Calling all lovers of queer sci-fi/fantasy/horror/romance!
We are happy to promote our Be Gay Read Books Book Club. We meet virtually the last Wednesday of every month (or sometimes the first Tuesday) to talk about the Book Club pick of the month, and any other great books we've been reading lately.
If you're interested in virtually yelling about books with other genre fic readers, click the button below to sign up for our secret Zoom links! (No Zoom bombing allowed!)
Once you've entered your email, you're good to go. Scroll through our book club picks, preorder away, and happy reading!
May Pick
June Pick
July Pick
August Pick
September Pick
October Pick
November Pick
December Book Club Pick
July 2021 Book Club Pick
A princess who is wrongfully imprisoned and a maid hiding a powerful secret join forces against the patriarchy in this Southeast-Asian inspired epic fantasy. The Jasmine Throne has a unique magic system, incredible world building, and queer romance!
"It’s SO good! I loved the Empire of Sand world so much and my expectations were high for this book. The world-building is so intricate and the characters complex and relatable. I can’t wait for the next one!?" - Julie
August 2021 Book Club Pick
What would you sacrifice for your own ambition?
Through dual POV narratives, this book tells the stories of Zhu and Ouyang, two survivors who suffered tragic losses and ruthlessly clawed their way into positions of power through manipulation and bloodshed. When they are set against each other as generals of rival armies, the threads of fate that bind them are set ablaze with their burning for power and their lives will never be the same.
This enthralling historical epic with small fantasy elements that swept me from burning monastery to burning battlefield crushed my open heart in its brutal searing palms and I felt blessed to be present for the entire journey. Heartbreaking, lovely, bloody, and burns with a radiance of ten thousand suns. An unmissable historical fantasy debut! -Jess
September 2021 Book Club Pick
In Locus and British Fantasy Award nominee Cassandra Khaw’s first novel, a crew of diminished former criminals get back together to solve the mystery of their last, disastrous mission. But the universe’s highly-evolved AI has its own opposing agenda... and will do whatever it takes to keep humans from ever controlling them again.
Maya has died and been resurrected into countless cyborg bodies through the years of a long, dangerous career with the infamous Dirty Dozen, the most storied crew of criminals in the galaxy, at least before their untimely and gruesome demise. Decades later, she and her diverse team of broken, diminished outlaws must get back together to solve the mystery of their last, disastrous mission and to rescue a missing and much-changed comrade . . . but they’re not the only ones in pursuit of the secret at the heart of the planet Dimmuborgir.
The highly evolved AI of the galaxy have their own agenda and will do whatever it takes to keep humanity from ever regaining control. As Maya and her comrades spiral closer to uncovering the AIs’ vast conspiracy, this band of violent women—half-clone and half-machine—must battle their own traumas and a universe of sapient ageships who want them dead, in order to settle their affairs once and for all.
October 2021 Book Club Pick
The Sound and The Fury meets Fast and Furious in this queer gothic horror from Lee Mandelo that made me laugh out loud, cry (a lot), and pace the room clutching the book to my chest and talking to myself because I had so many feelings about it. Andrew and Eddie have always been unnaturally close for best friends, but after Eddie dies and Andrew essentially inherits his life, he has to learn to function alone. Eddie's death raises more questions than it answers, though, and Andrew's investigation will unearth deeper truths than he bargained for.
- Lizy
November Book Club Pick
A moving portrait on grief and acceptance, Under the Whispering Door is the perfect book for people who need to be reminded it’s ok not to be ok.
Wallace Price lived a life of wealth and career success, but it’s only after he dies that he truly learns how to live with the help of his found family. He also learns to embrace the unknown when he starts to fall in love with the ferry man who’s supposed to help him ultimately cross to the other side.
Full of heart humor and emotion, this book comforted me and held me in my feelings in a way other books just don’t. It’s like TJ Klune can see humanity’s pain and suffering and wants all of us to know we don’t have to face it alone, which is so powerful and beautiful.
This book will be my go to comfort read whenever life throws big hurdles my way next. - Jess
December Book Club Pick
This lyrical, delightful, queer SF novel is Good Omens with a Faustian bargain.
Shizuka Satomi is a brilliant, cursed violinist who must win her soul back from damnation. To do this, she must take seven prodigies as students, then entice each to trade their soul for fame. She has already delivered six.
However, rather than the usual pampered genius, the seventh, Katrina Nguyen, is a young transgender runaway with a wild talent, who is fleeing an abusive home.
Meanwhile, Lan Tran, a starship captain, has crossed the galaxy with her family to make a new life running a local donut shop. But though she saved them from a galactic war, nothing can stop the end of existence itself.
Faustian bargain meets space opera in this genre-bending novel of three vastly different women. Bombarded by catastrophe, misunderstanding, and fate, each has come to San Gabriel Valley, just outside of Los Angeles, to escape their fates, find their voices, and save the universe.
January Book Club Pick
Brimming with magic, romance, and mystery, A Marvellous Light is simply marvelous. Robin is a cheery, warm, nonmagical person who is thrust into a world of impossible magic and hair-raising danger when he is accidentally assigned to work in a magical bureau. He is partnered with Edwin, a cold, enigmatic magician who seemingly wants nothing to do with Robin or the liability he presents. But when Robin and Edwin encounter a terrifying curse, a mysterious fog faced man, a murderous maze, a sentient house pulsing with ancient magic, and powerful contract magic that would be deadly in the wrong hands, they realize that the only way to survive is to stick together.
This historical fantasy/romance was equal parts gripping, sexy, and thrilling, and had me flipping pages for sleepless night after sleepless night. I am infatuated with Robin and Edwin and can't wait to see where Freya Marske takes them next!-Jess
FEBRUARY BOOK CLUB PICK
What will our near future be like if we continue destroying the earth and failing to fight racial and socioeconomic injustice? This is another brilliant, riveting, timely, and thought-provoking novel from the author of RIOT BABY.
March Book Club Pick
The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall of China. It doesn’t matter that the girls die from the mental strain.
When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it’s to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister’s death. But when she gets her vengeance, it becomes clear that she is an Iron Widow, a rare kind of female pilot who can sacrifice males to power up Chrysalises instead.
To tame her frightening yet valuable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest male pilot in Huaxia, yet feared and ostracized for killing his father and brothers. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will take over instead, then leverage their combined strength to force her society to stop failing its women and girls. Or die trying.
APRIL BOOK CLUB PICK
MAY PICK
June Book Club Pick
Reading this book was like kissing lips dripping with honey and finding out they were coated with venom instead. This is the story of the rise of the Siren Queen, but this is also about selling pieces of yourself for immortality, fame, success, and worship.
With intoxicating and cutting prose, Nghi Vo dragged me to a dangerously seductive Hollywood underworld ripe with magic, where men in power make deals with demons and become monsters, where sacrificing yourself is a small price to pay for fame, and where rising stars either fall and fuel the magic, or become monstrous themselves. It felt me gasping for air.
July Book Club Pick
August Book Club Pick
September Book Club Pick
October Book Club Pick
November Book Club Pick
December Book Club Pick
January Pick
February Book Club Pick
April Pick
March Pick