7 Queer Books I've Loved Lately

Cozy fantasy and queer romance that feels like being kicked in the mouth (complimentary).

The world is dark and light is precious and stories are the brightest thing we’ve got. Here’s seven books that have made my world warmer lately.

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No Shelter But the Stars (December 2024)

Virginia Black

"They are not friends, but are they enemies anymore? If they do not raise a hand against one another, are they still at war?"

Jeepers H. Christmas, I cannot believe this book has existed since December and I didn't even know about it! It was out there all this time, being literally perfect for me — like Kyran and Davia are for each other — and I had no idea! I don't even know how to say how much I loved it! It's one of my most favorite books I've ever read in my entire life! Top five for sure! All these exclamation points are warranted! This book made me want to jump out of the window or run through the wall or give myself to the sea!

Two women who exist on opposite sides of a brutal, colonizing empire get shot out of space and marooned together on a desolate moon. They hate each other, don't even speak the same language, but end up needing each other to survive. Oh, but what they discover together is so much bigger than just searching for clean water and fighting giant moon-crabs. They develop a kind of desperate, pining, soul-deep relationship that completely rewires both of them.

It's kind of like if Mr. Darcy was an even bigger lesbian and he was all, "You must know — surely, you must know — it was all for you. My affections and wishes have not changed, but one word from you will silence me forever. If, however, your feelings have changed, I will have to tell you: you have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love—I love—I love you. I never wish to be parted from you from this day on." But, like, on the moon.

Read if you like: Battlestar Galactica, every Whitney Houston song on The Bodyguard soundtrack, kissing like you'll die tomorrow, meditation, open-source software, No Man's Land (2001), Cosima and Delphine, introspection, Emily Dickinson's horniest poems.

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Ladies in Hating (September 2025)

Alexandra Vasti

"All the bright colors of Cat's laugh, her voice, the shape and shade of her mouth, seemed softer and more lustrous here in the light of the people she loved."

You hear "historical sapphic gothic romance" and you think "okay, well there's no way that's going to live up to the dreams I've been having since I first read Northanger Abbey." But: ha! Joke's on me! Because Alexandra Vasti has written a perfect book! A perfect book that would have the Brontë sisters fighting over the fainting couch! Heck, I almost needed a fainting couch, myself — but from the swooning.

Truly, Ladies in Hating has it all: two rival gothic novelists with a shared past; that kind of dramatic longing that feels like getting kicked in the actual guts (in a good way); a giant derelict house; spooky mysteries; a ghost even gayer than the ones Daphne du Maurier dreamed up; an adorable puppy named BACON; two women confronting their fears and insecurities and past hurts to be better for each other; literary dreams coming true. And — oh, my heavens, the spice. I'm revealing too much about my own self here, but I had to shed my outer layer multiple times while reading this dang book because I got so flushed about it. And I've never even SEEN a corset! Or some stockings, honestly.

Five million stars.

Read if you like: The Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice, Bridgerton, petticoats and stockings and their various finicky buttons, dreaming again last night that you went to Manderly, reposing in silence with Helen Burns, knowing who Ann Bannon is.

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A Sorceress and Scones (October 2024)

Allie Leigh

"The world is a cruel enough place on its own, and I'd rather drown in kindness than to wake up one day and find my heart too frozen to feel anything at all."

Lady Elliane is a witch who has trapped herself away in a Beauty and the Beast-style castle, with a talking oven and everything. A noble young woman from town, Korinne, presents herself to Lady Elliane because she, too, is starting to develop some magics and she needs some help figuring out how to not blow up everything around her. It's a tough choice to move to the castle. Korinne does want to learn the wizardry Lady Elliane can teach her, but she's also super-duper in love with her best friend, Ninette, who owns a bakery in the village. There's also Arycelle, another magic friend. And Wick, her demon companion, who's shrouded in creepy mystery. It's sweet and gentle and all kinds of Happily Ever After.

Read if you like: The Mel, Sue, Mary Berry years of Great British Bake Off, colored pencils, choosing the right candle for the vibe, noise-cancelling headphones, Beauty and the Beast, Stardew Valley, Bonne Maman tiny-jar jam sampler packs, Warmies.

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If I Told You, I'd Have to Kiss You (June 2025)

Mae Marvel

"She did have a gift for repelling male dominance."

You know how sometimes, on a rare blood moon, you find a book that feels like some kind of witch has been messing around inside your dreams and has weaved together a story out of your heart's deepest desires? Maaaan, that is Mae Marvel's latest novel for me.

I loved their first book, Everyone I Kissed Since You Got Famous. It was one of my favorite reads of 2024. I was actually kind of nervous to read their sophomore outing because of how much the first one meant to me. But! But! It turns out, If I Told You, I'd Have to Kiss You pierced my heart with even more glorious angst and forever gay love. Swoony and sexy and silly and sweet and saucy. The writing is absolutely everything I loved about the first book. It's snap-crackle-pop fresh as a summer storm. And this time, it's Southern! Born in North Carolina and set in Virginia. These characters talk just like me! I mean, their phrases pack more punches of personality and a thumps of humor, but there's an authentic twang here that had me kicking my feet in delight.

Yardley Whitmer is a southern belle who grew up wanting to be a CIA agent like her granddaddy. KC Nolan is a former teen hacker-turned CIA analyst. They live together and they work together, but they don't know the second thing. That they're both spies. In fact, they're breaking up when we meet them. But boy howdy do these two freakin looooove each other, and it only takes a couple of accidental near-deaths to figure out a way back together. The spy stuff is goofy on purpose, and very queer/matriarchy in this fictional world. The love stuff made me shout out loud and throw the book at the wall. Joyfully. Giddily.

Read if you like: Ocean's 8, Dolly Parton and Patti Labelle drumming on their acrylic nails, Beyoncé sampling that nail duet on Cowboy Carter, boiled peanuts, Fried Green Tomatoes, Yelena Belova, the smell of wild honeysuckles, DEBS, hand-me-down quilts.

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Chai and Cat-tales (December 2024)

Lynn Strong

"Today's story was that humans got mad about each other's mating, too. Elder Sister called it ‘a grand and tragic love story.’ Which, Priye already knew, meant that a man was going to tell a woman that she couldn't mate with the person she wanted, and then people were going to die because of it."

Over Christmas break, before my world went sideways, I stumbled across a Reddit thread that had a list of indie cozy queer fantasy books that were all under three dollars. It was like tripping over a treasure chest on the way to the grocery store. Chai and Cat-tales was exactly the softness I was looking for when I loaded up on those books. Three short stories — The Prince of Her Dreams, Priye, and The Potter's Dream — about a fantasy city full of humans and the street cats that they love (and sometimes worship). The middle story, Priye, is told from the perspective of one of the cats, a little gal who's disabled and has to learn her worth outside of her ability to hunt pigeons. Obviously that one got me good, but all the stories are lovely. A great bedtime book. Tender, warm, low-stakes, full heart.

Read if you like: Following cats on social media, warm cardigans, tea as ritual, starter Pokemon, yoga, knitting, HEAs, sidekicks, robes as fashion, chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven, lo-fi bedtime beats, journaling, stories about stories.

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Say a Little Prayer (March 2025)

Jenna Voris

"Jesus loves bread. That's his whole thing."

"I think his whole thing was being bread, actually."

You could not pay me all the money in all the world to go back in time and live my 17-year-old life over again — but if some wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey vortex forced me into that situation, this is the book I would be taking back to 1997 with me. It is everything I ever needed to read when I was a teenager growing up in a conservative religious community just like the one Jenna Voris writes about so gloriously in Say a Little Prayer. I'm also a camp kid, and am happy to report that Voris also absolutely nails camp culture!

Say a Little Prayer is aggressively sacrilegious (complimentary), while holding space and "punkhope" for people who are still on faith journeys. It's unapologetic in pushing against backwards ideas that things like abortion and queerness are sin. (No "love the sinner, hate the sin" here! It's straight up "Not sin, actually!") It's sweet and cringey in exactly the way it feels to be 17 and falling in love with your best friend. And it's completely furious with the oppressive structures that keep people like Pastor Young in their positions of power. Nearly all the chapter titles had me giggling. I especially loved "What If We Kissed in the Church Camp Chapel? Haha, Just Kidding. Unless...?" and "Anyway, Here's Wonderwall (The Lord's Version)" and "God Gives His Toughest Battles (Surviving Church Camp) to His Gayest Soldiers (Me)."

If you've ever wanted to punch a youth pastor in the head, this one's for you!

Read if you like: But I’m a Cheerleader, Sister Michael muttering “Christ” on Derry Girls, Oh Happy Day, Camp, and also camp, Ruth and Naomi: canonical gays, when Isabella Rossellini distributes the Burn Book in Conclave, Song of Solomon’s metaphorical boob fruit.

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With Stars in Her Eyes (September 2025)

Andie Burke

"I spent years excavating my true self from being buried and fossilized by a religion that had sank into every deep crevice of who I was… music was how I fit the fractured pieces of my soul back together when I realized that what I thought was the bedrock of wisdom was actually nothing more than dusty lies."

Andie Burke's debut novel, Fly With Me, is one of my most dog-eared books. I have returned to it again and again, especially during times of grief, because it's a story that understands how, sometimes, being a grown-up is holding impossibly hard things in one hand and holding life-affirming, transformative things in the other hand. Both things can be true and real at once. And you don't need to have everything in the world figured out before you embrace it. I loved Fly With Me because Stella and Olive were grown dang women, with their own hopes and dreams and sorrows, and their relationship made them both happier and better.

And now that I've read With Stars in Her Eyes, I can simply say that Andie Burke has a gift for understanding and conveying real love in messy times. Thea and Courtney's story is full of tough life stuff — religious trauma, chronic illness, PTSD, mothers who do not understand boundaries — but it's also full of tenderness and compassion and hijinks! It takes a really skilled writer to get as meta about romance novels as Andie Burke does in this book. It seems like a trend lately, especially with more established writers, but Burke actually nails it with self-deprecating hilarity and heart. There's nothing cringey about it. (Just clinch-covery!)

I relate so much to Olive and Stella, and I relate just as much to Courtney and Thea, because I, too, am a chronically ill ex-vangelical black sheep with a tender heart who still wants to be wowed by the universe, even when the world's bleakness feels overwhelming. There's also a surprise dragon! Kind of!

Read if you like: Indie bookstores, Desert Hearts, NASA's Instagram, waking up with no plans on the weekend, Bonnaroo, pet dragons, ex-evangelical TikTok, queer book clubs, ASMR, Spoonies, when your blister pack of migraine abortives opens on the first try.