• IN the 1940s, it was believed that homo­sexuality was becoming more wide­spread in the aftermath of war. A moral panic ensued centred on London. In Some Men in London: Queer Life, 1945-1959 (Penguin Classics) Peter Parker explores the reality for queer men during this period, whether they were well-known figures such as John Gielgud, ‘Chips’ Channon and EM Forster, or living in quiet – occasionally rowdy – anonymity in pubs, clubs, public places of assig­nation, or at home. Sifting through letters, diaries, psychological textbooks, novels, films, plays and police records, Parker covers a range of view­points, from those who deplored homosexuality to those who campaigned for its decriminalisation.
This first volume in a new anthology depicts a community forced to live at constant risk of blackmail or prison as well as a thriving and joyous subculture.

• Niamh Mulvey’s The Amendments (Picador) explores mother, daughter and lesbian relationships. Nell and her partner Adrienne are about to have a baby. But Nell has been a mother before. She revisits Ireland and her fraught teenage years in the early 2000s when she repressed her sexuality. Interwoven with her story is that of Nell’s mother Dolores who in 1983 was living in Dublin and grappling with the tensions of the women’s rights movement and the eighth amendment.

• Set in London across a single, life-altering, summer, Curtis Garner’s coming-of-age tale, Isaac (Verve Books), explores masculinity and queerness in the digital age and offers a fresh take on desire and intimacy, adolescent obsession and dangerous first love. After inexperi­enced 17-year-old Isaac loses his virginity through a dating app, he spends his final months before university escap­ing into a dizzying world of casual sex with forget­table men. This all changes when he meets 28-year-old Harrison at a party.

• In Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line (Dialogue Books) Elizabeth Lovatt reimagines the women who both called and volunteered for the Lesbian Line in the 1990s, while also tracing her own journey from accidentally coming out, through disastrous dates, to finding her chosen family. With callers and agents alike dealing with first crushes and break-ups, sex and marriage, loneliness and illness (or simply the need to know the name of a gay bar), this is a celebration of the ordinary lives of queer women.

• Shon Faye’s experience of the world as a trans woman, who grew up visibly queer, made her believe that love was not for her. Fear of her own unworthi­ness penetrated every corner of her life resulting in addictions and short-lived romances that were either euphoric or excruciatingly painful. As she con­fronted her damaging ideas about love and lovelessness, she realised that this sense of exclusion is symptomatic of a much larger problem in our culture. In Love in Exile (Allen Lane) Faye shows that love is greater than the narrow ideals we have been taught to crave and that we are willing to bend and break ourselves to fit them.

• In his memoir The Loves of My Life (Blooms­bury), Edmund White delves unflinch­ingly into his past sex life which has inspired so many of his masterpieces. Documenting everything from covert fumblings in the repressed American Midwest of the 1950s to the Arcadian gay debauchery of New York in the 1970s, through the terror of HIV and the age of sex on the apps, White has seen – and experienced – it all.

• Rebecca K Reilly’s Greta & Valdin (Penguin) follows 20-something brother and sister with a near-unpron­ounceable surname, a sprawling Māori-Russian-Catalonian family and questionable taste in partners. Through the misadventures and mess of modern adulthood navigating queerness, their multiracial identity, and the tendency for their love interests to flee, at least they still have each other – unless drama gets in the way. From bad dates to family feuds and embarrassing karaoke nights, this acclaimed bestseller from a Māori novelist explores the trials and tribulations of love in its many forms.

• fourteen poems is a London-based publisher, spotlighting the most exciting LGBTQ+ poets. They publish pamphlets and three anthologies a year. The latest, fourteen poems issue 15, is out now and features poems by Jane Flett, Julia Ireland, Chris Jones, Abu Leila and Jack Westmore.

• The Night Alphabet (Riverrun), the debut novel from queer poet Joelle Taylor, is set in Hackney in 2233. A woman walks into a tattoo parlour. Jones wants to add one final inking to her gallery – a thin line that connects the images of her body art, creating a unique and mysterious map. As the two artists set to work, Jones tells them the story behind each tattoo.

• Set during the First World War, William Hussey’s The Boy I Love (Andersen Press) is a historical romance for ages 14+. Despite his wounds, 19-year-old Stephen returns to the trenches to lead a platoon. There he meets Private Danny McCormick, a smart, talented young recruit. From their first encounter, there’s something undeniable between them – something forbidden by society and the army. Determined to protect Danny, Stephen must confront the prejudices and ignorance of his superiors as well as the onslaught of German shells and sniper fire.

• Anthony Shapland’s A Room Above a Shop (Granta), unfolds in South Wales over three years, set against the backdrop of the HIV and AIDS crisis and during the decade of Section 28 and the age of consent debate. When two quiet men form a tentative connection neither knows where it might lead. M has inherited his family’s ironmongery business, and offers B a job and lodgings. As the two men work side by side, they also begin a life together in the shared room above the shop – a life they never imagined possible and that risks everything.

• Baby Blue (Fanta­graphics) the graphic novel debut of comics artist Bim Eriksson (trans­lated by Melissa Bowers) is set in the near future. Twenty-something Betty lives in a dystopian society that polices mental health. When she is caught crying in public, the Peace­keepers take her to an Orwellian health facility to control her emotions. There, she meets Berina, who opens her eyes to an alternative reality, the Resistance, and a rollicking under­world, where all manner of queerness is celebrated.