Weekly Steals and Deals in Queer Lit – March 4th
Welcome to March! The first week of March is “Read an Ebook Week,” which the indie bookstore Smashwords always celebrates with a massive sale! Many of the discounts and deals you will find in this week’s Deals and Steals will be found only on Smashwords. But don’t worry! Smashwords provides DRM-free files and will walk you through how to send those files to your ereader of choice if you aren’t sure how to do it! Smashwords also has one of the highest royalties rates in from retailers for authors. So it’s a win-win! Smashwords sales usually work by providing a coupon code for participating books. The code for this sale is EBW50, EBW25, or EBW75 depending on the discount for the book!
✨ Book of the Week ✨
📚 New Release! 📚
Cold Steel
Series: Fire Heart #2
Joyce Ch'ng
Fantasy
Representation: Lesbian, Queer, Sapphic
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🍭
Wehia and Geri travel back to the fens to find the truth about the link between the border people and the matriarchal sword smiths. Are the two ready for the truth? Wehia is also holding a painful secret: her perfect sword is not perfect. When the threat of war comes knocking at Wehia's doorstep, will she be able to rise above failure, pain and pride? Will she be able to reforge the broken Council Sword and bring peace to the City of the Swords? Moreover, will Wehia and Geri find the happiness they both seek?
Triple Strike: Threads of Fate
Series: Triple Strike, #1
Science Fiction
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🍭
Representation: Gay, Aromantic, Bi/Pan.
Alan Beringer’s day takes an unexpected turn when he’s kidnapped by alien space pirates, but pirates aren’t the problem. The problem is Alan's job is curtailing space piracy. The problem is Alan may be more alien than he lets on. The problem is the pirate captain, Sven Jiordson, has a growing infatuation with Alan. The problem is Alan kind of enjoys being kidnapped. But the biggest problem of all is that a new organization is shifting the balance of power between all three interstellar species, and all signs indicate Alan is about to be caught in the middle of it…
Regular Price: 4.99
Riyati Rebirth
Series: Riyati #1
Fantasy, Contemporary
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🌶️
Representation: Asexual, Lesbian
With great power comes your past incarnations and future self playing chess with your existence. Kylie Rae thought she was an average honors high school student but discovered during a life-threatening incident that she's the reincarnation of an ancient magic kingdom's crown princess. Now people she's never met want her dead, and she must learn how to survive in this new world while maintaining the façade that nothing's changed. Forget making A's, how will Kylie survive to the end of the year when she's constantly looking over her shoulder? Riyati is a new adult/adult contemporary, low dark fantasy series that seeks to explore themes of identity, legacy, the greater good, and finding your own path in life. The series includes multiple first person perspectives and multiple queer characters (currently including demisexual/romantic and lesbian representation with more to come in future books), set in the modern day United States.
Discounted Price: $1.24 || Regular Price: $4.99
My Lord
Series: The Transcended #1
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Paranormal, Horror, Romance, Fantasy, Historical
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Representation: Bi, Sapphic, Pan, Other
“MY LORD is a queer, slow-burn erotic gothic horror novel about rediscovering yourself after trauma—with kinky, blood-drinking immortals and polyamory. ~ After losing hearth and home, Meya attempts to escape the traumatic memories by travelling east. In 13th century Tristanja, however, it’s not safe to be alone. A local slave trader catches wind of the kinless woman and abducts her in the dead of night. Beaten and abused, the now meek Meya is sold to Lord Deminas. He's known to be cruel, yet becomes strangely protective of his new chambermaid, punishing anyone who dares hurt her. After cutting her to drink her blood, he even uses his own to heal her wounds. Meya and her paramour wonder if Deminas’ dark secret is why servants regularly vanish, including the lord's previous chambermaids. However, the two women quickly learn that Lord Deminas isn't the only danger lurking in the castle's shadows.”
Discounted Price $0.99 || Regular Price $3.99
A Sharper, More Lasting Pain
Series: A Brutal, More Monstrous Dance #1
Fantasy
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Representation: Achillean, Lesbian, Non-binary, Queer, Sapphic, Trans masc
After their girlfriend’s best friend is wounded in a monster attack, Simone Allard stumbles across a plot much deeper than they anticipated. As they work to find a cure to their own forming illness and find out the truth, one question remains: how was Nadia involved in this? Nadia DuPont doesn’t know how much time she has or even what is ailing her, but it all gets more complex after meeting Simone on a field trip. As they both work to find a cure to her ailment, all Nadia is certain of is she's on the path to ruin.
Note from the Author: “…there would be a QPR if these people weren't so radioactive…”
Discount: FREE || Regular Price: $3.99
By the Blood of Rowans
Fantasy, Young Adult
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🍭
Representation: Asexual, Bi, Non-binary, Queer
The Sheehy witches are the most feared and detested family on the island of Inisliath, and none more so than Rowan, a deathwalker, who ferries island souls to the Otherworld, experiencing their deaths and carrying their memories like ghosts within him. When the magic on the island starts to seep away from the other founding families, everyone blames the Sheehys—especially when islanders start dying. Ash is sick of their father's fists and constantly having to apologize for who they are. Life on Inisliath might be the fresh start Ash and their mum need, and meeting soft-spoken, curly-haired Rowan feels like the ray of sunshine Ash has desperately needed—but everything goes sideways when Ash's mum becomes lead detective on a series of ritualistic murders allegedly tied to island magic, and Ash's family history. And worse still, the islanders are convinced Rowan is the perpetrator. When Ash does some investigating of their own, they discover Rowan is far more likely to be the next victim. With time running out to save Rowan, Ash will have to choose between a life free of their father or the boy they’re starting to love. Meanwhile Rowan will have to decide just how much he's willing to sacrifice to save his family from the darkness about to be unleashed on the island.
Discounted Price: $1.49 || Regular Price: $3.99
The Carnelian King and Other Stories
Check out Arden Powell’s Patreon for bonus content and epilogues!
Romance, Fantasy, Cozy. Horror
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🌶️
Representation: Achillean, Gay, Lesbian, Non-binary, Queer, Sapphic
A collection of fifteen queer fantasy stories introducing dazzling new worlds. From a magical second-hand shop hidden between dimensions to rolling emerald hills dotted with ancient ruins, through carnivorous winter woods and across the war-torn steppes of a crumbling empire, this collection spans beloved fantasy genres from classic to cozy, action and adventure to sword and sorcery, and gothic horror to romance. Includes gay, sapphic, and nonbinary characters, with and without romance.”
Discounted Price: $1.99 || Regular Price: $3.99
Smashwords || Itchio
Don’t forget to leave a review on Goodreads.
The Other Me
Young Adult
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🍭
Representation: Bi, Trans masc, Questioning, Lesbian
Fifteen-year-old Treasa Prescott might be an alien: it's the only explanation for why she doesn't fit in with the preppy South African private school crowd and feels so claustrophobic in her own skin. Treasa is worried she might spend life as a social pariah when she meets Gabriel du Preez. Gabriel plays the piano better than Beethoven, has a black belt in karate, and would look good wearing a garbage bag. Treasa thinks he's perfect. It might even be love, as long as Gabriel doesn't find out she's a freak. As Treasa spends time with Gabriel, she realizes she might not love him as much as she wants to be him, and that the reason she feels uncomfortable in her skin might have less to do with extra-terrestrial origins and more to do with being born in the wrong body. But Gabriel is not the perfect boy Treasa imagines. He harbors dark secrets and self-destructive tendencies. Still, Treasa might be able to accept Gabriel's baggage if he can accept who she longs to be.
Discounted Price: $1.99 || Regular Price: $3.99
Obsidian Island
Join Arden Powell’s Patreon for bonus content and epilogues!
Romance, Fantasy, Historical, Horror
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🌶️
Representation: Achillean, Trans masc
Four shipwrecked sailors. An island of unimaginable beauty. And a nightmare determined to hunt them down and consume them, bodies and souls. Emery Lapwing is only interested in two things: exploring the natural world, and pretending that he's not in love with his closest friend, Captain James Rawlings of The Achillean. The first is easy: James will sail him anywhere he wants to go. The second, Emery has been doing for the past ten years. Emery's routine is shattered when he and James are swept overboard in a lightning storm. When the storm passes, they find themselves on the glittering pink beach of an unmapped island where no one has ever walked before. The island seems like the perfect place to recuperate as they wait for rescue, brimming with miraculous new species to be discovered. And a thousand miles from civilization, it's all too easy for Emery to imagine kissing James. In London, it was unthinkable—a kiss between two men meant the gallows if they were caught. On the island, it means risking James' friendship when they most need each other to survive. But attraction isn't the only peril they face. The island hides a dangerous secret, and James and Emery aren't the only castaways falling under its spell. Monstrous creatures stalk their every move and something is taking root in their dreams, luring them deeper into the island's deadly, tropical heart.”
Discounted Price: $2.99 || Regular Price $5.99”
Smashwords || Itchio
Engagement To Die For
Series: Harlow Mystery #2
Mystery
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🍭
Representation: Bi, Gay, Lesbian
After everything Aubri went through at the resort, the last thing Aubri needs is more drama. However, meeting her previously-unknown twin sister for the first time, and attending her mother's engagement party, results in yet another murder. Due to the remote area of this crime, the police won't be able to make it for a few days, and Aubri realizes that she, once again, along with her friends and her sister, must take up the mantle themselves to solve the case or risk being new victims.
Discounted Price: 2.99 || Regular Price: 3.99
Bloody Fantasia
Series: Harlow Mystery #3
Mystery
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🍭
Representation: Bi, Lesbian, Gay
“In “Bloody Fantasia,” Aubri Harlow and her friends believe that their days of investigating murders are over. However, when Aubri's sister, Aria, moves into her new music school, the Da Capo Music Institution, the school's acting president suddenly dies during the welcoming ceremonies. However, the acting president's death is far from the first murder committed on campus. A string of past murders haunt the school's reputation and its students. It doesn't take long before new corpses start piling up, and Aubri, Aria, and their friends realize they must take up the mystery-solving mantle once more and find out who the murderer is. Will they figure out the person responsible for causing these new tragedies, or will they become part of its bloody history? Find out by reading “Bloody Fantasia!””
Discounted Price: $2.99 || Regular Price: $3.99
Heart Wood
Sign up for Katey’s newsletter to get a free prequel to Heart Wood!
Romance, Fantasy
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Representation: Bi, Gay, Non-binary, Queer, Aromantic, Asexual
“The Stone City and the Heart Wood: uneasy neighbors separated by the Bluebird River. In the City, Hendrik is about to lose the only life he's ever known, the only love he's ever wanted. In the Wood, corruption threatens the carefully cultivated ecosystem and Dagan's way of life. Two worlds, fated to collide at last. It could be the end. Or a new beginning. An M/M romantasy.
Discounted Price: 3.49 || Regular Price: 6.99
Direct from Author || Smashwords
The Warm Machine
Science Fiction, Dystopian
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🍭
Representation: Gay, Pan
When a robot built for construction work first sees an angular, sleek prototype military robot slink onto the base he's working outside of, he immediately falls in love. The problem is, only anomalous bots understand the concept of love, and the lowly laborbot has not deviated from his default programming once. So he thinks, anyway. When the laborbot is scheduled for decommission, the military bot cannot possibly live without him, and the two bots set out on a path to find the fabled anomalous robot utopia Root.
Regular Price: 4.99 || Discounted Price: 1.24
I Heart Robot
Science Fiction, Young Adult, Dystopian
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🍭
Representation: Queer, Bi, Other, Lesbian, Queer, Pan
Sixteen-year-old Tyri wants to be a musician and wants to be with someone who gets her musical aspirations. Q-I-99, aka 'Quinn,' lives in a scrap metal sanctuary with other rogue droids. While some use violence to make their voices heard, demanding equal rights for AI enhanced robots, Quinn just wants a moment on stage with his violin to show the humans that androids like him have more to offer than their processing power. Tyri and Quinn's worlds collide when they're accepted by the Baldur Junior Philharmonic Orchestra. As the rift between robots and humans deepens, Tyri and Quinn's love of music draws them closer together, forcing Tyri to question where her loyalties lie and Quinn to question his place in the world. With the city on the brink of civil war, will Tyri's and Quinn's passion for music be enough to hold them together while everything else crumbles down around them, or will the truth of who they are tear them apart?
Discounted Price: $1.49 || **Regular Price: $**2.99
Obscura Burning
Young Adult, Science Fiction
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🌶️
Representation: Bi, Gay, Queer
The world's going to end in fire… and it's all Kyle's fault. Kyle Wolfe's world is about to crash and burn. Just weeks before graduation, a fire kills Kyle's two best friends and leaves him permanently scarred. A fire that Kyle accidentally set the night he cheated on his boyfriend Danny with their female friend, Shira. That same day, a strange new planet, Obscura, appears in the sky. And suddenly Kyle's friends aren't all that dead anymore. Each time Kyle goes to sleep, he awakens to two different realities. In one, his boyfriend Danny is still alive, but Shira is dead. In the other, it's Shira who's alive… and they're friends with benefits. Bouncing back and forth is taking a toll not only on Kyle, but on the world too, which might perish along with him. Amid the collapse of his parent's marriage and with realities shifting every time he closes his eyes, Kyle must discover how these events relate to Obscura… and he's the only one who can prevent everything going down in flames.
Discounted Price: $1.99 || Regular Price: $2.99
In the Pit of Your Stomach: An Interactive Horror Story
Join Arden Powell’s Patreon to get bonus content and epilogues!
Horror
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🌶️
Representation: Queer
You are being hunted by a bloodthirsty monster. Your choices: Escape to survive another day. Romance your best and only friend while you both still have the chance. Meet a violent death, ripped apart by the creature's needle-sharp teeth. Succumb to infection and give in to your new cannibalistic urges. A short, interactive choose-your-own-horror story with 18 possible endings.
Discounted Price: $1.49 || Regular Price: $2.99
Smashwords || Itchio
The Cradle of Eternal Night
Fantasy, Romance, Horror
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Representation: Lesbian
A sapphic horror romantasy in which two heroic lesbians, a witch and a bard, fight to release the light from the theocracy that plunged their world into ceaseless darkness.
Discounted Price: $2.49 || Regular Price: $4.99
Hymn of Memory
Join S. Jean’s newsletter to get a FREE short story!
Fantasy, Contemporary
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🍭
Representation: Achillean, Gay, Lesbian
When Morgan's divine duties erase his memories until he can hardly remember anything beyond his name, he dreams of one thing: escape. And he finally gets his chance when the very familiar Fin falls into his life and whisks him away from everything he knows.
Discounted Price: $0.99 || Regular Price: $3.99
Winner Takes All
**Series: **Harlow Mystery #1
Mystery
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🍭
Representation: Bi, Gay, Lesbian
Aubri Harlow thinks she’s found her dream vacation after winning a contest to an exclusive island resort for a whole week. However, her dream quickly turns into a nightmare when her ex-boyfriend Colin, ex-girlfriend Renee, and former university classmate Bastian end up on the same island as fellow contest winners. Even worse? Colin is found dead barely a day into the vacation. Terrible weather prevents the police from arriving on the island to investigate. To keep herself safe, as well as her other companions, Aubri must find out who the killer is…or risk becoming the next target.
Discounted Price: $2.99 || Regular Price: $3.99
In the Eye of the Beholder
Series: Trouvaille #1
Romance, Cozy, Contemporary
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🍭
Representation: Asexual, Bi, Gay, Lesbian
In a modern Beauty and the Beast retelling Beau Nicholls is a freelance photographer. She finds herself in need of a temporary job to pay the bills. In desperation, she takes a housekeeping position for a disabled recluse. The recluse in question, Felix Astor, does not want her help, but his cousin hires her anyway.
FREE || Regular Price: $2.99
Smashwords || Itchio
Angels
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Young Adult
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🍭
Representation: Queer
Angels have lived among us for as long as we can remember. They don’t have powers, but they do have wings. They’ve always hidden their wings, and who they are – until Kane. Melodie Abbott remembers the day she saw Kane’s taboo-shattering billboard. A beautiful model showing his wings on Oxford Street, on a photo as tall as a building. When sixteen-year-old Mel finally meets her idol, disaster strikes. Can she find a way to free herself from his shadow, and what will her future hold? ‘Angels’ is a coming-of-age story, a university heartbreak novel with a twist, a celebration of friendship and desire, and an exploration of attraction, identity and self-expression. It takes courage to find your wings …
Discounted Price: $0.99 || Regular Price: $3.99
Zimanges
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Fantasy
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🌶️
Representation: Achillean, Gay
When wizard Jendaiar Phos sets his life on fire on purpose to spite the father who just died, he and his estranged brother are forced to leave their homes. The mother he hasn’t seen in decades left him a house in an infamous city founded by a bandit king, but it’s too big for two people. In search of roommates to help pay bills, he finds instead a new family. Outcasts and rebels just like him who left their homelands for similar reasons. He couldn’t be happier, although life would be easier if they hadn’t just moved into a drafty mansion high in a mountain pass at the start of winter. Then there’s the part where a pile of leaves inhabited by a spirit has tasked this misfit crew with saving their new home from a demon, and even the pile of leaves doesn’t know what a demon IS. They’re going to have to get creative if they mean to save the day. Hopefully, somewhere along the way, they can also find the means to cope with the other problem: 63 West Cedar isn’t furnished.
Discounted Price: $3.5 || Regular Price: $6.99
Silenci
Romance, Fantasy
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🍭
Representation: Gay
In Abadosos, nobody speaks of the werewolves—in fact, nobody likes to speak. Joaquím is attacked by a werewolf on a full moon in which he foolishly forgets to take shelter. But he lives to see the light of day, mostly unscathed. Nursed back to health with the help of his friend Zarif and his cousin Remei, he lives on unknowing whether he was bitten or not. But the curse of the lycanthrope proves to be more complex than it appears, and Joaquím begins to doubt not only himself, but those close to him and everything he knows about his hometown. The pressure and paranoia cloud his way, and nobody seems to have answers to his questions. After all, in Abadosos, nobody speaks.
Discounted Price: $0.99 || Regular Price: $1.99
The Elopement of Atticus & NEON
Series: (Nothing But) Flowers #1
Science Fiction, Romance, Cozy
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🌶️
Representation: Bi, Queer, Non-binary, Gay, Aromantic, Asexual
In a world slowly unraveling under a gentle apocalypse, NEON—a flower merchant with a brain more AI than human—and Atticus—a shy farmer with fantasies of romance and freedom—are in love. In order to escape Atticus’s controlling stepfather and a community steeped in prejudice, they elope under the cover of night, determined to find a better future. But the road ahead is as uncertain as their plan. Their love and the reluctant blessings of NEON’s eccentric robot family won’t be enough in the face of reality: they’ll need money, they’ll need jobs, and they’ll need a place to call home that accepts the couple’s union. As doubts and fears threaten to ruin their honeymoon before it’s even begun, NEON and Atticus must learn to trust not just each other but the rhythm of a world that may still hold a place for two unlikely lovers.
Regular Price: $1.99
Smashwords || Itchio
The Edge of a World
Series: Otar’s Universe #1
Science Fiction, Fantasy
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🍭
Representation: Gay, Bi, Trans masc, Non-binary
A scholar on a journey. A monster in his veins. An unbending truth. One wrong step and the monster in Otar’s veins kills. To find the truth about himself and the world he lives in Otar goes on a journey that will not only change his own life, but also for those closest to him. featuring: third chances at love, queer characters, ancient ruins, romance side plot, roadtrip.
Discounted Price: $0.99 || Regular Price: $3.99
Awakenings
Series: Chronicles of Nerezia #1
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Fantasy, Cozy
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🍭
Representation: Asexual. Non-binary. Queer. Aromantic
Despite dozens of apprenticeships with eir city’s clans, Horace has never found somewhere to belong to—not until eir trial run as a guard, when the terrifying, soul-possessing shards that haunt the world broke through the city’s protective dome, only to be dismissed to vapor by a mysterious elf through a single phrase: your story is my story. It is eir story, too, Horace knows it in eir guts—the most trustable part of eir body. After an afternoon of caring for the recovering elf and playing board games in their quiet, sharp-witted company, Horace is ready to follow them across the world, to the forest that haunts their dreams. Awakenings is the first of nine novellas in a fantasy adventure blending cozy fantasy vibes and D&D style side-questing, imbued with an aspec-focused queernormative world and strong platonic bonds.
Discounted Price $1.99 || Regular Price: $3.99
The Fall that Saved Us
Paranormal, Romance
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Representation: Lesbian
Cassiel has given up the family tradition of demon hunting, leaving behind her sacred angelic duty and fated sword. What she can’t leave behind are the scars. To cope, she spends her days immersed in work, pouring all her attention into New Haven Books, her small bookstore and anchor in the new world she’s carved for herself. But the past hasn’t let go of Cassiel yet. When a succubus named Avitue arrives to claim her angel-touched soul, Cassiel’s old hunter instincts flare, forcing her to choose between old knowledge and her truth. What should be a fatal seduction becomes a bargain neither woman expects. As they grow closer, Avitue is surprised to find her own pain reflected in Cassiel, a nephilim deemed fallen by her own family’s standards. By choosing trust, they reveal the lies that bind them. Falling for each other begins a path towards healing. But exorcising the effects of trauma is harder than naming it, and to explore the unfettered possibility Avitue represents, Cassiel must find a way to reclaim and redefine her angelic heritage.
Discounted Price: $2.99 || Regular Price: $5.99
Cinders of Yesterday
Fantasy, Horror, Romance
Representation: Lesbian, Bisexual,
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🍭
A medium who doesn’t remember magic. A hunter seeking revenge. Necromancers only want you for your body in Cinders of Yesterday.
Itchio || Kobo || BN || Amazon || Smashwords
Regular Price: $2.99
A Lake of Feathers and Moonbeams
Fantasy
Representation: Lesbian, Bisexual, Non-binary
Spiciness / Heat Level: 🌶️
The forest witch is not meant to fall in love with the princess she is keeping prisoner. A queer retelling of Swan Lake.
Discounted Price: $3.74 || Regular Price: $4.99
There are plenty more books on sale at Smashwords this week, so I encourage you to check it out! Before we sign off, we wanted to also let you know about a way to get NINE free books!
You can get multiple books of the cozy variety by contacting your elected officials and asking them to stand up for disability rights.
Step 1: Contact your government representatives in support of disabled people's rights
Step 2: Send a screenshot or email to cozybookbundle@gmail.com
Step 3: We'll send you 9 free cozy ebooks featuring disabled characters. Act, rest, repeat!
I asked Lynn Strong if the books had queer rep and was told that many of them do!
The Rose Bridge by Steph Shangraw: The main character is trans and there are two same-sex couples (MM and FF).
The Tale That Twines by Cedar McCloud: MC is agender and demisexual/demiromantic.
Courage is the Price by S. L. Dove Cooper: MC is lesbian and her new friend is trans. No romance.
Coyote's Coffee Milk and Spider Silk: LGBTQ+ rep throughout.
Priye by Lynn Strong: MC is ace, other characters are aroace, demi, pan, and trans.
Haroun’s Market of Wonders by Lynn Strong: Main character is grey aroace/demi, as well as pan and gay rep.
Six out of nine of the books have awesome queer rep, and you can get them for free! This is not limited to the United States, although the call to action highlights ableist actions being taken in the United States, it is meant to be world-wide call for people to stand up for disability rights.
That’s all for this week! Don’t forget to check our booking page if you want to see your book highlighted here, too!