November’s slate of LGBTQ+ book releases includes the usual suspects — lots of literary fiction, romantasy, YA, and horror — but also a few more experimental and expansive works, including a braided narrative chapbook on Palestinian liberation, a book documenting performance art, and even a play. As always, if there’s something we didn’t shout out, feel free to do so yourself in the comments! While we go out of our way to include a wide range of genres including titles outside of our main reading diets, this curated list does tend to skew toward Riese’s and my personal tastes. So please, shout things out! The more the merrier!

First up, we have our top seven picks for the month, followed by the rest of the titles we’re hotly anticipating.

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Autostraddle’s Top Most Anticipated LGBTQ Books for November 2025

Palaver by Bryan Washington (November 4, Literary Fiction)

I read any and everything Bryan Washington publishes and adored his last novel Family Meal. I was lucky enough to get an early copy of his forthcoming novel Palaver and also loved it for its textured and bracingly real depictions of queer intimacy, sex, family, and grief. Its narrator lives in Tokyo, guzzling beers at gay bars while sleeping with a married man. His mother, who he is very estranged from, shows up one day, forcing the two to reconsider their relationship to one another and forge something new. Washington always writes complicated gays and complicated mother/son relationships so well, and this continues that work.

Terry Dactyl, by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore (November 11, Literary Fiction)

Protagonist Terry Dactyl is a trans girl and daughter of two lesbians who comes of age in the 1980s. She moves to NYC and gets in with the club kids, landing a jog at a Soho gallery and trying to bridge her underground club life with the elite art world she works in. The novel jumps twenty years into the future when Terry moves to Seattle during the Covid lockdown and vies to find community among the wreckage of police violence, gentrification, and isolation. Listen, I am thrilled to read anything Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore writes, and this novel is no exception.

Weaving Liberation, by M.K. Thekkumkattil (November 15, Nonfiction)

It isn’t often that we highlight chapbooks as part of this list, but this upcoming release from Abode Press by Autostraddle contributor M.K. Thekkumkattil is absolutely something that should be on your radar. If you’ve enjoyed their intricately woven essays they’ve written here at Autostraddle, then you’ll surely love their chapbook Weaving Liberation, which draws connections between Palestinian liberation and the ongoing genocide with nursing during the early years of the pandemic, fishing, transness, diaspora, and cultivating a relationship with the land.

Leave it on the Track, by Margot Fisher (November 18, YA)

Morgan “Moose” Shaker has to move to Portland after a fire tragically kills her fathers in their roller rink in small-town Utah. She moves in with her much older half sister who isn’t really ready to raise a teen she doesn’t know all that well. Moose is barely out of the closet, which makes the many rainbow flags of Portland more anxiety-inducing than welcoming. But she finds a way to meet people and process her emotions: roller derby.

Seahorses: Trans, Nonbinary and Gender-Expansive Pregnancy, edited by Simon Knaphus (November 18, Nonfiction)

An anthology of essays offering trans, nonbinary, and gender-expansive perspectives on pregnancy and parenting, Seahorses urgently expands the typically heteronormative and limiting canon of pregnancy books. The essays tackle pregnancy-related topics like healthcare, (in)fertility, childbirth, conception, abortion, miscarriage, and more.

I’ll Make a Spectacle of You by Beatrice Winifred Iker (November 18, Horror)

This Southern gothic horror debut is set at fictional oldest HBCU, Bricksbury University. It follows Zora Robinson, an ambitious grad student who comes to Bricksbury to study Appalachian Studies and is tasked by her thesis advisor with researching local folklore about a beast supposedly occupying the woods surrounding campus. Along the way, she uncovers all sorts of secrets, including a secret society. When a student goes missing, things escalate, and it becomes increasingly difficult for Zora to know what is real and what is just the stuff of folklore. Plus, Zora is queer!

Dandelion: A Memoir in Essays, by Danielle Bainbridge (November 18, Memoir)

This memoir in essays explores chronic illness, grief, identity, and navigating society from a queer and Black lens. Author Danielle Bainbridge is an academic and playwright who co-created PBS Origins. I’m new to Bainbridge’s work, but I love a memoir in essays!

And now enjoy the rest of our most anticipated LGBTQ books for November 2025!

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Nov 4

Like Family by Erin O. White (Literary Fiction)

This novel follows three couples in the quaint upstate New York town of Radclyffe, including wives Ruth and Wyn who live with their four children on a farm and are harboring a secret. Caroline is Ruth’s best friend, and her husband has donated his sperm to his cousin Tobi and her wife so they could have kids, who are now asking impossible questions. A death in the community forces all three couples to confront their simmering secrets and problems.

Girls Who Play Dead, by Joelle Wellington (YA, Mystery)

A small town murder mystery YA, Girls Who Play Dead is about queer protagonist Mikky moving home to help his sister through the grief of her best friend Erin’s murder.

Where There’s Room For Us, Hayley Kiyoko (YA, Romance)

Yes, Lesbian Jesus’s side gig as a YA romance author continues, this time with an 1880s Victorian England-set sapphic romance about a poet named Ivy who suddenly enters high society after her brother inherits an English estate. There, she meets the most sought-after debutante and socialite, Freya Tallon. Sparks, inevitably, fly. I’ve seen Hayley post about how the story is partially inspired by her own love story with Becca Tilley. Cute!

Fade Into You, by Amber Smith & Sam Gellar (YA, Romance)

Here we have a 90s-set romance about aspiring poet Bird and music-loving Jessa, whose paths cross only because their two best friends start dating. They conspire to break those friends up, but this scheme exposes their own bit of chemistry, naturally.

Beautiful Brutal Bodies, by Linda Cheng (YA, Horror, Romance)

For fans of sapphic horror AND sapphic romance, Beautiful Brutal Bodies is a standalone followup to Cheng’s Gorgeous Gruesome Faces and offers a twisted fairytale about a reclusive singer-songwriter named Tian who is raised in an isolated mansion and her bodyguard and close companion Liya who has sharp teeth and an insatiable appetite. Yes folks, we have a romantic queer monster tale!

The War Beyond, by Andrea Stewart (Fantasy)

This is the high fantasy followup to Stewart’s novel The Gods Below.

Self Portrait, by Ludwig Volbeda, translated by Lucy Scott (YA)

In this translated book from the Netherlands, words and drawn art combine to tell the story of young Jip, on a journey of gender, sexuality, and self-discovery.

Read This When Things Fall Apart: Letters to Activists in Crisis, by Kelly Hayes (Nonfiction)

I’m super into the conceit of this project, which is a collection of letters to activists and organizers for TOUGH times. Rather than just empty optimism, this book seeks to acknowledge that there are indeed major losses and setbacks when it comes to progressive movements and provides insights and tools from people who have BEEN through it for how to move forward. Contributors include Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Mariame Kaba, and many more.

Hear Her Howl, by Kim De Rose (YA, Fantasy)

Queerness and lycanthropy collide in this YA romatasy novel about a girl named Rue who gets sent to an all-girls Catholic school after she’s caught kissing a girl behind the Sunday School classrooms. There, she meets outcast student Charlotte Savage, who is a werewolf.

Deadly Ever After, by Brittany Johnson (YA, Fantasy)

Another work of YA romantasy, Deadly Ever After is about two dead princesses who must find true love’s kiss in order to be brought back to life. The rule-following Princess Amala is murdered on the night of her wedding, and the more outside-the-box princess Kha’dasia dies when trying to fulfill her late brother’s dying wish. They both wake up in a cursed forest, offered another chance at life.

Transtraterrestrial: Dark Matter and Black Divinities, by Sage Ni’Ja Whitson (Experimental)

This experimental two-part book documents the performance pieces of queer and trans Black artist-activist Sage Ni’Ja Whitson.

Chris Makes a Friend, by Alex Gino (Middle Grade)

Here we have a sweet middle grade book about a bookish girl named Chris who sneaks off into the woods to read while spending the summer with her grandparents who keep telling her to go get some fresh air. Eventually, she makes a connection with a new friend named Mia.

Little Deaths: Sex and Psychoanalysis in the Age of Pandemics, ed. by Ricky Varghese (Nonfiction)

Tracing connections and distinctions between sex/contagion during the AIDS crisis to the current COVID pandemic, Little Deaths considers the complex matrix between sex, health, risk, and social lives.

Yeehaw Junction, by Kayli Scholz (Horror)

Well as someone who lives in Florida, I immediately recognized this title. Yeehaw Junction is indeed the name of an actual part of Florida, and this gritty horror book takes place there, seemingly in the late 90s. It’s about a bunch of runaways joining the search for a missing girl in this small rural Florida community.

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November 11

Mixing Magics, by Clare Edge (Middle Grade Fantasy)

There’s LGBTQ+ and disability representation in this sequel to Accidental Demons. It’s about a young witch named Ber who has diabetes and whose grandma disappeared into the demon dimension.

Next Time Will Be Our Turn by Jesse Q. Sutanto (Literary Fiction)

Izzy Chen’s whole world turns upside down when her grandmother shows up at her family’s big annual Chinese New Year celebration with a woman on her arm. Magnolia Chen —aforementioned surprise-queer grandma —opens up to Izzy about her own story as a young Indo Chinese girl who was sent from Jakarta to Los Angeles for her education and then fell in forbidden love. An intergenerational queer story! It sounds so cute.

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November 18

Heartlines: A Love Story, by Sarah Waisvisz (Play)

This might be the first time we’re featuring a published play on this list, and I hope to feature more! Using a play-within-a-play structure, this work centers queer artists and icons Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, and if you aren’t familiar with them, this LitHub primer is a good place to start!

Simply More: A Book for Anyone Who Has Been Told They’re Too Much, by Cynthia Erivo (Memoir)

Yes, somehow Cynthia Erivo has made time in her wildly busy schedule to put out and market a book! It looks to be a combination of memoir and self-help, taking us through personal vignettes from Erivo’s life and the many incredible feats she has accomplished (including, apparently, running marathons, which I didn’t know?!).

The Cuffing Game, by Lyla Lee (YA Romance)

Bisexual main character Mia produces a college reality dating show and enlists her secret crush Noah to be on it. The reality show is queer-inclusive, too, and features other side LGBTQ+ characters.

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November 25

The Slicks: On Sylvia Plath and Taylor Swift, by Maggie Nelson (November 25)

Look, I have remained deeply skeptical of this project — in which polarizing essayist Maggie Nelson places Sylvia Plath and Taylor Swift in conversation — ever since it was first announced. I guess you could say I’m anticipating it in the sense that I am indeed morbidly curious what she can pull off here…

As Many Souls as Stars, by Natasha Siegel (Romantasy)

Two women — a witch and an immortal demon — make a Faustian deal and end up in a dance of pursuit through centuries.

Queer Print Cultures, by Javier Samper Vendrell and Vance Byrd (Nonfiction)

Featuring essays from librarians, archivists, activists, authors, and academics, this collection of essay celebrates and interrogates the ways the queer community have utilized print mediums — from sci-fi novels to romance to zines — to connect, organize, and explore. Maybe I’ll review it for the next issue of Autostraddle’s own print magazine?!