12 book covers against a purple background

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Reading lists

12 must-read queer books

The Gracekeepers

This is truly an extraordinary novel...This has a delightful fantasy quality in the mould of The Snow Child or The Night Circus... Memorable and captivating

Kirsty Logan is a professional daydreamer. Her first story collection, The Rental Heart and Other Fairytales, won the Scott Prize, the Polari First Book Prize and the Saboteur Award. Her first novel, The Gracekeepers, won a Lambda Literary Award and was selected for the Radio 2 Book Club and the Waterstones Book Club. A Portable Shelter won the Gavin Wallace Fellowship and Things We Say in the Dark, a collection of feminist horror stories, was optioned for TV. Her short fiction and poetry have been translated into Japanese, Spanish, Italian and Chinese, adapted for stage, recorded for radio and exhibited in galleries. She lives in Glasgow with her family. 
 
@kirstylogan 
www.kirstylogan.com

A flooded world. 
A floating circus. 
Two women in search of a home. 
 
North lives on a circus boat with her beloved bear, keeping a secret that could capsize her life. 
 
Callanish lives alone in her house in the middle of the ocean, tending the graves of those who die at sea. As penance for a terrible mistake, she has become a gracekeeper. 
 
A chance meeting between the two draws them magnetically to one another - and to the promise of a new life. 
 
But the waters are treacherous, and the tide is against them. 
 
'The Gracekeepers is enchanting and heart-tugging. If you love Margaret Atwood you'll love this' Sunday Telegraph 
 
'A wondrous read' Stylist 
 
'Clever and original' The Times 
 
'Truly magical' Heat

A Portable Shelter

Kirsty Logan is a writer, performer, literary editor, writing mentor and book reviewer. She is the author of a short story collection, The Rental Heart and Other Fairytales, and one novel, The Gracekeepers. She regularly performs her stories at events and festivals throughout the world. She lives in Glasgow with her wife and their rescue dog. 
 
www.kirstylogan.com 
@kirstylogan

In their tiny, sea-beaten cottage on the north coast of Scotland, Liska and Ruth await the birth of their first child. 
 
Each passes the time by telling the baby stories, trying to pass on the lessons they’ve learned: tales of circuses and stargazing, selkie fishermen and domestic werewolves, child-eating witches and broken-toothed dragons. 
 
But they must keep their storytelling a secret from one another, as they’ve agreed to only ever tell the plain truth. So to cloak their tales, Ruth tells her stories when Liska is at work, to a background of shrieking seabirds; Liska tells hers when Ruth is asleep, with the lighthouse sweeping its steady beam through the window.

The Gloaming

Kirsty Logan is a writer, performer, literary editor, writing mentor and book reviewer. Her first book, The Rental Heart &amp; Other Fairytales, won the Scott Prize and was longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize. Her novel, The Gracekeepers, won a Lambda Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Golden Tentacle for best debut. She regularly performs her stories at events and festivals throughout the world. She lives in Glasgow with her wife and their rescue puppy.

'The best lives leave a mark.' 
 
A bewitching tale of first love, shattering grief, and the dangerous magic that draws us home. 
 
Mara's island is one of stories and magic, but every story ends in the same way. She will finish her days on the cliff, turned to stone and gazing out at the horizon like all the islanders before her. 
 
Mara's parents - a boxer and a ballerina - chose this enchanted place as a refuge from the turbulence of their previous lives; they wanted to bring up their children somewhere special and safe. But the island and the sea don't care what people want, and when they claim a price from her family, Mara's world unravels. 
 
It takes the arrival of Pearl, mysterious and irresistible, to light a spark in Mara again, and allow her to consider a different story for herself. 
 
The Gloaming is a gorgeous tale of love and grief, and the gap between fairy tales and real life.

Things We Say in the Dark

'Gripping . . . You won't put it down' Sunday Telegraph 
 
A shocking collection of dark stories, ranging from chilling contemporary fairytales to disturbing supernatural fiction. 
 
Alone in a remote house in Iceland a woman is unnerved by her isolation; another can only find respite from the clinging ghost that follows her by submerging herself in an overgrown pool. Couples wrestle with a lack of connection to their children; a schoolgirl becomes obsessed with the female anatomical models in a museum; and a cheery account of child's day out is undercut by chilling footnotes. 
 
These dark tales explore women's fears with electrifying honesty and invention and speak to one another about female bodies, domestic claustrophobia, desire and violence. 
 
'A brilliant collection of stories . . . All will burrow their way into your brain and not let go' Stylist 
 
'Shimmers with menace . . . Fans of Angela Carter and Shirley Jackson take note' i Newspaper 
 
KIRSTY LOGAN WAS SELECTED AS ONE OF BRITAIN'S TEN MOST OUTSTANDING LGBTQ WRITERS by Val McDermid for the International Literature Showcase in 2019

‘Myth-making at its best‘ Val McDermid

Now She is Witch

This is a witch story unlike any other. 
 
Lux has lost everything when Else finds her in the woods. Her family, her lover, her home - all burned. The world is suspicious of women like her. But Lux is cunning; she knows how to blend into the background. And she knows a lot about poisons. 
 
Else needs Lux's help to destroy the man who wronged her. But on their hunt they will uncover dark secrets that entangle them with dangerous adversaries. 
 
From the snowy winter woods to the bright midnight sun; from lost and powerless to finding your path, Now She is Witch conjures a world where women grasp at power through witchcraft, sexuality and performance, and sometimes by throwing each other to the wolves. 
 
*NO & OTHER LOVE STORIES, KIRSTY LOGAN'S NEW BOOK IS AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER NOW* 
 
'A story that will hold you tight and not let go' Stylist 
 
'Mesmerising and evocative...There are echoes of everything from the Brothers Grimm to Angela Carter' Observer 
 
'Powerful, imaginative, compelling - myth-making at its best' Val McDermid 
 
'An impassioned reclaiming of female desire...absorbingly atmospheric' Daily Mail 
 
'Spooky, timeless, feminist, inventive, unsettling' Viv Groksop

Kirsty Logan's mesmerising and evocative novel represents an imaginative triumph in this new subgenre [of "witch lit"]... There are echoes of everything from the Brothers Grimm to Angela Carter in Logan's deceptively simple storytelling

Logan builds Lux's world with an eye for striking detail...the images snap and sizzle with portent and possibility

One of our national writing treasures, Kirsty Logan's latest tale is a deeply atmospheric, sometimes gory but ultimately uplifting... a story that will hold you tight and not let go

An impassioned reclaiming of female desire. Stuffed, Russian-doll like, with stories...an absorbingly atmospheric adventure

A dark conjuring of a book: angry, powerful, hypnotic, told in prose of dazzling power.

Beautiful......fierce and dream-like...powerful...compelling, haunting, and enriching

Powerful, imaginative, compelling - this is myth-making at its best

Spooky, timeless, feminist, inventive, unsettling... this book is every bit as atmospheric and compelling as you'd hope.

A hugely compelling book that seeks to rewrite what we think about witches. Dark, luscious prose wrapped around ideas that have enormous contemporary relevance. Kirsty Logan is at the height of her powers

Powerful, beautiful and deeply unsettling. The prose is magical

Now She is Witch is a beautiful, atmospheric, resonant tale that follows Lux and Else as they fight to be heard and to tell their own stories. Kirsty Logan shows the limited choices left to these women, and draws the reader into their struggles to take control of their own lives.

Now She Is Witch is a meticulously researched piece of fantasy

Kirsty Logan is one of the darkest and most playful of writers working right now

Frequently compared to Angela Carter for her luxuriant imagination and love of fairytales, Logan shifts from the uncanny to the terrifying in her new collection

What Logan brings to her story is a fierce and dream-like poetry that creates layer upon layer of memorable moments and images

Logan…captures the mood of the times with a fearful precision… [she] brings…a fierce and dream-like poetry that creates layer upon layer of memorable moments and images… [Now She Is Witch is] compelling, haunting, and enriching

She dug her mother's grave in the poison garden so it would stay hidden... 
 
Lux has lost everything when Else finds her, alone in the woods. Her family, her lover, her home - all burned. The world is suspicious of women like her. But Lux is cunning; she knows how to exploit people's expectations, how to blend into the background. And she knows a lot about poisons. 
 
Else has not found Lux by accident. She needs her help to seek revenge against the man who wronged her, and together they pursue him north. But on their hunt they will uncover dark secrets that entangle them with dangerous adversaries. 
 
From the snowy winter woods to the bright midnight sun; from lost and powerless to finding your path, Now She is Witch conjures a world of violence and beauty - a world where women grasp at power through witchcraft, sexuality and performance, and most of all through throwing each other to the wolves. 
 
This is a witch story unlike any other. 
 
*NO & OTHER LOVE STORIES, KIRSTY LOGAN'S NEW BOOK IS AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER NOW*

Kirsty Logan

No & Other Love Stories

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