Queer Thrillers and Space Operas: New YA Book Releases for January 21, 2026

It’s Sidney’s junior year and they have two things they wish to accomplish. First, they want to become president of the Queer Alliance Club. Second–and something they’re having a hard time truly telling themselves–is that they want to keep their self-diagnosed anxiety under wraps and under control. They cannot hurt their grades again this year.

But the election for Queer Alliance president ends in a deadlock with Sidney’s sworn enemy, Forrest. They’re going to share the presidency now. At least until there’s another vote at the end of the term.

Sidney doesn’t hate working with Forrest, though. In fact, they might be enjoying it a lot and mighttttttt be developing some capital-F Feelings for Forrest. Too bad Sidney’s anxiety is spiraling and none of their coping mechanisms are working anymore.

Everything may be too much for them to handle on their own now.

(If you haven’t yet, spend some time with this excellent guest post from Stoeve last summer about trans and nonbinary representation in YA!).

Moss Pointe, Louisiana was the scene of a grizzly murder five years ago. Four of the star players of the high school football team were murdered by someone wearing a Trojan mask. While someone was arrested and charged for this crime, many in town don’t think the right person was held accountable.

Pryce Cummings doesn’t believe they got the right person. As an aspiring journalist and someone who believes he found evidence as to a different perpetrator, he knows he’s got the right story for his true crime podcast. Though he doesn’t want to go back to Moss Pointe after leaving and coming to understand his sexuality in college, it’s a story he wants to tell and persue.

No matter how much he wants to get to the truth, though, the truth doesn’t want to be discovered. Pryce may pay the ultimate price for going back to that small town and trying to reopen the past.

Keller Hartman, 18, is ready when he’s called up to be part a prestigious galactic unit. He’s prepared for it, and he’s living his dream come true.

There’s a big problem, though. That problem’s name is Lament Bringer, the pilot on his mission. Lament wants nothing to do with Keller, but the two of them have to work together.

They’re investigating a visionary imbued with the power to predict catastrophe. While Keller and Lament work to find out what’s going on, they’re also being forced to spend more and more time together. They’re finally building a trust that allows them to unravel the mysteries and secrets around them–and it’s a trust that might be leading them to feelings that neither expected to have about one another.

A queer enemies-to-lovers story in space? Yes, please!

This standalone romantic fantasy read has so many titles listed as comps: Arcane, Wicked, and Iron Widow, among others. It’s a reimagining of the War of the Currents.

Josephine Haven can weild radiance, and electric-like magic. This is why she’s at the House of Industry. Josephine has strong set of emotions, and her outbursts are famous at the school. That, along with her struggles to not form attachments, mean she’s always skirting the rules at the institution.

When she graduates, it seems no one is surprised that she’s sent on a remote mission. She’s forced to work under a standoffish Julian; he used to be the school’s golden boy and he seems keen on watchin her fail. Maybe worse, Josephine is unable to about Ezra, who won’t leave her alone about the purpose of her mission.

As a deadly disease spreads across the countryside, Josephine realizes not everyone is ready or willing to accept progress. Now she’s put in a difficult position: does she give into something she was told to suppress in order to help expose corruption and be truthful about the radiance within her?

It’s a story about the oligarich state and a magical industrial revolution (and it’s also very queer).