Claire Cameron’s The Last Neanderthal presents readers with the dual narrative of two women separated by 40,000 years. While these two characters are different in almost every conceivable aspect, they both serve to illustrate themes: the indomitable human spirit; female empowerment; and the nature of humanity.

If you could replace the ghost in your lesbian supernatural romance with a living character and nothing substantial changed, you might not be writing a ghost story. Lambda Literary Award-winner Amber Dawn's second novel is many things – a compelling family drama, a fascinating piece of historical fiction, a thoughtful examination of the scars left by abuse, and a surprisingly sweet romance – but it is not a ghost story.

Don't Tell Me What to Do by Dina Del Bucchia is a hilarious debut story collection both ridiculous and mundane. As the title implies, the author showcases women who are sick and tired of being told what to do and proving that “it's so easy to get in trouble if you demand every ounce of a person.”

Eden Robinson’s Trickster Drift is one step from a literary hat-trick, the second book in what she promised would be a trilogy so she begins by bringing new readers up to speed without overt to recap before matching the thrills of the first instalment.

The Doll’s Alphabet is Camilla Grudova’s grisly debut story collection. It is a dystopian title that fuses realism and fantasy, both traditional and experimental. The collection presents an eccentric, curious world that is similar to our own except when it’s not.

“You’re not a monster,” Mother used to say. “Just a little beast.” In the original French, the title for Little Beast was Barbe: Roman. “Barbe” means “beard” in French. Both of these titles ring true when looking at the story as a whole.

“The dark cup of the cat’s ear moved, the long guard hairs at the tip shivering toward the crack in the window beside her. Art finished his drink, put his glass down by the whiskey bottle, and waited to see if the cat’s ear would come back to rest, but it didn’t. Instead, she lifted her head and looked out the window, both ears pointed at whatever was outside.”

Cold Skies by Thomas King is the third in the Thumps DreadfulWater series, featuring a retired Cherokee LAPD detective with a keen interest in photography who is unwillingly pulled back into the force to replace Sheriff Duke Hockney in his hometown of Chinook, Montana. Hockney hands the reigns to DreadfulWater when he is ordered to go to Costa Rica, a questionable choice that casts a shadow over the whole book given that it is the FBI’s responsibility to investigate murders that occur on U.S. reservations