June is Caribbean Heritage Month in the United States, acknowledging and celebrating the contributions of Caribbean immigrants there. June is also LGBTQIA+ Pride Month, when queer communities worldwide celebrate their contributions to society and their fight for their rights and freedoms.
Four years ago, Cindy of BookofCinz a Jamaican-Trinidadian book Instagrammer coined the Read Caribbean Month Challenge to encourage people to read more books about the Caribbean written by Caribbean people. For this month, I wanted a book that meets at these intersections: a book featuring queer characters written by a Caribbean author centring Caribbean spaces. That book was Patsy by Nicole Dennis Benn, which won the Lambda award for best Lesbian Fiction in 2020.