Collection: Adult

A unique survey of 350 artworks by a global and diverse array of LGBTQ+ artists - many underrecognized and overlooked - from the last 50 years

Though the Stonewall Riots might now be shorthand for the start of the gay rights movement, so much of art and culture has been 'queer' since the beginning of time. In About Face, art historian and curator Jonathan D. Katz explores this concept head-on, curating a tapestry of works that connect historical threads and reveal how gender and sexual identity have been interwoven by artists contemporaneous to and since Stonewall. With more than 350 artworks by over 40 LGBTQ+ artists across nationalities and generations, and original texts by artists and scholars, About Face is as stunning as it is important.

That's the thing about hearts-

Like waves, they break too.

Grief.

I've never battled with the raw, debilitating pain that comes with it.

Then a twist of fate hits me out of nowhere, and I can barely keep from drowning.

It's like weights tied to my ankles in the middle of a raging ocean.

I'm helpless, with no way to swim back to the surface.

But fate is crueler still, bringing my stepbrother back for the first time in years.

Cannon never wanted this family. Especially me.

Still, he's always been my greatest desire. And my biggest weakness.

He's unattainable.

Straight, engaged, and with a seemingly perfect life on the other side of the country.

It's something I'd do well to remember, yet when he stays, it's so easy to forget.

In finding solace together, we mend what once was broken.

This loss bonds us. Changes us.

He's become more than a brother or a lover.

He's my anchor.

So how am I supposed to keep my head above water when I'll eventually lose him too?

*Head Above Water is a STANDALONE full length MM enemies-to-lovers stepbrother romance novel.*

"An illuminating look at what it takes to be an Olympian... In this story, passion reigns supreme." --Cosmopolitan

"An emotionally articulate memoir...[and] an intimate insight into the good-hearted and talented young man behind the medals." --Attitude

A deeply personal and inspiring memoir from the celebrated Olympic gold medal diver and LGBTQ+ advocate

Tom Daley is one of the most beloved athletes of our time, having competed as a diver in four Olympics, garnering medals and finally, in 2021 in Tokyo, winning gold. But few people know the realities of his life beyond the pool--his struggles, his secret triumphs and the mindset he needed to cultivate to become a champion.

In this deeply personal book, Tom explores the experiences that have shaped him and the qualities that brought him success and joy--from the resilience he developed competing at a world-class level, to the courage he discovered while reclaiming the narrative around his sexuality, to the perspective that family life has brought him.

Inspiring, candid and compulsively readable, Coming Up for Air offers an intimate window into the life and mindset of an athlete and advocate who has left an indelible imprint on sports.

Based on the popular podcast, Obitchuary: The Big Hot Book of Death is a smart, funny look at the American culture of death and how we're remembered.

It's safe to say everyone thinks about death-whether they want to or not. But have you ever wondered about what sort of keepsakes you can make with your remains, or given any thought to the most scandalous deathbed confessions throughout history? Well Madison Reyes and Spencer Henry have, and they've spent countless hours scouring the darkest corners of the internet, digging through newspaper archives, devouring documents, and picking the brains of death industry experts to bring you Obitchuary, a darkly funny and deeply poignant exploration of all things death.

With chapters like "Coffin Confessions," "Executions to Die For," "The Last Word," and "If These Dolls Could Speak," Madison and Spencer guide us through surprisingly colorful history, traditions, and contemporary practices. They also demystify taboo topics with incredible and hilarious details, including FUNerals, as they call them, cremations and themed funerals, famous body snatchers, and so much more.

Shocking, macabre, hilarious, and moving, Obitchuary digs deep into the physical aspects of death while also carefully exploring what death says about our humanity, and the ways we choose to remember those we've lost. So go ahead, crack open the book--we know you're dying to read it.

"The most sensational, perpetual teenager in the world." --Jim Henson

"To know him was to love him, and we do." --Mark Hamill

Funny Boy: The Richard Hunt Biography tells the life story of a gifted performer whose gleeful irreverence, sharp wit and generous spirit inspired millions. Richard Hunt was one of the original main five performers in the Muppet troupe. He brought to life an impressive range of characters on The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock and various Muppet movies, everyone from eager gofer Scooter to elderly heckler Statler, groovy girl Janice to freaked-out lab helper Beaker, even early versions of Miss Piggy and Elmo. Hunt also acted, directed and mentored the next generation of performers. His accomplishments are all the more remarkable in that he crammed them all into only 40 years.

Richard Hunt was just 18 years old when he joined Jim Henson's company, where his edgy humor quickly helped launch the Muppets into international stardom. Hunt lived large, savoring life's delights, amassing a vivid, disparate community of friends. Even when the AIDS epidemic wrought its devastation, claiming the love of Hunt's life and threatening his own life, he showed an extraordinary sense of resilience, openness and joy. Hunt's story exemplifies how to follow your passion, foster your talents, adapt to life's surprises, genuinely connect with everyone from glitzy celebrities to gruff cab drivers - and have a hell of a lot of fun along the way.

Alice Randall, award-winning professor, songwriter, and author with a "lively, engaging, and often wise" (The New York Times Book Review) voice, offers a lyrical, introspective, and unforgettable account of her past and her search for the first family of Black country music.

Country music had brought Randall and her activist mother together and even gave Randall a singular distinction in American music history: she is the first Black woman to cowrite a number one country hit, Trisha Yearwood's "XXX's and OOO's". Randall found inspiration and comfort in the sounds and history of the first family of Black country music: DeFord Bailey, Lil Hardin, Ray Charles, Charley Pride, and Herb Jeffries who, together, made up a community of Black Americans rising through hard times to create simple beauty, true joy, and sometimes profound eccentricity.

What emerges in My Black Country is a celebration of the most American of music genres and the radical joy in realizing the power of Black influence on American culture. As country music goes through a fresh renaissance today, with a new wave of Black artists enjoying success, My Black Country is the perfect gift for longtime country fans and a vibrant introduction to a new generation of listeners who previously were not invited to give the genre a chance.

"Brydie Lee-Kennedy's writing is sharp and funny and humane. A passionate chronicler of the ridiculous--in people, in society, in sex--Brydie skewers everyone equally, but always with empathy, warmth and wit." --Monica Heisey, author of Really Good, Actually

For readers of Dolly Alderton and Candice Carty-Williams, a spiky bisexual love story that introduces the unforgettable Ada--a free-spirited Holly Golightly for the age of DMs who follows the whimsies of her heart wherever they lead.

Ada is a seeker, a perpetually moving ball of excess. A twenty-six-year-old Australian living in London, she ekes out a living as a cabaret performer and part-time temp. Yet Ada can't imagine wanting to be any other age or any other place. Every night is an opportunity to be thrilled and every morning a chance to recount her escapades to friends.

So when Ada falls for Sadie and Stuart at the same time, she sees no reason not to pursue them both. But as the responsibilities of adult life begin to encroach--bills, family, more bills--and Sadie and Stuart find out about one another, the people around Ada increasingly insist it's time for her to settle down. Can she resist the inevitable?

Effortlessly hilarious and painfully relatable, Go Lightly is a love letter to girls who are the life of the party; girls who say yes without fear. In smartly observed and endlessly warm prose, Brydie Lee-Kennedy contemplates the great freedoms and greater uncertainties of modern love and friendship, introducing an utterly flawed yet charming character who revels in her youth and sexuality while reckoning with a serious case of main character syndrome.

"Brontez is a raw tongue of flame blazing through all the blatant fakery and insincere bullshit of today's gay/music/human scene. This audacious non-memoir burnt the hair off the back of my neck and had me rolling with glee." --S.F. Bay Guardian

A dirty cult-classic put out in a small batch by an underground publisher (Rudos and Rubes) in 2015, Johnny Would You Love Me If My Dick Were Bigger recounts the life of an artist and "old school homosexual" who bears a big resemblance to author Brontez Purnell. Our hero doesn't trust the new breed of fags taking over San Francisco, though. They wear bicycle helmets, seat belts, and condoms. Meanwhile, he sabotages his relationships, hallucinating affection while cruising in late night parks, bath-houses, and other nooks and crannies of a newly-conservative, ruined city.

Furiously original, vital, and messy, this funny "non-memoir" uncovers a revelatory truth for the age: there are things far scarier than HIV.

Preorder now and receive the stunning DELUXE LIMITED EDITION while supplies last―featuring a gold foiled cover, gorgeous sprayed edges with stenciled artwork, as well as exclusive metallic ink patterned endpapers and unique foiled front and back case stamps. This breathtaking collectible is only available on a limited first print run, a must-have for any book lover.

"Exquisite and devastating. It won't fail to move you." --Shelley Parker-Chan, #1 bestselling author of She Who Became the Sun

Inspired by the legend of Xishi, one of the famous Four Beauties of Ancient China, A Song to Drown Rivers is an epic historical fantasy about womanhood, war, sacrifice, and love against all odds as the fate of two kingdoms hangs in a delicate balance.

Her beauty hides a deadly purpose.

Xishi's beauty is seen as a blessing to the villagers of Yue--convinced that the best fate for a girl is to marry well and support her family. When Xishi draws the attention of the famous young military advisor, Fanli, he presents her with a rare opportunity: to use her beauty as a weapon. One that could topple the rival neighboring kingdom of Wu, improve the lives of her people, and avenge her sister's murder. All she has to do is infiltrate the enemy palace as a spy, seduce their immoral king, and weaken them from within.

Trained by Fanli in everything from classical instruments to concealing emotion, Xishi hones her beauty into the perfect blade. But she knows Fanli can see through every deception she masters, the attraction between them burning away any falsehoods.

Once inside the enemy palace, Xishi finds herself under the hungry gaze of the king's advisors while the king himself shows her great affection. Despite his gentleness, a brutality lurks and Xishi knows she can never let her guard down. But the higher Xishi climbs in the Wu court, the farther she and Fanli have to fall--and if she is unmasked as a traitor, she will bring both kingdoms down.

"Stunning and heart-rending." --Chloe Gong, #1 bestselling author of Immortal Longings

A memoir of transformation and self-discovery that explores fetish communities from a gender diverse perspective.

Transland is a fiery and revealing memoir that explores what happens when a non-binary person goes looking for self-worth and a sense of belonging in fetish subculture, only to find that fetish communities come with just as many problematic rules, expectations, and hierarchies as mainstream ones.

Moving from wide-eyed optimism that the fetish community is the promised land to realizing the ways fetish communities--even queer ones--reinforce the commodification of bodies, Mx. Sly examines how BDSM helped them understand and articulate their gender, how kink helped them turn shameful experiences into liberating ones, and how they became disillusioned with the BDSM scene--without rejecting the lessons fetish taught them.

The stories in Transland explore PTSD, intergenerational trauma, memory, consent, gender transition and diversity, queer relationships and subculture, and a lot of bondage. An odyssey of kinky hookups (including a charismatic Toronto femdomme, an Aussie rope bondage expert, and the queer sex tourism neighborhood of Bangkok), gender euphoria, and testing the limits of sensual experience, this memoir is a candid exploration of fetish communities and practices and a wandering quest through sensuality toward personal strength and self-reliance. Sexy, gutting, graphic, and existential, Transland is about finding oneself through intense sensations, reaching a point where being hit has diminishing returns, and coming out wiser on the other side.

From international bestselling author Kat Blackthorne comes a haunted and spooky twist on Medusa and Beauty and the Beast. For everyone who needs a sapphic story where the women are lethal and insatiable.

To be bid on was to be bought as a wife. To the winning bidder his prize, a maid, a servant, a child-bearer. That would be Poesy Laroche's life, she realized, as she walked down the aisle to her future husband. He'd promised to break her into submission, and she knew his words were true.

In an act of desperation, she takes the reins of her fate and dives into the woods rife with terrors. The screams that come at night become only whispers of stories about the mysterious Lady Venom. Her manor is filled with snakes and horrors. And when Poesy gets lost within her maze, Lady Venom claims her as her own mistress, with no hope to escape.

Poesy is locked into a haunted estate where the flowers watch, the ghosts whisper while the snakes slither, and everyone knows the deadliest of them all is their Lady that rules them.

But there are secrets to uncover both within the eerie walls and in the riddles atop Lady's Venom's forked tongue as she incites more danger and pleasure than Poesy ever thought possible.

But will it be enough to keep Poesy from her fate? Or will the hidden truths prove more fateful than a serpent's bite?

Lady Venom is a haunted, spooky, lesbian romance with lethal women and gothic magic. It's a twist on both Medusa and Beauty and the Beast and features femme dom and captive tropes with off the charts spice. This story is set in The Halloween Boys universe with crossover of lore, but you do not need to read The Halloween Boys before enjoying Lady Venom Takes a Mistress. Please see authors site for content information.

A POPSUGAR BEST MYSTERY OF 2022
A BOOKRIOT BEST MYSTERY OF 2022
A CRIMEREADS BEST MYSTERY OF 2022

Perfect for fans of T.J. Klune, Becky Abertalli, and David Levithan, this hilarious, big-hearted LGBTQ+ mystery follows an unlucky in love--and life--gay relationship blogger who teams up with a take-charge lesbian and a fiesty bull terrier to find a missing go-go boy and bring down an international crime ring.

Seattle teacher and part-time blogger Hayden McCall wakes sporting one hell of a shiner, with the police knocking at his door. It seems that his new crush, dancer Camilo Rodriguez, has gone missing and they suspect foul play. What happened the night before? And where is Camilo?

Determined to find answers, pint-sized, good-hearted Hayden seeks out two of Camilo's friends--Hollister and Burley--both lesbians and both fiercely devoted to their friend. From them, Hayden learns that Camilo is a "Dreamer" whose parents had been deported years earlier, and whose sister, Daniela, is presumed to have returned to Venezuela with them. Convinced that the cops won't take a brown boy's disappearance seriously, the girls join Hayden's hunt for Camilo.

The first clues turn up at Barkingham Palace, a pet store where Camilo had taken a part-time job. The store's owner, Della Rupert, claims ignorance, but Hayden knows something is up. And then there's Camilo's ex-boyfriend, Ryan, who's suddenly grown inexplicably wealthy. When Hayden and Hollister follow Ryan to a secure airport warehouse, they make a shocking connection between him and Della--and uncover the twisted scheme that's made both of them rich.

The trail of clues leads them to the grounds of a magnificent estate on an island in Puget Sound, where they'll finally learn the truth about Camilo's disappearance--and the fate of his family.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Midnight in Chernobyl comes the definitive, dramatic, minute-by-minute story of the Challenger disaster based on fascinating new archival research and in-depth reporting--a riveting history that reads like a thriller.

On January 28, 1986, just seventy-three seconds into flight, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all seven people on board. Millions of Americans witnessed the tragic deaths of a crew including New Hampshire schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. Like the assassination of JFK, the Challenger disaster is a defining moment in 20th century history--one that forever changed the way America thought of itself and its optimistic view of the future. Yet the full story of what happened, and why, has never been told. Until now.

Based on extensive archival research and meticulous, original reporting, Challenger: An American Tragedy follows a handful of central protagonists--including each of the seven members of the doomed crew--through the years leading up to the accident, a detailed account of the tragedy itself, and into the investigation that followed. It's a compelling tale of optimism and promise undermined by political cynicism and cost-cutting in the interests of burnishing national prestige; of hubris and heroism; and of an investigation driven by leakers and whistleblowers determined to bring the truth to light. Throughout, there are the ominous warning signs of a tragedy to come, recognized but then ignored, and later hidden from the public.

Higginbotham reveals the history of the shuttle program, the lives of men and women whose stories have been overshadowed by the disaster as well as the designers, engineers and test pilots who struggled against the odds to get the first shuttle into space. A masterful blend of riveting human drama and fascinating and absorbing science, Challenger brings to life a turning point in history--and the result is an even more complex and astonishing story than we remember.

From USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Becca Steele comes a new standalone M/M college romance.

My first year at university started with a bang...literally.

I crashed into someone's car. Even worse? It turns out that the person I blindsided is my new housemate, Liam, second-year student and football player.

It's hate at first sight...until it isn't.

But even if he doesn't hate me anymore, it doesn't change the fact that he's straight.

At least, I thought he was.

One night, one kiss, and everything I thought I knew turns upside down.

They say actions speak louder than words.

And his actions tell me that he wants me.

Winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Drama

"To watch this show is to enter, by some urgent, bawdy magic, an ecstatic and infinitely more colorful version of the famous surreal lithograph by M. C. Escher: the hand that lifts from the page, becoming almost real, then draws another hand, which returns the favor. Which came first? A Strange Loop is complex, teasing, thrilling." --Vinson Cunningham, New Yorker

Usher is a Black, queer writer, working a day job he hates while writing his original musical: a piece about a Black, queer writer, working a day job he hates while writing his original musical. This blistering musical follows a young artist at war with a host of demons--not least of which are the punishing thoughts in his own head--in an attempt to understand his own strange loop.

The wise words of science fiction icon Octavia E. Butler live on in this beautiful and giftable little volume.

"There's no single answer that will solve all our future problems. There's no magic bullet. Instead there are thousands of answers--at least. You can be one of them if you choose to be."

Originally published in Essence magazine in the year 2000, Octavia E. Butler's essay "A Few Rules for Predicting the Future" offers an honest look into the inspiration behind her science fiction novels and the importance of studying history and taking responsibility for our actions if we are to move forward.

Organized into four main rules, this short essay reminds readers to learn from the past, respect the law of consequences, be aware of their perspectives, and count on the surprises. Citing the warning signs of fascism, the illusive effects of fear and wishful thinking, and the unpredictable nature of what is yet to come, Butler shares realistic but hopeful suggestions to shape our future into something good. An inspiring and motivational gift for students and recent graduates, fans of Butler's work, and anyone seeking a brighter day tomorrow, this exquisite gift book includes stunning Afrofuturist artwork by Manzel Bowman alongside the full text of the original essay.

LITERARY ICON: Octavia E. Butler was a pioneering science fiction writer whose novels, written decades ago, remain eerily relevant, reflecting on themes of racial injustice, women's rights, environmental collapse, and political corruption. In 1995, she became the first science fiction author to win a MacArthur Genius grant, and her books are taught in over 200 colleges and universities nationwide. This book shares Butler's timely but lesser-known essay and is a must-read for fans of her classic sci-fi works.

CELEBRATE BLACK CREATORS: This book spotlights one of the greatest authors of Afrofuturism, a genre and philosophy that explores and reimagines Black culture, creativity, and liberation through fiction, art, music, film, and other media. Octavia E. Butler's forward-thinking essay is paired with contemporary illustrations by Manzel Bowman, whose evocative images are also inspired by Afrofuturist visions.

INSPIRING GIFT: A unique gift for students, recent graduates, and anyone celebrating life milestones or looking forward in life, this beautifully designed hardcover book is sure to inspire. Octavia E. Butler's essay is also an important, evergreen reminder for writers, creatives, dreamers, and activists who want to envision and work toward a brighter future.

Perfect for:

• Fans of Octavia Butler and her novels, including Kindred and Parable of the Sower
• People interested in nonfiction and essays by Black women writers
• Afrofuturism lovers and social justice-minded sci-fi readers
• Literary bibliophiles looking for a stunning new addition to their bookshelf
• Gift-giving to graduating high school and college students
• Activists and community leaders
• Inspirational essay readers
• Fans of Manzel Bowman and Afrofuturist art