Oh No, Another Reason to Visit an Indie Bookstore

Bookseller Oz really got me with this staff pick: “Remember the old practice of photographing the dead? What if those photographs could see more of the picture than we could alone? A grieving photographer gets commissioned for a death photography session and finds the veil to be thinner than she thought… This book was a creeping paranormal thrill and an aching picture of lingering grief.” Sold!

Fortune Favors the Dead is the first in a historical mystery series set in the 1940s recommended by Sally and by yours truly. Will Parker is a circus runaway who’s picked up skills like lock-picking and knife-throwing in her life on the run, and the dapper, sophisticated Lillian Pentecost is New York’s most unorthodox private investigator. Lillian hires Will when Will saves her life on a job, and so begins a beautiful partnership. The case at hand in this first book is the locked-room mystery of a murdered matriarch at a swanky Halloween party. If you love historical mysteries, whip-smart lady sleuths, and stories with good ol’ boots-on-the-ground investigation (and related peril), you will love this entire series.

Based on this and the other selections Megan listed, maybe we should be friends? I love these kinds of history/culture deep dives, especially when the subject is ol’ Billy Shakes. This one investigates the long-running authorship question regarding the Bard, and that’s basically my personal brand of bookish catnip.

An Island Princess Starts a Scandal is the second book in Herrera’s Las Leonas series. This installment features a sapphic pairing between Manuela, a Caribbean princess who will soon be forced to marry a man, and Cora, a business-savvy duchess with her eye on a piece of land Manuela swore she’d never sell. Manuela wants one last summer of freedom in Belle Epoque Paris before her marriage, so Cora makes her a deal: in exchange for that parcel of land, Cora will bring Manuela into her corner of Paris and give her a taste of the life she so craves. But after months of art by day and sexy sapphic fun times at night, neither one of them wants this arrangement to end.

All of the books in this historical romance series feature Afro-Latina women, a rare and refreshing example of diversity in the very white world of Regency romance. The conclusion to the series, A Tropical Rebel Gets the Duke, came out earlier this year, so you won’t have to wait to keep going!

In this smart, sexy m/m romance set in San Francisco, Dr. Taylor James is a goal-driven and highly motivated university administrator working tirelessly to get his school accredited. Dustin McMillan is a successful project manager and consultant in town for a work assignment, a place full of memories from a painful past. A chance encounter leads to a passionate night they both know they should walk away from, no muss, no fuss. But can they leave it at (say it with me now!) one and done?

A ghost has been haunting young Jasmine Garza ever since her Papi died, and what’s worse is her Mami won’t admit it even when there are clearly supernatural shenanigans afoot. Instead, Mami is moving them to a new apartment in a different part of town, and Jasmine decides this is her chance at a normal life. She makes two friends at her new middle school: Bea, whose parents are paranormal investigators, and Jorge, who wants to get over his fear of the nebulous beyond. Jorge and Bea not only believe Jasmine when she tells them about her ghosts: they’re excited! Together, the three set out to prove to everyone else that this haunting is real, and soon learn there are reasons Mami is so weird about ghosts.

Jules is a trans man trapped in his life as a nun and makes a deal with the very devil his convent is supposed to guard. In exchange for lifelong possession, Jules gets a life do-over, escaping the convent and beginning a new life as a thief immune to all harm. He meets Casper, another trans man, and the pair quickly hit it off, running around town taking that “be gay, do crimes” mantra to heart. It’s all fun and games until they start to catch feelings, because the devil has something to say about that. All of this is told in graphic novel form resembling stained glass and illuminated manuscripts – gah!