Credit: Courtesy of publishers
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5 min read
To celebrate the power of inclusive storytelling this Pride month, here are some of our favourite LGBTQ+ novels from recent years.
With Pride month in full swing, it’s vital to celebrate the power of inclusive storytelling.
Queer authors and stories spotlighting LGBTQ+ characters have historically been sidelined and marginalised, but the publishing industry – like the world of TV and film – is slowly taking steps to remedy that.
There are few joys like becoming hooked on a seriously addictive plot or rooting for a particularly vivid character. For LGBTQ+ readers, getting absorbed in a story that reflects and explores similar experiences can be brilliantly affirming; for allies, reading these stories can be an act of empathy that broadens perspectives.
We’ve rounded up some of our favourite recent LGBTQ+ novels, from dazzling debuts to award winners, reflecting the multiplicity of the queer experience. It’s not an exhaustive list, of course (we’ve focused on releases from the past few years) but you will find coming-of-age tales, love stories, historical fiction and more to captivate you this Pride month and beyond. Happy reading…
Credit: 4th Estate
Evenings and Weekends follows a group of queer thirty-somethings as they each navigate what they want from their lives. However, everything they know is about to change at a party one Saturday night. With rave reviews, it’s a must-read for summer.
Credit: Booker Prize
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
Douglas Bain’s debut novel, a queer coming-of-age tale set in 80s Glasgow, is one of those stories that sears itself into your memory. As a young boy, Shuggie struggles to fit in, is picked on by children and whispered about as “no’ right” by their parents. His only supporter is his glamorous mother, Agnes, but when she is abandoned by her husband and starts to struggle with addiction, Shuggie must try to care for her. Read it before the TV adaptation, which will be produced by A24, the studio behind Moonlight and Everything Everywhere All At Once.
Shop Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart (Pan Macmillan) at Bookshop, £9.99
Credit: Courtesy of publisher
Detransition Baby by Torrey Peters
Reese is a trans woman living in Brooklyn, who is still grappling with her break-up from her ex, Ames, who has detransitioned after their split. Thinking he is infertile, Ames embarks on an affair with his boss, Katrina, whose unexpected pregnancy might just bring the three of them together as an unconventional family unit. Peters’s book deftly explores big ideas like gender and parenthood, but it’s piercingly funny at the same time.
Shop Detransition Baby by Torrey Peters (Profile) at Bookshop, £8.99
Credit: Courtesy of publishers
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
A letter from a young Vietnamese man, Little Dog, to his mother who cannot read, Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous traces a family history and upbringing touched by war, poverty and prejudice.
Shop On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (Vintage) at Bookshop, £9.99
Credit: Bernardine Evaristo
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
Bernardine Evaristo’s Booker Prize-winning novel is a seriously exhilarating read, which interweaves the stories of 12 characters (11 women and one non-binary person) across different generations, backgrounds and sexualities (and, somehow, makes it look easy).
Shop Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo (Penguin) at Bookshop, £9.99
Credit: Courtesy of publishers
Our Wives Under The Sea
Leah’s work as a marine biologist means she’s often away from her wife, Miri, for long stretches, but when she returns from her latest trip, something is eerily different. Leah is distant, and has picked up some troubling habits – she seems far from the woman that Miri fell for. Shifting effortlessly from romance to horror, Julia Armfield’s novel is a truly unique love story, with a haunting conclusion.
Shop Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield (Pan Macmillan) at Bookshop, £9.99
Credit: Pan Macmillan
Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens
The debut novel from Nell Stevens (you might have already read her non-fiction works Bleaker House or Mrs Gaskell And Me), Briefly, A Delicious Life manages to upturn all the preconceptions you might have about historical fiction. For one thing, it’s narrated by a ghost – Blanca is the spectre of a teenage girl who has been whiling away eternity at a monastery in Majorca for the past three hundred years. When the writer George Sand, a beautiful, androgynous figure dressed in men’s clothes, arrives at the monastery with her children and the composer Frederic Chopin, Blanca falls in unrequited love.
Shop Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens at (Pan Macmillan) at Waterstones, £14.99
Credit: Harper Collins
Mrs. S by K Patrick
K Patrick was named as one of Granta’s best young British novelists for 2023 back in April, before Mrs. S had even arrived in bookshops (what a way to announce your debut’s arrival). Set in the storied corridors of an elite English boarding school, Mrs. S is a slow-burn queer romance, charting a love affair between the school’s new matron and the headmaster’s wife.
Shop Mrs S by K Patrick (Harper Collins) at Bookshop, £16.99
Credit: Dialogue Books
This bold, vivid semi-autobiographical tale tackles sexuality, race, religion and class across the decades, starting out in the 50s, when an ex-boxer moves from Jamaica to Britain with his wife; part of the Wndrush generation, he is seeking a better life. Fast forward to the turn of the millennium and 19-year-old Jesse McCarthy has left the Jehovah’s Witness community of his childhood behind to seek a new life in London.
Shop Rainbow Milk by Paul Mendez (Dialogue) at Bookshop, £9.99
Credit: Pan Macmillan
Paul Takes The Form Of A Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor
Paul is a shapeshifter, with the ability to change gender at will. Andrea Lawlor’s exuberant, witty novel has shades of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, as its protagonist takes on new identities against the backdrop of the early 90s queer scene in the US.
Shop Paul Takes The Form Of A Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor (Pan Macmillan) at Bookshop, £9.99
Credit: Penguin
More inclined to read poetry? 100 Queer Poems has been curated by Mary Jean Chan and Andrew McMillan to share some of the best queer poetry to date. Expect a range of classic and modern works from poets ranging from Wilfred Owen to Carol Ann Duffy.
Images: courtesy of publishers
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