Nov 9, 2025
New ace middle grade dropping March 2026 and it's a good one!
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Russia
seen from Russia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from Japan
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from Guatemala
seen from Finland
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Russia
seen from Germany
New ace middle grade dropping March 2026 and it's a good one!
Hi, do you have any recommendations for books where a primary character is an asexual adult (~20+)? (Bonus points if they’re aroace.) I love that we’re getting so many MG and YA ace characters but I’d love to read about characters closer to my age.
Sure, these are all books with adult aroace MCs:
Good Angel by A. M. Bauslid
Seafoam and Silence by S.L. Dove Cooper
A Promise Broken by S.L. Dove Cooper
We Go Forward by Alison Evans (Amz)
The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia
Firebreak by Nicole Kornher-Stace
The Faerie Godmother’s Apprentice Wore Green by Nicky Kyle
“Backgame” by Lev Mirov, in Myriad Lands Volume II
Seafoam and Silence by Lynn O’Connacht
A Promise Broken by Lynn E. O’Connacht
Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel
Vengeful by V.E. Schwab (Fantasy)
I Want to Be a Wall by Honami Shirono (Manga)
Holding Onto Day by E.H. Timms
Create My Own Perfection by E.H. Timms
They're mostly (all?) SFF, though, so for contemp with ace MCs but that are mostly (all?) Romances, try:
A Milky Way Home by Hsinju Chen
Thaw by Elyse Springer
The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun
Learning Curves by Ceillie Simkiss
In My Dreams by Elin Annalise
My Heart to Find by Elin Annalise
The Heartbreak Handshake by J.R. Hart
The Romantic Agenda by Claire Kann
How to Be a Normal Person by TJ Klune
Rising From Ash by Jax Meyer
Love Limits by Reese Morrison
a few enlightening things that i found while reading ace: what asexuality reveals about desire, society and the meaning of sex by angela chen
“[About using language of desire differently between the author and her friends] For them, a word like “hot” could indicate a physical pull of the type Jane had described. For me, “hot” conveyed an admiration of excellent bone structure.”
“I was a little curious about sex with men because everything--books, television, friends--told me it felt fantastic. But I was very curious about what it would be like to be desired, to be loved by someone that I desired too, desired wholeheartedly in a way that hadn’t been the case with my high school ex. That was the root of my longing.”
“..the prospect of five years of an open relationship terrified me, and the fact that Henry wanted to have sex with others was hard to take. Convinced that Henry would fall in love with someone else after sleeping with them, any mention of sexual attraction--his or anyone else’s--prompted tortured projections of abandonment.”
“I had never experienced “just attraction,” a physical impulse -- only emotional desire that manifested physically. I wanted sex with someone only when I was already prepared to change my life for them”
“...for me, desire for love and desire for sex had always been one and the same, an unbreakable link.”
“To the best I can tell, sexual attraction is the desire to have sex with a specific person for physical reasons. Sexual attraction can be instantaneous and involuntary: a heightened awareness, a physical alertness combined with mental wanting. My allo friends say they feel sexually attracted to people they have just met, to people whose company they don’t enjoy, to people they don’t like or even find good-looking.”
my brain is blown dude?? like??? this doesn’t make sense to me at all!! i can find people attractive but that just means i want to get to know them and that the idea of touching them isn’t unwelcome. but attraction is directly tied with who they are as a person! I cannot even pretend to enjoy anything intimate with someone i didn’t actively like!
this part hits home for me:
“In college, she tried to talk to a friend about being a virgin and struggling to explain that it had nothing to do with morals and saving herself for marriage. ‘My friend said, ‘I feel like other people put out a certain energy when they want to attract someone,’‘ Shari remembers, ‘and I still don’t have any idea what this energy is’”
“And, so, ace spend an inordinate amount of time wondering about this energy that other people are detecting, and experiencing, and expressing, that we are not. People think about sex even if they don’t want to? What makes one person sexually attractive on their visceral level and not another? Allos can even be sexually attracted to people they find ugly? What? Like anthropologists after a day of fieldwork, we commiserate about the mysteries of the local culture, even though it is actually the culture that we were born into--just one that, for a long time, had no room for us and our way of being. There is room now.”
and it actually gets better because this book also speaks about society’s view on sex and how i, personally, internalize a lot of bad messages the media and how society speaks about sex
“[the sex myth says that sex oversaturated in everything, and considered the ultimate thrill] The result is that anyone who isn’t sexual enough or sexual in the right way becomes lesser. The label asexual should be value neutral. It should indicate little more than sexual orientation. Instead, asexual implies a slew of other, negative associations: passionless, uptight, boring, robotic, cold, prude, frigid, lacking, broken. These, especially broken, are the words aces use again and again to describe how we are perceived and made to feel.”
No piece of media has ever made me feel as validated in my asexuality as Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen
Belle has officially been out for a whole year! To celebrate, I'm giving away four signed copies. Fill out this formby 2/15/21 for a chance to be one of the four. International mail is a bit iffy right now, but this is open internationally. If for some reason I can send it to your country, we'll work out something else. If your address doesn't have a postal code or state, just type the equivalent or NA.
Do you want a personalized copy of Belle? Good news - I’m giving 4 away!
Who do I like?
You don’t ask yourself “do you like boys?” You ask yourself “do you like girls?”
It is so ingrained in our culture that you must like the opposite sex
So at eleven I asked myself “do you like girls”? And I found that I liked them but no more than the boys That’ll say I liked them as friends
And years went by and my classmates talked about crushes and the cute cashier at IKEA and how they should have known that they were lesbian with a capital ‘L’
It felt as strange to me as being hetreosexual did
Seing moviestars and regular people and imagining relationships and kisses just felt... ...wrong
To me
And I missed all the times people had a crush on me And I panicked all the times they confessed their love to me
And then well, the norms kicked in And then I met my boyfriend
Fave Five: Asexual YA Romance
Forward March by Skye Quinlan (f/f) Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann (m/f) You Don’t Have a Shot by Racquel Marie (f/f) Tash Hearts Tolstoy by Kathryn Ormsbee (m/f) Planning Perfect by Haley Neil (f/f) Bonus: Coming later this year, Love Letters for Joy by Melissa See (m/f) and Wren Martin Ruins it All by Amanda DeWitt (m/m)
View On WordPress
Any recs for queer mlw pairings? Like one or both is bi, ace, aro, or trans, etc.
Yep, here are ones where they're both bi: https://lgbtqreads.com/2021/07/09/fave-five-bi-bi-m-f-romances/
Here's where one or both are trans: https://lgbtqreads.com/2020/05/15/fave-five-m-f-trans-romance/ to which I'd of course now add A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall
Here's YA where the guy is bi: https://lgbtqreads.com/2019/07/17/fave-five-m-f-ya-with-bi-guy-lis/
Also check out Claire Kann's work for ace m/f - Let's Talk About Love and The Romantic Agenda for sure - and also Tash Hearts Tolstoy by Kathryn Ormsbee.
For an upcoming pan m/f, check out Ben and Beatriz by Katalina Gamarra:https://lgbtqreads.com/2021/12/20/exclusive-cover-reveal-ben-and-beatriz-by-katalina-gamarra/
And in the interest of shameless self-promotion, here's a Goodreads link to my next YA, Going Bicoastal, which has both a wlw romance and a mlw romance (it's dual-timeline) with a bisexual MC: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60728572-going-bicoastal