Our Books

Blood, Sweat & Queers is an anthology dedicated to queer vampiric love stories coedited by Margaret Hall, a scholar of vampire literature, and our very own Jamie Ryu. 

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Vampires in literature have always been an allegory for socially divergent identity. The three foundational texts of English-language vampiric literature (The Vampyre, Carmilla, and Dracula) contain varyingly obvious depictions of homoeroticism, featuring texts written by authors many historians believe to have been somewhere on the queer spectrum. As the queer community faces down vitriolic hate once more, it is time for the vampire to rise once again. More than ever, uplifting queer stories is of the utmost importance. As a result, Blood, Sweat & Queers is, in part, a fundraiser for the Trevor Project—an organization that prevents suicide in LGBTQ+ youth.

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Contrarian Publishing is open to submissions—both agented and unagented—from all writers from now until April 14, 2025. Writers from all backgrounds are heartily encouraged to submit.

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Blood, Sweat & Queers will be released in paperback and ebook format on October 7, 2025.  

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Disclaimer: The Trevor Project is in no way directly affiliated with Contrarian Publishing or Blood, Sweat & Queers. We are proud to be enthusiastic supporters of the Trevor Project and its efforts.

It’s been five years since Nicholas Fisher had a falling out with his older brother’s best friend Matías Romero. The star of their college soccer team, unnaturally optimistic, and handsome as hell, Matías was seemingly perfect. But brooding, grumpy Nicholas learned the truth the hard way, and he’s determined never to fall for Matías’s tricks again. 

Now a second-year PhD student and newly rooming with his brother, Nicholas just wants to keep his head down and survive the school year. So it’s just his luck that Matías is not only moving to Chicago but needs to crash on their couch for a while.

Despite his best attempts at avoiding Matías, there’s only so much he can do when the living room is Matías’s temporary bedroom. Matías's reappearance in Nicholas’s life, along with a budding romance with a TA, reopens old wounds and upends everything he thought he knew. Nicholas might finally be able to be happy and live, really live. That is, if he can just stop getting in his own way. 

A story about academia, siblinghood, and finding joy even when it seems impossible, Sage Greer’s debut novel explores the winding, painful, wonderful path toward love and healing. 

Hadley Weston has spent a year and a half yearning for the months she passed in the enchanting Pacific Northwest with the handsome and enigmatic Fitz MacGregor before they were forced apart.

When Hadley finds a note from Fitz inviting her to Paris, she knows she must go, no matter how dangerous it might be. But when they finally reunite, she discovers an unbelievable truth: Fitz is a witch, and so is she.

As Hadley navigates a new world of magic and invasive government officials, she partners with Fitz to gain control over her powers and recover a long-lost MacGregor family artifact, a ring originating in the seventeenth century witch trials in Scotland with the potential to endanger all of witchkind. As they rekindle their romance, Hadley and Fitz must work together to find the ring before it falls into the wrong hands.

Fans of A Discovery of Witches and The Magicians will be swept away on a journey of love, magic, and self-discovery in this love letter to travel and found family.

When Hadley Weston finally reunites with her estranged lover—the enigmatic Fitz MacGregor—after they were forced apart, she discovers an unbelievable truth: Fitz is a witch, and so is she.

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As Hadley navigates a new world of magic and invasive government officials, she partners with Fitz to gain control over her powers and recover a long-lost MacGregor family artifact, a ring originating in the seventeenth century witch trials in Scotland with the potential to endanger all of witchkind. 

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But their search for the ring leads them to a much bigger discovery: a rogue witch threatens the safety of human and witchkind. Dodging stalkers, kidnapping attempts, and mistrusting witchkind governments, Hadley and Fitz must work together to reclaim the ring and stop the dangerous witch before he takes over and destroys the world as they know it.

 

Fans of A Discovery of Witches and The Magicians will be swept away on a journey of love, magic, and self-discovery with this omnibus of the first two books in The Summoned Series, Summoned and Crossed.

In November 1662, Esther MacGregor was executed as part of the Forfar Witch Trials. She died wearing a ring infused with her family’s powers. Then the ring vanished. 

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Nearly 350 years later, Hadley Weston and Fitz MacGregor have just been kicked off the crusade against Lorenzo Belmonte, a powerful witch intent on using the ring’s magic for his own benefit. Desperate to recover the family heirloom that now threatens witchkind, Hadley and Fitz journey across time back to where it all began: Forfar, Scotland, 1662. But they quickly learn that the past might be even more dangerous than the present. 

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Through suspicious villagers, reticent governments, wary ancestors, and more, Hadley and Fitz must work together to retrieve the ring that might destroy their world and to survive the rampant witch hunts that are underway. But as Esther’s execution date looms near and they grow closer to Fitz’s ancestor, Hadley must make her most difficult decision yet: will she let time take its natural course or will she risk angering Fate to chart a new way forward? 

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Author M.B. Thurman weaves a magical tale of love and sisterhood across time and space in the exhilarating third installment in the Summoned Series.

Lane didn't know what she thought the afterlife would be, but she certainly hadn't expected to be a student of the elite Magistrate Academy, performing death magic, chasing down ghosts, and protecting After Life against witches. All for a second chance at life.

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Shepherd may be an unwitch, but she's not going to sit idly by while her sister, Addie, is missing. Witch or not, she's still one of the most notorious dealers at the Night Market, and she's going to use every resource at her disposal to find her powerful sister.

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When ghosts start turning into shades, their souls dying, Lane is left with all the blame... and with a curious key that seems to be made of bone. And it turns out the sarcastic, witch-affiliated Shepherd has a key too—Addie's. Lane is forced to team up with Shepherd to clear her name, and in exchange, she'll help find Shepherd's sister.

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But as they investigate the shades and trace Addie's steps, the two unknowingly stumble upon a secret even bigger than their own—so big that it might be the end of Life as they know it.

Just a few months ago, Hadley Weston was a PR consultant looking to reunite with her estranged lover, Fitz MacGregor. Now, Hadley has become a powerful witch and is leading a crusade to stop Dr. Lorenzo Belmonte from taking over human and witchkind. And they’ll have to step into the alternate universe of Opimae to do it.

When the Crusaders get to Opimae, they’re met with a magical world where witches roam free, faeries linger in the woods, and dragons soar the night sky. But things in Opimae are not as they seem. Between mistrusting witchkind governments, kidnapping attempts, and a possible spy in their ranks, Hadley and Fitz must find a way to win over Opimae’s rulers, keep their team on track, and stop Lorenzo before he takes over completely.

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In this breathtaking sequel to Summoned, M.B. Thurman leads her readers into an enticing new world full of magic, love, and secrets. For fans of the All Souls trilogy and The Magicians.