada knows she could make an easy scapegoat. At every turn the bloody conspiracy follows her, from the halls of Tresor to the arms of a stranger she yearns to make hers. What starts as a dalliance risks putting Ada at odds with the Bureau itself. And then expulsion will be the least of her concerns.

CW/TW: Gore, Torture, Body horror

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The Last Girl Scout by Natalie Ironside

The past lies like a nightmare over the world. Two hundred years after the War when atomic fire rained from the skies and burned the world to cinders, human civilization has had time to rebuild within the burned-out husk of Old America. But the old terrors of the past still persist, and while some work to build a better world, others still dream of reclaiming the glory of the Old World. In southern Appalachia, political commissar Magnolia Blackadder is sent on a mission into the irradiated Exclusion Zone of Old DC, where an evil that humanity thought it had vanquished centuries ago is waking up and rebuilding its strength. Along the way, she meets a strange woman with terrible secrets and an unspeakable past, and as they forge a bond and brave the terrors of the wasteland together, she learns that some demons are not so easily exorcised, and that some stones are better left unturned. In this her debut novel, award-winning author Natalie Ironside delivers a new vision of the post-apocalypse, a tale of adventure, terror, love, and that most basic and most powerful of all human desires: Freedom.

CW/TW: Death, Homophobia, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual assault, Transphobia, Alcoholism, Mental illness, Self harm

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An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Aster has little to offer folks in the way of rebuttal when they call her ogre and freak. She's used to the names; she only wishes there was more truth to them. If she were truly a monster, she'd be powerful enough to tear down the walls around her until nothing remains of her world. Aster lives in the lowdeck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vessel organized much like the antebellum South. For generations, Matilda has ferried the last of humanity to a mythical Promised Land. On its way, the ship's leaders have imposed harsh moral restrictions and deep indignities on dark-skinned sharecroppers like Aster. Embroiled in a grudge with a brutal overseer, Aster learns there may be a way to improve her lot--if she's willing to sow the seeds of civil war.

CW/TW: Racism, Violence, Slavery, Sexual assault, Rape, Sexual violence, Child death, Medical content

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Junker Seven by Olive J. Kelley

A romantic, queer sci-fi epic about changing the galaxy, one girl at a time. Castor Quasar is a junker- a bounty hunter making a living off of collecting and selling valuable scrap. They live a quiet life, bouncing from job to job and not worrying about the brewing galactic rebellion.

Except, when they get a job offer for an irresistible amount of money, they find themself embroiled much deeper than expected. Their task? To smuggle transgender activist Juno Marcus across the galaxy under the watchful eye of the Intergalactic Police Force and a propaganda-informed galaxy. It's too dangerous to accept, but too valuable to refuse, and it doesn't help that Juno herself is charming and beautiful. Agreeing drags Cas into a whirlwind race against those who want Juno dead to make it across the galaxy to safety, risking it all for a cause they can't- or won't- believe in.

CW/TW: Transphobia, Gun violence, Violence, Sexual content, Ableism, Blood, Child death, Deadnaming, Homophobia

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Little Blue Encyclopedia: (For Vivian) by Hazel Jane Plante

The playful and poignant novel Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian) sifts through a queer trans woman's unrequited love for her straight trans friend who died. A queer love letter steeped in desire, grief, and delight, the story is interspersed with encyclopedia entries about a fictional TV show set on an isolated island.

The experimental form functions at once as a manual for how pop culture can help soothe and mend us and as an exploration of oft-overlooked sources of pleasure, including karaoke, birding, and butt toys. Ultimately, Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian) reveals with glorious detail and emotional nuance the woman the narrator loved, why she loved her, and the depths of what she has lost.

CW/TW: Grief, Death, Transphobia, Drug use, Self harm, Sexual content, Deadnaming, Racism, Suicidal thoughts

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Heart Stopper by R. J. Samuel

Dr. PRIYA JOSEPH is an Irish-Indian coder working at a new pacemaker clinic in Galway, a small city on the west coast of Ireland that is a research and manufacturing hub within the multi-billion-dollar medical devices industry. Priya's life is already off the rails; in fact, the train has disappeared screaming into a ravine when, after a night out that she does not remember apart from a vague memory of being with a mysterious woman, she wakes up in an unfamiliar apartment and finds the dead body of her boss, American cardiologist and inventor, Dr Daniel Fairer III.

Priya is dragged by his family into an investigation of Daniel's death. As they uncover secrets about the groundbreaking pacemaker technology that Daniel and his research partners developed and the wireless controllers that communicate with the implanted pacemakers, their investigation threatens a multi-million dollar enterprise. Priya learns that she has unwittingly been involved in research that could have consequences far beyond the small city where she has been trying to hide from her life. She discovers that her past is not what she thought it was and now that she actually wants a future, she may not survive long enough as she is being pursued her and her pursuers will do whatever it takes to complete their mission but time is running out. And they have a problem. Which they need Priya to solve.

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Little Fish by Casey Plett

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.

CW/TW: Transphobia, Alcoholism, Sexual assault, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Death, Deadnaming

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puts yuri rapunzel on your dashboard

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Drowned by men. Saved by a monster.

The last place Alexandra Bailey expects her routine life of domestic journalism to lead is being sucked into icy floodwaters below New York City with a knife in her ribs. Headlines like this happen to other people, but it’s real, and she knows she’s dead. Which makes the circumstances of her survival as impossible as the woman who drags her from the water. 

Saved but hardly safe, Alex wakes in the Underground, a world of misfits and monsters thriving below the streets. It’s a journalism goldmine. One Alex can’t resist digging into after learning her beastly savior is Leanna Farrow, adopted daughter of an infamous and “presumed dead” scientist. But Alex’s curiosity, coupled with her rapidly developing feelings for Leanna, put both women in danger when Alex’s inquiries pique the interest of a powerful family with bloody secrets connected to the Underground. 

If Alex wants to unravel the secrets of the world below she’ll have to walk the razor’s edge, but some mysteries are better left buried.

🕮 Over 1700 copies sold  🔖 600k pages read on KU ⭐ 200+ Amazon reviews 🏆 2 Awards 🎖️ 4-time Indie Ink Award Finalist 🔥 One hell of a #sapphic read

 So what are you waiting for?

Undergrounder by J.E. Glass

Amazon Link

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Every Speculative Fiction Book I Read This Year Featuring Queer Women, the 2023 Edition

Ask me if you want to know which ones I liked the most!