The Transfeminine Review

Welcome back to the 2024 TFR Reader’s Choice Awards! Before we get into the list – if you would like to vote without any knowledge about the category whatsoever, then you should go to our original article with general information about the awards and the voting form.

It’s been a fantastic first three days of voting! 49 ballots have already been cast, which means that we’re already 50% of the way to my first year participation goal of 100 ballots. It’s been a real pleasure seeing so many people turn out to support their favorite artists, and it’s my hope that this article will help motivate the next fifty to throw their opinions into the mix as well. Voting will remain open until December 27th, 2024, so there’s still more than enough time to blow past that benchmark like it’s nothing.

By far the most competitive category out of our thirty-four awards this year is the Best Transfeminine Fiction award. Of the 49 ballots cast, a whopping 42 of them have cast a vote for their favorite novel of the year, meaning that 89% of participants have an opinion on the category.

Now, you may be asking: how was this longlist selected?

Across those 42 ballots, 29 books have received at least one vote. However, only 14 books have received at least two votes, and that’s what I’ve selected for the threshold for this list. If at least two people in a completely blind vote nominated the book for the best fiction of the year at this point in the voting process, then that book has earned a spot on the official longlist.

IMPORTANT CLARIFICATIONS

– You can still vote for any books you want. Remember, two votes is all that it took to get these books onto this list, and there are fifteen books that were only one book shy! This is an early exit poll, not a final result, so if you don’t see your favorite book of the year on here, then there’s still more than enough time to vote it into consideration.

– This is a purely democratic selection. This list is governed by popular consensus, not my personal curation or any other metric. If you feel like a book has been “snubbed,” then take it up with the 49 people who’ve already voted, or better yet, vote yourself and encourage your transliterary friends to do so too. I have not cast my ballot yet. Please don’t shoot the messenger.

– I have only read some of these books. Ergo, I will not be providing full blurbs for any of them until I’ve read them all. The information on this list will purely come from publicly available marketing details and the data on the poll. I’m going to try and read all of them before I release the shortlist in a few weeks, so I may update this article with blurbs later – I will update as relevant.

In order to make this as fair as possible, I’m going to be listing these books in alphabetical order by author’s last name. There will be no sorting based on genre or other factors. I will not be including any information about other categories, nor will I be disclosing how many votes each individual book has received.

Around a week out from the voting deadline, I will be releasing an official shortlist for this award containing the books that have passed a higher threshold of votes. I don’t know what that threshold will be yet – it will very much depend on how many folks vote between now and then. No book on this longlist is guaranteed to make the shortlist, so if you want to see your favorite book make that next stage, then I would encourage you to vote before then and to get your friends to vote as well (Remember, authors – no campaigning. Totally cool to acknowledge your book on here, but please don’t tell people on social media to go and vote for you specifically).

Again, this is a purely democratic selection, and it’s entirely possible that a book that didn’t make the longlist could still make the shortlist or win the whole award.

So, without further ado…

Here’s the longlist for TFR’s Best Transfeminine Fiction of 2024 award!

1. The Longlist
   1. Magica Riot – Kara Buchanan
   2. They Who Bring the Light – Jessica Conwell
   3. Season of Fools – Morrigan C. L. Doerner
   4. Sundered Moon – Fae’Rynn
   5. Welcome to Dorley Hall – Alyson Greaves
   6. Kimmy – Alyson Greaves
   7. How to Fly – Alyson Greaves
   8. The Default World – Naomi Kanakia
   9. The Sapling Cage – Margaret Killjoy
   10. Love/Aggression – June Martin
   11. The Library Thief – Kuchenga Shenjé
   12. The Sunforge – Sascha Stronach
   13. These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart – Izzy Wasserstein
   14. The Hades Calculus – Maria Ying

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The Longlist

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The last night of Claire Ryland’s old life in the closet was pretty normal, aside from the alley fight with interdimensional monsters. Fortunately, the drummer of her favorite local band transformed into a magical girl and saved her.

Then Claire became a magical girl as well. Things got a little complicated after that.

Now Claire is juggling two new living as a girl and as a member of Portland’s super-secret supernatural defense squad, the hard-rocking magical girls known as ..Magica Riot!

The story of a young transgender woman who’s discovering herself at the same time she’s learning how to be a magical girl, Magica Riot is an action-filled musical adventure inspired by classic magical girl anime, tokusatsu shows, and the vibe of the American Pacific Northwest. Featuring a cast of LGBTQ+ magical girls, mysterious monsters, and villains that are more than they appear to be, Magica Riot shows that finding your true self is the first step toward saving the world.

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For one bright moment, Lyra Morne had a family.

And then it was gone.

Now, haunted by their failures at Rook Lake, Lyra lives on the streets of an unfamiliar city, lost in a cold and bitter world. But when a chance encounter leads to them investigating the disappearances of several residents at a queer youth shelter, Lyra finds themself desperately trying to protect a new group of friends from becoming the next to vanish without a trace at the hands of a charismatic pastor whose welcoming smile hides sinister secrets.

But there is more at play than even Lyra can see. As they race against the clock to save the people most precious to them, a mysterious woman emerges who knows far too much about what happened at Rook Lake, and the past that Lyra thought they’d finally escaped may end up once again costing them the life—and the love—they always wanted.

A mix of urban fantasy, mystery, and supernatural horror that picks up where the events of Ghost Flower left off, They Who Bring the Light is a tale of finding hope and love in the darkest of times, discovering your place in a world that was never made for you, and why, sometimes, doing battle with monsters is worth becoming one yourself.

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A lesbian sci-fi mecha retelling of Ragnarok

It has been a millennium since mankind abandoned its home. Corporations have carved up the heavens, and brought humanity to the stars with them to finalize those borders in blood. Their weapon of choice: Einherjar, ten meter tall humanoid mechs, powered by an exotic energy source as-of-yet barely understood.

Just under the illusion of peace sold to the public, mercenary pilots fulfill the wills of those who hold the reins of power. Pilots like Aria, a conscript turned freelance mercenary aided by her illegal and fully sentient AI companion, Nimue. After taking what seemed to be a routine job for a routine client, Aria and an erstwhile rival, Maks, find themselves facing down something older, more territorial, and far more deadly than any corporate force. And what’s more, their encounter has drawn the baleful eye of the Penrose Foundation’s deranged leader.

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The galaxy is a dark and deadly place, run by vicious corporate empires.

Only Central, a nation that rose three hundred years ago after violent insurrection, remains as a beacon of hope and equity to all who reside in their borders.

Dia, a young mech pilot from Central, has infiltrated the upper echelons of the Fomorian Armory, an empire that prides themselves on their exceptional pilots and otherworldly weapons. It’s a dangerous game she must play—bringing down an empire—especially after becoming an unlikely ally with the imperial princess, a woman hellbent on gaining her own freedom.

Fates will intertwine in this fast-paced mecha romance!

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What if the only way to fix toxic masculinity were to erase it entirely?

Mark Vogel is like the older brother Stefan never had, but one day he disappears without a trace. A year later, after encountering a woman who looks near-identical to Mark, Stefan becomes obsessed. He finds that dozens of young men have disappeared over the years, many of them students at the Royal College of Saint Almsworth, and most of them troubled or unruly. Why are students going missing? Who are these women who bear striking resemblances to them? And what is their connection to the selective student accommodation on the edge of campus, Dorley Hall?

Stefan starts studying at Saint Almsworth for one reason and one reason only: to find out exactly what happened to the women who live at Dorley Hall, and to get it to happen to him, too.

An electrifying début by Alyson Greaves, Welcome to Dorley Hall is an intense exploration of gender and society that will appeal to readers of Torrey Peters, Imogen Binnie and Gretchen Felker-Martin.

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John and Emily are a perfectly normal couple living in near-future suburban America, with plans to attend a perfectly normal Halloween party with Emily dressed in a perfectly normal android costume. But Emily has an accident, so John steps up to take her place, and that’s where things start to go wrong. Because the hollowed-out android they bought from John’s brother is supposed to be dead, and isn’t supposed to be influencing his actions, and when the time comes to take it off, it’s supposed to let him out…

A novel of transformation, alienation, and isolation.

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Max is a gymnast who can no longer pursue his passion. Taylor is a cheerleader with passion to spare.

A brutal attack put an end to Maxwell Giordano’s gymnastics career and ruined his junior year. So he and his family moved across the country for a fresh start, and now all he wants is to keep his head down and graduate in peace with the rest of the class of 2004.

Taylor Scott made cheer captain! And her greatest dream is to take the squad to regionals. Maybe even nationals! Except none of the other cheerleaders share her ambition, so she’s resigned herself to another year of cheering for the worst football team in the state.

And then a new boy moves in next door, and he’s everything she’s been dreaming of! If she can just convince him to join the squad, the two of them could take it all the way. But complications Taylor’s jealous boyfriend, Max’s overprotective family, and then there’s the small matter of Max’s current gender…

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A trans woman sets out to exploit a group of wealthy roommates, only to fall under the spell of their glamorous, hedonistic lifestyle in tech-bubble San Francisco.

Years after fleeing San Francisco and getting sober, Jhanvi has made a life for herself working at a grocery co-op and saving for her surgeries. But when her friend (and sometimes more) Henry mentions that he and his techie festival-goer friends spent $100,000 to transform a warehouse basement into a sex dungeon, Jhanvi starts wondering if there’s a way to exploit these gullible idiots. She returns to San Francisco, hatching a plan to marry Henry for his company’s generous healthcare benefits.

Jhanvi enters a world of beautiful, decadent fire-eaters and their lavish sex parties. But as her pretensions to cynicism and control start to fade, she develops a Gatsbyesque attraction to these happy young people and their bold claims of unconditional love. But do any of her privileged new friends really like or accept her? Her financial needs expose the limits of a community built on limitless self-expression, and soon she has to choose between doing what’s right, and doing what’s right for her.

This darkly funny novel skewers privileged leftist millennial tech culture, and asks whether “found family” is just another of the twenty-first century’s broken promises.

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In the gripping first novel in the Daughters of the Empty Throne trilogy, author Margaret Killjoy spins a tale of earth magic, power struggle, and self-invention in an own-voices story of trans witchcraft.

Lorel has always dreamed of becoming a witch: learning magic, fighting monsters, and exploring the world beyond the small town where she and her mother run the stables. Even though a strange plague is killing the trees in the Kingdom of Cekon and witches are being blamed for it, Lorel wants nothing more than to join them. There’s only one problem: all witches are women, and she was born a boy.

When the coven comes to claim her best friend, Lorel disguises herself in a dress and joins in her friend’s place, leaving home and her old self behind. She soon discovers the dark powers threatening the kingdom: a magical blight scars the land, and the power-mad Duchess Helte is crushing everything between her and the crown. In spite of these dangers, Lorel makes friends and begins learning magic from the powerful witches in her coven. However, she fears that her new friends and mentors will find out her secret and kick her out of the coven, or worse.

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Best friends Lily and Zoe fight, separate, reunite, and repeat, each time deepening the belief that the other is the source of their problems. Once Lily, a struggling tattoo apprentice, is exiled from their shared house, she bounces from an artist’s fixer-upper, to a cult leader with a harem of subs, to a house shared with the goddess of transfemininity. Meanwhile, rising movie star Zoe becomes more cutthroat by the day in her relentless quest for fame. If Lily can’t give up her desire for control, if Zoe can’t lay aside her cruelty and ego, they’ll never escape their intolerable places in the world. Traversing art, domination, sex, and shape-shifting houses, Love/Aggression is a novel about the indignity of depending on other people, and the terrible cost of trying not to.

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The library is under lock and key. But its secrets can’t be contained.

1896. After he brought her home from Jamaica as a baby, Florence’s father had her hair hot-combed to make her look like the other girls. But as a young woman, Florence is not so easy to tame—and when she brings scandal to his door, the bookbinder throws her onto the streets of Manchester.

Intercepting her father’s latest commission, Florence talks her way into the forbidding Rose Hall to restore its rare books. Lord Francis Belfield’s library is old and full of secrets—but none so intriguing as the whispers about his late wife… 

Evocative, arresting and tightly plotted, The Library Thief is at once a propulsive Gothic mystery and a striking exploration of race, gender and self-discovery in Victorian England. 

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Sascha Stronach’s queer, Maori-inspired Endsong trilogy reopens on a city in flames, where a magic-wielding pirate crew uncovers an age-old fight between the gods that threatens their world.

The steel city of Radovan is consumed by fire between. Stranded in its harbor is the crew of the Kopek, the survivors of a bioterror attack overseas. But they bear scars: their captain, Sibbi, has gone missing; Yat, their newest Weaver, is fighting for control of her own mind; and their Weaving powers are in a badly weakened state.

To disable the technology that prevents the group from escaping, Sen and Kiada must plot their way through the ruins of the foreign capital, which is patrolled by a hostile militia, using wits alone. But to navigate through Radovan, Kiada will have to rely on her own history with the city—one she shares with a band of misfits dubbed Fort Tomorrow and their leader, Ari, a charismatic thief.

Ari may hold the key not only to saving Radovan from complete annihilation, but the history of their world, which will come into play as the gods begin to unleash destruction on humanity and one another.

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In a queer, noir technothriller of fractured identity and corporate intrigue, a trans woman faces her fear of losing her community as her past chases after her. This bold, thought-provoking debut science-fiction novella from a Lambda Award finalist is an exciting and unpredictable look at the fluid nature of our former and present selves.

With a complex and enjoyably flawed trans protagonist and a portrayal of queer life that goes deeper than casual representation, this marks Wasserstein as a voice to watch out for in LGBTQ science fiction.” —Publishers Weekly

In mid-21st-century Kansas City, Dora hasn’t been back to her old commune in years. But when Dora’s ex-girlfriend Kay is killed, and everyone at the commune is a potential suspect, Dora knows she’s the only person who can solve the murder.

As Dora is dragged back into her old community and begins her investigations, she discovers that Kay’s death is only one of several terrible incidents. A strange new drug is circulating. People are disappearing. And Dora is being attacked by assailants from her pre-transition past.

Meanwhile, It seems like a war between two nefarious corporations is looming, and Dora’s old neighborhood is their battleground. Now she must uncover a twisted conspiracy, all while navigating a deeply meaningful new relationship.

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Decadent cyberpunk cities. Greek mythology and giant mechs. Hades and Persephone as never seen before.

For centuries, colossi have besieged the gates of Elysium. Each day, the city’s fall looms closer.

As one of Elysium’s rulers, Hades has long sought to break this stalemate. In Persephone, a cyborg tailor-made to kill, she finds the key to victory and the perfect pilot for her war machine. She will acquire Persephone at any cost.

Born to wield violence and with the bloodthirst to match, Persephone chafes under her mother’s control. At the first opportunity, she brutally breaks free and seeks sanctuary with the unlikeliest of the Lord of the Machine Dead, the Master of the Underworld.

All Hades and Persephone have to do to realize their goals is to navigate the city’s treacherous politics—and survive the coming war.

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And there’s the longlist! This is obviously only scraping the iceberg of the amazing fiction that came out this year. If any of these books sound interesting, I would encourage you to read them out over the next few weeks. If there’s a book you want to see on the shortlist, then make sure to vote! Voting will remain open until December 27th, 2024 at 11:59pm, and you can vote at the link below:

And of course, Best Transfeminine Fiction is just one of thirty-four categories up for grabs this year! We’re going to be recognizing books by transfeminine authors across a wide range of genres and pursuits, so even if you don’t have an opinion on this particular category, make sure to drop by and show your favorite authors some love.