Gimmicks and Glamour

By Lauren Melissa Ellzey

Friends to Lovers Romance
Other Worlds
Young Adult
Magic
People of Color
Bisexual
California

Ashly Harris has a secret she’s been keeping all her life.

To everyone else she’s just a seventeen-year-old party girl and problem senior at Hackley High School. She has always felt alone, and not just because she’s biracial and openly bisexual. Ashly sees faeries all around her, all the time. She has learned to hide her Sight, but that doesn’t change the fact that she is constantly taking the blame for the havoc that the faeries wreak. The only person who knows about Ashly’s ability is her eccentric, yet level-headed best friend, Caris, who might be playing along while also playing with Ashly’s feelings.

As Ashly speeds toward graduation with few future prospects on the horizon, she must protect the classmates she claims to hate from an evil that no one else sees.

 

"This is an accessible story with an interesting premise: The fantasy metaphor for Ashly’s adolescent alienation and despair works well and livens up the plot, especially when a revelation draws Ashly into the throes of a faerie war as well as a rewarding queer romance. A relatable fantasy weaving in real-life issues." –Kirkus Reviews, 08/15/2023

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Digging for Heaven

By Jenna Jarvis

Women in Uniform
Enemies to Lovers Romance
Financial gap/Class disparity
Good girls/Bad girls
People of Color
Military
Royalty
Rivals
Non-Binary Gender
Asexual/Aromantic
Bisexual
Other Worlds
Magic
Dragon Circle Series | Book 1
Children / Families

The lands of Jeenobi and Aelshia are separated by hundreds of miles of dangerous desert, and antithetical views on dragons. Now, under a tenuous new peace agreement, Jeenobi has agreed to ban dragon slaying within its borders.

As a visiting ambassador to Jeenobi and a rider to the dragon Loren, Litz expected to meet resistance to all she represents. She did not expect Kella, the kingdom’s most famous living dragon slayer, and she certainly didn’t expect to find her attractive.

When Litz is forced into extraditing Kella to Aelshia for trial, they’ll discover more monstrous things in the wilds of the desert than each other, and they’ll need to put aside their differences if they want to survive. The future of both nations may hang in the balance.

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Barnabas Bopwright Saves the City

By J. Marshall Freeman

Political Thriller
Virgins/First Love
Big City
Amateur Sleuths
Bisexual
Coming Out
Transgender
Multicultural 
Other Worlds
People of Color
Music
Friends & Community
Children / Families

Fifteen-year-old Barnabas Bopwright is proud to live in the greatest city on earth. But under the shiny exterior lurks the hidden cost of the city’s skyscraping success.

On his way to school, Barnabas discovers a transit map with an unknown subway line. Soon he’s on an impossible train, running from authorities who have guarded the city’s dark mysteries for a century. The subway brings Barnabas to a hidden valley outside the city where he’s drawn into a terrifying world of deception and revenge.

 In the valley, Barnabas discovers new friendships, a death-defying circus, an evil emporium, and a surprising attraction for another boy. But when his investigations uncover a terror plot to destroy the city he loves, Barnabas realizes it’s up to him to save his home and bring deadly secrets into the light before it’s too late.

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The Willing

By Lyn Hemphill

Magic
Bisexual
Blue Collar
International Setting
Ghosts
College Life
People of Color
Other Worlds

Kitty Wilson doesn’t know how, but she can bring people back from the dead as long as someone is willing to take their place and keep the universe in balance. Oxford student Talia McGregor’s life goes from bad to worse when she’s killed in a hit-and-run. When the drunk driver responsible agrees to sacrifice his life to save Talia’s, Kitty makes the trade and brings Talia back to life. Neither of them expects the ghost of Matt, Kitty’s BFF, to come back with her.

Kitty has to figure out how to untether Matt’s ghost from Talia and bring him back for good. In her quest to discover the extent of her magic, Kitty must confront a secret society with questionable motives and connections to tragedies in her past, and a magical bloodline she never knew was hers.

As the stakes and the spells rise, Kitty and Talia rely on each other to survive, but can they open their hearts and trust the magic of love?

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Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks

By 'Nathan Burgoine

Asexual/Aromantic
Disability
Young Adult
Magic
Time Travel
Non-Binary Gender

Being the kid abducted by crazy old Ms. Easton when he was four permanently set Cole’s status to freak. At seventeen, his exit plan is simple: make it through the last few weeks of high school with his grades up and his head down.

When he pushes through the front door of the school and finds himself eighty kilometers away holding the door of a museum he was just thinking about, Cole faces facts: he’s either crazier than old Ms. Easton, or he just teleported.

Now every door is an accident waiting to happen—especially when Cole thinks about Malik, who, it turns out, has a glass door on his shower. When he starts seeing the same creepy people over his shoulder, no matter how far he’s gone, crushes become the least of his worries. They want him to stop, and they'll go to any length to make it happen.

Cole is running out of luck, excuses, and places to hide.

Time for a new exit plan.

 

PRAISE for Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks:

"Burgoine (Of Echoes Born, 2018, etc.) has created a gay teen protagonist who is a bit goofy at times but who is comfortable in his own skin....Overall, a feel-good, contemporary read with strong LGBTQIAP rep and an unusual fantasy subplot." —Kirkus Reviews

"Burgoine uses science fiction elements to explore homosexuality, pansexuality, bisexuality, and gender nonconforming identity....Burgoine's immersive writing excels in the details, from the precise sensations Cole experiences at the onset of a teleport to the overwhelming intensity of his feelings for his friend Malik....VERDICT A definite purchase for any library collection." School Library Journal

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Dark Rites

By Jeremy Jordan King

Immortal Testimony Novels | Book Three
Actors/Artists
Magic
Multicultural 
Big City
Young Adult
Celebrity
Friends & Community
People of Color
New York City
The actors in the 1922 production of Weinstein's Wonderacts have a secret: they aren't just performers, they're members of a Circle, a coven dedicated to enlightenment through magic. To enhance their power, they have their eye on the new girl in the cast, Margarite, a natural witch. But the coven's leader, Vincent, isn't satisfied. He's hungry for more, to become a Complete Man. He turns to a mysterious wanderer for counsel, but could the teacher's intentions and rituals be malevolent? Being the only one with true gifts, it's up to Margarite to save her friends from enacting these dark rites.
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