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.

The Late Americans - Brandon Taylor

Adult Contemporary Fiction - Fiction

22 June 2023

The author of the Booker Prize finalist Real Life and the bestselling Filthy Animals returns with a deeply involving new novel of young men and women at a crossroads

In the shared and private spaces of Iowa City, a loose circle of lovers and friends encounter, confront, and provoke one another in a volatile year of self-discovery. As each prepares for an uncertain future, the group heads to a cabin to bid goodbye to their former lives—a moment of reckoning that leaves each of them irrevocably altered.

A novel of intimacy and precarity, friendship and chosen family, The Late Americans is Brandon Taylor’s richest and most involving work of fiction to date, confirming his position as one of our most perceptive chroniclers of contemporary life.

Becoming Ted - Matt Cain

Contemporary Romance

19 January 2023

Ted Ainsworth has always worked at his family's ice-cream business in the quiet Lancashire town of St Luke's-on-Sea. But the truth is, he's never wanted to work for the family firm - he doesn't even like ice-cream, though he's never told his parents that.

When Ted's husband suddenly leaves him, the bottom falls out of his world. But what if this could be an opportunity to put what he wants first? This could be the chance to finally follow his secret dream: something Ted has never told anyone ...

If I See You Again Tomorrow - Robbie Couch

YA Sci-Fi Romance

08 June 2023

A speculative young adult romance about a teen stuck in a time loop that's endlessly monotonous until he meets the boy of his dreams. For some reason, Clark has woken up and relived the same monotonous Monday 309 times. Until Day 310 turns out to be...different.

Suddenly, his usual torturous math class is interrupted by an anomaly-a boy he's never seen before in all his previous Mondays. When shy, reserved Clark decides to throw caution to the wind and join effusive and effervescent Beau on a series of "errands" across the Windy City, he never imagines that anything will really change, because nothing has in such a long time. And he definitely doesn't expect to fall this hard or this fast for someone in just one day.

Bored Gay Werewolf - Tony Santorella

Supernatural Fiction

01 June 2023

Brian, an aimless slacker, works doubles at his shift job, forgets to clean his room and lays about with his friends Nik and Darby. He’s been struggling to manage his transition to adulthood almost as much as his monthly transitions to a werewolf.

Really, he's not great at the whole werewolf thing, and his recent murderous slip-ups have caught the attention of Tyler, a Millennial were-mentor determined to take the mythological world by storm. Tyler has a plan, and weirdly, his self-help punditry encourages Brian to shape up and stop accidentally marking out guys who ghosted him on Grindr as potential monthly victims. But as Brian gets closer to Tyler’s pack, and alienated from Nik and Darby, he realises that Tyler’s expansion plans are much more nefarious than a little lupine enlightenment…

Sounds Like Fun - Bryan Moriarty

Contemporary Adult Romance

30 March 2023

Eoin is doing great. He's 27, gainfully employed and in a long-term relationship with his boyfriend Rich. Okay, so his best friend Jax is diving into yet another disastrously bad relationship and Eoin's going to be the one dealing with the eventual fallout.

And his boss at the cafe, Rebecca, seems to have vanished, so somehow Eoin's left managing the place. And to be honest, he's not got much else going on. But still, he's got his boyfriend Rich - steady, sensible and dependable Rich.

That is, until Eoin's world is turned upside down when Rich announces that he wants an open relationship. Terrified of losing the man he loves, Eoin reluctantly agrees to this new arrangement, and stumbles into the world of dating with no strings attached. What could go wrong?

Small Joys - Elvin James Mensah

Adult Contemporary Fiction - Fiction

13 April 2023

An unexpected friendship saves a young man's life in this moving, utterly charming debut about chosen family, the winding road to happiness, and the grace of second chances.

It's 2005 and Harley has dropped out of college to move home, back to rural England, where he works a dead-end job at a movie theater. Estranged from his father and finding every attempt at happiness futile, Harley is on the verge of making a devastating final decision. Fortunately for him, things don't go according to plan, and his attempt on his own life is interrupted by his new roommate, Muddy.

Muddy is everything Harley is not: ostensibly heterosexual, freewheeling, and confident in his masculinity. Despite their differences, a deep friendship blossoms between them when Muddy takes Harley under his wing and shows him everything that, in his eyes, makes life worth living: bird-watching, karaoke, rugby, and the band Oasis.

Lose You to Find Me - Erik J. Brown

Contemporary YA Romance

06 July 2023

Tommy Dees is in the weeds - restaurant speak for beyond overwhelmed. He's been working at Sunset Estates Retirement Community to get the experience he needs to attend one of the best culinary schools in the world. And he also needs a letter of recommendation from his sadistic manager.

In exchange for the letter, Tommy has to meet three conditions - including train new-hire Gabriel. Gabe, with the dimples and kind heart, who Tommy crushed on during summer camp at age ten and then never saw again. Unfortunately, Gabe doesn't remember Tommy at all.

The training proves distracting as old feelings resurface, and the universe seems to be conspiring against them. With the application deadline looming and Gabe on his mind, can Tommy keep it all together or is it a recipe for disaster?

Another Dimension Of Us - Mike Albo

YA Science-Fiction/Romance

17 January 2023

In 1986, Tommy Gaye is in love with his best friend, Renaldo Calabasas. But at the height of the AIDS crisis and amidst the homophobia running rampant across America, Tommy can never share his feelings. Then, one terrible night, Renaldo is struck by lightning and he emerges from the storm a very different boy.

In 2044, Heron High student Pris Devrees jolts awake after having a strange nightmare about a boy named Tommy and a house in the neighbourhood the locals affectionally call 'The Murder House.' When she ventures to the house to better understand her vivid dreams, she happens upon an old self-help book that she soon realises is a guide to trans-dimensional travel. As bodies and minds merge across the astral plane, Pris, Tommy, and their friends race to save Renaldo from a dangerous demon, while uncovering potent realities about love, sexuality, and friendship.

Ander & Santi Were Here - Jonny Garza Villa

YA Contemporary Romance

06 April 2023

Finding home. Falling in love. Fighting to belong. Ander & Santi Were Here is a stunning YA contemporary love story about a Mexican-American teen who falls in love with an undocumented Mexican boy.

The Santos Vista neighborhood of San Antonio, Texas, is all Ander Lopez has ever known. The smell of pan dulce. The mixture of Spanish and English filling the streets. And, especially their job at their family's taquería. It's the place that has inspired Ander as a muralist, and, as they get ready to leave for art school, it's all of these things that give them hesitancy that gives them the thought, are they ready to leave it all behind?

Afterglow - Phil Stamper

YA Contemporary Romance

16 February 2023

After a summer of life-changing, these four friends are finally ready for senior year.

Gabriel is thrilled to create his school's first LGBTQ+ advocacy group, but his long-distance relationship is fading from summer love to something else. Heath feels secure for the first time in years, but with his future riding on a baseball scholarship, each pitch triggers his anxiety.

Reese is set on pursuing a career in fashion design, but his creativity takes him in an unexpected direction he isn't yet ready to share. Sal wants to be in politics, specifically local politics. After a chat with his aunt, he is ready for an unlikely path.

As graduation nears and the boys prepare to enter the real world, it's clear their friendship will never be the same. Can they find a way to stay connected and pursue their dreams?

The Minus-One Club - Kekla Magoon

YA Contemporary Mystery

24 February 2023

A moving contemporary YA novel about the bonds between a group of teens whose lives have been upended by tragedy.

Fifteen-year-old Kermit Sanders knows grief and its all-encompassing shadows. After losing his beloved older sister in a tragic car accident, nothing quite punctures through the feelings of loss. Everywhere Kermit goes, he is reminded of her.

But then Kermit finds a mysterious invitation in his locker, signed anonymously with "-1." He has no idea what he's in for, but he shows up to find out. Dubbed the "Minus-One Club," a group of his schoolmates has banded together as a form of moral support. The members have just one thing in common—they have all suffered the tragic loss of someone they loved.

Arthur and Teddy Are Coming Out - Ryan Love

Contemporary Coming-Of-Age

13 April 2023

When 79-year-old Arthur Edwards gathers his family together to share some important news, no one is prepared for the bombshell he drops: he's gay, and after a lifetime in the closet, he's finally ready to come out.

Arthur's 21-year-old grandson, Teddy, has a secret of his own: he's also gay, and developing serious feelings for his colleague Ben. But Teddy doesn't feel ready to come out yet – especially when Arthur’s announcement causes shockwaves in the family.

Arthur and Teddy have always been close, and now they must navigate first loves, heartbreak, and finding their place in their community. But can they – and their family – learn to accept who they truly are?

Broken Hearts And Zombie Parts - William Hussey

YA Romance - Fiction

11 May 2023

A big gay rom-zom-com with heart. Jesse Spark has a broken heart and in a few short weeks he'll require major surgery to repair it - which means he only has a month to accomplish two almost-impossible tasks: 1) Shoot his epic zombie movie on a shoestring budget if he has any hope of getting into film school. 2) Fall in love before this surgery lands him with a huge scar - because how will anyone ever fancy him after that? A savagely funny gay YA romance about body image, self-acceptance and falling in love, all while shooting a low-budget zombie flick! Sex Education meets Love, Simon - with fake zombies.

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