romance

Melting the Ice: 5 Must-Read Sapphic Books with Ice Queens

October 5, 2023 By Anne Hagan

Behold the Ice Queen Banner

There’s something so appealing about the “ice queen” – that emotionally distant, mysterious female character who keeps others at arm’s length. In many sapphic stories, the ice queen slowly thaws out as another woman chips away at her frosty exterior. This popular romance trope features an initially cold heroine who gradually warms up to love through the persistence and charm of another character.

The appeal is obvious – who doesn’t love a challenge? The ice queen is unattainable, her heart locked away where no one can touch it. Her love interest must carefully navigate the labyrinth of her defenses, finding cracks in the armor and proving their worth. It’s immensely satisfying to watch the ice queen’s resistance slowly melt away as she lets her lover in. We get to experience the transformative power of love along with these characters.

Beyond the tantalizing romantic tension, ice queens are also intriguing characters in their own right. What made this woman so guarded and untouchable? Her backstory and inner complexity are slowly revealed, adding more dimension. Underneath that icy surface is a passionate heart longing for connection.

I know the title says I’ll highlight 5 unforgettable sapphic books featuring compelling ice queen archetypes, but there are so many great ones…and one amazing author of sapphic ice queens. You’re going to get some bonuses! You’ll find space necromancers, demon concubines, cyborg mechanics, uptight executives, a cellist/assassin and more. Join me as I explore these frigid but irresistible heroines and the women who inspire them to thaw!

Requiem for Immortals by Lee Winter – My personal favorite ice queen book of all time, and Lee Winter is my favorite author of books featuring sapphic ice queens. While debate rages (and rages and rages) online about which of her books is her best, you can’t go wrong with this award winning book featuring cellist and assassin Natalya/Requiem and her prey, Alison/the mouse. I’m a mystery/suspense writer and reader at heart. Romance comes second for me. This book absolutely has it all. The twists Lee Winter pulls off you’ll never see coming because you’ll miss clues, but oh how genius and satisfying the twists are. Lee Winter is the Queen of authors who pen books about sapphic ice queens. Pick up any one of her books. You won’t be disappointed.

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir – Necromancers in space! The icy Ninth House cavalier Gideon has great banter with the aloof Reverend Daughter Harrowhark. This is a slow, slow burn romance in a book that’s been a TikTok star for at least a couple of years, probably longer, but I didn’t start paying any attention to TikTok until sometime in 2021 when my (now) teenager wouldn’t shut up about wanting a phone so he could watch it. Published in 2019, it still rocks all the bestseller charts.

Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur – Uptight actuary Darcy meets free-spirited astrologer Elle. Opposites attract in this cute contemporary romance with a icy corporate woman. Also a multi-award winner including a Lambda Literary Award (Lammy). This particular book falls hard into the grumpy/sunshine trope. Too, if you love the ice queen character type (grumpy) pulled into a fake relationship trope, this is your book.

The Headmistress by Milena McKay – A chance encounter, an unforgettable night. Do yourself a huge favor and DON’T read the description of this multi-award winning novel. It’s not a fantasy about dragons, trust me. I couldn’t understand why everyone raved about it until it started winning awards and I ‘made’ myself read it. I’m so sorry I waited so long. None of Milena’s books are to be missed, but this one should be first on your list.

Queen Vs Queen Ice queens are not easy to write. All those rough edges… Can you imagine writing two of them facing off against each other? I did it along with my friends Barbara Winkes and Alysia D. Evans. We created an anthology of three full length novellas, each pairing two queens. You can read all about the making of Queen Vs. Queen here. The book is on sale all through October for only $.99 US/equivalent.

Enjoy your ice!

~Anne

10 Perfect Pride Month Sapphic Reads

May 31, 2023 By Anne Hagan

Pride month will be with us beginning tomorrow in most countries where Pride events can be openly celebrated. In the spirit of Pride, I’ve picked ten fiction books, some out of a promotion, several out of my ‘To Be Read’ (TBR) pile, I’m looking forward to reading in the next month or so. Most are romance, and most have positive themes.

Some of the books are indie and are running in said promotion where I personally have a book listed this month. Some are from publishers large and small. Most have been recommended to me (even above the promotion) as ‘must read’ stories of sapphic love and pride.

Fluid Bonding: A Sapphic Paranormal Romance was published in August of 2022 by indie author Sienna Eggler – If you know me, you know mysteries are my first love. This was suggested because it has those intrigue elements I like to see in romance too. Bonus points for having one of the leads be non-binary and neurodivergent.

$4.99 at Amazon and other major retailers.

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Hugs and Quiches was published back in 2020 by indie author/tiny press author Candace Harper. I’m a fan of cooking competition television shows and more than a few people know this. I’m not super talented in the kitchen myself, but my family doesn’t starve either. I live my high end culinary dreams vicariously through such shows. Two people that know this have both recommended this book. It sounds like a great second chance romance for at least one of the main characters, and a thawing the ice queen trope for the other one. Yum!

Also $4.99 at Amazon and other major retailers.

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Flipped: A Once Upon a Fangirl Book – Another book I missed back in 2020 when Caitlin Ryan self-published it caught my eye in that promo that starts tomorrow. During the pandemic I got hooked on home renovation shows that now vie for my precious few hours of aimless TV time a week alongside those cooking shows/competitions I mentioned. The model on this cover? To me, she looks a little like a longer haired, slightly younger Alison Victoria of ‘Windy City Rehab.’ That’s who I’ll be picturing the whole time I read this story about a travel agent and a ‘lesbian couple’ that remodel homes.

Currently $.99 at Amazon and available via Kindle Unlimited.

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Sips of Her (Coffee Shops of Love Book 2) – A 2021 Sapphic romance by indie author Karmen Lee. Karmen is known for the diversity of her romances in both the multicultural aspects of them and in the sexualities/genders of her pairings. This one intrigues me because it offers both the cuteness of a romcom and some steam.

Currently $2.99 at Amazon and available via Kindle Unlimited.

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Deus Ex Mechanic

I admit to starting this book by Ryann Fletcher when it came out in 2020…right before covid sent my wife home to work for months and my foster kids home to be homeschooled for months. I put it down ‘temporarily’ and lost track of it. It’s been waiting for me in my Kindle ever since. I’ll be starting it over gladly, and now there are four more books in the series to check out too.

At this writing this is $.99 at Amazon and at other major online retailers.

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Swipe Right for Love This very recent release by Cyan LeBlanc (of fanfic fame) through her own small press, Posies and Peacocks, is quite the modern take on dating via apps. The format of the book is also very modern as each chapter is a date and, until it all works out in the end, it sounds like we’ll only get the viewpoint of one main character. I can’t wait to see how Cyan handles that!

Currently $3.99 at Amazon and available via Kindle Unlimited.

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We finish with four books from large publishing houses, all well rated, and all with either intricate plots or tough themes that resolve well for the sapphics involved. No killing off your lesbians in these stories!

The Fiancée Farce – Avon published, Lammy Award winning author Alexandria Bellfleur is no stranger to sapphic book lovers, or to anyone who reads romance. This April release gives those book lovers what they love; a fake relationship book about book lovers. I can’t wait to dig into this.

$10.99 at Amazon and most other major retailers.

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Forget Me Not Have you seen the Adam Sandler romcom movie, 50 First Dates, which was based on a true story? If you haven’t, watch it. I’ll wait. After that, lets read Alyson Derrick’s solo debut together and get the deeply emotional side of the same sort of story, but sapphic. Bonus points here from me for setting the story in small town western PA, near where I grew up and an area know well.

This was published in April by Simon and Schuster. It’s available for $10.99 from Amazon and most other retailers.

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The Luis Ortega Survival Club Author Sonora Reyes (The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School) is back with another teen and young adult hit, this one published last week by Balzer and Bray. Trigger warning: It deals with rape as is made very clear in the blurb.

I’ll be reading it. I can’t wait to see how Sonora portrayed these young women supporting each other and standing up for themselves.

It’s available on Amazon and other major retailers from Harper-Collins for $11.99.

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Last, but by no means least is, 6 Times We Almost Kissed and One Time We Did. This book by Tess Sharpe came out in January. Hachette has it on sale at this writing for $3.99. From the blurb, which sounds so sweet, I’d label it teen/young adult on the cusp of new adult.

Available at most majo

There you have the books on my Pride month reading list…that I know about so far. What’s on your list?

~Anne

Must Love Dogs

May 24, 2023 By Anne Hagan

Lesbians and other sapphics are cat people, right? Well, some of them. Some are definitely dog people. This post is for all the dog people among us. It includes no less than three books titled, ‘Puppy Love,’ and one entire series by the same title – thank you Georgia Beers!

Enjoy some time with this crazy group of cool canines and their people! There’s romance – of course – but also mystery and paranormal mystery.

There’s no dog on the cover of Bel Blackwood’s A Dog Named Bella, but trust me to say there are plenty of dogs in the story. You get, “One ice queen who likes solitude. One firebrand crashing into her life. One snowstorm trapping them together,” per the author, plus there are the dogs. Lot’s there to love!

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Radclyffe has a book on pre-order right now through Bold Strokes Books, Finders Keepers, that has a whole lot of doggie goodness promise. It comes out June 13th.

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Indie author Susie Ray has a brand new release featuring two novellas which is available right now. The first book is, Molly the Collie. You have to love the expression on that dog on the cover!

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Georgia Beers is a well known dog lover. Any Zoom video conferences and readings you watched during the covid pandemic that featured her, often featured her newest pup (at the time) as well. It’s no surprise she’s written a Puppy Love Series of three books featuring dogs.

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The first of our three ‘Puppy Love‘ titles is the one by Sage Donnell because I’m taking them alphabetically by last name. Boisterous little Chloe helps get Greta and Livy together in this sweet, slow burn, friends to lovers romance.

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The second ‘Puppy Love‘ titled book comes from indie author Cara Malone as the only dog book in her Fur-Ever Veterinary Romance Series. The book features a Shiba Inu – one of the few dogs I have no experience with – as a very sick pup of Blair’s for vet, Marley to tend to. Bet you can guess what happens between Blair and Marley…

Allow me to digress for a minute: I had a hard time with this book. Great story; don’t get me wrong. The name ‘Marley’ conjures up for me that awful movie, ‘Marley and Me ‘ where the dog dies at the end. Did I forget to say spoiler alert? Sorry, not sorry. My supposedly dog loving wife drug me to that. I’ve never forgiven her. Now I check every movie she wants me to watch before I agree.

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Finally, the third ‘Puppy Love‘ sapphic novel comes to us from Ylva author, L. T. Smith. In this story, border terrier ‘Charlie’ works on getting Ellie and Emily to build a relationship. It’s difficult for Ellie, but the pup is up to the task!

Now then, if there are this many sapphic books titled, ‘Puppy Love,’ one has to wonder how many mainstream ones there are. Someone count them and get back to me, please! Just romance books is fine.

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I went digging in the way back files for Adan Rami’s 2016 book, ‘Rescued,’ which is all the title implies packed into a novella sized story. Stanley the Yorkie needs a lot of love in this story. Don’t worry, he gets it, but if mention of the movie, ‘Marley and Me,’ had you tearing up, I’d understand you skipping this one. I promise it has a much happier ending!

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Bold Strokes Books author E.J. Cochran does voices…at least for her human characters! I heard the author of the Maddie Smithwick mystery series read for the first time at the GCLS conference in Pittsburgh in 2019. She’s amazing. The stories are great too, especially the first one, Sleeping Dogs Lie, which features Maddie’s rescue mutt, ‘Bart.’

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Geonn Cannon’s ‘Underdogs Series‘ starts with the book fittingly titled, ‘Underdogs.’ That said, this is a wolf shifter action/adventure/mystery/paranormal series, not a dog series, per se. It follows the adventures of Ariadne (Ari) Willow, a canidae, a person who can shapeshift into a wolf. The series currently stands at ten books.

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We’ll round out this part of the list with Erik Shubach’s, ‘Unleashed: Case of the Hot Dog.’ No good dead goes unpunished for Finnegan (Fin) May in this story that starts with a Dachshund rescue of sorts.

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Is that enough dog books for you? No? How about one more? My Morelville Mysteries series and the spin-off cozy mystery series (not strictly sapphic for the cozy) feature some dogs. Most prominent is the full on dog napping story in the Morelville Mysteries book 6, ‘A Crane Christmas.’ Don’t worry! All the dogs get a happy ending here too!

Biscuit age 2 1/2 And here’s our little guy, Biscuit. He’s a 2 1/2 year old Jack Russell/Yorkie mix we’ve had since December. He was a bit much for my mother-in-law to handle, especially with her older mixed breed dog, but he’s just hyper enough for our crazy household!

Happy reading! Go love on your pooches!

~Anne

Sapphic YA Favorites of Our Readers

May 17, 2023 By Anne Hagan

In 2009, author Malindo Lo rocked the world of YA literature with her Cinderella retelling novel, Ash, published by mainstream publisher – after a bidding war – Little Brown. A hit with YA readers, the story introduced them to a lesbian main character where the romance, rather than the sexuality, was more important to the story.

Malinda would follow Ash with Huntress, a prequel to Ash, and take popular YA books with sapphic protagonists to the masses.

I had the pleasure of hearing Malinda give the Keynote address at the 2019 GCLS Conference in Pittsburgh, PA. Ten years after Ash, sapphic YA had exploded and an enthusiastic audience of young and not so young readers hung on her every word.

Now, there’s lots of sapphic YA out there to choose from, and so much of it is so good! Let’s dive in to some of our reader’s favorites besides Ash, Huntress, and Malinda’s more recent YA novel, profiled here on the blog last week with AAPI authors, Last Night at the Telegraph Club.

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Readers on Tumblr can’t get enough of this graphic novel by Australian author and illustrator Sarah Winifred Searle, The Greatest Thing. The comic/graphic novel, featuring ‘Winifred’ as she enters her sophomore year of high school and makes some new friends is a 2023 Lambda Literary Award (Lammy) finalist.

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Ylva Publishing author Karen Frost’s , four book YA high fantasy series, Destiny and Darkness keeps finding new readers enthralled by Aeryn who can create fire, and Lsye, the healer whose love Aeryn cannot have. The series starts with the book, Daughter of Fire: Conspiracy of the Dark.

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A book that came up with our readers and multiple times in online forums was, The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigidar. Follow the adventures of Nishat and Flavia as they compete against each other in a school competition and fall in love along the way.

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You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson is a ‘Teacher’s Pick’ and a ‘Time Magazine Best YA Book of all Time.” In the story, we follow Liz as she schemes to become the prom queen and get the scholarship she needs to go to the college of her dreams and get out of her small Indiana hometown. The only thing standing in her way is Mack; the girl she’s falling for who is also running for prom queen.

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Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World by Ashley Herring Blake is a Multi-Award Winning novel full of drama and romance when a tornado erases a home and creates a private dilemma for one of it’s former inhabitants, twelve year old, Ivy.

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The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School by Sonora Reyes is a 2023 Lambda Literary Award (Lammy) Finalists in the YA category and a finalist for three additional literary awards. It is a Walter Honor Award Winner and a Pura Belpré Honor Book. It’s the “…Sharply funny and moving debut novel about a queer Mexican American girl navigating Catholic school, while falling in love and learning to celebrate her true self. ”

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Our readers call this next YA novel just plain fun. It’s a modern reimagining of Anne of Green Gables by Mariko Tamaki, Anne of Greenville. YA readers that remember the disco era will get a kick out of this story. Oh, and it’s Disney published; one of the many reasons Disney gets targeted for boycotts for support of the LGBTQ community and it’s art.

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This next book is a personal favorite, as is this quote from it:

“Do not be silent. Raise your voice. Be a light in the dark.”

It’s from Cinderella is Dead by Kaylynn Bayron. It’s 200 years after Cinderella found her prince, but the fairy tale is over. Teen girls are now required to appear at the Annual Ball, where the men of the kingdom select wives based on a girl’s display of finery. If a suitable match is not found, the girls not chosen are never heard from again.

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No list of sapphic YA books would be complete without talking about author Kelly Quindlen and her string of best selling books. She started as an indie with her book, Her Name in the Sky. Her most current best seller is the book, She Drives Me Crazy, published by Roaring Brook Press, a division of Macmillan.

“High school nemeses fall in love in Kelly Quindlen’s She Drives Me Crazy, a queer YA romcom…”

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Finally, a little YA horror to leave you with, if the Cinderella as Handmaids Tale story wasn’t enough to put some fear in you. How about The Girls are Never Gone by Sarah Glenn Marsh?

“The Conjuring meets Sadie in this queer ghost story, when seventeen-year-old podcaster Dare finds herself in a life-or-death struggle against an evil spirit.”

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That’s a lot of great YA! And yet, there’s so much more. You’ve got your work cut out for you.

Happy reading!

~Anne

Sapphic Books from AA & PI Authors to Check Out

May 9, 2023 By Anne Hagan

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month celebrating the achievements and contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States.

Here at MyQueerSapphFic, we want to celebrate diversity and achievement the way we always do; with books! Anne had a great time selecting these. Some she’s read and loved. Others, she’s added to her to be read pile and they will be read…as soon as she’s done researching pesky backstory for a work in progress.

Anne apologizes in advance if the authors of any of her picks have returned to their roots. Some of these authors are lifelong Americans, born here to parents from other countries. Some immigrated to the US. Without further ado, a few gems from a diverse group of AAPI sapphic authors:

Fiona and Jane by Jean Chen Ho (Taiwanese American) – Published by Viking

Best friends since second grade, Fiona Lin and Jane Shen explore the lonely freeways and seedy bars of Los Angeles together through their teenage years, surviving unfulfilling romantic encounters, and carrying with them the scars of their families’ tumultuous pasts. Fiona was always destined to leave, her effortless beauty burnished by fierce ambition—qualities that Jane admired and feared in equal measure. When Fiona moves to New York and cares for a sick friend through a breakup with an opportunistic boyfriend, Jane remains in California and grieves her estranged father’s sudden death, in the process alienating an overzealous girlfriend. Strained by distance and unintended betrayals, the women float in and out of each other’s lives, their friendship both a beacon of home and a reminder of all they’ve lost.

In stories told in alternating voices, Jean Chen Ho’s debut collection peels back the layers of female friendship—the intensity, resentment, and boundless love—to probe the beating hearts of young women coming to terms with themselves, and each other, in light of the insecurities and shame that holds them back.

Spanning countries and selves, Fiona and Jane is an intimate portrait of a friendship, a deep dive into the universal perplexities of being young and alive, and a bracingly honest account of two Asian women who dare to stake a claim on joy in a changing, contemporary America.

I’ll be the One by Lyla Lee (Korean American) – Published by Katherine Tegan Books (Harper-Collins Children’s)

Skye Shin has heard it all. Fat girls shouldn’t dance. Wear bright colors. Shouldn’t call attention to themselves. But Skye dreams of joining the glittering world of K-Pop, and to do that, she’s about to break all the rules that society, the media, and even her own mother, have set for girls like her.

She’ll challenge thousands of other performers in an internationally televised competition looking for the next K-pop star, and she’ll do it better than anyone else.

When Skye nails her audition, she’s immediately swept into a whirlwind of countless practices, shocking performances, and the drama that comes with reality TV. What she doesn’t count on are the highly fat-phobic beauty standards of the Korean pop entertainment industry, her sudden media fame and scrutiny, or the sparks that soon fly with her fellow competitor, Henry Cho.

But Skye has her sights on becoming the world’s first plus-sized K-pop star, and that means winning the competition—without losing herself.

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo (Chinese American) – Published by Dutton Books for

Winner of the National Book Award
A New York Times Bestseller

“The queer romance we’ve been waiting for.”—Ms. Magazine

Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can’t remember exactly when the feeling took root—that desire to look, to move closer, to touch. Whenever it started growing, it definitely bloomed the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club. Suddenly everything seemed possible.

But America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father—despite his hard-won citizenship—Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day.

Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls: A Memoir by T. Kira Madden (AAPI Author) – Bloomsbury Publishing

Acclaimed literary essayist T Kira Madden’s raw and redemptive debut memoir is about coming of age and reckoning with desire as a queer, biracial teenager amidst the fierce contradictions of Boca Raton, Florida, a place where she found cult-like privilege, shocking racial disparities, rampant white-collar crime, and powerfully destructive standards of beauty hiding in plain sight.

As a child, Madden lived a life of extravagance, from her exclusive private school to her equestrian trophies and designer shoe-brand name. But under the surface was a wild instability. The only child of parents continually battling drug and alcohol addictions, Madden confronted her environment alone. Facing a culture of assault and objectification, she found lifelines in the desperately loving friendships of fatherless girls.

With unflinching honesty and lyrical prose, spanning from 1960s Hawai’i to the present-day struggle of a young woman mourning the loss of a father while unearthing truths that reframe her reality, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls is equal parts eulogy and love letter. It’s a story about trauma and forgiveness, about families of blood and affinity, both lost and found, unmade and rebuilt, crooked and beautiful.

Ma and Me by PutSata Reang (Cambodian American) – Published by MCD

Winner of the 2023 Pacific Northwest Book Award.
Finalist for the 2023 Lesbian Memoir/Biography Lambda Literary Award

When Putsata Reang was eleven months old, her family fled war-torn Cambodia, spending twenty-three days on an overcrowded navy vessel before finding sanctuary at an American naval base in the Philippines. Holding what appeared to be a lifeless baby in her arms, Ma resisted the captain’s orders to throw her bundle overboard. Instead, on landing, Ma rushed her baby into the arms of American military nurses and doctors, who saved the child’s life. “I had hope, just a little, you were still alive,” Ma would tell Put in an oft-repeated story that became family legend.

Over the years, Put lived to please Ma and make her proud, hustling to repay her life debt by becoming the consummate good Cambodian daughter, working steadfastly by Ma’s side in the berry fields each summer and eventually building a successful career as an award-winning journalist. But Put’s adoration and efforts are no match for Ma’s expectations. When she comes out to Ma in her twenties, it’s just a phase. When she fails to bring home a Khmer boyfriend, it’s because she’s not trying hard enough. When, at the age of forty, Put tells Ma she is finally getting married―to a woman―it breaks their bond in two.

In her startling memoir, Reang explores the long legacy of inherited trauma and the crushing weight of cultural and filial duty. With rare clarity and lyric wisdom, Ma and Me is a stunning, deeply moving memoir about love, debt, and duty.

Marriage of a Thousand Lies by SJ Sin (Sri Lankin American – Tamil diaspora) – Published by Soho Press

Lucky and her husband, Krishna, are gay. They present an illusion of marital bliss to their conservative Sri Lankan–American families, while each dates on the side. It’s not ideal, but for Lucky, it seems to be working. She goes out dancing, she drinks a bit, she makes ends meet by doing digital art on commission. But when Lucky’s grandmother has a nasty fall, Lucky returns to her childhood home and unexpectedly reconnects with her former best friend and first lover, Nisha, who is preparing for her own arranged wedding with a man she’s never met.

As the connection between the two women is rekindled, Lucky tries to save Nisha from entering a marriage based on a lie. But does Nisha really want to be saved? And after a decade’s worth of lying, can Lucky break free of her own circumstances and build a new life? Is she willing to walk away from all that she values about her parents and community to live in a new truth? As Lucky—an outsider no matter what choices she makes—is pushed to the breaking point, Marriage of a Thousand Lies offers a vivid exploration of a life lived at a complex intersection of race, sexuality, and nationality. The result is a profoundly American debut novel shot through with humor and loss, a story of love, family, and the truths that define us all.

Soft Science by Franny Choi (Asian American) – Alice James Books (A non-profit poetry press)

A Book Riot Must-Read Poetry Collection

Soft Science explores queer, Asian American femininity. A series of Turing Test-inspired poems grounds its exploration of questions not just of identity, but of consciousness—how to be tender and feeling and still survive a violent world filled with artificial intelligence and automation. We are dropped straight into the tangled intersections of technology, violence, erasure, agency, gender, and loneliness.

“…these beautiful, fractal-like poems are meditations on identity and autonomy and offer consciousness-expanding forays into topics like violence and gender, love and isolation.” –NYLON

This Time Will Be Different by Misa Sugiura (Japanese American) – Published by Harper Teen

Katsuyamas never quit—but seventeen-year-old CJ doesn’t even know where to start. She’s never lived up to her mom’s type A ambition, and she’s perfectly happy just helping her aunt, Hannah, at their family’s flower shop.

She doesn’t buy into Hannah’s romantic ideas about flowers and their hidden meanings, but when it comes to arranging the perfect bouquet, CJ discovers a knack she never knew she had. A skill she might even be proud of.

Then her mom decides to sell the shop—to the family who swindled CJ’s grandparents when thousands of Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps during WWII. Soon a rift threatens to splinter CJ’s family, friends, and their entire Northern California community; and for the first time, CJ has found something she wants to fight for.

When Tara Met Farah by Tara Pammi (Indian American) – Indie Author

Horny food vlogger meets grumpy math genius in this emotional, sexy, new-adultish contemporary romance and have to decide if love is worth all the vulnerabilities it demands.

Sunshine Girl needs math lessons…

Nineteen-year-old Tara Muvvala didn’t mean to lead a double life. But her bone-deep aversion to math + a soul-deep desire to please her mother = her failing math grade + exploding food vlog ‘this masala life’. Enter her mother’s research intern and resident math genius Farah Ahmed. Tara makes a deal with Farah – help her pass the math course and she’ll welcome Farah into the local Bollywood Drama & Dance Society.

Grumpy girl gets life lessons…

After losing her mom to a heart attack, dumping her small-minded boyfriend (she’s bisexual, not confused) and reluctantly moving to the US to be near her dad – all in the span of eighteen months, twenty-three-year-old Farah has hit the full quota on LIFE. Two things keep her going – her internship with a brilliant statistics professor and the possibility of meeting her dancing idol through the Bollywood Drama & Dance Society. That is, if her new hot-mess housemate will let her.

Soon Tara and Farah are bonding over chicken biryani, dancing to Bollywood Beats at midnight and kissing against all the odds. And maybe beginning to realize that while life’s even more complicated than math, love is the one variable that changes everything!

Will Tara and Farah realize that together they have the recipe for a Happily Ever After?