Their fifth novel, Dark and Deepest Red, is a split-timeline story based on The Red Shoes, set in 1518 Strasbourg and 2018.

School Library Journal named Blanca & Roja a best book of 2018. Blanca & Roja received starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, and Booklist as well. It was published by Feiwel and Friends in 2018. Their fourth novel, Blanca & Roja, is a Latinx retelling of Swan Lake and Snow White, about two sisters who fall in love with a boy who can turn into a bear and a non-binary teen who can turn into a cygnet (a baby swan). Wild Beauty was nominated for a Northern California Book Award in 2018. It again received three starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, and Booklist, and was also named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews and Booklist. McLemore's third novel, Wild Beauty, about a family of cursed women and magical gardens, was published in 2017 by Feiwel and Friends. When the Moon Was Ours received starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, and Booklist. It was also named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews and Booklist. Award in 2016 and the Stonewall Honor Award in 2017. Their second novel, When the Moon Was Ours, a magical-realist fairytale about a transgender Pakistani-American boy and a cisgender queer Latina falling in love, was published in 2016 by Thomas Dunne Books. It also was chosen for YALSA's 2016 Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults list. Morris Debut Award Finalist in 2016 and received a starred review from Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. It deals with themes of discrimination and marginalization in a magical-realist story about black magic, and includes a generational feud between Mexican-American and Romani rival families. Their debut young adult novel, The Weight of Feathers, was published in 2015 by Thomas Dunne Books. McLemore was named a Lambda Literary Emerging Writer Fellow in 2011.

They cite Laura Esquivel's novel Like Water for Chocolate as one of the reasons they started writing and names Carla Trujillo, Malinda Lo, Isabel Allende, and Federico García Lorca as some of their influences. McLemore describes their work as inspired by the fairytales and stories they grew up with and their own background, which is why many of their novels feature magical-realist themes, queer characters, and Spanish and French language. McLemore themself is nonbinary and bigender, using singular they pronouns. McLemore is a queer Latine, which they cite as one of the reasons why they write inclusive, queer, Latinx casts. AwardĪnna-Marie McLemore is a Mexican-American author of young adult fiction magical realism, best known for their Stonewall Honor-winning novel When the Moon Was Ours, Wild Beauty, and The Weight of Feathers. When the Moon Was Ours, The Weight of Feathers, Wild Beauty

Self-Made Boys by Anna-Marie McLemore