For Pride, we added a whole new section to the Read Indie Fantasy blog – a collection of LGBTQIA+ books featuring queer and transgender self-published and small press fantasy, sci-fi, and horror authors, including anthologies! We’ve been slowly building this collection and now have over two hundred books for you to browse, but we’re always looking for more. If you’re an author with an eligible book, then feel free to submit your book!
Of course, queer and trans books aren’t just for Pride, so you’ll find us promoting our collection the whole year round. If you’re looking to read more diverse books, then our collection is a great place to start. I’ve personally been excited to discover new books and new authors I hadn’t come across before, all from your generous submissions!
To celebrate the new collection, here are ten books from ten authors that are new to me and who caught my eye within the collection. This is just a small sample of what you can find, so get perusing and find your perfect read!
A Ballad for Slayers & Monsters by Rita A. Rubin
Kas of Veldenier is a Slayer, a travelling monster hunter for hire.
Claudia of Trulio is half-human, half-vampyric. Half monster.
They should be nothing more than enemies. But when the long-lost remnant of the dragon Ombral turns up, and with it the possibility of unleashing the dragons to wreak havoc on Vil Tresar as they did long ago, Kas and Claudia’s paths converge. Through a shared desire to keep the dragons from returning, they embark on a quest to see the remnant destroyed. Along the way, they will encounter fearsome monsters as well as a burgeoning desire for each other. Can a monster and a monster slayer truly find love together?
Pursuing them from the shadows is Serisa, a vampyric who wishes to see the world burn. And she will need the remnant to make that wish a reality…
Add A Ballad for Slayers & Monsters to your Goodreads
Chai and Cat-Tales by Lynn Strong
Bask in a sunbeam with three cozy fantasy novellas of the Catsprowl, a busy neighborhood brimming with cats and cat-goddesses, book-keepers and bath-houses, piping hot chai, and pouncing kittens’ mischief.
This volume includes the novellas The Prince of Her Dreams, Priye, and The Potter’s Dream under one cover.
The Prince of Her Dreams Najra has three dreams in her First, catch the attention of a prince. (Specifically, the God-Emperor’s bookish youngest brother.) Next, get him to hire her to assist with his research in the marvelous Archives in Tel-Bastet. And then, at last, read ALL the books.
Marrying the prince has never been in the plan. Najra has never lusted for anything but knowledge.
Unfortunately, the prince has dreams as well. Because he’s also a prophet who foresees trouble coming. Between her heretical geometries and her cursed spellbook, Najra has to admit that his dreams of trouble have her pegged.
Now what is she supposed to do with a matchmaking busybody of an Archivist pushing them together, an angry catfolk bodyguard pulling them apart, and a sweet, anxious prophet-prince who won’t even tell her what he wants?
What does a happy ending look like for a pair of mismatched dreamers who both love learning best of all?
For the asexual folks and the questioning folks who’ve wanted a story where your own desires are respected and valued, this one is for you. For the Witches vs. Patriarchy crew, this one is for you too.
Priye For a small alley-kitten, human words make a tricky tangle of misunderstandings that bite back. Purring and hissing and yowling are much more clear.
A human named her Priye, though, and he taught her that it means someone who is darling, someone who is treasured.
Growing up in the nooks between three cultures is hard, but Priye wants to make her own way. And she wants to repay the kind people who feed small hungry kittens. But it’s not always easy to hunt when everyone else is bigger and stronger and faster.
The humans who named her like soap and water entirely too much. But maybe they have a point about sharing things instead of hunting things?
(They absolutely do not have a point about soap, though. Soap is the most horrible thing ever.)
For the neurospicy folks who struggle with the words people expect, this one is for you. For the disabled folks and those who need to hear that your value isn’t in your work output, this one is for you too.
The Potter’s Dream Usually, the Temple of Bastet teems with cats and catfolk and cat-priestesses and cat-goddesses. It is not supposed to teem with mice. But kind-hearted priest Shai Madhur isn’t very good at denying a nourishing meal to anybody… not even the mice.
He needs a better mouse-catcher. But first, he needs to know where the shrine’s cauldrons have gone. Because a potter has come to Shai Madhur’s temple shrine, and the poor man looks hungry.
What kind of priest can Shai Madhur be if he can’t feed someone a nourishing meal? When he’s sworn his life to serving others, and suddenly he has nothing at all to give, what does he have left? Sermons of acceptance are all well and good, but they don’t fill an empty stomach.
And there’s something very strange about the potter.
Add Chai and Cat-Tales to your Goodreads
Magica Riot by Kara Buchanan
The last night of Claire Ryland’s old life in the closet was pretty normal, aside from the alley fight with interdimensional monsters. Fortunately, the drummer of her favorite local band transformed into a magical girl and saved her.
Then Claire became a magical girl as well. Things got a little complicated after that.
Now Claire is juggling two new living as a girl and as a member of Portland’s super-secret supernatural defense squad, the hard-rocking magical girls known as … Magica Riot!
The story of a young transgender woman who’s discovering herself at the same time she’s learning how to be a magical girl, Magica Riot is an action-filled musical adventure inspired by classic magical girl anime, tokusatsu shows, and the vibe of the American Pacific Northwest. Featuring a cast of LGBTQ+ magical girls, mysterious monsters, and villains that are more than they appear to be, Magica Riot shows that finding your true self is the first step toward saving the world.
The debut work in the Maidensong Magica universe of magical girl stories!
Add Magica Riot to your Goodreads
Mercy by Ian Haramaki
A PRIEST AND HIS ANGEL…
Father Ilya Pavlovich Sokolovis a lonely priest and pariah of his small town. Tasked with killing an injured monster in the woods, Ilya is certain of his death. Instead, he heals the monster’s injury and lifts its curse, revealing a handsome, memory-less man.
Cocksure Danya is a man lost in an unfamiliar world. He struggles to recall his past life, flashes returning as he and Ilya grow closer. Soon, his appearance begins to change once more, but not into a beast — instead, Danya grows into something just like the Sun that Ilya has worshiped all his life.
With complicated pasts between them, the two must work together to deal with the corruption of Ilya’s own church, as well as their blooming feelings for one another.
Name Her Holy by Aubrey Ennis
Where the weave between worlds thins, a long buried shadow rises from its grave among the stars and seeks vengeance on the Vale.
A Herald has been named to mark its ascension— a woman resurrected by The Seeker’s hand and placed in the pious care of the Vigil Order. A once disgraced daughter of her noble house, Kye Liatris is crowned a living saint, one tasked with stopping the coming cataclysm. Kye has lived on borrowed time since, aiding the Vigil while quietly enduring worsening ailments.
When a strange blight brings death to the valley of Jude Arendell’s home village, she finds herself swept up in the Vigil’s fight. But in taking up her mother’s sword, Jude learns that her family legacy was not as it seemed.
As stars extinguish and the threads that bind the Vale swiftly unravel, so do the long trusted stories of history past. Now Kye and Jude must decide whether to follow their divine callings or scorn the gods and place their trust in each other.
Add Name Her Holy to your Goodreads
Synthetic Sea by Franklyn S. Newton
In the distant future of planet cracking , VR distraction, and corporate greed, grieving private detective Ryoma LeBeau takes what seems to be a simple job on the opulent casino planetoid of Scylla.
Captivated by a chance meeting with a Synth musician, Guin, he finds himself drawn to the smoky anachronistic lounge bar where they perform, weaving their music around his heart.
It seems there’s a lot more to both Guin and to this case and Ryoma can’t help but pull at the threads of mystery leading him to the depths of conspiracy and memory.
Add Synthetic Sea to your Goodreads
This is How Immortals Die by Nicole Hidalgo
Love kills.
Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, unleashed a life-changing apocalypse that reshaped the world and cursed humankind with immortality. Now injury, old age, and death mean nothing. Until the Soul connects with its Twin. Once true Love is found, immortality is lost.
The Priestesses of Aphrodite exist to hunt down and send those blessed souls to Aphrodite’s Golden Palace in the afterlife. They are devout and efficient… if only a little blinded by the lustre of gold and the taste of blood.
Carys Epistro’phia, an infamous Priestess, will go to great lengths to put her hands on a chest with fifty thousand gold coins. Including turning a blind eye to Twin Souls who rule over an isolated island and are willing to hire her unique skills to bring their daughter back home. Princess Ishana, a fragile and naive girl who has never died before, is Carys’ key to the treasure… as long as she arrives home with her soul intact.
But in this sacrilegious contract, not everything is as it seems, and sometimes the heart has its own schemes.
Add This is How Immortals Die to your Goodreads
Under Grounder by J.E. Glass
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. 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 connections to the Underground’s origins.
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.
Add Under Grounder to your Goodreads
Wild Flowers, Electric Bears by Alina Leonova
Two species of humans — one technologically advanced and one living in nature — have coexisted peacefully on their home planet for over a century. But when an ancient treaty is breached, devastation follows.
Balika has always felt like an outsider. When tragedy strikes, she is left without a reason to remain with her tribe. Looking for a place where she can belong, she leaves the familiar forest and ventures into the desert to bond with a mythical animal through music. But her forgotten life calls her back when she discovers an unexpected threat to her land.
Sammah works long hours as an experience developer and returns to his tiny apartment alone. He suffers from anxiety and spends most of his time in the virtual world. He opens up to a friendship with a colleague, but just when things start to look up, he gets trapped in a strange and dangerous affair. He might either lose himself, or the only person he truly cares about.
Struggling to make the right choices, they get pulled into a brewing disaster. Their worlds are about to collide, and their paths are fated to cross. Caught on different sides of the conflict, Balika and Sammah take up the fight in their own ways. If they want to save what they love most, they must risk everything. Will that be enough?
Add Wild Flowers Electric Bears to your Goodreads
You Look Lost, Pup by Rob MacWolf
Early fall. A werewolf pack, in procession, on the highway. From campground to crossroad, from state line to state park, from motel to mountain pass to mourning they chase not just their grief, but a question: how did they each get there, and who will bring them home? Because each looks in the mirror and says…
And then, late spring. A lone wanderer, with more hope than is wise and less time than he knows, carrying what he believes to be good news but which is really a question, saying to all who will listen…
At last, high summer. A young werewolf feels, with all the desperation of youth, that he’s waited all his life to find the place he belongs, if only he can find the right person to say to him…
And you, as well, who read this now.
You look lost, pup.
Add You Look Lost, Pup to your Storygraph
Do any of these books sound like your kind of read? Visit our LGBTQIA+ Book Collection to find the perfect book for you!
