#ciera burch

[lgbtqreads]

Happy Asexual Visibility Day 2026!

Today on the site we’re celebrating Asexual Visibility Day (aka International Asexuality Day) as we do, with books starring asexual main characters or about asexuality! For even more recs, check out last year’s post. Children’s Love Looks Like Lola by Cory Daigle-Orians and Siân Coules-Milne (August 21, 2026) What does love look like? Is it holding hands? Sharing kisses? Getting married? When…

Happy Asexual Visibility Day 2026!

[iambic-stan]

last book + last stethoscope, part 55

I might as well just have a separate category for "books I needed as a child but they came 30ish years too late"; Ciera Burch's Olivia Gray Will Not Fade Away would make the top 10 list. Also pictured is my Eko Core 500, whose app asked to run software updates when I paired it with the instrument this afternoon, so it turns out that's a thing. (And not something any of my other stethoscopes ask of me, lol). So, Olivia has just started the seventh grade, and much of the time, she feels herself disappearing, both literally and figuratively, in this middle-grade speculative novel. Her brother has all but abandoned her to hang out with his first boyfriend, and her friends are all carrying on about their crushes--something that makes no sense at all to Olivia. She feels alienated from her friend group, and struggles to relate to what they want to talk about. Thankfully, the new school librarian, Amelia, sees Olivia. She gives her a book about asexuality and aromanticism to read, but reading it only leads to frustration for Olivia, who would rather just fit in with her friends than embrace an aberrant identity. Burch writes with tenderness and authenticity that brought me right back to middle school after all these years, because she really understands how fragile friendships are during that time. The novel has fantastical elements, but it's definitely grounded enough that it won't lose a reader who prefers realistic fiction.

[ninja-muse]

New ace middle grade dropping March 2026 and it's a good one!

[bookaddict24-7]

(New Young Adult Releases Coming Out Today! (May 20th, 2025)

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Have I missed any new Young Adult releases? Have you added any of these books to your TBR? Let me know!

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New Releases:

Out of Step, Into You by Ciera Burch

Sanskari Sweetheart by Ananya Devarajan

This Could Be Forever by Ebony LaDelle

Everyone Sux but You by K. Wroten

Just Another Meet Cute by Jenn P. Nguyen

You Started It by Jackie Khalilieh

Don't Let Me Go by Kevin Christopher Snipes

Cruel is the Light by Sophie Clark

Salvación by Sandra Proudman

In Case You Read This by Edward Underhill

Let Them Stare by Jonathan Van Ness & Julie Murphy

Gay the Pray Away by Natalie Naudus

Wandering Wild by Lynette Noni

All (Dead) Girls Lie by Piper L. White

New Sequels:

Love Craves Cardamon (Love in Translation #2) by Aashna Avachat

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Happy reading!

[the-final-sentence]

Then we break into a sprint.

Ciera Burch, from Out of Step, into You

[ilikereadingactually]

Something Kindred

Something Kindred by Ciera Burch

i went into this book not knowing what to expect, just because i requested the galley so long ago and had forgotten what it was about, which made everything a delightful surprise! it's queer, it's spooky, it's honest and frank, and it's so satisfyingly put together. a compelling read!

one of the highlights for me was how real and deep each character felt, even the ones who didn't actually have much time on the page--and at the same time, Jericka's limited POV was so precisely written that i shared her sense of outsider-ness. the tension between her present, moving back to a tiny town she doesn't remember, and her past there that she's just discovering, was perfectly balanced for me. and what a great combo of deeply reality-based interpersonal problems within Jericka's family, and sad and creepy emotionally-based supernatural happenings introduced by her new friend/crush Kat! i was so delighted when both of these elements started to connect, pulling together throughlines of home versus freedom, and processing trauma and grief through art.

also?? it's very hard to write honest and difficult conversations between people who have deeply hurt each other. i often find them too perfect and astute, or too trite and stereotypical. Burch has found the sweet spot, for me anyway, where each difficult conversation feels real and emotionally charged but also doesn't drag on. characters are honest about their complicated feelings, and nothing is solved perfectly, but it gets better.

(also also...i love ghost stories. i love photography in stories. i love these things together SO MUCH!)

the deets

how i read it: an e-galley from NetGalley, i am racing just ahead of all the pub dates, so many books in the spring!! also this was a fast (but satisfying) read, so i zoomed through it in an evening. looking forward to picking up a physical copy of this one!

try this if you: need more gentle queer Black girl romantic storylines (who doesn't), love multigenerational family stuff, dig haunted small towns, or are into books about loss.

some bits i really liked: so much beautiful imagery!

There are hundreds of thousands of stars in the sky, and it looks like a few dozen have fallen to earth. It takes me a moment to realize they haven't. That these are the lightning bugs she was talking about. They move in unison, flitting this way and that, forming circles of light around each other and around me and Kat. It's the most magical thing I've ever seen. Beyond them is real night. Even with the stars and the lightning bugs glowing their brightest, a person could lose themselves in this darkness. We lie down, facing the sky.

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A picture of Gram on the couch layered over a shot of a close-up of the schoolhouse. A dull yellow flower exposed over the shadows of the woods. Mom covering up her childhood self, somehow midlaugh in both pictures, years and years apart.

pub date: April 2, 2024!

[bensbooks]

Upcoming in 2024: Something Kindred

Welcome to Coldwater. Come for the ghosts, stay for the drama. Jericka Walker had planned to spend the summer before senior year soaking up the sun with her best friend on the Jersey Shore. Instead she finds herself in Coldwater, Maryland, a small town with a dark and complicated past where her estranged grandmother lives—someone she knows only two things her name and the fact that she left Jericka’s mother and uncle when they were children. But now Jericka's grandmother is dying, and her mother has dragged Jericka along to say goodbye. As Jericka attempts to form a connection with a woman she's never known, and adjusts to life in a town where everything closes before dinner, she meets “ghost girl” Kat, a girl eager to leave Coldwater and more exciting than a person has any right to be. But Coldwater has a few unsettling secrets of its own. The more you try to leave, the stronger the town’s hold. As Jericka feels the chilling pull of her family’s past, she begins to question everything she thought she knew about her mother, her childhood, and the lines between the living and the dead.

Something Kindred is a queer gothic contemporary set for release on August 2!

[lgbtqreads]

Happy Black History Month 2026!

It’s Black History Month, and we’re celebrating as we do with books by Black authors (almost entirely) starring Black characters! For even more titles, check out past years’ posts. Picture Books Dancing with Water by Gwendolyn Wallace and Tonya Engel An intergenerational story about a nonbinary child who learns the tradition of well digging in this picture book about community, hope, and…

Happy Black History Month 2026!