2024 Lambda Literary Award Finalists

Big Swiss

A Novel

By: Jen Beagin
Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman, Carlotta Brentan, Stephen Graybill, Joy Osmanski & Matt Pittenger
Length: 11 hours 15 minutes

“Big Swiss is the sort of strange and beautiful novel that you have to read to believe. It's utterly shocking, absolutely hysterical, and beautifully cynical. I laughed out loud on every other page, rolled my eyes at the pervasive hipster things Big Swiss pokes fun at, and thoroughly enjoyed the quirky atmosphere. Raging feminism, bunk... Read more

Biography of X : A Novel

By: Catherine Lacey
Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
Length: 14 hours 6 minutes

“A fictionalized memoir about a non-existent star of the east village art scene. An America broken in two after the end of World War 2. A woman attempts to understand abuse at the hands of the person she loved. All at once. Read more

Organ Meats

A Novel

By: K-Ming Chang
Narrated by: Jen Zhao & Annie Q
Length: 8 hours 11 minutes

“In the phenomenal Organ Meats, two friends are bound by a red string, dog bloodlines, and the violence that is being a girl” (Ms. magazine)—from the National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree and author of Gods of Want.

“Organ Meats possesses something of the febrile intensity of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, their laser focus on female... Read more

Our Hideous Progeny

A Novel

By: C.E. McGill
Narrated by: Florence Howard
Length: 12 hours 30 minutes

“A gripping Gothic tale of grief and ambition, passion and intrigue.” — Jess Kidd, author of The Night Ship“An immersive blend of historical and science fiction brims with surprises and dark delights. . . . An incisive exploration of women’s rights within the field of science. . . . Readers will revel in Mary’s personal and scientific... Read more

Pomegranate

A Novel

By: Helen Elaine Lee
Narrated by: Machelle Williams & Janina Edwards
Length: 12 hours 40 minutes

“Pomegranate is a bejeweled novel full of hidden gems. Follow Ranita who once had a promising future until bad choices sent her off the rails and into prison. You will be captivated watching Ranita claw her way back to a productive life that includes her children while reconciling her checkered past. Full disclosure, I read AND listened to this... Read more

Blackouts

A Novel

By: Justin Torres
Narrated by: Ozzie Rodriguez & Torian Brackett
Length: 6 hours 54 minutes

“This stunning novel explores the intimacies of queer life across generations through storytelling. Torres weaves in and out of linear time to express the rippling effects of redacting personal histories. Even though it is written as if you are hearing an old story, it feels like poetry. I felt like I was in a haze while reading and had trouble... Read more

Brother & Sister Enter the Forest

By: Richard Mirabella
Narrated by: Eve Passeltiner
Length: 7 hours 51 minutes

After years of severed communication, Justin appears on his sister’s doorstep needing a place to stay. The home he's made for himself has collapsed, as has everything else in his life. When they were children, Willa played the role of her brother’s protector, but now, afraid of the chaos he might bring, she’s reluctant to let him in. Willa lives... Read more

Family Meal

A Novel

By: Bryan Washington
Narrated by: André Santana, Bryan Washington & Jake Choi
Length: 8 hours 27 minutes

"Achingly and beautifully etched. . . Washington is a generous and gentle writer, with a profound capacity to face the cruelty and pain of contemporary American life while simultaneously offering his characters—and readers—an expansive space for self-forgiveness, hope, and nourishment."—The Washington Post

The ghost of Kai, the love of Cam's... Read more

I Will Greet the Sun Again

A Novel

By: Khashayar J. Khabushani
Narrated by: Sean Rohani
Length: 5 hours 21 minutes

“[A] masterful debut . . . a novel of survival and longing and love, and in many ways a modern portrait of an artist as a young man . . . a book written for us, we Iranian Americans whom you don’t often hear about.”—Porochista Khakpour, The Washington Post (Best Books of the Year)

“A triumph . . . a book of astonishing accomplishment and... Read more

All-Night Pharmacy

A Novel

By: Ruth Madievsky
Narrated by: Moniqua Plante
Length: 7 hours 59 minutes

On the night of her high school graduation, a young woman follows her older sister Debbie to Salvation, a Los Angeles bar patronized by energy healers, aspiring actors, and all-around misfits. After the two share a bag of unidentified pills, the evening turns into a haze of sensual and risky interactions—nothing unusual for two sisters bound in... Read more

Endpapers

By: Jennifer Savran Kelly
Narrated by: Dani Martineck
Length: 8 hours 35 minutes

In this page-turning novel set in 2003 New York City, a genderqueer book conservator feels trapped by her gender presentation, her ill-fitting relationship, and her artistic block—until she discovers a decades-old hidden queer love letter and becomes obsessed with tracking down its author. 

It’s 2003, and artist Dawn Levit is stuck. A bookbinder... Read more

Last Night at the Hollywood Canteen

By: Sarah James
Narrated by: Romy Nordlinger
Length: 10 hours 24 minutes

Perhaps the best place in 1943 Hollywood to see the stars is the Hollywood Canteen, a club for servicemen staffed exclusively by those in show business.

Murder mystery playwright Annie Laurence, new in town after a devastating breakup, definitely hopes to rub elbows with the right stars. Maybe then she can get her movie made.

But Hollywood... Read more

Natural Beauty

A Novel

By: Ling Ling Huang
Narrated by: Carolyn Kang
Length: 7 hours 45 minutes

“Excellent social satire, we've chosen this title as our book club selection this month, it's absolutely perfect for group discussions. Read more

Old Enough

A Novel

By: Haley Jakobson
Narrated by: Jenna Kray & Haley Jakobson
Length: 9 hours 40 minutes

Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Bisexual Fiction

“Old Enough is full of growth, heartbreak, and winsome bisexual chaos.”—Vogue

A debut novel “as astute, funny, and loving as your best friend from college”* about a young bisexual woman who is pulled between a new sense of community and loyalty to a friendship she’s outgrown

*Isle... Read more

Bellies

A Novel

By: Nicola Dinan
Narrated by: Nathaniel Curtis & Octavia Nyombi
Length: 12 hours 7 minutes

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR FROM BOOKRIOT AND BOOKPAGE

I wore a dress on the night I first met Ming.

It begins as your typical boy meets boy. While out with friends at their local university drag night, Tom buys Ming a drink. Confident and witty, a magnetic young playwright, Ming is the perfect antidote to Tom’s awkward energy, and their connection is... Read more

Wild Geese

By: Soula Emmanuel
Narrated by: Clara Harte
Length: 7 hours 10 minutes

Phoebe Forde has a new home and new name and is newly thirty. An Irish transplant and PhD candidate, she’s overeducated and underpaid, but she's finally settling into her new life in Copenhagen. Almost three years into her gender transition, Phoebe has learned to move through the world carefully, savoring small moments of joy. After all, a woman... Read more

Cold Girls

By: Maxine Rae
Narrated by: Bailey Carr
Length: 8 hours 59 minutes

Eighteen-year-old Rory Quinn-Morelli doesn’t want to die; she wants refuge from reality for even a minute: the reality where she survived the car crash eight months ago, and her best friend, Liv, didn’t. Yet her exasperating mother won’t believe the Xanax incident was an accident, and her therapist is making it increasingly hard to maintain the... Read more

Only This Beautiful Moment

By: Abdi Nazemian
Narrated by: Vikas Adam, Fajer Al-Kaisi & Iman Nazemzadeh
Length: 11 hours 30 minutes

Stonewall Book Award Winner * A Best Book of the Year from the Guardian, ALA Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, and BookPage From the award–winning author of Like a Love Story comes a sweeping story of three generations of boys in the same Iranian family. Perfect for fans of Last Night at the Telegraph Club and Darius the Great Is Not Okay. 2019. Moud is... Read more

Pritty

A Pritty Novel

By: Keith F. Miller, Jr.
Narrated by: Landon Woodson & Eric B. Anthony
Length: 11 hours 4 minutes

“This book feels like the best kind of hug, one that gives you both strength and comfort. Its protagonists are Black boys living in Savannah, Georgia, taking care of each other as they take on high school, GEDs, living through and after trauma, first love, racist systems, skate competitions, entrepreneurship, friendship and more. The boys are... Read more

That Self-Same Metal

The Forge & Fracture Saga, Book 1

The Forge & Fracture Saga

By: Brittany N. Williams
Narrated by: Patricia Allison
Length: 10 hours 31 minutes

A stunning YA fantasy debut, perfect for fans of Holly Black and Justina Ireland, about a Black girl (and sword expert) fighting a Fae uprising in Shakespearean London.
Sixteen-year-old Joan Sands is a gifted craftswoman who creates and upkeeps the stage blades for William Shakespeare’s acting company, The King’s Men. Joan’s skill with her blades... Read more