12 of the Best New LGBTQIA+ Books Out in June 2025

In 1972 Newcastle, Australia, a teenage girl makes a decision that will change the rest of her life: whether to accept her queerness or repress it. What follows is two versions of her life. In one, she is caught kissing her best friend and is kicked out of her home, ending up in a queer communal home. In the other, she hides her queerness and goes to university to study English. These two sliding-doors versions of her life diverge and reconnect, including both meeting the love of her life at a 1977 protest, and eventually, they collide.

Kalki lives in an alternate version of 1960s India that is still under British rule. We meet her as a teenager, first experimenting with rebellion. As she gets older, she learns how to best fight back against the British, gathering a group of like-minded freedom fighters. Along the way, she falls in love with her best friend, Fauzia, but there are terrible prices to pay for fighting for liberation. I discuss this more in depth on today’s All the Books podcast, but suffice to say, this is an unflinching, thought-provoking, five-star read.

Breakups don’t always mean the end of the relationship forever. That’s why second-chance romances exist! Exes Molly and Robin opened up a bed and breakfast, having no idea it would be the thing that would tear them apart. Seven years after their breakup, Molly and Robin are ready to fix the antique inn up, sell it, and be out of each other’s hair once and for all. But their efforts to restore the place to its former glory also remind them of why they fixed it up in the first place. And why they once fell in love. —Emily Martin

(Psst, Susie Dumond is also a writer for Book Riot! Talk about multi-talented.)

The author of Meet Cute Diary is back with an adult queer romance. Brian Ramirez is drinking away his heartbreak over a recent breakup when he stumbles into Thomas Mori’s drag show. The two of them see an opportunity for a no-strings-attached casual relationship—but that turns out to be easier said than done as they both develop some inconvenient real feelings for each other. This stars side characters from Emery Lee’s previous YA books Meet Cute Diary and Café Con Lychee!

Last year, Joanna Lowell’s A Shore Thing was released, a charming Victorian historical romance with a nonbinary main character. Now, she’s back with another nonbinary historical romance. Elfreda has just discovered proof that Vikings camped on her family estate—only to have her childhood enemy Georgie lose the amulet that was her ticket to getting her archaeological dig approved. Now, they have to team up to find evidence of Viking treasure—with Georgie demanding a generous payout. But as these competing archaeologists are forced to work together, it becomes harder to deny the sparks flying between them.

When Tressa Fay gets a text from a wrong number, it’s not long before they’re flirting. In fact, they decide to meet up that night. But when she arrives at the bar, Tressa Fay is disappointed to realize the cute engineer is not there, despite Meryl’s continual texts insisting she is. Soon, Tressa Fay learns a few key facts about Meryl: she’s texting Tressa Fay from eight months ago, and—unbeknownst to her—in the intervening months, Meryl disappears. Can Tressa Fay prevent her disappearance? And is there any way for them to meet in the same timeline? This is another one I discuss on today’s All the Books podcast, but in short, this is a fun, heartwarming, very romantic read with a lot of queer community.

From the author of Yes, Daddy comes a climate thriller about the ultra-wealthy at the end of the world. It’s 2044, and Mason and his partner Yunho are throwing a $100,000 baby shower for their newborn-to-be. They want to celebrate, and even the threat of an apocalyptic event hitting L.A. isn’t enough for them to cancel the party. But then Mason is pulled into the unfolding disaster, and he finds out that even he isn’t fully protected from what’s to come.

Sci-fi, spaceships, and vampires? Sign us up. Of Monsters and Mainframes is a queer reimagining of Dracula set in outer space. Demeter’s job is shuttling humans between Earth and Alpha Centauri, but there’s one problem: people keep dying on the journey. And they are not natural deaths. A vampire has entered the ship and is attacking all of her humans. Now to face off with Dracula, Demeter will seek the help of a werewolf, an engineer built from the dead, a fleet of spider drones, a pharaoh, and a vengeful vampire. —Emily Martin

Hakeem attends Narcotics Anonymous. He’s doing it to keep away from his former addiction. Things have gotten even harder lately, though, since Hakeem’s best friend (and, truth be told, his long-time crush), Miles, died by suicide. Hakeem is convinced he could have done something to help Miles, which tears him apart.

At Narcotics Anonymous, Hakeem takes a shine to Eliza. She’s the person who is there for him when Hakeem decides to call Miles’s old phone. It’s a shock to the system when Miles picks up and tells Hakeem that he didn’t kill himself. He was actually murdered.

Hakeem is determined to get an answer as to what actually happened to Miles. But it will be far from easy, especially as his relationship with Eliza starts to show Hakeem some of his own weaknesses and limitations. —Kelly Jensen

Kai has been looking forward to seeing the CYPHR show with his friends in the summer after graduation, but when they decide to get started on their new lives early, he’s left behind, attending alone. There, he meets Elias, who is trying to start a new life with his uncle in North Carolina after a fistfight burns through his last chance in New York. When a blackout ends the concert early, Kai and Elias decide to take a chance on each other instead of heading home.

The author of Flamer is back with a new graphic novel, this time starring four gay Asian men in Seattle who call themselves the Boy Luck Club. They form a chosen family and hold each other up—until an attack threatens everything they’ve built together.

Maia Kobabe, author of Gender Queer, says, “I’ve been hunting for books like this my whole life; this story broke my heart and healed it.”

Intersex people are some of the least represented in LGBTQIA+ literature, so I’m excited to see a new work about the history of the intersex liberation movement. In this history, Gleeson explains how the movement began in protest against medical abuses. She blends personal insight with theory to demonstrate how intersex liberation is tied to liberation from sexed oppression for all.