Hi everyone,

This is the first in a series of posts where I will look over and totally squee over all the fantastic 2020 releases you should totally add to your TBR! Today, I’m starting with my 10 most anticipated releases of the whole year, but keep an eye out over the next few weeks for:

• 2020 TBR: Fantasies!
• 2020 TBR: Sci-fi!
• 2020 TBR: Queer books! (I have no idea how I’m going to cut this category down, I have about 80 queer 2020 releases on my radar so I might have to split this down a little further)
• 2020 TBR: Authors of colour!
• 2020 TBR: Contemporary!
• 2020 TBR: Retellings! (THERE ARE SO MANY and I am so happy for this)
• 2020 TBR: Sequels!

I hope you’re as excited to read all these books as I am. For now, here are my Top 10 Most Anticipated 2020 releases, the books you in no way ever want to miss!

Please note: so I wrote this initial part of the post before I went and chose my top 10 books. And I tried, I really did, but there are too many amazing books! So in no particular order, this is now my top 18 Most Anticipated Releases of 2020!

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The Animals at Lockwood Manor – Jane Healey

Summary: Queer, romance, historical fic, mystery!

Release date: March 5th

Goodreads blurb: Some secrets are unspoken. Others are unspeakable…

August 1939.

Thirty-year-old Hetty Cartwright is tasked with the evacuation and safekeeping of the natural history museum’s collection of mammals. Once she and her exhibits arrive at Lockwood Manor, however, where they are to stay for the duration of the war, Hetty soon realizes that she’s taken on more than she’d bargained for.

Protecting her charges from the irascible Lord Lockwood and resentful servants is work enough, but when some of the animals go missing, and worse, Hetty begins to suspect someone – or something – is stalking her through the darkened corridors of the house.

As the disasters mount, Hetty finds herself falling under the spell of Lucy, Lord Lockwood’s beautiful but clearly haunted daughter. But why is Lucy so traumatized? Does she know something she’s not telling? And is there any truth to local rumours of ghosts and curses?

Part love story, part mystery, The Animals at Lockwood Manor by Jane Healey is a gripping and atmospheric tale of family madness, long-buried secrets and hidden desires.

The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows – Olivia Waite

Summary: Queer, romance, historical fiction, beekeeping! (No cover yet!)

Release date: June 9th

Goodreads blurb: In this historical f/f romance you’ll find:

• a grumpy widowed engraver working far too hard to keep her print-shop going until her son is old enough to take over

• a middle-aged lady beekeeper who goes striding about in trousers and loves bucolic poetry

• a Queen on trial in Parliament and the press

• luxuriant English gardens with extremely naughty statues

• satirical ballads about tight pants

• and more than you probably ever wanted to know about early 19th century beekeeping!

Cinderella is Dead – Kalynn Bayron

Summary: Queer, fairytale retelling, descendents of Cinderella!

Release date: July 7th

Goodreads blurb: It’s 200 years after Cinderella found her prince, but the fairy tale is over. Teen girls are now required to appear at the Annual Ball, where the men of the kingdom select wives based on a girl’s display of finery. If a suitable match is not found, the girls not chosen are never heard from again.

Sixteen-year-old Sophia would much rather marry Erin, her childhood best friend, than parade in front of suitors. At the ball, Sophia makes the desperate decision to flee, and finds herself hiding in Cinderella’s mausoleum. There, she meets Constance, the last known descendant of Cinderella and her step sisters. Together they vow to bring down the king once and for all–and in the process, they learn that there’s more to Cinderella’s story than they ever knew …

This fresh take on a classic story will make readers question the tales they’ve been told, and root for girls to break down the constructs of the world around them.

The Mermaid, The Witch and the Sea – Maggie Tokuda-Hall

Summary: QUEER PIRATE ALERT I REPEAT THERE BE QUEER PIRATES HERE (No cover yet!)

Release date: May 5th

Goodreads blurb: A desperate orphan turned pirate and a rebellious imperial daughter find a connection on the high seas in a rich, riveting fantasy set in a world divided by colonialism and threaded with magic.

Aboard the pirate ship Dove, Flora the girl takes on the identity of Florian the man to earn the respect and protection of the crew. For Flora, former starving urchin, the brutal life of a pirate is about survival: don’t trust, don’t stick out, and don’t feel. But on this voyage, as the pirates prepare to sell their unsuspecting passengers into slavery, Flora is drawn to the Lady Evelyn Hasegawa, who is en route to a dreaded arranged marriage with her own casket in tow. Flora doesn’t expect to be taken under Evelyn’s wing, and Evelyn doesn’t expect to find such a deep bond with the pirate Florian.

Soon the unlikely pair set in motion a wild escape that will free a captured mermaid (coveted for her blood, which causes men to have visions and lose memories) and involve the mysterious Pirate Supreme, an opportunistic witch, and the all-encompassing Sea itself. Deftly entwining swashbuckling action and Asian folklore in a land dominated by an imperial class, Maggie Tokuda-Hall’s inventive debut novel conjures a diverse cast of characters seeking mastery over their fates while searching for answers to big questions about identity, equality, and love. 

Felix Ever After – Kacen Callender

Summary: Trans teen, catfishing, love triangle, STUNNING COVER

Release date: May 12th

Goodreads blurb: When transgender teen Felix decides to catfish a rival classmate for revenge, he unexpectedly begins to fall in love with his nemesis online, while also struggling with an anonymous troll sending transphobic messages.

The Electric Heir – Victoria Lee

Summary: Everyone’s queer, sequel to my favourite book of 2019, dystopian fantasy, teens overthrowing the government, discussions of trauma and survival.

Release date: March 17th

Goodreads blurb: Six months after Noam Álvaro helped overthrow the despotic government of Carolinia, the Atlantians have gained citizenship, and Lehrer is chancellor. But despite Lehrer’s image as a progressive humanitarian leader, Noam has finally remembered the truth that Lehrer forced him to forget—that Lehrer is responsible for the deadly magic infection that ravaged Carolinia.

Now that Noam remembers the full extent of Lehrer’s crimes, he’s determined to use his influence with Lehrer to bring him down for good. If Lehrer realizes Noam has evaded his control—and that Noam is plotting against him—Noam’s dead. So he must keep playing the role of Lehrer’s protégé until he can steal enough vaccine to stop the virus.

Meanwhile Dara Shirazi returns to Carolinia, his magic stripped by the same vaccine that saved his life. But Dara’s attempts to ally himself with Noam prove that their methods for defeating Lehrer are violently misaligned. Dara fears Noam has only gotten himself more deeply entangled in Lehrer’s web. Sooner or later, playing double agent might cost Noam his life.

The Fascinators – Andrew Eliopulos

Summary: Queer rom com with MAGIC

Release date: May 12th

Goodreads blurb: HarperCollins has acquired Andrew Eliopulos’s YA debut, The Fascinators, pitched as The Raven Boys meets Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, about an openly gay high school senior in small-town Georgia. He may or may not be in love with his best friend, and his hopes for his last year of school are thrown off course when old secrets, new crushes, and a brush with dark magic threaten his close-knit group of friends. The book will be published in summer 2020.

Docile – K.M Sparza

Summary: Gay as hell, kink, consent, showcasing the truth of capitalism.

Release date: March 3rd

Goodreads blurb: There is no consent under capitalism

Docile is a science fiction parable about love and sex, wealth and debt, abuse and power, a challenging tour de force that at turns seduces and startles.

To be a Docile is to be kept, body and soul, for the uses of the owner of your contract. To be a Docile is to forget, to disappear, to hide inside your body from the horrors of your service. To be a Docile is to sell yourself to pay your parents’ debts and buy your children’s future.

Elisha Wilder’s family has been ruined by debt, handed down to them from previous generations. His mother never recovered from the Dociline she took during her term as a Docile, so when Elisha decides to try and erase the family’s debt himself, he swears he will never take the drug that took his mother from him. Too bad his contract has been purchased by Alexander Bishop III, whose ultra-rich family is the brains (and money) behind Dociline and the entire Office of Debt Resolution. When Elisha refuses Dociline, Alex refuses to believe that his family’s crowning achievement could have any negative side effects—and is determined to turn Elisha into the perfect Docile without it.

Cemetery Boys – Aiden Thomas

Summary: Queer, trans MC, magic, ghosts, gender based magic system that encompasses trans identities I AM SO KEEN

Release date: June 9th

Goodreads blurb: Yadriel has summoned a ghost, and now he can’t get rid of him.

When his traditional Latinx family has problems accepting his gender, Yadriel becomes determined to prove himself a real brujo. With the help of his cousin and best friend Maritza, he performs the ritual himself, and then sets out to find the ghost of his murdered cousin and set it free.

However, the ghost he summons is actually Julian Diaz, the school’s resident bad boy, and Julian is not about to go quietly into death. He’s determined to find out what happened and tie up some loose ends before he leaves. Left with no choice, Yadriel agrees to help Julian, so that they can both get what they want. But the longer Yadriel spends with Julian, the less he wants to let him leave. 

The Sound of Stars – Alechia Dow

Summary: Robot gets FEELINGS

Release date: February 25th

Goodreads blurb: Two years ago, a misunderstanding between the leaders of Earth and the invading Ilori resulted in the deaths of one-third of the world’s population.

Seventeen-year-old Janelle “Ellie” Baker survives in an Ilori-controlled center in New York City. Deemed dangerously volatile because of their initial reaction to the invasion, humanity’s emotional transgressions are now grounds for execution. All art, books and creative expression are illegal, but Ellie breaks the rules by keeping a secret library. When a book goes missing, Ellie is terrified that the Ilori will track it back to her and kill her.

Born in a lab, M0Rr1S (Morris) was raised to be emotionless. When he finds Ellie’s illegal library, he’s duty-bound to deliver her for execution. The trouble is, he finds himself drawn to human music and in desperate need of more. They’re both breaking the rules for love of art—and Ellie inspires the same feelings in him that music does.

Ellie’s—and humanity’s—fate rests in the hands of an alien she should fear. M0Rr1S has a lot of secrets, but also a potential solution—thousands of miles away. The two embark on a wild and dangerous road trip with a bag of books and their favorite albums, all the while making a story and a song of their own that just might save them both. 

The Ninth Life – Taylor B Barton

Summary: Cat turns into a human and is torn between the girl he loved before and his new roommate. From the author: queer non-binary MC who lived 8 past lives as CATS!!
portland, OR
there’s a talking dog
complicated love triangle
austin is such a soft boi
life & love & grief

(No cover yet!)

Release date: September 15th

Goodreads blurb: What if your deepest wish came with dark consequences?

At the end of Caesar’s feline life, he makes a deal with the goddess Zosma to rejoin Ophelia, the girl he loves, for his ninth and final life.

However, waking in the body of seventeen-year-old Austin Price isn’t what he anticipates. Neither is Austin’s handsome roommate, Cooper—a boy who moves him in unexpected ways. And coming face-to-face with a messy past Austin can’t remember living makes being human even harder than he thought.

The chaos and wonder of his ninth life urges Austin to get to know Ophelia on human terms, and sends him stumbling into complicated friendships that might mean more to him than he ever imagined. But his wish has a price, and even as Austin is pulled in two impossible directions, the very heart beating in his chest is on a countdown of its own—a countdown he has no control over.

This is a unique and beautifully written contemporary-fabulist story with romantic and heartbreaking moments, and a strong happy ever after.

These Violent Delights – Chloe Gong

Summary: Romeo + Juliet retelling set in 1920s China (no cover yet!)

Release date: Fall

Goodreads blurb: Tricia Lin at Simon Pulse has acquired, at auction, Chloe Gong’s debut YA fantasy These Violent Delights, pitched as a Romeo and Juliet retelling by way of The Godfather.

A monster has awakened in 1920s Shanghai, killing off citizens and stirring trouble between two feuding gangs. The rival heirs, Roma Montagov and Juliette Cai, must work together before the monster destroys all they hold dear, even while the Chinese Civil War breaks out around them.

Publication is planned for fall 2020; Laura Crockett at TriadaUS Literary Agency did the two-book deal for North American rights.

Girl, Serpent, Thorn – Melissa Bashardoust

Summary: Persian fairytale inspiration, queer POC, girl is poisonous to the touch!

Release date: May 12th

Goodreads blurb: A captivating and utterly original fairy tale about a girl cursed to be poisonous to the touch, and who discovers what power might lie in such a curse…

There was and there was not, as all stories begin, a princess cursed to be poisonous to the touch. But for Soraya, who has lived her life hidden away, apart from her family, safe only in her gardens, it’s not just a story.

As the day of her twin brother’s wedding approaches, Soraya must decide if she’s willing to step outside of the shadows for the first time. Below in the dungeon is a demon who holds knowledge that she craves, the answer to her freedom. And above is a young man who isn’t afraid of her, whose eyes linger not with fear, but with an understanding of who she is beneath the poison.

Soraya thought she knew her place in the world, but when her choices lead to consequences she never imagined, she begins to question who she is and who she is becoming…human or demon. Princess or monster.

Where Dreams Descend – Janella Angeles

Summary: Phantom of the Opera crossed with Moulin Rouge – this book sounds like everything I ever needed

Release date: June 2nd

Goodreads blurb: In a city covered in ice and ruin, a group of magicians face off in a daring game of magical feats to find the next headliner of the Conquering Circus, only to find themselves under the threat of an unseen danger striking behind the scenes.

As each act becomes more and more risky and the number of missing magicians piles up, three are forced to reckon with their secrets before the darkness comes for them next.

The Star: Kallia, a powerful showgirl out to prove she’s the best no matter the cost

The Master: Jack, the enigmatic keeper of the club, and more than one lie told

The Magician: Demarco, the brooding judge with a dark past he can no longer hide

Where Dreams Descend is the startling and romantic first book in Janella Angeles’ debut Kingdom of Cards fantasy duology where magic is both celebrated and feared, and no heart is left unscathed.

The Henna Wars – Adiba Jaigirdar

Summary: Queer POC, rival henna businesses!

Release date: May 12th

Goodreads blurb: When Dimple Met Rishi meets Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda in this rom com about two teen girls with rival henna businesses.

When Nishat comes out to her parents, they say she can be anyone she wants—as long as she isn’t herself. Because Muslim girls aren’t lesbians. Nishat doesn’t want to hide who she is, but she also doesn’t want to lose her relationship with her family. And her life only gets harder once a childhood friend walks back into her life.

Flávia is beautiful and charismatic and Nishat falls for her instantly. But when a school competition invites students to create their own businesses, both Flávia and Nishat choose to do henna, even though Flávia is appropriating Nishat’s culture. Amidst sabotage and school stress, their lives get more tangled—but Nishat can’t quite get rid of her crush on Flávia, and realizes there might be more to her than she realized. 

Upright Women Wanted – Sarah Gailey

Summary: Queer librarian spies. Need I say more?

Release date: February 4th

Goodreads blurb: “That girl’s got more wrong notions than a barn owl’s got mean looks.”

Esther is a stowaway. She’s hidden herself away in the Librarian’s book wagon in an attempt to escape the marriage her father has arranged for her—a marriage to the man who was previously engaged to her best friend. Her best friend who she was in love with. Her best friend who was just executed for possession of resistance propaganda. The future American Southwest is full of bandits, fascists, and queer librarian spies on horseback trying to do the right thing.

Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know – Samira Ahmed

Summary: Historial fiction/contemporary, two POVs 200 years apart, uncovering the mystery of a Muslim woman who crossed paths with people like Lord Byron.

Release date: April 7th

Goodreads blurb: Told in alternating narratives that bridge centuries, the latest novel from New York Times bestselling author Samira Ahmed traces the lives of two young women fighting to write their own stories and escape the pressure of familial burdens and cultural expectations in worlds too long defined by men.

It’s August in Paris and 17-year-old Khayyam Maquet—American, French, Indian, Muslim—is at a crossroads. This holiday with her professor parents should be a dream trip for the budding art historian. But her maybe-ex-boyfriend is probably ghosting her, she might have just blown her chance at getting into her dream college, and now all she really wants is to be back home in Chicago figuring out her messy life instead of brooding in the City of Light.

Two hundred years before Khayyam’s summer of discontent, Leila is struggling to survive and keep her true love hidden from the Pasha who has “gifted” her with favored status in his harem. In the present day—and with the company of a descendant of Alexandre Dumas—Khayyam begins to connect allusions to an enigmatic 19th-century Muslim woman whose path may have intersected with Alexandre Dumas, Eugène Delacroix, and Lord Byron.

Echoing across centuries, Leila and Khayyam’s lives intertwine, and as one woman’s long-forgotten life is uncovered, another’s is transformed.

Who I Was With Her – Nita Tyndall

Summary: Closeted bi teen loses girlfriend and can’t talk to anyone about it. Will break your heart but in that way which makes you love a book. (No cover yet!)

Release date: Fall

Goodreads blurb: In which a closeted bisexual teen girl loses her secret girlfriend in a car accident, and finds herself mourning the loss of a person and relationship no one around her knew existed, completely unable to talk about it with anyone.

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WOW. This is just my top few books of 2020, and I am already in awe of all the fantastic writing we’re going to get! Check out the other posts in this series as I release them throughout December (and potentially early Jan) to discover new books to add to your TBR!

What books are you most excited to read next year? Let me know in the comments!

Paws out,
Rach + Draco