As we enter 2023, we're taking a look at some of the excellent gay and bisexual books being released this year. From queer YA romance to gay adult fiction and campy fantasy novels, here are 20 of our most anticipated Achillean books coming out in 2023.

Note: some release dates of these books may be pushed back to later dates.

Always the Almost - Edward Underhill

YA Romantic Drama

214 February 2023

A trans pianist makes a New Year's resolution on a frozen Wisconsin night to win regionals and win back his ex, but a new boy complicates things in Edward Underhill's heartfelt debut.

Sixteen-year-old trans boy Miles Jacobson has two New Year’s resolutions: 1) win back his ex-boyfriend (and star of the football team) Shane McIntyre, and 2) finally beat his slimy arch-nemesis at the Midwest’s biggest classical piano competition. But that’s not going to be so easy. For one thing, Shane broke up with Miles two weeks after Miles came out as trans, and now Shane’s stubbornly ignoring him, even when they literally bump into each other.

Then Miles meets the new boy in town, Eric Mendez, a proudly queer cartoonist from Seattle who asks his pronouns, cares about art as much as he does—and makes his stomach flutter. Not what he needs to be focusing on right now.

Fake Dates and Mooncakes - Sher Lee

Contemporary YA Romance

16 May 2023

Heartstopper meets Crazy Rich Asians in this heartfelt, joyful paperback original rom-com that follows an aspiring chef who discovers the recipe for love is more complicated than it seems when he starts fake-dating a handsome new customer.

Dylan Tang wants to win a Mid-Autumn Festival mooncake-making competition for teen chefs—in memory of his mom, and to bring much-needed publicity to his aunt’s struggling Chinese takeout in Brooklyn.

Enter Theo Somers: charming, wealthy, with a smile that makes Dylan’s stomach do backflips. AKA a distraction. Their worlds are sun-and-moon apart, but Theo keeps showing up. He even convinces Dylan to be his fake date at a family wedding in the Hamptons.

In The Lives Of Puppets - TJ Klune

Fantasy Romance

25 April 2023

A queer retelling of the Pinocchio tale, inviting you deep into the heart of a peculiar forest and on the extraordinary journey of a family assembled from spare parts. In a strange little home built into the branches of a grove of trees live three robots - fatherly inventor android Giovanni Lawson, a pleasantly sadistic nurse machine, and a small vacuum desperate for love and attention. Victor Lawson, a human, lives there too.

They're a family, hidden and safe. The day Vic salvages and repairs an unfamiliar android labelled 'HAP', he learns of a shared dark past between Hap and Gio - a past spent hunting humans. When Hap unwittingly alerts robots from Gio's former life to their whereabouts, the family is no longer hidden and safe.

Bisexual Men Exist - Vaneet Mehta

Queer Studies & Health - Non-Fiction

19 January 2023

After spending more than a decade figuring out his identity, Vaneet's coming out was met with questioning, ridicule and erasure. This experience inspired Vaneet to create the viral #BisexualMenExist campaign, combatting the hate and scepticism m-spec (multi-gender attracted spectrum) men encounter, and helping others who felt similarly alone and trapped.

This powerful book is an extension of that fight. Navigating a range of topics, including coming out, dating, relationships and health, Vaneet shares his own lived experience as well as personal stories from others in the community to help validate and uplift other bisexual men. Discussing the treatment of m-spec men in LGBTQ+ places, breaking down stereotypes and highlighting the importance of representation and education, this empowering book is a rallying call for m-spec men everywhere.

Glitter Boy - Ian Eagleton

Middle Grade YA Romance

02 February 2022

James loves dancing, poetry, and Mariah Carey. His teacher, Mr Hamilton, is getting married to his boyfriend and it seems that James will be part of a surprise choir performance at the wedding.

But James's father seems uncomfortable about the plan, and a lot of other things - like any mention of Mr Hamilton, and James's dancing, and how James talks about his new friend Joel. Meanwhile, a different boy has been harassing James at school and calling him gay, and it's getting worse every day. James can find relief with his beloved Nan, she's been having worrying falls, and James can't tell anyone, or she might be sent to a faraway care home.

A joyful, raw and timely novel about family, friends, enemies, and being true to who you really are.

Riley Weaver Needs A Date To The Gaybutants Ball - Jason June

YA Middle-Grade Romance

20 July 2023

In this contemporary YA novel, gay, femme 16-year-old Riley hopes to enter the Gaybutante Society, a world-renowned organization full of queer tastemakers. When he's told by a gay cis classmate that gay guys aren't attracted to femme gays, Riley bets he'll find a boyfriend in time for the Gaybutante Ball.

Then Riley overhears a cis gay classmate, Skylar, say that gay guys just aren't interested in femme guys or else they wouldn't be gay. Riley confronts Skylar and makes a bet to prove him wrong: Riley must find a masc date by the time of the ball, or he'll drop out of the Society entirely. Riley decides to document the trials and tribulations of dating when you're gay and femme in a brand new podcast. Can Riley find a fella to fall for in time? Or will this be one massive—and publicly broadcast—femme failure?

Tweakerworld - Jason Yamas

Adult Memoir - Non-Fiction

20 April 2023

Meet Jason: a college educated documentary film producer, cat parent of two, and one of San Francisco’s top drug dealers.

After Jason’s world falls apart in LA, he moves to Berkeley for a fresh start with his kid brother. Just one problem: his long-closeted Adderall addiction has exploded into an out-of-control crystal meth binge. Within weeks, Jason plunges into the sprawling ParTy n’ ’Play subculture of the Bay Area’s gay community. It's a wildly decadent scene of drugs, group sex, and criminals, and yet it is also filled with surprising characters, people who are continually subverting Jason’s own presumptions of the stereotypical tweaker.

With painful honesty, Jason Yamas has crafted a landmark narrative that is not just a personal account of addiction, but a portrait of a vulnerable, largely undocumented community of people who, for many reasons, have been marginalized to the point of invisibility.