SERIES
2024 curated booklist
These titles are all part of a literary series, the book covers and descriptions are the first in the series.
Heartstopper Series
Alice Oseman
Charlie, a highly-strung, openly gay over-thinker, and Nick, a cheerful, soft-hearted rugby player, meet at a British all-boys grammar school. Friendship blooms quickly, but could there be something more…?
Charlie Spring is in Year 10 at Truham Grammar School for Boys. The past year hasn’t been too great, but at least he’s not being bullied anymore. Nick Nelson is in Year 11 and on the school rugby team. He’s heard a little about Charlie – the kid who was outed last year and bullied for a few months – but he’s never had the opportunity to talk to him.
They quickly become friends, and soon Charlie is falling hard for Nick, even though he doesn’t think he has a chance. But love works in surprising ways, and sometimes good things are waiting just around the corner…
Category: Young Adult, Romance, Comic, Series
Representation: Bisexual, gay, diverse genders, diverse sexualities, lesbian, transgender
Content Warnings: Mental illness, disordered eating/eating disorder, self harm
ISBN: 9780063067776
Find it in your local library (WorldCat)
Simon Snow Series
Rainbow Rowell
Simon Snow is back and he’s coming to America! The story is supposed to be over. Simon Snow did everything he was supposed to do. He beat the villain. He won the war. He even fell in love. Now comes the good part, right? So why can’t Simon Snow get off the couch? What he needs, according to his best friend, is a change of scenery. That’s how Simon and Penny and Baz end up in a convertible, tearing across the American West. They find trouble. (Dragons, vampires, skunk-headed things with shotguns.) And they get lost. They get so lost they start to wonder whether they ever knew where they were headed in the first place. Come on, Simon Snow. Your hero’s journey might be over – but your life has just begun.
Category: Young Adult, Fantasy, Series
Representation: Bisexual, gay
Content Warnings: Violence, substance use/abuse
ISBN: 9781250146076
Find it in your local library (WorldCat)
Six of Crows Series
Leigh Bardugo
Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone. . . .
A convict with a thirst for revenge
A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager
A runaway with a privileged past
A spy known as the Wraith
A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums
A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes
Kaz’s crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don’t kill each other first.
Category: Young Adult, Fantasy, Series
Representation: Bisexual, gay
Content Warnings: Substance use/abuse, violence, sexual violence, character death, suicide, bullying
ISBN: 9781250076960
Find it in your local library (WorldCat)
The Hollow Star Series
Ashley Shuttleworth
Choose your player. The half-fae outcast, desperate for acceptance. The tempestuous Fury, exiled and hellbent on revenge. The dutiful prince, determined to earn his place. The brooding guardian, burdened by a terrible secret. Each holds a key to solving a series of ritualistic murders that threaten to expose faeries to the human world. But they cannot do it alone. To track down the killer, they will have to form a tenuous alliance, putting their differences – and conflicts – aside. Failure risks the destruction of the faerie and human worlds alike. And time is running out
Category: Young Adult, Fantasy, Series
Representation: Pansexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual, non-binary
Content Warnings: Abuse, character death, mental illness, self harm, suicide, substance use/abuse, violence, racism
ISBN: 9781529366211
Find it in your local library (WorldCat)
The Sunbearer Duology
Aiden Thomas
As each new decade begins, the Sun’s power must be replenished so that Sol can keep traveling along the sky and keep the chaotic Obsidian gods at bay. Sol selects ten of the most worthy semidioses to compete in the Sunbearer Trials. The winner carries light and life to all the temples of Reino del Sol, but the loser has the greatest honor of all—they will be sacrificed to Sol, their body melted down to refuel the Sun Stones, protecting the world for another ten years.
Teo, a seventeen-year-old Jade semidiós and the trans son of the goddess of birds, isn’t worried about the Trials . . . at least, not for himself. His best friend, Niya is a Gold semidiós and a shoo-in for the Trials, and while he trusts her abilities, the odds of becoming the sacrifice is one-in-ten.
But then, for the first time in over a century, the impossible happens. Sol chooses not one, but two Jade competitors. Teo, and Xio, the thirteen-year-old child of the god of bad luck. Now they must compete in five trials against Gold opponents who are more powerful and better trained. Worst of all, Teo’s annoyingly handsome ex-best friend and famous semidiós Hero, Aurelio is favored to win. Teo is determined to get himself and his friends through the trials unscathed—for fame, glory, and their own survival.
Category: Young Adult, Fantasy, Series
Representation: Gay
Content Warnings: Ableism, bullying, character death, mental illness, homophobia, fatphobia, islamophobia, racism
ISBN: 9780525552970
Find it in your local library (WorldCat)
Darius the Great Series
Adib Khorram
Darius Kellner speaks better Klingon than Farsi, and he knows more about Hobbit social cues than Persian ones. He’s a Fractional Persian—half, his mom’s side—and his first-ever trip to Iran is about to change his life.
Darius has never really fit in at home, and he’s sure things are going to be the same in Iran. His clinical depression doesn’t exactly help matters, and trying to explain his medication to his grandparents only makes things harder. Then Darius meets Sohrab, the boy next door, and everything changes. Soon, they’re spending their days together, playing soccer, eating faludeh, and talking for hours on a secret rooftop overlooking the city’s skyline. Sohrab calls him Darioush—the original Persian version of his name—and Darius has never felt more like himself than he does now that he’s Darioush to Sohrab.
Adib Khorram’s brilliant debut is for anyone who’s ever felt not good enough—then met a friend who makes them feel so much better than okay.
Category: Young Adult, Series
Representation: Gay
Content Warnings: Ableism, bullying, character death, mental illness, homophobia, fatphobia, islamophobia, racism
ISBN: 9780525552970
Find it in your local library (WorldCat)
Magnus Chase Series
Rick Riordan
Magnus Chase has always been a troubled kid. Since his mother’s mysterious death, he’s lived alone on the streets of Boston, surviving by his wits, keeping one step ahead of the police and the truant officers. One day, he’s tracked down by an uncle he’s never met – a man his mother claimed was dangerous. His uncle tells him an impossible secret: Magnus is the son of a Norse god. The Viking myths are true. The gods of Asgard are preparing for war. Trolls, giants and worse monsters are stirring for doomsday. To prevent Ragnarok, Magnus must search the Nine Worlds for a weapon that has been lost for thousands of years. When an attack by fire giants forces him to choose between his own safety and the lives of hundreds of innocents, Magnus makes a fatal decision. Sometimes, the only way to start a new life is to die
Category: Children, Children’s Intermediate Book, Fantasy, Series
Representation: Bisexual, pansexual, non-binary
Content Warnings: Ableism, racism
ISBN: 9781484760383
Find it in your local library (WorldCat)
The Shadow Series
Lila Bowen
Supernatural creatures create chaos across an unforgiving western landscape in the first book of a propulsive and cinematic fantasy adventure starring ever fearless Nettie Lonesome.
Nettie Lonesome dreams of a greater life than toiling as a slave in the sandy desert. But when a stranger attacks her, Nettie wins more than the fight.
Now she’s got friends, a good horse, and a better gun. But if she can’t kill the thing haunting her nightmares and stealing children across the prairie, she’ll lose it all—and never find out what happened to her real family.
Category: Young Adult, Fantasy, Series
Representation: Bisexual, transgender, asexual, gay, diverse sexualities
Content Warnings: Racism, sexual violence, violence, character death
ISBN: 9780316264297
Find it in your local library (WorldCat)
Lumberjanes Series
Shannon Watters, Grace Ellis, Gus Allen, and ND Stevenson
What’s to Love: Lumberjanes is the hit series that features five rad ladies who fight monster baddies with the power of friendship!
At Miss Qiunzella Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet’s Camp for Hardcore Lady Types, things are not what they seem.
Three-eyed foxes. Secret caves. Anagrams! Luckily, Jo, April, Mal, Molly, and Ripley are five rad, butt-kicking best pals determined to have an awesome summer together…and they’re not gonna let a magical quest or an array of supernatural critters get in their way!
Category: Comic, Series, Fantasy, Children, Children’s Intermediate Book
Representation: Gay, lesbian, transgender
Content Warnings: Violence
ISBN: 9781608866878
Find it in your local library (WorldCat)
The Locked Tomb Series
Tamsyn Muir
The Emperor needs necromancers.
The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman.
Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead bullshit.
Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape. But her childhood nemesis won’t set her free without a service.
Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, has been summoned into action. The Emperor has invited the heirs to each of his loyal Houses to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds she will become an immortal, all-powerful servant of the Resurrection, but no necromancer can ascend without their cavalier. Without Gideon’s sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die.
Of course, some things are better left dead.
Category: Fantasy, NZ author, Science Fiction, Series
Representation: Lesbian
Content Warnings: Character death, violence, suicide, gore
ISBN: 9781250313188
Find it in your local library (WorldCat)