Alexandra's Staff Picks

For my LGTBQ+ book lists, search "LGBTQ YA," "LGBTQ Children's," "Queer Nonfiction," and/or "Queer Books I Have Read."

Showing 1 - 20 of 26  There are a total of 146 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "Babel"
Star rating for Babel
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
"From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire. Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal. 1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious...
Book cover for "Circe"
Star rating for Circe
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
Follows Circe, the banished witch daughter of Helios, as she hones her powers and interacts with famous mythological beings before a conflict with one of the most vengeful Olympians forces her to choose between the worlds of the gods and mortals.
Book cover for "The city of brass"
Star rating for The city of brass
Series:
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
A "historical fantasy in which a young con artist in eighteenth century Cairo discovers she's the last descendant of a powerful family of djinn healers. With the help of an outcast immortal warrior and a rebellious prince, she must claim her magical birthright in order to prevent a war that threatens to destroy the entire djinn kingdom"--
Book cover for "A court of thorns and roses"
Star rating for A court of thorns and roses
Series:
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
"Dragged to a treacherous magical land she only knows about from stories, Feyre discovers that her captor is not an animal, but Tamlin, a High Lord of the faeries. As her feelings toward him transform from hostility to a fiery passion, the threats against the faerie lands grow. Feyre must fight to break an ancient curse, or she will lose Tamlin forever"--
Book cover for "Deathless"
Star rating for Deathless
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
Set in an alternate version of St. Petersburg in the first half of the twentieth century, Marya Morevna, a clever child of the revolution, is transformed into the beautiful bride of Koschei the Deathless, a menacing overlord.
Book cover for "Emily Wilde's encyclopaedia of faeries"
Star rating for Emily Wilde's encyclopaedia of faeries
Series:
Emily Wilde volume 1.
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Description:
"In the early 1900s, a curmudgeonly professor journeys to a small town to study faerie folklore, where she discovers dark fae magic, friendship, and love. Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is good at many things: She is the foremost expert on dryadology, the study of faeries. She is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world's first encylopedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people. She could never make small...
Book cover for "The Empress of Salt and Fortune"
Star rating for The Empress of Salt and Fortune
Author:
Series:
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Book cover for "The faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home"
Star rating for The faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"In the town of Night Vale, there's a faceless old woman who secretly lives in everyone's home, but no one knows how she got there or where she came from--until now. Told in a series of eerie flashbacks, the story of The Faceless Old Woman goes back centuries to reveal an initially blissful and then tragic childhood on a Mediterranean estate in the early nineteenth century, her rise in the criminal underworld of Europe, a nautical adventure with a...
Book cover for "Gideon the ninth"
Star rating for Gideon the ninth
Author:
Series:
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
The Emperor needs necromancers. The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman. Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead nonsense. Tamsyn Muir's Gideon the Ninth, first in The Locked Tomb Trilogy, unveils a solar system of swordplay, cut-throat politics, and lesbian necromancers. Her characters leap off the page, as skillfully animated as arcane revenants. The result is a heart-pounding epic science fantasy. Brought up by unfriendly,...
Book cover for "The greyfriar"
Star rating for The greyfriar
Series:
Vampire Empire volume 1.
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
In 1870, vampires took over the northern regions of the world, forcing the surviving humans to flee to the southern hemisphere. Now the year is 2020 and Princess Adele, a human, is on the verge of coming to power just as a final war with the vampires is approaching.
Book cover for "The house in the cerulean sea"
Star rating for The house in the cerulean sea
Author:
Series:
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
"A magical island. A dangerous task. A burning secret. Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages. When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he's given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel...
Book cover for "In deeper waters"
Star rating for In deeper waters
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
Sixteen-year-old Prince Tal is on his long-awaited coming-of-age tour when he meets the intriguing and roguish Athlen, and when he is kidnapped by pirates, Athlen is his only hope of escape.
Book cover for "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell"
Star rating for Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
Epic tale of nineteenth-century England and the two very different magicians who, as teacher and pupil and then as rivals, emerge to change its history.
Book cover for "A marvellous light"
Star rating for A marvellous light
Series:
Last binding volume 1.
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
"Red White & Royal Blue meets Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell in debut author Freya Marske's A Marvellous Light, featuring an Edwardian England full of magic, contracts, and conspiracies. Robin Blyth has more than enough bother in his life. He's struggling to be a good older brother, a responsible employer, and the harried baronet of a seat gutted by his late parents' excesses. When an administrative mistake sees him named the civil service liaison...
Book cover for "The night circus"
Star rating for The night circus
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Description:
Waging a fierce competition for which they have trained since childhood, circus magicians Celia and Marco unexpectedly fall in love with each other and share a fantastical romance that manifests in fateful ways.
Book cover for "Piranesi"
Star rating for Piranesi
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
"From the ... author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, an intoxicating, hypnotic new novel set in a dreamlike alternative reality. Piranesi's house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi...
Book cover for "The princess and the grilled cheese sandwich"
Star rating for The princess and the grilled cheese sandwich
Author:
Average Rating:
4.8 stars
Description:
"Cam disguises herself as a man to inherit her father's money and estate, and though she tries to keep a low profile, she ends up falling for Crown Princess Brie"--
Book cover for "Running close to the wind"
Star rating for Running close to the wind
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Avra Helvaçi, former field agent of the Arasti Ministry of Intelligence, has accidentally stolen the single most expensive secret in the world--and the only place to flee with a secret that big is the open sea. To find a buyer with deep enough pockets, Avra must ask for help from his on-again, off-again ex, the pirate Captain Teveri az-Haffar. They are far from happy to see him, but together, they hatch a plan: take the information to the isolated...
Book cover for "Spinning silver"
Star rating for Spinning silver
Author:
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
"Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father is not a very good one. Free to lend and reluctant to collect, he has left his family on the edge of poverty--until Miryem intercedes. Hardening her heart, she sets out to retrieve what is owed, and soon gains a reputation for being able to turn silver into gold. But when an ill-advised boast brings her to the attention of the cold creatures who haunt the wood, nothing will...
Book cover for "The starless sea"
Star rating for The starless sea
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
"Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a rare book hidden in the stacks. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues--a bee, a key, and a sword--that lead him...