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Indie book recs
36
items A list of diverse book recommendations that are either published by small presses or self-published. All proceeds earned via Benable will go to a family in Gaza.
Sections
11
Contemporary (adult)
Contemporary (YA)
Fantasy
Graphic novels
Historical
Horror
Contemporary (adult)
Small press-published contemporary adult fiction.
When a woman—known only as Mother—moves her family from Atlanta to its wealthy suburbs, she discovers that neither the times nor the people have changed since her childhood in a small Southern town. Despite the intervening decades, Mother is met with...
The Atlas of Reds and Blues by Devi Laskar
When twenty-five-year-old Kai Larssen agrees to pose as his best friend Mariah's date at a family gathering, he doesn't expect to fall-hard-for her twin brother, Ray. Anxious, magnetic, and achingly off-limits, Ray is everything Kai has ever wanted. ...
We Are Made Of Scars & Starlight by Nicole Zelniker
Contemporary (YA)
Small press-published contemporary young adult fiction.
After one of his songs goes viral, Ollie Cheriet gets the opportunity of a lifetime: a cross-country tour, an album deal, and a chance to help his family with their financial struggles. The only problem? Ollie has major stage fright, a symptom of his...
Under All the Lights by Maya Ameyaw
Set in California in the 1960s and '70s, Guided Tours in Living Color takes Angie year by year from kindergarten through high school, offering a portrait of the artist as a shy, awkward Mexican-American girl. Taking place against the backdrop of the ...
Living Color by Donna Miscolta
Of course Avery Marsh's parents decide to divorce her senior year of high school, but what's way worse, they're shipping Avery across the country to spend the year with her extremely closeted, absentee half-brother Lucas and his secret boyfriend. And...
All I Know So Far by Nicole Zelniker
Fantasy
Small press and self-published fantasy.
When you're a geriatric armed with nothing but gumption and knitting needles, stopping a sorcerer from wiping out an entire dragon-fighting organization is a tall order. No one understands why 83-year-old Edna Fisher is the Chosen One, destined to sa...
The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher by E.M. Anderson
In the world of Awei, magic is not fully understood. Humans can be born of air, guardians haunt old lands, and spirits make up most of society. Raised by a winged spirit in an enchanted forest, Wander is a stranger to the world. Forced out by a magic...
Wander by Allison Stalberg
Olive Joshi is an imaginative sixteen-year-old with OCD. She checks and double-checks that the stove burners are off, avoids driving for fear of causing an accident, and constantly worries about hurting the people she loves. Olive finds refuge from h...
The Twin Stars by Bridgette Dutta Portman
When twenty-three-year-old surly, and slightly tipsy, Frankie finds her hag of a grandmother dead on the sofa, her best friend, playful Ben Bowen, introduces her to the magical underbelly of Aspen Ridge, Utah. Ben is a witch, a seer to be exact, and ...
Peachy by Camri Kohler
Once a vicious street rat, Prudence Merriweather has clawed her way to the top of society and now enjoys newfound power as the Duchess of Talonsbury. All she has to do to protect her fragile position is maintain the act of gentility, make her husband...
Song of the Hell Witch by Taylor Hartley
For her entire life, the Name-Bearer's sole purpose has been to receive and deliver the names of the future monarchy from the Flowers of Prophecy. But when the child is finally born and the Name-Bearer is sent to the Flowers, they refuse to name him....
The Name-Bearer by Natalia Hernandez
Graphic novels
Small press-published graphic novels.
When Kumiko’s well-meaning adult daughters place her in an assisted living home, the seventy-six-year-old widow gives it a try, but it’s not where she wants to be. She goes on the lam and finds a cozy bachelor apartment, keeping the location secret e...
Shadow Life by Hiromi Goto and Ann Xu
A haunted house story for the 21st century, INFIDEL follows an American Muslim woman and her multi-racial neighbors who move into a building haunted by entities that feed off xenophobia. Bestselling editor Pornsak Pichetshote (Swamp Thing, Daytripper...
Infidel by Pornsak Pichetshote
Keum Suk Gendry-Kim was an adult when her mother revealed a family secret: She had been separated from her sister during the Korean War. It’s not an uncommon story—the peninsula was split across the 38th parallel, dividing one country into two. As ma...
The Waiting by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim
Historical
Small press-published historical fiction.
Gabi Keefer flees Holocaust-era Germany with nothing but her husband, her nephew, and the clothes on her back, but that isn't the whole story. Over generations, her granddaughter, Lena, struggles with drug addiction and an unplanned pregnancy; her so...
From Where We Are by Nicole Zelniker
Horror
Small press-published horror novels and collections.
So what if Sadie hears talking dead animals and a strange, comforting male voice in her head? The therapist insists these are just symptoms of PTSD. It makes sense considering that she hid under the bed and watched as her best friends were slaughtere...
The Mean Ones by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne
In Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and K...
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
Three years ago, Alice spent one night in an abandoned house with her friends, Ila and Hannah. Since then, Alice’s life has spiraled. She lives a haunted existence, selling videos of herself for money, going to parties she hates, drinking herself to ...
Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt
Nonfiction
Small press-published nonfiction.
Neema Avashia was born and raised in southern West Virginia to parents who immigrated to the United States. She has been a middle school teacher in the Boston Public Schools since 2003. Her essays have appeared in the Bitter Southerner, Catapult, Ken...
Another Appalachia by Neema Avashia
Life changes forever for six-year-old Nada when Iraq's invasion of her birth country of Kuwait pushes her mother to immigrate with her to the United States. Just as she finally settles into her strange new existence apart from her father in Rhode Isl...
All Water Has Perfect Memory by Nada Samih-Rotondo
In this intimate and eye-opening book, Diya Abdo--daughter of refugees, U.S. immigrant, English professor, and activist—shares the stories of seven refugees. Coming from around the world, they’re welcomed by Every Campus A Refuge (ECAR), an organizat...
American Refuge by Diya Abdo
To be trans and disabled means to have experienced harassment, discrimination, loneliness, often poverty, to have struggled with feeling unworthy of love. To be trans and disabled means experiencing ableism within our trans communities and transphobi...
Trans and Disabled, edited by Alex Iantaffi
Poetry
Small press and self-published poetry.
"Blood Orange" is a highly emotional, important and timely poetry collection by Mx. Yaffa (They/She), a trans Muslim displaced Indigenous Palestinian. Their writings probe the yearning for home, belonging, mental health, queerness, transness, and oth...
Blood Orange by Yaffa As
From The Yellow House And On is a memoir through poetry. The poems of this collection create a camera-like image of the writer's childhood and adolescence in Ohio.
From the Yellow House and On by Sojourner Davidson
In her debut collection, The Whisper, The Storm and The Light in Between, Clara vulnerably reveals her experience as a racialized being surviving Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) and colonization. She describes her work as a "poetic memoir of ...
The Whisper, The Storm, and The Light In Between by Clara Olivo
Award-winning poet Danez Smith is a groundbreaking force, celebrated for deft lyrics, urgent subjects, and performative power. Don’t Call Us Dead opens with a heartrending sequence that imagines an afterlife for black men shot by police, a place wher...
Don't Call Us Dead by Danez Smith
Retellings
Small press and self-published retellings of Peter Pan and Sleeping Beauty.
The Lost Boys say that Peter Pan went back to England because of Wendy Darling, but Wendy is just an old life he left behind. Neverland is his real home. So when Peter returns to it after ten years in the real world, he's surprised to find a Neverlan...
Peter Darling by Austin Chant
Princess Aurora has a secret. She thinks she owes everything to her fiancé, because he is kind and is helping save her kingdom from war debts. But, inside her heart, she knows she will never belong to him. Prince Elias has a secret. He loves Aurora w...
Vow of Moonlight by Morgana Stewart
Romance
Small press and self-published romance novels.
Julián Luna has a plan for his life: Graduate. Get into UCLA. And have the chance to move away from Corpus Christi, Texas, and the suffocating expectations of others that have forced Jules into an inauthentic life. Then in one reckless moment, with o...
Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun by Jonny Garza Villa
Gabriel Piña knows who he is: a college goalkeeper, a future Liga MX or MLS star, and definitely straight. He's starting his freshman year with a lot of eyes on him and even more potential, but he's got this. Nothing will have him straying off the pa...
Futbolista by Jonny Garza Villa
Ezra Beaumont never felt like New York was truly his home, which is why he's spent the last seven years studying abroad at university and backpacking across Europe. Some may say he's running from his problems, but he just hates feeling stuck. Then CO...
Queried Sick by Dallas Smith
Congressman Jamie Montgomery knows that re-election will be tough as a young, single man representing a newly redrawn district in North Carolina. And that's without him coming out as bisexual. But when he sees Adrian across a bar, Jamie forgets about...
Bi-Partisan by Dallas Smith
Speculative & sci-fi
Small press and self-published speculative and science fiction novels.
Award-winning novelist Randa Jarrar's new story collection moves seamlessly between realism and fable, history and the present, capturing the lives of Muslim women and men across myriad geographies and circumstances. With acerbic wit, deep tenderness...
Him Me Muhammad Ali by Randa Jarrar
Charlotte "Chuck" Barnes is an agent in the Roger's Family, a secret society created to protect cryptids like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster from the outside world. Life is usually quiet at the aging Site Alpha where Chuck is stationed, but a seri...
Site Alpha by Neal Romriell
In an alternate 2020 timeline, Al Gore won the 2000 election and declared a War on Climate Change rather than a War on Terror. For twenty years, Democrats have controlled all three branches of government, enacting carbon-cutting schemes that never ma...
The Free People's Village by Sim Kern
When an unprecedented hurricane devastates the city of Houston, Noah Mishner finds shelter in the Dallas Mavericks' basketball arena. Though he finds community among other queer refugees, Noah fears his trans and Jewish identities put him at risk wit...
Depart, Depart! by Sim Kern