Here are 15 queer books that feature animals on their covers! I'm a huge animal lover so when I was planning out my themed stacks, I knew that I had to make one of them an animal-based stack.
Behind the Scenes
Author: Karelia Stetz-Water
Publication Date: January 31, 2023
Summary:
Business consultant Rose Josten might not have officially reached “pug lady” middle age, but she’s already got the pugs—along with their little Gucci coats and trash-lovin’ appetites. Still, life is good, with her work, her sisters, and a secret hobby creating incredibly tactile (if surprisingly sexy) mindfulness videos. So why does it feel like it’s not quite enough? Which is exactly when former filmmaker Ash Stewart enters camera left, and Rose’s world suddenly goes full technicolor . . .
Ash never looks at anyone. Not since her ex ripped her heart from her chest in Spielberg-esque style, crushing Ash’s reputation, dreams, and directorial career in one brutal blow. But Rose is altogether different. She’s curvy, beautiful, and just so damn put together. And her business expertise might be Ash’s best bet for getting her last film—and her last chance—financed. Now if they can just keep their attraction under wraps, Ash’s lost dream could finally come true. But are they creating movie magic . . . or setting the stage for disaster?
Blindsided
Author: Karis Walsh
Publication Date: August 19, 2014
Summary:
Guide dog trainer Lenae McIntyre left the high-speed world of television news writing behind, and now she helps other visually impaired people adjust to life with their canine companions. She teaches her students and their dogs to trust each other, but a past betrayal and the determination to be self-sufficient and independent keep her from trusting her heart to see love.
Cara Bradley compensates for her family’s shallow celebrity lifestyle by devoting her life to helping others, while keeping to the background. She reluctantly commits to a year of puppy walking a four-legged whirlwind named Pickwick so she can film regular segments for a local news program while helping promote the McIntyre Training Center, but she is unprepared for the changes that the driven and aloof Lenae will bring to her life.
Blindsided by love, can Lenae and Cara learn to trust and guide each other toward a new vision for their future?
Broken Trails
Author: D. Jordan Redhawk
Publication Date: June 13, 2013
Summary:
Scotch Fuller has already run the Iditarod three times and is preparing for a fourth attempt. Her single-minded focus on the rigors of training allows her to forget the shocking loss of her lover in a tragedy for which she blames herself.
The only race Lainey Hughes runs is away from her past and into the bottom of a bottle. After a devastating injury in a war zone, she’s continued her photojournalist career in the natural beauty and warmth of Uganda. A trip to Alaska to cover dog sledding is not what she wants, but the lure of a paying gig proves too tempting.
Lainey trusts her camera and Scotch trusts her dogs—and neither cares much what the other thinks…not at first.
Love runs hot in the cold Alaskan night in this long-awaited romance from D Jordan Redhawk.
Can't Leave Love
Author: Kimberly Cooper Griffin
Publication Date: October 1, 2021
Summary:
Sophia McGovern can’t seem to settle down. Memories of all her bad decisions refuse to leave her alone. So, she moves from town to town, from one dead-end job to another, keeping to herself, which serves her well—until she arrives in Ft. Devlin, Colorado. From the first day, Ft. Devlin was different. Maybe that’s why she says yes to teaching a car maintenance class at the local high school.
High school literacy teacher Pru Glynn is happy with her life just as it is. She has a great job, close friends, and a loving family. She’d like to find a wonderful woman to share it with, but she isn’t about to settle for just anyone. When beautiful Sophia McGovern swings into town, Pru can’t deny an attraction, but Sophia’s itinerant lifestyle doesn’t fit in with her deep-set roots and strong ties to family and friends.
Sophia and Pru have no intention of falling in love, but sometimes love happens when and where you least expect it.
Cattywampus
Author: Ash Van Otterloo
Publication Date: August 4, 2020
Summary:
The magical story of a hex that goes haywire, and the power of friendship to set things right!
In the town of Howler's Hollow, conjuring magic is strictly off-limits. Only nothing makes Delpha McGill's skin crawl more than rules. So when she finds her family's secret book of hexes, she's itching to use it to banish her mama's money troubles. She just has to keep it quieter than a church mouse -- not exactly Delpha's specialty.
Trouble is, Katybird Hearn is hankering to get her hands on the spell book, too. The daughter of a rival witching family, Katy has reasons of her own for wanting to learn forbidden magic, and she's not going to let an age-old feud or Delpha's contrary ways stop her. But their quarrel accidentally unleashes a hex so heinous it resurrects a graveyard full of angry Hearn and McGill ancestors bent on total destruction. If Delpha and Katy want to reverse the spell in time to save everyone in the Hollow from rampaging zombies, they'll need to mend fences and work together.
Gulf Breeze
Author: Gerri Hill
Publication Date: December 1, 2003
Summary:
Dr. Carly Cambridge, wildlife biologist, returns to the Texas Gulf Coast to manage the latest Habitats for Nature project, restoring the woods and wetlands to their natural state.
She is devoted to the environmental cause with a passion usually reserved for a lover – something she hasn’t had since a disastrous love affair ten years earlier. Having sworn off women and relationships, Carly is perfectly content to live her life alone while she focuses on her latest project.
Wildlife photographer Pat Ryan is duped into volunteering her talents to the cause, but she wants no part of the overzealous Dr. Cambridge.
While they spend most of their time sparring and bickering, an early season hurricane finds them fighting nature – instead of each other – to save the wetlands and the birds that brought them together.
Soon Carly finds her heart opening, little by little, and struggles to ignore the feelings that are growing between them. And Pat, always searching for that certain someone to take her breath away, can’t believe for a moment that the woman she’s been waiting for could possibly be Carly.
Lucky
Author: Kris Bryant
Publication Date: June 1, 2020
Summary:
Winning the lottery is the best thing that’s ever happened to Serena Evans. Gone are the days of living paycheck to paycheck. On her own and fully funded, Serena’s excited to open Pet Posh Inn. She can’t imagine a more fulfilling dream than caring for and being surrounded by animals.
Gabrielle Barnes can’t understand why anyone would dump millions of dollars into a pet daycare, but if she wants to prove herself worthy of a partner position at Arnest & Max Architecture, she’s going to have paste on a smile while designing the ridiculous waste of space.
Serena’s kindness and big heart draw Gabrielle in, but her stubbornness drives a wedge between them. As the design builds, so does their attraction.
Was Serena’s luck really about money, or is she about to get lucky in love?
Lucky in Love
Author: Cara Malone
Publication Date: June 8, 2020
Summary:
Jules Wakefield’s family has rescued rabbits for decades, but with her parents gone and her veterinary practice demanding all her time, Jules desperately needs a successor. She decides to run an essay contest – the winner must love bunnies.
Parker Rose is exactly who Jules is looking for – warm, smart, not afraid to get her hands dirty, and a gorgeous country girl to boot. She’s the answer to Jules’ prayers… and a few unspoken fantasies, too.
Summer days at the rescue turn into autumn nights of passion, but when Jules finds out that Parker’s been keeping a secret, her problems start multiplying again like rabbits.
One little lie has the power to tear everything apart, but what if it leads her home, to a fur-ever kind of love?
Pack of Her Own
Author: Elena Abbott
Publication Date: March 14, 2023
Summary:
Natalie Donovan jumps at a friend’s offer to stay in the family cabin for a month—she desperately needs the chance to get away from, and get over, her messy breakup. She doesn’t count on the owner of the local diner making her heart pound and her body desperate to be touched.
Wren Carne is a lone wolf. As an Alpha shifter, she has no pack and maintains her territory without causing drama, just the way she likes it. When she checks on the girl staying in a local cabin, she’s not expecting her wolf to identify the human as her One True Mate.
As fallout from their pasts encroaches upon the sleepy town of Terabend, Wren must decide if she wants a pack of her own, while Natalie worries that her secret—she’s transgender—might be too much for Wren.
The Golden Frog Games (Witchlings #2)
Author: Claribel A. Ortega
Publication Date: May 2, 2023
Summary:
Seven Salazar is a Spare.
And now, she's the most famous Spare in the Twelve Towns, along with Valley Pepperhorn and Thorn Laroux, her two best friends.
After being named the new town Uncle, she's undergoing intense training to learn how to use her abilities to communicate with animals. But Seven has a secret: the only creatures’ voices she hears clearly are those of monstruos. Something is terribly wrong with Seven’s magic.
Meanwhile, it's the Golden Frog Games, a week of magical competitions among the Champions of the twelve towns, and Thorn is competing in fashion design!
But when Thorn's competitors start to get turned to stone, suspicion lands on Thorn and the other Witchlings. Despite their fame, there are still many in the town who think that only the Spares would sink so low to win.
Can Seven overcome the problems with her magic and find out who is stonifying the competitors . . . before Thorn becomes next victim?
The Language of Seabirds
Author: Will Taylor
Publication Date: July 19, 2022
Summary:
A sweet, tender middle-grade story of two boys finding first love with each other over a seaside summer.
Jeremy is not excited about the prospect of spending the summer with his dad and his uncle in a seaside cabin in Oregon. It's the first summer after his parents' divorce, and he hasn't exactly been seeking alone time with his dad. He doesn't have a choice, though, so he goes... and on his first day takes a walk on the beach and finds himself intrigued by a boy his age running by. Eventually, he and Runner Boy (Evan) meet -- and what starts out as friendship blooms into something neither boy is expecting... and also something both boys have been secretly hoping for.
Dragonfall
Author: L.R. Lam
Publication Date: May 2, 2023
Summary:
Long ago, humans betrayed dragons, stealing their magic and banishing them to a dying world. Centuries later, their descendants worship dragons as gods. But the gods remember, and they do not forgive.
Thief Arcady scrapes a living on the streets of Vatra. Desperate, Arcady steals a powerful artifact from the bones of the Plaguebringer, the most hated person in Lumet history. Only Arcady knows the artifact's magic holds the key to a new life among the nobles at court and a chance for revenge.
The spell connects to Everen, the last male dragon foretold to save his kind, dragging him through the Veil. Disguised as a human, Everen soon learns that to regain his true power and form and fulfil his destiny, he only needs to convince one little thief to trust him enough to bond completely--body, mind, and soul--and then kill them.
Yet the closer the two become, the greater the risk both their worlds will shatter.
Rabbit Chase
Author: Elizabeth LaPensee, illustrated by KC Oster
Publication Date: March 29, 2022
Summary:
Anishinaabe culture and storytelling meet Alice in Wonderland in this coming-of-age graphic novel that explores Indigenous and gender issues through a fresh yet familiar looking glass.
Aimée, a non-binary Anishinaabe middle-schooler, is on a class trip to offer gifts to Paayehnsag, the water spirits known to protect the land. While stories are told about the water spirits and the threat of the land being taken over for development, Aimée zones out, distracting themselves from the bullying and isolation they’ve experienced since expressing their non-binary identity. When Aimée accidentally wanders off, they are transported to an alternate dimension populated by traditional Anishinaabe figures in a story inspired by Alice in Wonderland.
To gain the way back home, Aimée is called on to help Trickster by hunting down dark water spirits with guidance from Paayehnsag. On their journey, Aimée faces off with the land-grabbing Queen and her robotic guards and fights the dark water spirits against increasingly stacked odds. Illustrated by KC Oster with a modern take on their own Ojibwe style and cultural representation, Rabbit Chase is a story of self-discovery, community, and finding one’s place in the world.
The Tea Dragon Society
Author: K. O'Neill
Publication Date: October 31, 2017
Summary:
From the award-winning author of Princess Princess Ever After comes The Tea Dragon Society, a charming all-ages book that follows the story of Greta, a blacksmith apprentice, and the people she meets as she becomes entwined in the enchanting world of tea dragons.
After discovering a lost tea dragon in the marketplace, Greta learns about the dying art form of tea dragon care-taking from the kind tea shop owners, Hesekiel and Erik. As she befriends them and their shy ward, Minette, Greta sees how the craft enriches their lives—and eventually her own.
Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs
Author: Jennifer Finney Boylan
Publication Date: April 21, 2020
Summary:
This is a book about dogs: the love we have for them, and the way that love helps us understand the people we have been.
It’s in the love of dogs, and my love for them, that I can best now take the measure of the child I once was, and the bottomless, unfathomable desires that once haunted me.
There are times when it is hard for me to fully remember that love, which was once so fragile, and so fierce. Sometimes it seems to fade before me, like breath on a mirror.
But I remember the dogs.
In her New York Times opinion column, Jennifer Finney Boylan wrote about her relationship with her beloved dog Indigo, and her wise, funny, heartbreaking column went viral. In Good Boy, Boylan explores what should be the simplest topic in the world, but never is: finding and giving love.
Good Boy is a universal account of a remarkable story: showing how a young boy became a middle-aged woman—accompanied at seven crucial moments of growth and transformation by seven memorable dogs. “Everything I know about love,” she writes, “I learned from dogs.” Their love enables us pull off what seem like impossible feats: to find our way home when we are lost, to live our lives with humor and courage, and above all, to best become our true selves.
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