2021 LODESTAR AWARD for BEST YOUNG ADULT BOOK Fourteen-year-old Mona isn’t like the wizards charged with defending the city. She can’t control lightning or speak to water. Her familiar is a sourdough starter and her magic only works on bread. She has a comfortable life in her aunt’s bakery making gingerbread men dance. But Mona’s life is turned upside down when she finds a dead body on the bakery floor. An assassin is stalking the streets of Mona’s city, preying on magic folk, and it appears that Mona is his next target. And in an embattled city suddenly bereft of wizards, the assassin may be the least of Mona’s worries…

Two enemies, one goal: steal each other's hearts. Scarlett Grey, disgraced assassin, is determined to get revenge. Quinn Adams, medic turned-poisoner for hire, is her deadliest rival. For years, they've stolen each other's clients, sabotaged each other's business, and occasionally… slept together. When the Magician Queen offers an irresistible deal, Scarlett and Quinn are forced to work together. But this is not a simple job. With an impossible heist ahead, they’re going to have to trust each other… And that's not easy when they both have secrets to hide. Harder still when those secrets will betray the ones they love. Now neither woman is sure if it’s a heist they want to win or a heart. Two women, two deadly professions, and a romance that could be their downfall. This is a steamy lesbian fantasy romance with enemies to lovers, a heist, found family, a secret royal, and only one bed.

Two enemies, one goal: steal each other's hearts. Scarlett Grey, disgraced assassin, is determined to get revenge. Quinn Adams, medic turned-poisoner for hire, is her deadliest rival. For years, they've stolen each other's clients, sabotaged each other's business, and occasionally… slept together. When the Magician Queen offers an irresistible deal, Scarlett and Quinn are forced to work together. But this is not a simple job. With an impossible heist ahead, they’re going to have to trust each other… And that's not easy when they both have secrets to hide. Harder still when those secrets will betray the ones they love. Now neither woman is sure if it’s a heist they want to win or a heart. Two women, two deadly professions, and a romance that could be their downfall. This is a steamy lesbian fantasy romance with enemies to lovers, a heist, found family, a secret royal, and only one bed.

Capture one harmless fugitive. What could go wrong? Nyssa Blacksea is eager to silence her doubters. The only warrior in her guild without magick, she’s forced to rely solely on her martial arts mastery, unwavering confidence, and charisma. When given the chance to hunt down a mysterious woman named Quinn, and earn the coveted title of Ashcloak, Nyssa seizes the opportunity. Track down a fugitive? An easy task. There’s just one problem—Quinn isn’t receptive to Nyssa’s charms and refuses to go down without a fight. Dangerous secrets swirl around Quinn and a treacherous guild leader, rattling Nyssa’s faith in the very system that raised her. Though troubled by the sinking feeling she’s not meant to survive the mission, Nyssa confronts the dangers awaiting her, clashing with pirates, assassins, and undead horrors. Duty pulls her in one direction, but a strange, undeniable spark of connection draws her towards Quinn. With only her heart and code of honor to guide her, Nyssa risks death to stay true to herself. For readers who love unique epic fantasy set against a semi-modern backdrop, featuring a sapphic enemies-to-lovers slow burn romance. Unworthy will appeal to fans of Arcane (Netflix), The Legend of Korra, and Gideon the Ninth.

A clever and steamy queer romantic comedy about taking chances and accepting love—with all its complications—from the author of Astrid Parker Doesn't Fail . 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 wedding with a guilt trip and a five-figure check, Delilah finds herself back in the godforsaken town that she used to call home. She plans to breeze in and out, but then she sees Claire Sutherland, one of Astrid’s stuck-up besties, and decides that maybe there’s some fun (and a little retribution) to be had in Bright Falls, after all.   Having raised her eleven-year-old daughter mostly on her own while dealing with her unreliable ex and running a bookstore, Claire Sutherland depends upon a life without surprises. And Delilah Green is an unwelcome surprise…at first. Though they’ve known each other for years, they don’t really know each other—so Claire is unsettled when Delilah figures out exactly what buttons to push. When they’re forced together during a gauntlet of wedding preparations—including a plot to save Astrid from her horrible fiancé—Claire isn’t sure she has the strength to resist Delilah’s charms. Even worse, she’s starting to think she doesn’t want to...

Shannon Chakraborty, the bestselling author of The City of Brass, spins a new trilogy of magic and mayhem on the high seas in this tale of pirates and sorcerers, forbidden artifacts and ancient mysteries, in one woman’s determined quest to seize a final chance at glory—and write her own legend. Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean’s most notorious pirates, she’s survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retire peacefully with her family to a life of piety, motherhood, and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural. But when she’s tracked down by the obscenely wealthy mother of a former crewman, she’s offered a job no bandit could refuse: retrieve her comrade’s kidnapped daughter for a kingly sum. The chance to have one last adventure with her crew, do right by an old friend, and win a fortune that will secure her family’s future forever? It seems like such an obvious choice that it must be God’s will. Yet the deeper Amina dives, the more it becomes alarmingly clear there’s more to this job, and the girl’s disappearance, than she was led to believe. For there’s always risk in wanting to become a legend, to seize one last chance at glory, to savor just a bit more power…and the price might be your very soul.

Kyran Harbor is everything I’m not. Rich. Popular. A superstar football player who’s awfully broody for someone who has it all. Basically, he’s a preppy jock who hates me. Oh, and he’s also my stepbrother. That’s right. We’re stuck together, sharing a school, a house… A bathroom. Honestly, I wouldn’t care… If he wasn’t such an uptight control-freak who messes with me just because we’re different. I had every intention of avoiding him when we got to college… Until abrupt misfortune forces us both into a compromising position. Now the grouchy jerk I was hoping to evade might be the only person who can help me out of it. Avi Vega is everything I despise. A dreamer. A flake. An artist who smokes too much weed and thinks aliens exist. And by some sick cosmic joke, he’s now my stepbrother, following me on what should’ve been my escape plan. It was already a disaster. Add a sudden financial disruption to the mix, and let’s just say my options are heavily limited. If I want to stay an all-star quarterback on the way to the NFL, I’ll need to do something drastic. Unfortunately for me, and my desperate desire for control, the perpetually smiling stoner has a plan. Maybe we can stop hating each other just enough to pull this off. As long as we remember we’re only doing it… for the fans. ** For The Fans is a full-length standalone MM forbidden romance with an HEA. This book contains sensitive subject matter that could make some readers uncomfortable. Please heed foreword warnings and proceed with caution.

From the award-winning author of a “battle-cry of a book” (The Guardian) Rage Becomes Her, comes a fearless and timely manifesto for identifying and rejecting male supremacy in our daily lives. Drawing on her trademark skill, wit, clarity, and sharp insight, Soraya Chemaly walks us through how male supremacy operates, adapting dynamically in order to maintain cruel, exploitative systems of oppression. Male supremacy, she asserts, isn’t primarily about men dominating women; but rather a system that first and foremost violently pits men against each other using women and marginalized communities as resources in their competition for power. Under this system, anyone who isn’t white, straight, CIS, and adhering to strict rules of traditional masculinity is considered inferior and rendered “other”—women, LGBTQ+ people, people of color, immigrants, religious minorities, the disabled, and Black and Indigenous communities. Being feminized defines vulnerability, exploitability, and disposability. There is no justice for any community until we confront this defining injustice. Most men don’t have to benefit from this system or feel powerful for this system to work, indeed only a relatively few do. While women, particularly those with multiple marginalized identities, are hurt the most, men, too, need liberation from this oppressive system. All We Want Is Everything offers both unflinching analysis and genuine hope, informed by the bold and revolutionary potential of feminist imagination. From private relationships to global politics, Chemaly shows how naming and refusing male supremacy is essential to resisting the forces tearing democracy apart. This fresh, timely, clear-eyed, and necessary manifesto is a call to refuse supremacist identities, relationships, and values in order to build more just, healthy, and sustainable worlds for everyone.

Impossible love between two girls —one human, one Made. A love that could birth a revolution. After the War of Kinds ravaged the kingdom of Rabu, the Automae, Designed to be the playthings of royals, took over the estates of their owners and bent the human race to their will. Now, Ayla, a human servant rising the ranks at the House of the Sovereign, dreams of avenging the death of her family… by killing the Sovereign’s daughter, Lady Crier. Crier, who was Made to be beautiful, to be flawless. And to take over the work of her father. Crier had been preparing to do just that—to inherit her father’s rule over the land. But that was before she was betrothed to Scyre Kinok, who seems to have a thousand secrets. That was before she discovered her father isn’t as benevolent as she thought. That was before she met Ayla. Set in a richly-imagined fantasy world, Nina Varela’s debut novel is a sweepingly romantic tale of love, loss and revenge, that challenges what it really means to be human.