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 39  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 "Beach read"
Star rating for Beach read
Author:
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
"A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters. Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast. They're polar opposites. In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next...
Book cover for "Boyfriend material"
Star rating for Boyfriend material
Series:
Material volume 1.
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Description:
"Wanted: One (fake) boyfriend Practically perfect in every way Luc O'Donnell is tangentially-and reluctantly-famous. His rock star parents split when he was young, and the father he's never met spent the next twenty years cruising in and out of rehab. Now that his dad's making a comeback, Luc's back in the public eye, and one compromising photo is enough to ruin everything. To clean up his image, Luc has to find a nice, normal relationship...and Oliver...
Book cover for "The bride test"
Star rating for The bride test
Author:
Series:
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Description:
"Khai Diep has no feelings. Well, he feels irritation when people move his things or contentment when ledgers balance down to the penny, but he doesn't experience big, important emotions like love and grief. Rather than believing he processes emotions differently due to being autistic, he concludes that he's defective and decides to avoid romantic relationships. So his mother, driven to desperation, takes matters into her own hands and returns to...
Book cover for "The chosen"
Star rating for The chosen
Author:
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
A baseball game between Jewish schools is the catalyst that starts a bitter rivalry between two boys and their fathers.
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 "Daisy Jones & the Six"
Star rating for Daisy Jones & the Six
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
"Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go-Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it's the rock and roll she loves most. By the time she's twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things. Another band getting noticed is The Six, led by the brooding Billy Dunne....
Book cover for "Delilah Green doesn't care"
Star rating for Delilah Green doesn't care
Series:
Bright Falls volume 1.
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Description:
"Delilah Green swore she would never go back to Bright Falls--nothing is there for her but memories of a lonely childhood where she was little more than a burden to her cold and distant stepfamily. Her life is in New York, with her photography career finally gaining steam and her bed never empty. Sure, it's a different woman every night, but that's just fine with her. When Delilah's estranged stepsister, Astrid, pressures her into photographing her...
Book cover for "Eligible"
Star rating for Eligible
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Wonderfully tender and hilariously funny, Eligible tackles gender, class, courtship, and family as Curtis Sittenfeld reaffirms herself as one of the most dazzling authors writing today.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND THE TIMES (UK)

This version of the Bennet family—and Mr. Darcy—is one that you have and haven’t met...
Book cover for "Everything for you"
Star rating for Everything for you
Author:
Series:
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"Oliver Bergman is a beloved rising soccer star, all sunshine smiles and the heart of his team's spirit. To make matters worse, he's obscenely attractive. In short: he's genetically designed to get under misanthropic, miserable Gavin's aggravated skin. Ten years older than Oliver and a legendary player at the end of his career, Gavin Hayes is the team's demanding captain. He's also a giant--albeit gorgeous--grump who lives to rain on Oliver's parade....
Book cover for "The ex hex"
Star rating for The ex hex
Series:
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Description:

New York Times Bestseller

Erin Sterling casts a delightful spell with a spine-tingling romance full of wishes, witches, and hexes gone wrong.

"A delightful and witty take on witchy mayhem." — Popsugar

Nine years ago, Vivienne Jones nursed her broken heart like any young witch would: vodka, weepy music, bubble baths...and a curse on the horrible boyfriend. Sure, Vivi knows

...
Book cover for "Get a life, Chloe Brown"
Star rating for Get a life, Chloe Brown
Series:
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
"Chloe Brown is a chronically ill computer geek with a goal, a plan, and a list. After almost--but not quite--dying, she's come up with seven directives to help her 'Get a life', and she's already completed the first: finally moving out of her glamorous family's mansion. The next items? Enjoy a drunken night out; ride a motorcycle; go camping; have meaningless but thoroughly enjoyable sex; travel the world with nothing but hand luggage; and do something...
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 "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 "The left hand of darkness"
Star rating for The left hand of darkness
Series:
Hainish series volume 6.
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
A human emissary sent to the world of Winter to bring it into a galactic civilization must find a way to bridge the gulf between his outlook and that of the natives, who can change gender at will.
Book cover for "Leviathan wakes"
Star rating for Leviathan wakes
Series:
Expanse volume 1.
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
When Captain Jim Holden's ice miner stumbles across a derelict, abandoned ship, he uncovers a secret that threatens to throw the entire system into war. Attacked by a stealth ship belonging to the Mars fleet, Holden must find a way to uncover the motives behind the attack, stop a war and find the truth behind a vast conspiracy that threatens the entire human race.