And They Were Roommates by Page Powars

Touching, thoughtful, and incredibly fun, And They Were Roommates is a delightful YA light academia romance.

Brewed with Love by Shelly Page 

Sweet, cozy, and mysterious, Brewed with Love is a thrilling YA fantasy with witches, an immersive small-town setting, and a tender romance.

By Any Other Name by Erin Cotter

Blending the history of 1500s London with swoon-worthy romantic tension, By Any Other Name is an unforgettable YA historical fiction novel.

Call Forth a Fox by Markelle Grabo

With faerie curses and a cozy fairytale atmosphere, Call Forth a Fox beautifully retells the Brothers’ Grimm’s “Snow White and Rose Red.”

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

Spellbinding and powerful, Cemetery Boys is a simultaneously heart-wrenching and heartwarming YA contemporary fantasy with mythology, ghosts, and brujx set during Día de Los Muertos. 

Coming Out Perfect by Richard Mercado

Uplifting, hopeful, and funny, Coming Out Perfect is a beautiful YA graphic novel of familial expectations, fitting in, queer community, and coming out.

Daughter of the Bone Forest by Jasmine Skye

Set in a queer-normative world with a sentient forest, a magic school, shapeshifting, witches, and romance, Daughter of the Bone Forest is a sweeping YA fantasy.

Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend by Emma R. Alban

Witty, comforting, and swoony, Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend is a Victorian romance with hijinks, matchmaking, and love.

Exquisite Things by Abdi Nazemian 

Empowering, thought-provoking, and romantic, Exquisite Things is a propulsive YA historical fantasy of art, storytelling, immortality, resistance, community, grief, belonging, and, ultimately, hope.

Furious by Jamie Pacton and Rebecca Podos 

Wildly entertaining and achingly beautiful, Furious is a swoon-worthy YA contemporary romance that’s perfect for fans of Fast & Furious.

Gwen & Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher 

Swoony, hilarious, and riveting, Gwen & Art Are Not in Love is a heartwarming medieval romcom filled with found family, love, and witty banter galore.

Hazelthorn by C.G. Drews 

With a bloodthirsty garden, gritty botanical horror, and lingering love story, Hazelthorn is an enrapturing YA gothic.

Just Between Us by Adeline Kon

Romantic, fierce, and heartwarming, Just Between Us is an unputdownable YA graphic novel with figure skating, romance, and stunning imagery.

Moss’d in Space by Rebecca Thorne

Quirky, vibrant, and wonderfully mossy, Moss’d in Space is a creative and hilarious cozy sci-fi novel.

Queen of Faces by Petra Lord

Set in a dystopian society with a dark academia atmosphere, body-swapping, assassins, and magic, Queen of Faces is a sharp and lyrical YA fantasy.

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston 

Laugh-out-loud funny with found family and forbidden romance, Red, White & Royal Blue is a cinematic and irresistible contemporary romance.

Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell 

Monstrous and splendidly strange, Someone You Can Build a Nest In is a quirky, vicious, and surprisingly cozy fantasy.

Sorcery and Small Magics by Maiga Doocy

Brimming with wit, whimsy, romance, and magical creatures, Sorcery and Small Magics is an enchanting cozy fantasy.

Soul of a Gentleman Witch by David Ferraro

Sweeping and threaded with magic, Soul of a Gentleman Witch is an addictive YA cozy fantasy that’s perfect for fans of Howl’s Moving Castle and The Girl Who Drank the Moon.

Tenderly, I am Devoured by Lyndall Clipstone

With a breathtaking romance, lyrical prose, and an eerie atmosphere, Tenderly, I am Devoured is a magical YA fantasy.

The Absinthe Underground by Jamie Pacton 

Brimming with friends-to-lovers yearning, Fae, and a riveting heist, The Absinthe Underground is a captivating YA fantasy perfect for fans of Moulin Rouge! and The Cruel Prince.

The Entanglement of Rival Wizards by Sara Raasch

Funny, vibrant, and magical, The Entanglement of Rival Wizards is an addictive fantasy romcom with academic rivals-to-lovers tension.

The Final Curse of Ophelia Cray by Christine Calella 

With a maritime adventure, a beautiful sibling bond, and a compelling cast, The Final Curse of Ophelia Cray is a gritty, emotional, and exhilarating YA fantasy.

The House of Now and Then by Edward Underhill 

Heartfelt and hopeful, The House of Now and Then is a sweeping summer romance with an undertone of magic set in Cape Cod.

The Invocations by Krystal Sutherland 

With witches, a dark academia atmosphere, demons, and a murder mystery, The Invocations is a gripping and haunting YA thriller.

The Last Best Quest Ever by F.T. Lukens

Magical, adventurous, and hilarious, The Last Best Quest Ever is a delightful YA fantasy romp with found family and fantastical creatures.

The Leaving Room by Amber McBride 

Spellbinding and achingly beautiful, The Leaving Room is a tender YA novel-in-verse brimming with emotion, memories, family recipes, love, and hope.

The Lighthouse at the Edge of the World by J.R. Dawson

Set in modern-day Chicago and threaded with Greek mythology, The Lighthouse at the Edge of the World is a poignant and touching urban fantasy perfect for fans of Hadestown.

The Macabre by Kosoko Jackson

Infused with horror, art, and romance, The Macabre is an adventurous and inventive contemporary fantasy.

The Midnight Girls by Alicia Jasinska

 With adventure, magic, and rivals-to-lovers tension, The Midnight Girls is a cinematic and whimsical YA fantasy.

With Fire in Their Blood by Kat Delacorte

Set in Italy with witches, a love square, and warring mafia clans, With Fire in Their Blood is a romantic and thrilling YA paranormal romance.

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White 

Vicious, sharp, and brilliantly unsettling, The Spirit Bares Its Teeth is a YA historical fantasy set in London, 1883.

This Must Be the Place by Kelly Quindlen 

Welcoming, emotional, and tender, This Must Be the Place is a captivating YA contemporary novel with found family set in small-town Alabama.

This Raging Sea by De Elizabeth

Sea-soaked, haunting, and lush, This Raging Sea is a YA dark fantasy with romance, eldritch secrets, horror, witches, and time travel.

Time After Time by Mikki Daughtry 

Vivid and romantic, Time After Time is a breathtaking YA romance following two love stories set one hundred years apart.

Vile Lady Villains by Danai Christopoulou 

Sharp, lyrical, and twisty, Vile Lady Villains is a fierce and creative fantasy threaded with Greek mythology and Shakespeare.

We Burned So Bright by T.J. Klune 

Heavy yet full of life, We Burned So Bright is a heart-wrenching but unexpectedly comforting fantasy of humans at the end of the world facing love, loss, and life itself.

What Wakes the Bells by Elle Tesch

Twisty, immersive, and magical, What Wakes the Bells is a gripping YA fantasy with a gothic atmosphere inspired by a Prague legend. 

From heartwarming found families to swoon-worthy romances to laugh-out-loud banter, these stories bring extra queer joy, community, and love to the Pride Month celebration. Happy reading, and Happy Pride Month!

The post 38 LGBTQIA+ Books to Add to Your Pride Month TBR appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

About Vile Lady Villains: A sapphic, gothic horrormantasy that’s perfect for readers of S. T. Gibson and Kiersten White, Vile Lady Villains asks what would happen if literature’s most stabby queens, Klytemnestra and Lady Macbeth, met in a limbo realm and had to work together to survive and rewrite their stories. Out May 12 in the US.

Trigger warning: talk of eating disorders and fat phobia

The first time I heard the word “fat” in relation to my body, it was from my mother’s mouth.

Like many, similarly traumatized millennials, I was raised by someone who projected their own disordered views of eating and obsession with thinness into their very young child. I’ve been put on diets from as early as 9 years old, often not allowed much more than two crackers with a slice of cheese a day — while dinner was served on a dessert-size plate. Yet somehow my body kept growing, defying my mother’s wishes and expectations, becoming curvier and bigger by the day. It was my fault, of course, she said. I was clearly thinking about desserts, and we all know that just thinking about desserts can make you fat. (It might amuse you to learn that for years, I actually believed that was true. My mother had told me it was, so I had no reason to doubt it.)

It will probably come as no surprise to hear that I’ve struggled with eating disorders since then. For many years, until I was able to leave home, eating was something done in secret — which led to overeating, and to shame, and to restricting. The cycle of binging, then starving myself, continued from my early teens well into my early 30s, with such extreme highs and lows that I’m honestly lucky to be sitting here now, cozy with my coffee and dark chocolate, and typing these words to you. Because it wasn’t just my mother. Like many, similarly traumatized millennials, it was the whole world around us, praising us for our weight loss and showering us with compliments whenever we managed to adequately shrink ourselves to fit some arbitrary beauty standards.

And it’s now happening again.

While these days I’ve made great progress on a personal level when it comes to healing my relationship with food and my bigger body, it feels like the society around me is going backwards. (In so many ways, not just when it comes to fat acceptance and body positivity.) There is a renewed obsession with skinniness courtesy of the GLP-1 medications that I am observing with dismay and trepidation. And while everyone’s path is personal and these drugs can also help people in many significant ways, I really worry what this Ozempic-chic era will do to young people who are being bombarded with images of skeletal Hollywood stars on the red carpet. I really worry it will teach them that they need to shrink themselves to be loved, just like my mother taught me.

You may be wondering by now what this all has to do with my book, Vile Lady Villains. Short answer? Everything.

Vile Lady Villains might not be about weight loss (although in a sense it is about losing the dead weight that is your husband, if you are Klytemnestra or Lady Macbeth) but it is a book I wouldn’t have been able to write if I hadn’t allowed myself to take up space, literally and figuratively. If I hadn’t learned, through extensive trial and error, that my mother was wrong and that it’s possible for me to exist in a bigger body and still find love, success, and some modicum of sanity. This is a book I wrote unapologetically, when I was languishing on submission for 3 years with other manuscripts that didn’t sell. While most of the books I’d written so far contained some “chunky” character or other, Vile Lady Villains was the first time I allowed myself to not only have a plus size main character, but also make her the most badass character I’ve written so far, physically strong and capable of many great things. Like murder. It was extremely healing to write a Klytemnestra with glorious curves, with zero shame about her body and her sexuality, and with the ability to take people’s breath away. Often because she’s murdered them and is currently covered in their blood. But also because she carries herself with a confidence that is magnetic and undeniable, as Lady Macbeth soon realizes, much to her chagrin. And writing a character like her, giving her an epic adventure and an equally epic love story, daggers to the throat and all, was nothing short of therapy.

We all know representation matters. Especially if, like me, you grew up in an era where the fat character in movies or TV shows would either be the butt of the joke (I hate you, Friends, for Fat Monica’s arc) or the quirky best friend (Gilmore Girls, I can forgive you your numberless flaws just for giving me Sookie St. James). Especially if, like me, you had to read so many romance and fantasy novels before you finally found one with a fat main character. I don’t believe that reading books should be an exercise in self-insertion (although sadly many readers approach them like that lately) but I do believe that it’s very important to see all kinds of bodies depicted in all kinds of media. It’s very important to see fat bodies, especially female/AFAB bodies, that unapologetically take up space and are not shrinking themselves in order to find love or go on amazing adventures. I found that kind of glorious rep in books like Leanne Schwartz’s A Prayer for Vengeance and To a Darker Shore, two young adult fantasies with heroines that kick butts and take names; in contemporary romances like Olivia Dade’s All the Feels; in characters like Nina in Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows and Mercy in Megan Bannen’s in The Undertaking of Heart and Mercy. But I had yet to find such rep in a sapphic book (I’m sure it exists, I just hadn’t come across it). So I wrote it.

I hope you’ll read Vile Lady Villains. And I do hope you’ll like it — for its sapphic romance, its creepy skeletons, its mix of Greek myth and Shakespeare, but also for its plus size main character who looks as good covered in blood as she looks in her form-fitting dress. Mostly though, I hope that if you’ve struggled with how your body looks and how society (or your mother) tells you it should look, that you will one day be able to shut down these voices and allow yourself to unapologetically take up space.

And I hope you’ll find many characters like Klytemnestra that will serve as an inspiration for that. If not, I hope you’ll write them yourself. It will be nothing short of therapy.

The post Full Bodied, Full Bloodied: The Importance of Writing Female Characters that Refuse to Shrink Themselves appeared first on The Nerd Daily.