By Hudson Lin (@hudsonlinwrites)
For many folks in the LGBTQ community, choosing who they consider to be members of their family is a powerful way to find belonging. Especially for queer people of colour, who may come from more conservative cultures, creating a found family becomes essential for building reliable and encouraging support systems.
For Pride month, we’re reading novels that feature found families by queer authors. From a contemporary dark humour novel set in a library to an epic fantasy inspired by Indian mythology, found families are at the core of each of these books.
1) Is This a Cry For Help? by Emily Austin (Scribner Canada)
Darcy’s life turned out better than she could have ever imagined. She is a librarian at the local branch, while her wife Joy runs a book binding service. Between the two of them, there is no more room on their shelves with their ample book collections, various knickknacks and bobbles, and dried bouquets. Rounding out their ideal life is two cats and a sun-soaked house by the lake.
But when Darcy receives the news that her ex-boyfriend, Ben, has passed away, she spirals into a pit of guilt and regret, resulting in a mental breakdown and medical leave from the library. When she returns to work, she is met by unrest in her community and protests surrounding intellectual freedom, resulting in a call for book bans and a second look at the branch’s upcoming DEI programs.
Through the support of her community, colleagues, and the personal growth that results from examining her previous relationships, Darcy comes into her own agency and the truest version of herself. Is This a Cry for Help? not only offers a moving portrait of queer life after coming of age but also powerfully explores questions about sexuality, community, and the importance of libraries.
2) You x Me by Ayla Vejdani (Generous Press)
Love finds a way-through dating apps, shared playlists, inherited recipes, and sweat-soaked dance floors. In this interconnected collection of modern sapphic stories, six singles navigate the beautiful chaos of finding romance across cosmopolitan cities from Los Angeles to Montreal.
Noura swipes right on Luna with a little help from her friends. Maryam and Nilou fall hard after a meet-cute in the copyshop. Paz and Ale rediscover each other, and rehash a decades-old heartbreak.
Each story stands alone as a perfect escape, but together they weave a gorgeous tapestry of connection. Hot, hopeful, and unapologetically glamorous, You x Me celebrates love between queer women and nonbinary people of color, in all its sparkling, complex, and irresistible forms.
3) Runs in the Blood by Matthew J. Trafford (Arsenal Pulp Press)
A lesbian mother feels out of place taking her daughter to a princess party; a gay couple turns to unconventional means to create their baby; a grieving man winds up on a date with a centaur; an agoraphobic must make an impossible choice before time runs out. This is the unnerving world of Runs in the Blood, Matthew J. Trafford’s sophomore story collection, and it pulses with humour, anxiety, and profound disquiet.
Darkly satirical and unflinchingly human, the stories of Runs in the Blood unsettle our notions of family, whether biological or chosen. Careening through the space beyond nature versus nurture, its characters – betrayed, wounded, unequipped – wrangle with their own worst instincts and the grotesqueries of the modern world, attempting to create families worth holding on to and to protect the children they love.
4) A Kiss of Crimson Ash by Anuja Varghese (Viking)
Taara, the pious newly crowned Queen of Abhaya, a resource-rich city-state, must marry whether she wishes to or not. Her betrothed is Garjan, Prince of Nandapore, a neighbouring city-state full of secrets and spellcasters. His forbidden love is Bhediya, a courtesan with magic in her blood. And then there is Roland, a thief by trade, attached to nothing and no one, who stumbles into a power-hungry king’s plot to unearth a weapon that has only lived in myth…until now.
Linked by desire, destiny, and a dangerous foe, these four must summon the power of an ancient goddess and chart a course through the empire’s brothels, temples, taverns, and palaces, forcing them to confront the darkest kinds of magic and the truest parts of themselves—before it’s too late.
Locked in a battle that will reshape the empire, they each must decide: What will they risk for a weapon worth dying for, and a love worth life itself?
The FOLD Admin