Oppose Book Bans, Read Trans Historical Fiction

This novel is a Western like you’ve never read before. Newly orphaned children of immigrants, Lucy and Sam, set off into the wilderness to bury their Ba. But neither can agree on exactly what sort of resting place he deserves. The spirit of their father, meanwhile, watches on as his children struggle and remembers the hopes and misfortunes that brought them here. It’s a powerful story of family, identity, and belonging.

This companion novel to Alexander’s trans historical romance, A Gentleman’s Gentleman, follows a notorious society gossip finally forced to look for a marriage match. Verbena has already decided upon a suitor for herself before the season begins: her friend, the French tailor, Étienne. Their engagement—and eventual marriage—of convenience will provide Verbena the stability she needs and protect her friend from dangerous gossip about his sexuality. Then she meets William Forsythe, a writer, who, if not quite a respectable match, is certainly a more appealing one. That’s on top of the burgeoning feelings she already harbors for her new lady-poet friend, Flora. If only she hadn’t promised herself to Étienne. But what Verbena doesn’t know is that William and Flora are one and the same, two aspects of the same person who has fallen equally hard for Verbena.

It’s a comedy of manners and errors as Verbena, Flora, William Forsyth, Étienne (and his own suitor) attempt to find the love and lives they want for themselves.

In 1980s and ’90s Madrid, amidst a heroin epidemic that ravaged the city and a renowned party scene, the unnamed protagonist of Portero’s novel leaves behind a working class neighborhood that has no place for her for the vibrant downtown nightlife scene. Amid the glittering parties of Madrid nightlife, she finally begins to find community. But even here, in a place beginning to feel like home, there are acts of violence she doesn’t know how to handle, and every decision can become life or death in an instant.

The nonlinear narrative of Small Beauty weaves together present and past as Mei, a trans Chinese-Canadian woman, moves from the city to a small town to mourn the death of her cousin. There, she reminisces about the trans women she left behind, learns long-buried secrets about her family, uncovers local mysteries, and receives advice from departed loved ones. While the setting is relatively contemporary, it involves frequent forays into Mei’s past.

Stowing away on an Antarctic expedition in the wake of the First World War is Jonathan Morgan’s chance to finally live as himself in the world of men. But not all is well. The horrors of the war still hang over them and the frozen sea is unforgiving. When they’re forced to abandon the ship and overwinter on land, it soon becomes clear that something is wrong within this barren landscape. Jonathan and the rest of the crew are alone out here with no hope of rescue. No one is coming, but something has been waiting for them among the ice nonetheless.

A closeted young trans boy discovers the journal of a Syrian American artist who disappeared 60 years ago in the wake of his mother’s death. The artist, Laila Z, saw the same mysterious bird his mother had seen right before she died. Not only are the stories of Laila and his mother intimately connected, her journal also reveals the stories of queer and trans people from his own community—people he hadn’t realized existed before now. Finally emboldened to take on a new name, Nadir gathers friends and family to help him uncover the mystery of the bird his mother died trying to protect.

Although set in the present, this book is transfixed with the past in a way that reads very “historical.” The protagonist of Lote, Mathilda, is obsessed with the literary and artistic circles of the Bright Young Things and the Bloomsbury Group of the 1920 and ’30s, but when a photograph introduces her to a Black modernist poet, Hermia Druitt, who seems to have run in their circles, she is determined to learn more and pull her out of obscurity. Her search takes her to a strange artist’s commune where Hermia supposedly lived for a time, where Mathilda falls even deeper into her obsession and begins to question everything about what we hold as “truth.”