Showing results by publisher "Penguin Audio" in LGBTQ+

If Kit Larson believes one thing, it’s that the cards never lie. She’s seen it proven time and time again as a tarot reader and mystic influencer. But unfortunately the cards didn’t warn her about her most recent breakup or her parents’ divorce, so when Kit is offered a gig at another influencer’s boho-chic Joshua Tree wedding she accepts for the distraction. And distract it does when she finds out her high school crush, Julia, is the wedding planner.

Introvert Gina Mulley is determined to become a tattoo artist, and to find somewhere she belongs in her conventional Long Island town. But this is 1985, when tattooing is still a gritty, male-dominated fringe culture, and Gina’s whimsical style is far from the norm. Luck is on her side: Gina’s older brother Dominic owns a tattoo shop, and he reluctantly grants her one year to prove herself.

Nox has been steadily working as a quartermaster for the rebellion for years. They don’t ask for much in return, except for one crucial thing — that their ex, the noble Lord Bastian, stays as far away from them as possible. To say things ended poorly between them is an understatement . . . and it’s the only relationship Nox has never quite recovered from. But now the rules have changed. Siobhan, the rebel leader, has emerged from hiding to tell Nox that Bastian’s involvement in the rebellion has been discovered, and he’s being taken captive.

Renee Feldman’s not exactly feeling her best when, at a friend's wedding, she runs into Lola Gray—a childhood neighbour who's become a major pop sensation. Lola Gray just wants to get through her sister’s wedding. It's been a year since her secret relationship imploded, simultaneously breaking Lola's heart and cancelling the album of love songs she'd written. If Lola doesn't release new music soon, she'll become irrelevant. When Lola runs into Renee, she knows exactly what she needs to clear her head.

From award-winning journalist Beth Ashley comes a groundbreaking investigation into the history of slutshaming, how it continues to affect us today and what we can do to fight it. What is a slut? Where did the word come from? And what do the Jonas Brothers, TikTok and Shakespeare have to do with it? Beth Ashley has the answers in this eye-opening account of slutshaming through the ages and how it’s changed over time but still affects us in the 21st century.

Since coming out as a trans woman a few years ago, Julia's family have been supportive – seamlessly (well, almost) getting the hang of her new pronouns. But wedding-induced pressures – including an uptight bride-to-be and her vicious cronies, a hometown hookup buddy who Julia can’t seem to resist, and tricky dynamics with her divorced parents – force Julia to confront the complications that have been bubbling underneath the surface of her closest relationships, all while she tries to fulfill her sisterly duties as Best Woman.

No one in Lily Lennox’s life can understand why each of the past five summers, she has shut her successful business and chosen instead to be paid minimum wage life-guarding at the exclusive Riovan Wellness Resort in a sun-soaked Caribbean island. Fortunately for her, they also aren’t aware of the mysterious deaths that have occurred on the island every time she’s there. Lily always tries to avoid bringing attention to herself. But this year (ridiculously gorgeous) guest Daniel Black is asking a few too many inconvenient questions.

As the daughter of a rabbi raised in an Orthodox Jewish community, Yehudis struggled to conform to the strict expectations placed upon her and her siblings. Outspoken, curious and desperate to know more about G-d, she felt fenced in by arbitrary rules and questions left unanswered. As she grew older, these restrictions intensified and her questions for G-d hung heavier than ever. Wry and exhilarating, Chutzpah is a fearless exploration of what is possible when one person simply refuses to choose between abandoning their roots and abandoning themselves.

Rika Horiuchi’s new part-time job is to converse with a statue of the Venus de Milo – in Latin – every Monday, when the museum is closed. Initially reluctant, Rika starts to enjoy her strange new job: she and Venus talk about everything. They fall in love, and (with the help of a statue of Artemis’ hunting dog) eventually break free. This fresh and original novel from the author of Diary of a Void confirms Emi Yagi as one of the most exciting Japanese writers published in English today.

Colin is a low-level employee at Dark Enterprises, a Hell-like multinational corporation solving the world’s most difficult problems in deeply questionable ways. After years of toiling away in a cubicle, he's ready to climb the corporate ladder and claim the power he's never had. The only problem is, he’s pretty sure he’s about to be terminated. Like, terminated. That's tough, because his BFF has just set him up with a great guy. In fact, maybe he's a little too great. And asks a lot of questions...

Married odd couple Arthur and Sal are totally normal. They wear sunscreen, not because the sun can kill them, but because even the undead need a skincare regimen. They eat garlic whenever they want, though it gives Sal indigestion. They can talk to creatures of the night, but only the raccoons that rifle through their garbage. Really, they don’t bite… except into delicious baked goods. Ready to settle down and stay out of trouble, the two have opened a bed & breakfast in the idyllic, if not-so-paranormal-friendly, town of Trident Falls, Oregon.

The narrator of Middle Spoon appears to be living the dream: He has a doting husband, two precocious children, all the comforts of a quiet bourgeois life—and a sexy younger boyfriend to accompany him to farmers markets and cocktail parties. But when his boyfriend abruptly dumps him, he spirals into heartbreak for the first time and must confront a world still struggling to understand polyamorous relationships. Faced with the judgment of friends and the sting of rejection, he’s left to wonder if sharing a life with both his family and his lover could ever truly be possible.

Each year, when no one is paying attention, The Dead of Night Halloween store appears in a new location with its giant sign and great low prices. No one sees them setting up or tearing down—one day it’s just there and then, two days after Halloween, it’s gone. Pepper White knows exactly how this works. For five years, ever since the last Keeper of the Store tricked her, she has been cursed—appearing when the store does, and disappearing when it goes away. People will remember The Dead of Night, but they’ll completely forget Pepper. That is, until Christina Loring walks in the door.

In this dazzling work of restorative history, Dr Anthony Delaney has traced the stories of people daring to challenge society's expectations, unearthing archives and court records to reveal the tragedies and the joys of queer life three centuries ago.

When Emmett de Monterey is eighteen months old, a doctor diagnoses him with cerebral palsy. Words too big for his 25-year-old artist parents and their happy, smiling baby. Growing up in South East London in the 1980s, Emmett is spat at on the street and prayed over at church. At his school for disabled children, he's told he will be expelled if the rumours are true, if he's gay; at his mainstream school, teachers refuse to schedule his classes on the ground floor, and he loses a stone from the effort of getting up the stairs.

At age 16, Fahad hopes to spend the summer with his mother in London. His father, Rafik, has other plans: hauling his son to Abad, the family's feudal estate. Rafik wants to toughen up his sensitive boy, to teach him about power, duty, family—to make him a man. He enlists Ali, a local teenager, in this project, hoping his presence will prove instructive. Instead, over the course of one hot indolent season, attraction blooms between the two boys, and Fahad finds himself seduced by the wildness of the land and its inhabitants.

One romantic hopeful had greeted Lester Fabian Brathwaite on a dating app with this gem: “You into race play?” Being young, queer, gifted, and Black, Lester has found that his best tool for navigating American life is gallows humor. If you don’t laugh, you cry—or, you summon your inner rage. With biting wit, Lester’s book Rage interrogates all the ways that systemic racism and homophobia have shaped our society. All to pose that proverbial question: Can a gurl live?

At London 2012, Nicola Adams made history. The flyweight boxer - nicknamed the smiling assassin - became the first ever woman to win an Olympic Gold medal for boxing. In Rio 2016, with the nation cheering her on, she did it all over again. Growing up in Leeds, Nicola stumbled into boxing in her local sports centre while her mum was at aerobics. Age 13 she decided that she would win an Olympic Gold: nobody was going to stop her.

A tour de force of groundbreaking reportage by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jo Becker, Forcing the Spring follows the historic legal challenge mounted against California’s ban on same-sex marriage, a remarkable lawsuit that forced the issue of marriage equality before the highest court in the land. For nearly five years Becker embedded with the lawsuit’s plaintiffs, was given free rein within the legal and political war rooms where strategy was plotted, and attended every day of the trial and every appellate argument.

You were born with massive reservoirs of strength, confidence, and creativity. But oppressive structures that keep you “in your place” - that is, silent, weak, and complacent - have cut you off you from your natural gifts and pitted women against one another. Following the timeless wisdom of the heroine's journey, Becoming Heroines invites you to recover your inner power and unleash it as a force for change in the world.