Top Ten Tuesday #372

Hi everyone! I hope you’ve all had a good week since I last did one of these, mine has been fairly quiet, though we’re getting ready to move in a couple of weeks’ time, so the packing has (unfortunately) begun.

Anyway, it’s Tuesday, and so that means another Top Ten Tuesday courtesy of Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. I wasn’t feeling the topic this week as I’ve never really been a big fan of epilogues, so instead I thought I’d do something for Pride Month and share some Books By LGBTQ+ Authors on My TBR. As with the last time I did this topic, I’ve only chosen books by authors who have spoken about their sexuality online, as I didn’t want to presume anything, or accidentally out anyone!. All the books also feature at least one or more LGBTQ+ characters:

1. All Of Us Villains-Amanda Foody and Christine Lynn Herman

I’m so excited for this one, I’m really hoping I can get around it to this year, though I don’t think I will before the sequel comes out in September. It sounds so me as well, it’s basically The Hunger Games with magic apparently and everyone’s a villain. Everyone’s a villain is one of my favourite tropes, so this sounds right up my street.

2. The City of Dusk-Tara Sim

I have to admit, I don’t know a massive amount about this, but I loved Tara Sim’s Timekeeper trilogy, and I’ve been wanting to read something new by her for a while, so I thought her adult debut would be a good place to start. All I really know about it is that its dark and it has LGBTQ+ characters, and honestly that’s all I really need to know!

3. A Day of Fallen Night-Samantha Shannon

I have to admit, I’m already a little intimidated by this one because I know it’s going to be HUGE, but I did enjoy Priory, and I’d like to read more in that world. I’m hoping that this one has even more dragons though!

4. Ten Steps To Nanette-Hannah Gadsby

I love Hannah Gadsby, and I really enjoyed both her specials on Netflix, so I was already excited to read it and then the absolutely hilarious episode of The Guilty Feminist with her speaking to Deborah Frances-White about this book absolutely sealed it for me. This will definitely be an audiobook listen sometime in the near future.

5. A Lesson In Vengeance-Victoria Lee

I definitely want to get more onto the dark academia train because it just sounds so up my street, but I’ve not read all that many yet. This definitely seems like a great place to start, it’s sapphic, set in a boarding school and has witches and murder, all of those things are things I enjoy, so I’m definitely looking forward to this one. It’s probably going to be an autumn read, much as I don’t generally read seasonally, this gives off such Halloween vibes that it just seems rude to read it any other time of year.

6. A Kingdom For A Stage-Heidi Heilig

I read For A Muse of Fire ages ago, and I kept meaning to get to the sequel but I still haven’t. I thought For A Muse of Fire was really creative with it’s combination of South East Asian culture with French colonialism and I really loved that heroine was bipolar because I honestly can’t think of many contemporary books with a bipolar MC, let alone fantasy ones. I have completely forgotten what happened in the first book though, so I may need to look up a recap before I dive into this one!

7. These Feathered Flames-Alexandra Overy

Sister stories are like catnip to me, so naturally when I saw this one, I was immediately excited. I love books that are based off folklore that I’m not necessarily familiar with, and I admit, I’ve never heard of the Firebird story. Plus it has a sapphic enemies to lovers to romance and I’m definitely there for that!

8. Reader, I Murdered Him-Betsy Cornwell

Now granted, I didn’t much like Jane Eyre when I read it for school (I actually never finished it, I got about halfway through and then gave up!) so you wouldn’t think a sequel of sorts would be my cup of tea (to give you an idea of how soon I gave up with the original Jane Eyre, I had no idea Rochester even had a ward) but it turns out all Jane Eyre needed to make me like it was murder, female vigilantes and a sapphic love story. Who knew?

9. A Restless Truth-Freya Marske

I wasn’t the biggest fan of A Marvellous Light, but it seems like the women take centre stage in this one and I am all for that. More Adelaide Morrissey please! I’ve seen this described as lesbian Knives Out on a boat which sounds just fun enough to work and I really loved Maud in the first one, so I’m looking forward to seeing her adventures this time.

10. Scavenge The Stars-Tara Sim

Another Tara Sim one I know, but I have a few of hers to catch up on, I’ve not read any since Firestarter in 2018. This is a gender swapped retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo and whilst I have to admit, I’ve not read the original book, it sounds really fun. I would probably have read this one before now, but I’ve not been able to find it anywhere in the UK, so it’s been on the back burner for a while.

So there we go, those are some LGBTQ+ books by LGBTQ+ authors on my list, have you read any of these (I know a couple are yet to be released, so of the ones that are out!)? Which do you recommend I start with? Do you have any recommendations for me (especially if they are queer BIPOC authors because I know I am sorely lacking those on my TBR and would love to have more)? Let me know in the comments!

Next week’s topic is meant to be Bookish Wishes where we share our wishlists but I feel kind of uncomfortable asking strangers to buy me books (lovely as I think the idea is! Plus I am about to move and I think if I acquire anymore books before I do then my mum will probably get quite annoyed!). So instead, I’m going to do something I saw Alicia from A Kernel Of Nonsense do a few weeks back when we did our quote freebie and sharing 10 Random Quotes From Books On My TBR. It should be both fun and hopefully relatively straightforward.