PAPER GIRLS by Brian K. Vaughan

Four young girls on Bikes doing a paperround in the 1980’s. Perfectly normal, right? That is until they find themselves stuck in the middle of a war. A war that finds them regularly displaced in time.

The girls find themselves stuck between “old-timers”, the first generation to discover time travel, and their descendants. Fighting for their world and time as they know it-with their future selves thrown in occasionally just for good measure (and an identity crisis or two.) It’s a strange one, as both sides battle over one question; Should time travellers be allowed to change the past?

A beautifully illustrated 30-issue comic book by the write of SAGA, Paper girls is also soon to be an Amazon Prime TV series. So now is the perfect time to get reading.

Representation: LGBTQIA+ (Lesbian, Queer males and females) Black MC, Jewish MC, Asian MC.

Trigger Warnings: Homophobia, Death, Alcoholism, Attempted suicide, Blood, Kidnapping mentioned, anti-semitism, references to sexual assault.

Read the first issue of Paper Girls for free online here.

HELL FOLLOWED WITH US by Andrew Joseph White

Another Indie Highlight! Hell followed with us follows 16 year old Trans boy Benji. Raised by a religious cult in a world that’s been ravaged by a deadly virus, he knows he doesn’t have long left. The bio-weaponized mutation they put inside him is growing, and there’s no way he can stop it. All he can do now is keep himself out of their hands, even if it means surviving alone. That’s until he meets Nick, and a group of other teens that survived simply by being in the right place at the right time-the local LGBTQIA+ community centre. With every passing day, Benji is getting closer to exploding-and the cult isn’t going to stop until they get him back.

It’s an explosive, bloody read that shows what happens when the monsters locked away inside us try to force their way out. In Benjis case literally, as it leaves him with more fangs than anyone should have, and a hunger he needs to fight if he wants to help save the world.

Representation: LGBTQIA+ (Trans FTM, mention of MTF, Gay, Lesbian, Non-binary), Latinx, BIPOC, Hijabi, Autistic.

Trigger Warnings: *This list comes direct from the Author* Violence (explicit gore, arson, murder and mass murder, warfare, terrorism), Body horror, Transphobia (misgendering, dead-naming with name written out repeatedly, threats of transphobic violence, forced detransition), Religious abuse/Christian terrorism, combined with elements of eco-fascism, Abusive parents and domestic partner violence (including returning to an abusive partner and victim self-blame), Self-injury (including attempted suicide of a side character), Emetophobia (vomiting) warning throughout. 

See my full review of Hell Followed with us here.

GALLANT by V.E.Schwab

Olivia grew up in a girls school, with nothing left of her family except her mothers old journal. That is until she gets a letter from a long lost uncle, calling her to his estate. One problem: There is no uncle, and no one in the estate knew she existed.

Through the gate in the garden wall she hopes she’ll find her answers; instead she finds an almost identical world, full of death where there’s meant of be life. No flowers grow, and ghosts and monsters lurk around every corner. They want to lock her there, and she knows better than to stay, but it’s the only place she has any chance of finding out the truth.

A ghostly, haunting mystery, Gallant is a gothic horror that shows us a world where the secret garden meets the upside-down. Olivia can only hope you’ll read it all the way through, so she has her best chance at saving herself and the world from what lurks beyond the Garden wall.

Trigger Warnings: Ableism, Mutism, Nightmares, Alcoholism, Blood, death of brother & cousin, Parental death, Murder, Knife & sword violence, Strangulation, Bullying, animal death (crow, cat)