Our Favorite Queer Books!

‘Wild Dark Shore’ by Charlotte McConaghy is set on the fictional Shearwater Island, located somewhere between Tasmania and Antarctica, in 2025, right after the publication of the book. And although it is set in the present, the story focuses on the future—a future that seems insecure due to climate change. The story is told from several perspectives: Rowan, Dominic, Raff, Fen, Orly, and, at one point, Alex.

‘The Mercies’ by Kiran Millwood Hargrave is set on Vardø. The climate is rough so far north, but the inhabitants know how to deal with it. The story begins on Christmas Eve 1617, when all adult men that were not too old to go out for fishing were killed by a storm. At this time, all over Europe and North America, innocent people, mostly women, were being burned at the stake for witchcraft.

‘Die Kriegerin’ by Helene Bukowski follows Lisbeth and the (initially unnamed) warrior—two women bound by a complex, painful relationship. It's a story of closeness, of silence, and of desperate attempts to harden oneself: bodies and minds steeled against the world, in the hope that pain won’t find a way in.

‘Kingdomtide’ by Rye Curtis is set in the Bitterroot Range (Montana) in 1986. The story alternates between Cloris's account twenty years later in her unique voice and the life of Ranger Lewis and the people around her, who are often weird. Cloris and her husband take a small plane to the mountains for a few days. The plane crashes, and only Cloris, who is 72 years old, survives. She is in the middle of nowhere with nothing around her. Still, she tries to find her way home.

‘The People in the Trees’ by Hanya Yanagihara is a deeply complex and thought-provoking read. Norton Perina, fresh out of medical school, embarks on an expedition to the remote island of Ivu’ivu with anthropologist Paul Tallent. While Paul focuses on studying a 'lost tribe,' Norton makes a discovery that promises to revolutionize medical science and challenge ethical boundaries.

‘Auf See’ (~at sea) by Theresia Enzensberger is an intelligent dystopian novel, set in the near future, about an artificial island in the...

Two-legs had specific ways of classifying the world that Yetu didn’t like. She remembered that, at least. They organized the world as two...

‘To Paradise’ by Hanya Yanagihara is brilliant. And I didn’t expect anything less from her. The book is divided into three sections, all...