September 15th to October 15th is Latine Heritage Month, but there’s never a bad time to add more Latine lit to your reading list! I’m here with 12 new queer Latine books out in 2026… plus a bonus list of 14 more, because I couldn’t stop there.
We have literary fiction set in Bogotá’s queer underground, a love story between two men in 1960s Cuba, a sapphic rivals-to-lovers wedding romance (she ruined her quinceañera), a return to the graveyard gay brujos and brujes, and much more.
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Pretend You’re Dead and I Carry You by Julián Delgado Lopera
In Bogota, Colombia, teen Valentina is desperate for details surrounding her mother’s drowning and for her father to snap out of his depression. But all Ignacio does is smoke cigarettes all day in a long blonde wig, heavy with guilt over his marriage and memories of a man he once loved and betrayed. Enter Mamadora Eléctrica, the travesti queen of Bogotá’s queer underground who was once a mother figure to a young Ignacio and now steps into this role for Valentina. But Mamdora begins to fear that Ignacio’s self-destructive behavior has unleashed a curse on them all in this striking and brutal coming-of-age story. —Vanessa Diaz
Cages by Chantel Acevedo
A zookeeper in 1960s Cuba risks everything for a love affair in a country where same sex relationships are branded as “counterrevolutionary.” Told from the eyes of those around him to fit together the puzzle pieces of his life, from Cuba to exile in London and Miami, the complicated life of Felix and his family begins to come together. How do we hurt the ones we love? And how do we make sense of the people who shape us, even long after they’re gone? —Rachel Brittain
American Dreamer by Adriana Herrera
Librarian Jude Fuller is happy with the community and profession he’s built in Ithaca, but he would love to find someone to settle down with. Someone like Afro-Caribbean food truck owner Nesto Vasquez, who recently moved from New York City, looking for a place where his business can thrive. Nesto knows he should focus on work, but Jude is impossible to ignore. Jude wants to trust Nesto with his heart, even though he has been burned before. They both have to work through their baggage if they want to build a happy life together in Herrera’s delightful small-town romance. —R. Nassor
(This trilogy—American Dreamer, American Fairytale, and American Love Story—was republished this year with new covers.)
More Like Enemigas by Stephanie Hope
In this sapphic rivals-to-lovers wedding romance,
Isabella is lying to everyone, including herself. She’s lying to her mom to keep her happy, lying about her late dad’s restaurant thriving when it’s not, and lying about being able to afford a designer lifestyle. But she has a plan! She’s going to her cousin’s big, fancy weeklong wedding celebration, where she’ll prepare some dishes from her dad’s journals and use them to convince her cousin’s fiancé to invest in the restaurant. Problem(s) solved! To Isa’s annoyance, she’ll be sharing a cabin with Valentina, the former friend turned rival who ruined her quinceañera. But Val wants to make a deal: she’ll help Isa unravel an old family secret in return for her help sabotaging the wedding and winning the heart of the bride. Our very own Susie Dumond blurbed this one, and Susie has never steered me wrong! —Vanessa Diaz
Two Can Play That Game by Zakiya N. Jamal (November 17)
Last year, I was happy to spread the word about Zakiya Jamal’s two 2025 releases: her adult romance, Sparks Fly, and her YA romance, If We Were a Movie. Her latest adult release is a fake-dating sapphic sports romance about a rising influencer and a WNBA star who link up after a chance courtside encounter. What starts as a strategic partnership and image rehabilitation job soon takes a turn for the steamy. —Vanessa Diaz
Muńeca by Cynthia Gómez
I went into this book cold when I saw it was a work of gothic horror by a Latine author. Should I have probably deduced from the title that it was going to involve a creepy ass doll? Pues si, But did I? Nope! Doll feelings aside, I’m glad I didn’t make the connection because I might have missed out. In late 1960s Oakland, Natalia is a queer, Latine, working-class witch who schemes her way into a position caring for Violeta Miramontes, a glamorous heiress to Spanish colonial wealth who’s been paralyzed by a mysterious illness. Natalia, whose mother once worked for the Miramontes, suspects Violeta’s condition is the work of malevolent witchcraft and vows to break the curse, a pursuit that will endanger not only her charge, but herself. Make sure to read the author’s note for this one, which provides some great context for the people and places that may (or may not) have inspired the story. —Vanessa Diaz
We Could Be Anyone by Anna-Marie Mclemore
Lola and Lisandro are siblings who are actors out to swindle the rich. Lola pretends to be a ghost haunting the home of a wealthy person, while Lisandro pretends to be a spiritualist who can help. Bixby Fairfax, newspaper tycoon and owner of The Coterie estate, is the siblings’ next target. But things start to go wrong the moment Lola and Lisandro decide to switch roles. Weird things keep actually happening at The Coterie, and no matter how hard the siblings try to solve the mystery, they’re dragged further in. Can they pull off their biggest scam or is their act about to be unraveled? This historical thriller sounds fun. —Kelly Jensen
Take It To Your Grave by Louangie Bou-Montes
For 30 years, Max has been dead. Worse, he’s stuck in the room he grew up in, at the age of 16, and with no memory of how he died.
Joaquín is obsessed with the paranormal and wants nothing more than to have an experience with it. His desire to ghost hunt is causing a real rift in his relationship with his boyfriend, too.
So when Joaquín enters an abandoned house to ghost hunt, he could never have imagined it would lead him to Max. The two of them–one earth-side and one not–begin to develop a friendship. Too bad Max’s growing powers could do real harm to their connection. —Kelly Jensen
Cemetery Boys: Espíritu by Aiden Thomas
The graveyard gays are back! It’s been almost six years since Aiden Thomas first introduced us to Yadriel and Julian (and my fave, Maritza, a real one). This fall, we’re headed back to the graveyard inEspíritu, which follows Julian as he navigates life post sacrificial ritual. Things are mostly pretty sweet—except for the part where he sees shadows in his eyes, glowing eyes in the dark, and these ominous dark spots on people that no one can explain. There’s also a mysterious new nonbinary bruje in the mix, one who Julian is drawn to but Yadriel is looking at with some side eye for their cutthroat approach to brujeria. Let’s gooooo. —Vanessa Diaz
Our Untamed Core by Sonido Reyes
In this dystopian YA novel, Temo lives under the thumb of a brutal and archaic rule. He tries to keep his head down, but he does break one rule: hiding that he’s trans. If found, the punishment is entry in a fight-to-the-death tournament that no one ever wins. But when Temo’s boyfriend is arrested and tossed into that very tournament, Temo sees no other way to save him than to enter himself. There’s more to this tournament than fighting, though, and Temo will have to risk far more than his life to save his boyfriend. —Chris M. Arnone
Sol Goes for Goal! by Julio Anta and Gabi Mendez
The second in a celebrated new realistic fiction series about Hillside Valley, Sol Goes for Goal introduces us to Sol, a star student and soccer player who stumbles when she can’t stop thinking about the soccer captain, Lily. This is a sweet book about the challenges of growing up and being who you want to be. —Ashlie Swicker
Ampersand Organ by heidi andrea restrepo rhodes
Ampersand Organ: a more-than-human lyric is a poetry collection that explores the revolutionary potential of the ampersand: “These ampersands move by associative leap, synesthetic braid, and inter-species blur to revel in everything that makes us more than singular subjects.Neuroqueering poetics, rhodes writes toward deft and loving excess: spillage, echolalia, stutter, loop, and non-linear detour, refiguring what the lyric can be and what the body can do.”
And because I couldn’t leave it at 12, here are 14 more queer Latine books out this year.
17 More New Queer Books Out This Week: September 22, 2026
As a bonus for All Access members, here are 17 more new queer books out this week, including Eden at Dawn by Karim Kattan, translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman; The Ayatollah’s Gaze by Majid Parsa; and Small Talk by Acie Clark.
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