Queer KU Reads

Heroes for Ghosts

by Jackie North

Ornes, France, 1917. Stanley Sullivan is trapped in hell. With combat raging and defeat imminent, he’s determined to save his remaining brothers-in-arms no matter the cost. But when he’s killed before he can sound the call for retreat, he’s shocked to awaken a hundred years in the future.

Ornes, present day. WWI scholar Devon Foster works on his thesis and fantasizes about meeting a real American soldier from the era. He’s stunned when handsome Stanley appears out of nowhere and falls into his embrace, and despite the century-long gulf between them, Devon’s heart leaps with an instant connection.

The Captain’s Choice

by Wren Taylor

Wales, 1707: Mona Lloyd is desperate to escape a wedding and a future with a man she doesn’t love. Captain Elinor Davies already has everything she wants and has sworn to never fall in love again. But when a pretty, young stowaway appears on her ship to challenge everything she holds dear, she has to choose between her responsibility to her crew and her heart’s true desire.

Embers Glow After the Fire

by Micah Carver

Brandon and Matthew are both wrestling with their pasts when they meet on a cabin retreat. They try to keep things platonic, but the temptation for a holiday fling might be too strong…

The Potion Gardener

by Arden Powell

The Potion Gardener is a low-stakes, low-angst cozy fantasy novella in the Flos Magicae series, a collection of queer romances set in an alternate 1920s world with magic. Featuring a trans, nonbinary lead, a butch cis lesbian love interest, a scruffy terrier with anxiety, and a great deal of gardening. All the Flos Magicae stories are standalones, and can be read in any order.

The Forest at the Heart of Her Mage

by Hiyodori

Tiller is finally ready to revisit the deadly forest where she grew up. To survive, she needs a mage named Carnelian—a woman with a pretty face and a shady reputation. But Carnelian's secrets might make her a more dangerous companion than any of the forest's magical monsters.

Managing and Other Lies

by Willow Heath

An unsettling collection of queer horror stories that takes readers on a dark journey down desolate country roads, through the vacant halls of Gothic homes, and into the dark heart of modern-day Britain. These are Kafkaesque tales of loneliness, brutality, and paranoia.

Lamb

by Troy Ford

D is shaken when his mercurial friend Lamb vanishes just before they're set to move in together. The news of his death three years later shadows him like a ghost. Sifting through Lamb's journals decades later, D uncovers a raw, intimate portrait of a sensitive misfit navigating a world that never understood him.