Showing titles in Genre Fiction

Frances had been picturing her lodgers in purely mercenary terms - as something like two great waddling shillings. But this, she thought, was what it really meant to have paying guests: this odd, unintimate proximity, this rather peeled-back moment, where the only thing between herself and a naked Mrs Barber was a few feet of kitchen and a thin scullery door. An image sprang into her head: that round flesh, crimsoning in the heat.

Arizona started a new life when his birth daddy, Gaston Bondurant, found him living with a foster family and facing criminal charges for assaulting his abusive stepfather. Plucked from the squalor of rural Acadiana, Arizona was thrust into New Orleans high society and an elite New England boarding school. Home for the summer, Arizona sets out to find his younger brothers and sister, who were scattered to different places when their family was torn apart. Along the way, he reunites with his 10th grade sweetheart, Preston Montclair, who still holds a torch for him.

A psychological and dramatic tour de force from beloved international best-seller Sarah Waters. The year is 1922, and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned, the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. In South London, in a large silent house now bereft of brothers, husband, and even servants, life is about to be transformed, as Mrs Wray and her daughter Frances are obliged to take in lodgers. With the arrival of Lilian and Leonard Barber, the routines of the house and the lives of its inhabitants will be shaken up in unexpected ways.

In 1986, thirteen-year-old Jeb Kleber vanished during his small town’s Fourth of July fireworks. His mysterious disappearance left his first love, Sammy Blake, grieving for years. Flash forward to present day. A now middle-aged Sam Blake has a comfortable and predictable life with his husband Marc in Chicago. All that changes when a stranger arrives at Sam’s door, claiming to be the missing Jeb Kleber.

HC3, the Hightower Course Correction Center, “recruits” LGBTQ+ people to participate in a program that will help them get the jobs they need to survive in the dystopic conditions of AMCONS City, center of a post-American territory run by a fascistic military. All they have to do is adopt cisgender, heterosexual identities. Ash, who is black, non-binary, and asexual, meets Aubrey, a white, trans, gay man, at a job fair where they face rejection after rejection… until they get recruited.

Nikolas Mikkelsen could make a very long list of unpleasant things he's endured in his life. Then order it from "nearly killed me" to "extremely horrific and don't want to do again". And what does it say about his 45 years, that being hit by a tsunami would be considerably way down on this list? But nothing - not torture, imprisonment, or starvation - has prepared him for what he now has to endure for Ben Rider's sake - attendance on a residential gay-therapy course.

Until recently, Julia hadn’t had sex in three years. But now: a one-night stand is accusing her of breaking his penis; a sexually confident lesbian is making eyes at her over confrontational modern art; and she’s wondering whether trimming her pubes makes her a bad feminist. Julia’s about to learn that she’s been looking for love - and satisfaction - in all the wrong places.... Frank, filthy and very, very funny, In at the Deep End is a brilliant debut from a major new talent. #ImInAtTheDeepEnd

Katie Brandt was like no woman Shay had ever met. She was brilliant, funny, gorgeous, exciting, sexy as hell, and she made Shay’s blood boil. She made Shay feel things she’d never felt before. Katie’s estranged husband described her as, “Not your run-of-the-mill genius, but universe-bending genius. Her mind works in mysterious ways. Ways we can’t fathom or comprehend. Ways that are sometimes violent and dangerous - sometimes self-destructive. She borders on insanity.”

Newlywed Rosie has grown disenchanted with NYC. Inspired by Instagram ads, she starts thirsting for a rural life upstate—one full of beauty and authenticity. She just needs to convince her tech-bro husband, Jordan, of her vision for the future. Willing to do anything for Rosie’s happiness, Jordan signs on, and they offer—well above asking price—on a beautiful, historic fixer-upper in the Hudson Valley. But when Jordan suddenly loses his job, the couple is forced to rent out the property’s dilapidated outbuilding. There’s no heat, it’s overrun with mold, and nothing works.

Ben usually overlooks Nikolas' occasionally jarring dissonance. Not this time. A deep rift, a terrible lie, separates them. Eleven thousand miles from Nikolas, in New Zealand, it's bitter winter as Ben films the tragic story of a post-apocalyptic gladiator, a victim of his own personal darkness. But on receiving a death threat, Ben suspects the truth of actor Oliver Whitestone's suicide. Someone doesn't want this movie made.

When Harriet moves to Bentwood to teach gifted students, her life doesn't go as planned. Between her haunted rental and her oddball neighbor, Lucy—who literally won't go away—Harriet is left questioning her own sanity. The beautiful Kelsey, whom she meets at the farmers market, offers the distraction she needs. Well, that, and the town's Multi-Level Marketing (MLM)—or pyramid-scheme.

At 19, almost 20, Ron Bancroft is newly out as transgender and finds himself adrift: kicked out by his family, jilted by his girlfriend, and unable to afford to return to college in the fall. So he heads out to Wyoming for a new start, a chance to prove that - even though he was raised as a girl, even though everyone in Boston thinks of him as transgender - he can live as a man. A real man. In Wyoming, he finds what he was looking for: rugged terrain, wranglers, and a clean slate. He also stumbles into a world more dangerous than he imagined, one of bigotry and violence.

A nonbinary writer on the eve of top surgery enters into a risky affair during the height of COVID. A lesbian couple enlists a close friend as a sperm donor, plying him with a potent cocktail. A lonely office worker struggling with their gender identity chaperones their nephew to a trans YouTube convention. And in the depths of a Midwestern winter, a sex-addicted librarian relies on her pet ferrets to help resist a relapse at a wild college fair. Capturing both the dark and lovable sides of the human experience, Rainbow Rainbow establishes Lydia Conklin as a fearless new voice.

By the time Lou turns eighteen, modeling agents across Portland have scouted her for her striking androgynous look. Lou has no interest in fashion or being in the spotlight. She prefers to take photographs, especially of Ivy, her close friend and secret crush. But when a hike ends in a tragic accident, Lou finds herself lost and ridden with guilt. Determined to find a purpose, Lou moves to New York and steps into the dizzying world of international fashion shows, haute couture, and editorial shoots.

When sword-for-hire Teodoro Ciéza de Vivar accepts a commission to "rescue" Lord Christian Blackwood from unsuitable influences, he has no idea he's landed himself in the middle of a plot to assassinate King Philip IV of Spain and blame the English ambassador for the deed. Nor does he expect the spoiled child he's sent to retrieve to be a handsome, engaging young man.

Ellen, a deeply closeted lesbian spends all her time in solitude, restoring films at a failing archive in 1980s New York City. When a group of German academics present her with a print of an infamous exploitation film believed to have been destroyed during the Holocaust, Ellen finds herself forced to confront her own repressed sexuality. And the more she works on the restoration, the more obsessed she becomes with its depictions of occult practices and queer debauchery.

The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. Nikolas has always liked art. You'd have thought that Ben and Nikolas would have learned that their romantic holidays inevitably end up as disasters. A short break on the polar ice sees them trapped in a nightmare of murder and deceit. Neither of them, however, foresees the long-term impact that endless winter has on their relationship. They return with a metaphorical darkness that threatens everything they have created together.

Introvert Gina Mulley is determined to become a tattoo artist, and to find somewhere she belongs in her conventional Long Island town. But this is 1985, when tattooing is still a gritty, male-dominated fringe culture, and Gina’s whimsical style is far from the norm. Luck is on her side: Gina’s older brother Dominic owns a tattoo shop, and he reluctantly grants her one year to prove herself.

Fueled by tomato sandwiches and green milkshakes, and obsessed with cars, Philbet struggles with life and love as a gay boy in rural Georgia. He’s happiest when helping Grandaddy dig potatoes from the vegetable garden that connects their houses. But Philbet’s world is shattered and his resilience shaken by events that crush his innocence and sense of security; expose his misshapen chest skillfully hidden behind shirts Mama makes at home; and convince him that he’s not fit to be loved by Knox, the older boy he idolizes to distraction.

When Darby left Oak Falls for college in NYC, all he wanted was to get as far away as possible, find a community where he could start fresh—and finally forget about his childhood best friend Michael, and just how painfully their friendship ended. Now, about to turn thirty, Darby suddenly finds himself unemployed. With no better alternative, and questioning where he really belongs, he moves back to his hometown. But the changes in Oak Falls—the planned community with his mother’s new town home, the trendy coffee shop—make him feel off balance. And Michael’s still here.