Sapphic Books Recommendations Part 1

Hello readers!

I’ve been reading a lot more F/F lately, and thought I’d share with you my favorite books where the main character is Sapphic (so, lesbian, bisexual, pan etc) and the main romance (if there is any) is F/F. Not all these books are romances or have romance at all, and the genres are sort of everywhere. Since there is #FFFeb next week already, I thought it’d be timely to post this!

It’s Not Like It’s a Secret by Misa Sugiura / Goodreads

This is an adorable YA contemporary about two girls who fall in love, one with Japanese heritage and the other with Mexican heritage. This is lovely and made me try running!

Once Ghosted, Twice Shy by Alyssa Cole / Goodreads

This novella is from the Reluctant Royal series, which I absolutely adore. It’s a second chance romance with a strong but loyal main character who’s still in love with the sweet, beautiful girl who once ghosted her.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid / Goodreads

I think at this point most people in the book blogging community know of this book, the story of a glamorous, retired Hollywood star who has always been secretive about her life. Evelyn Hugo has many secrets, and she agrees to give a young journalist the book deal that will launch her career – but why her? Why now? This is a fantastic book.

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon / Goodreads

This novel by now is also quite famously F/F. It’s an epic, wonderful fantasy story about a queen who falls in love with the herectic in her court, the woman sent to protect her. On the other side of the world, another woman trains to become a dragon rider. When an ancient evil starts to awaken after a thousand years of sleep, countries that have been enemies for centuries must find a way to work together and defeat it once and for all.

The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee / Goodreads

This not only has Felicity, who’s such an awesome character, after she realized in the last book she’s asexual, but in this one she’s trying to achieve her dream of becoming a doctor, against all adversity. She ends up getting involved with pirates, lots of adventure, and a sassy girl with a smart mouth. This was so much fun I gave it 5 stars!

Villains Don’t Date Heroes! by Hayden Archer, Lexi Archer, Mia Archer / Goodreads

This is an adorable SF romance between a superhero and a villain, and it’s seriously underrated! If you love fluffy romance, low stakes, mayhem and superheroes in tight clothes, this is really a great read.

Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust / Goodreads

This is such a lovely YA fantasy where you get a retelling of Snow White told by both her and by the evil queen. Really, this book deserves so much more love! It has a F/F romance that isn’t part of the main plot but it’s really nicely done and the narration by the evil queen is so good! Her life was not easy and neither were her choices. It’s a slow paced, snowy story with magic and two women who want to be loved for who they are.

Lumberjanes, by Shannon Watters, Noelle Stevenson, Kat Leyh, Grace Ellis, Carey Pietsch, Maarta Laiho, Brooke A. Allen / Goodreads

This is such an adorable graphic novel (I read vol. 5 or so), and it’s gloriously gay. It centers around the friendship of these five girls (two of whom are dating) and their adventures. It’s adorable and heartwarming.

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride / Goodreads

If you blink, you’ll miss the fact that the main character of this novel is Sapphic. The is a difficult, devastating novel about an unnamed girl navigating through her life full of abuse and neglect. It’s a heartbreaking novel that I won’t recommend for everyone – not only are the fragmented sentences hard to read, but also the things she goes through are really painful to read about.

Provenance by Ann Leckie / Goodreads

A space heist novel where gender is treated as a flexible thing by default – also it’s really funny. The F/F romance isn’t super central to the story, although it’s a cute friends-to-lovers. But mainly the space heist!

The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas / Goodreads

This book is criminally underrated! A time-travel whodunit where any of the versions of the main characters could have committed a murder – including the victim herself. The F/F romance is also quite lovely, with one girl from one timeline falling in love with one of the scientists who invented time travel and they keep meeting at different times of their lives. So lovely.

Spellbook of the Lost and Found by Moïra Fowley-Doyle / Goodreads

This is a YA mystery where a group of friends starts losing things: at first small and insignificant and pretty soon, one of them loses something bigger she refuses to talk about. One day they find a book of spells that claims to help find lost things – and they also meet three mysterious girls who have lost things, too.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker / Goodreads

Despite the controversy around Alice Walker, which has turned me off her work a lot, this book was very important to me when I first read it. It is the story of a woman born into segregation who lives an awful life, until she meets a woman who teaches her to feel joy again. It’s a painful, even brutal read at times, but also very touching.

Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera / Goodreads / Review

This book is a YA that does such a great job at showing that just because you belong to a minority group, doesn’t mean you don’t have prejudices against other minorities. As Juliet takes the job of her dreams with the author of the book she loves and changed her, and will find out she is but human and not without flaws.

Before the Devil Breaks You (Diviners #3), by Libba Bray / Goodreads

This is the third book of the Diviners series, and it’s when we have a Sapphic character appearing for the first time, if I’m not mistaken. This is a really fun story, a supernatural mystery series set in the 20s, and one of the best books to listen in audiobook format! However, there is use of the N-word, so I think some people would prefer skipping it (which is totally understandable).

Tangerine by Christine Mangan / Review

This summery mystery takes place in Tangier, and is about two women who used to be friends in college, but drifted apart after an incident that neither of them speak about anymore. Now, as they meet in Tangier after all this time, they might have to confront what happened back in those days. It’s not the BEST representation of Sapphic characters, but I still enjoyed it.

Most Ardently by Susan Mesler-Evans / Review

This is an adorable retelling of Pride and Prejudice! While not perfect, it’s a nice, quick read that made me smile. Darcy is so lovely and I love that Elizabeth was a positive fat rep!

Missing, Presumed Dead by Emma Berquist / Review

This is a YA ghost mystery about a girl who sees how people will die when she touches them, and can also see and talk to ghosts. When she touched a girl one night, she sees her painful, traumatic death that will happen that very night. After her ghost comes to ask her to help her get revenge

Proper English by KJ Charles / Review

This is an adorable historical romance between a no-nonsense woman and a girly, beautiful woman who she helps build confidence in who she is. There is also a murder mystery which helps move the plot, although the romance is definitely in the foreground. This is so lovely!

The Last True Poets of the Sea by Julia Drake / Goodreads

I think I loved the idea of this book more than the book itself, but I’ll still recommend it – this book is about a girl who was never really interested in her famous family history of a shipwreck survivor, but after her brother tries to commit suicide, she is forced to spend the entire Summer in the town that is obsessed with her family history. It is a very nice book about second chances, grief and love, I just didn’t love the writing, but that is just a matter of personal taste.

Wilder Girls by Rory Power / Review

Ooh this was FUN and creepy. An all-girls school in an island has come down with a sickness that turns the girls into monsters, or kills them. There is no one else left in the island but them, and the resources the government spends trying to keep them alive barely feeds them all. I think the writing didn’t work for everyone (it’s a bit stilted, in my opinion), but it’s such an interesting story I couldn’t stop reading!

 

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado / Review

This memoir tells the true story of Carmen’s experience with an abusive relationship, told in several styles as she starts with them falling in love, and things progressively getting worse.

The Fact of a Body by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich / Review

This is another book where the F/F factor doesn’t play that much of a role, but they’re still a Sapphic author, so I thought to include in this list. They do mention it a few times, but the book is about the author’s personal experience with working on a case of a man who abused and killed a child and, although Alexandria studied to be a lawyer and believed they were reasonably prepared to defend fairly someone who was probably guilty, this case rattled them because it resonated so much with their own trauma. So as they learn more about the case, they also must revisit their trauma. It’s a really good book, very compelling and such a great mix of memoir and true crime!

The Deep by Rivers Solomon / Goodreads

This novella is the story of the descendants of pregnant women thrown over from ships into the ocean to die. These unborn children were born in the water and adapted to it, turning into mermaid-like creatures and have one person elected to keep their memories alive. It’s a very interesting novella about memory, pain and empathy.

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo / Review

This is a collection of twelve stories, each one focused on a character, and they all are interlaced into one story. This is really captivating, and there is a polyamorous Sapphic character who has the best story, honestly. This is full of life and hope, but also pain. It’s such a great book!

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone / Review

This is a beautiful, lyrical book full of imagery. I don’t think this works for everyone, because the world building is confusing, at least in the beginning, and there isn’t much of an explanation of how things work, but once you get used to the story, it’s so beautiful. I was tearing up by the end of the book.

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir / Review

This was so much FUN, I was laughing all the time while reading it (well, except when people die, of course). This is the story of Gideon, who is one of the two young people left in the Ninth House, which is slowing dying out and whose only hope of salvation is if the acting head and necromancer of the House, Harrow, pass the tests to become immortal and more powerful than ever. Gideon finds herself stuck as Harrow’s Cavalier, which means she has to pretend she’s a great warrior and also very serious, which frankly is the hard part, really. There are necromancers, murders, a Gothic mansion in space and Sapphic characters, what else do you need?