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Madeline Miller

This is a queer retelling of the Iliad told through the eyes of Patroclus — the exiled prince who becomes Achilles' companion and lover. The novel begins long before the Trojan War. Patroclus, sent away after a childhood accident, arrives at the court of King Peleus and meets Achilles. Achilles is golden, near-divine, already marked for an early death. Their friendship becomes love as they train together under the centaur Chiron before being swept into the ten-year siege of Troy. Miller studied Classics at Brown and Yale, and the mythological framework is faithful: the war, the rage of Achilles, the deaths that drive the epic, the ending the myth demands. What she adds is depth — interiority for Patroclus, tenderness, a love story given the space Homer's epic form didn't allow. Despite appearing frequently on YA lists, this is adult literary fiction with substantial emotional weight.

Casey McQuiston

Alex Claremont-Diaz is the First Son of the United States. He is charming, politically ambitious, and not supposed to cause international incidents. Prince Henry of Wales is everything Alex has decided to dislike: composed, unreachable, and irritatingly handsome. When a very public altercation at a royal wedding ends up on the front pages, their teams force them into a fake friendship for damage control. What neither of them expects is that the photo ops will turn into late-night emails, and the start of a secret romance. Set in an alternate-history America where a progressive woman won the 2016 election, this is a story about two young men navigating desire, identity, and the particular difficulty of falling for someone the whole world is watching. Alex's realisation that he's bisexual sits at the centre of it. It's written by McQuiston, who is queer and nonbinary, with the kind of care that comes from drawing on your own life.

Douglas Stuart

1980s Glasgow, Thatcher's Britain. Agnes is glamorous, proud, and slowly drinking herself to ruin. And one by one, everyone around her finds a way to leave. Everyone except Shuggie, her youngest, gentle and quietly different in a world that doesn't know what to do with him. A devastating, tender portrait of unconditional love and what it costs.

Douglas Stuart

In working-class Glasgow in the 1990s, we meet Mungo. He is seventeen, Protestant, falling in love with Catholic James. It's a love story, as well as a story about wanting to be softer in a world of hyper-masculinity and rigid social divides.