8 Must-Read Sapphic Books

Happy Pride! This year I’m bringing you 8 must-read sapphic books to devour this Pride Month and all year round. Each book centers on a sapphic main character and the f/f romance is central to the overall plot and character development.

This list spans multiple genres from the fluffy contemporary to a nail-biting thriller to sci-fi and fantasy worlds. I’ve read and loved all of the books on this list and wholeheartedly recommend them to every reader, any time of the year!

8 Sapphic Books to Read for Pride & Always

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Dead End Girls by Wendy Heard

Publisher: Christy Ottaviano Books •  Publication Date: May 10, 2022  •  Genre: Thriller •  Pages: 336

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In one week, Maude will be dead. At least, that’s what she wants everyone to think. After years of research, Maude has decided to fake her own death. She’s figured out the how, the when, the where, and who will help her unsuspectingly.

The why is complex: revenge, partly. Her terrible parents deserve this. But there’s also l’appel du vide, the call of the void, that beckons her toward a new life where she will be tied to no one, free and adrift. Then Frankie, a step-cousin she barely knows, figures out what she’s plotting, and the plan seems like it’s ruined. Except Frankie doesn’t want to rat her out. Frankie wants in. The girls vault into the unknown, risking everything for a new and limitless life. But there are some things you can never run away from. What if the poison is not in the soil, but in the roots?

This pulse-pounding thriller offers a nuanced exploration of identity, freedom, and falling in love while your world falls apart.

Told in dual timelines, Dead End Girls is the sapphic thriller you didn’t know you needed in your life! Tightly plotted, the book is full of action and high stakes that is utterly addictive and impossible to put down. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time while listening. Protect Maude & Frankie!

Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron

Publisher: Bloomsbury YA  •  Publication Date: July 7, 2021  •  Genre: Fantasy •  Pages: 389

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It’s 200 years after Cinderella found her prince, but the fairy tale is over. Teen girls are now required to appear at the Annual Ball, where the men of the kingdom select wives based on a girl’s display of finery. If a suitable match is not found, the girls not chosen are never heard from again.

Sixteen-year-old Sophia would much rather marry Erin, her childhood best friend, than parade in front of suitors. At the ball, Sophia makes the desperate decision to flee, and finds herself hiding in Cinderella’s mausoleum. There, she meets Constance, the last known descendant of Cinderella and her step sisters. Together they vow to bring down the king once and for all–and in the process, they learn that there’s more to Cinderella’s story than they ever knew . . .

This fresh take on a classic story will make readers question the tales they’ve been told, and root for girls to break down the constructs of the world around them.

This Cinderella retelling has a queer black girl overthrowing the patriarchy and is a must-read! Bayron’s debut YA fantasy weaves together an intensely powerful story that reimagines the fairy tales we all know and weaves them together with the ways society uses story to control people.

Trouble Girls by Julie Lynn Rubin

Publisher: Wednesday Books  •  Publication Date: June 1, 2021 •  Genre: Contemporary •  Pages: 272

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A queer YA #MeToo reimagining of Thelma & Louise with the aesthetic of Riverdale, for fans of Mindy McGinnis, Courtney Summers, and Rory Power.

When Trixie picks up her best friend Lux for their weekend getaway, she’s looking to escape for a little while, to forget the despair of being trapped in their dead-end Rust Belt town and the daunting responsibility of caring for her ailing mother. The girls are packing light: a supply of Diet Coke for Lux and her ‘89 Canon to help her frame the world in a sunnier light; half a pack of cigarettes for Trixie that she doesn’t really smoke, and a knife—one she’s just hanging on to for a friend—that she’s never used before.

But a single night of violence derails their trip and will forever change the course of the girls’ lives, as they go from ordinary high schoolers to wanted fugitives. Trying to stay ahead of the cops and a hellscape of media attention, the girls grapple with an unforgiving landscape, rapidly diminishing supplies, and disastrous decisions at every turn. As they are transformed by the media into the face of a #MeToo movement they didn’t ask to lead and the road before them begins to run out, Trixie and Lux realize that they can only rely on each other, and that the love they find together is the one thing that truly makes them free.

In rushing, powerful prose Julia Lynn Rubin takes readers on “a blistering, unapologetic thrill ride” (Emma Berquis) that will leave them haunted and reeling. Trouble Girls is “a powerful, beautifully-written gut punch” (Sophie Gonzales).

Trouble Girls unapologetically examines rape culture through this queer reimaginging of the iconic 1991 movie “Thelma & Louise”. If you enjoy stories centered on friendship and the love between best friends who become more, truly ride-or-die friendships of strong women, this book may be for you.

Dead Dead Girls by Nekesa Afia

Publisher: Berkley Books  •  Publication Date: June 1, 2021  •  Genre: Historical, Mystery  •  Pages: 336

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The start of an exciting new historical mystery series set in 1920s Harlem featuring Louise Lloyd, a young black woman caught up in a series of murders way too close to home…

Harlem, 1926. Young black girls like Louise Lloyd are ending up dead.

Following a harrowing kidnapping ordeal when she was in her teens, Louise is doing everything she can to maintain a normal life. She’s succeeding, too. She spends her days working at Maggie’s Café and her nights at the Zodiac, Manhattan’s hottest speakeasy. Louise’s friends might say she’s running from her past and the notoriety that still stalks her, but don’t tell her that.

When a girl turns up dead in front of the café, Louise is forced to confront something she’s been trying to ignore–several local black girls have been murdered over the past few weeks. After an altercation with a local police officer gets her arrested, Louise is given an ultimatum: She can either help solve the case or let a judge make an example of her.

Louise has no choice but to take the case and soon finds herself toe-to-toe with a murderous mastermind. She’ll have to tackle her own fears and the prejudices of New York City society if she wants to catch a killer and save her own life in the process.

I’m a simple gal, I see this on Twitter and immediately add the book to my TBR: “if you want a jazz age murder mystery starring a tiny, tired lesbian, look no further than DEAD DEAD GIRLS.” And let me tell you: this debut historical mystery did not disappoint! With an amazing atmosphere, complex characters, and engaging plot, I devoured this book in two sittings and can’t wait for Louise’s next adventure.

I Hope You’re Listening by Tom Ryan

Publisher: Albert Whitman •  Publication Date: October 6, 2020  •  Genre: Mystery •  Pages: 368

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EVERY MISSING PERSON HAS A STORY.

In her small town, seventeen-year-old Delia “Dee” Skinner is known as the girl who wasn’t taken. Ten years ago she witnessed the abduction of her best friend, Sibby. And though she told the police everything she remembered, it wasn’t enough. Sibby was never seen again.

At night, Dee deals with her guilt by becoming someone else: the Seeker, the voice behind the popular true crime podcast Radio Silent, which features missing persons cases and works with online sleuths to solve them. Nobody knows Dee’s the Seeker, and she plans to keep it that way.

When another little girl in town goes missing, and the case is linked to Sibby’s disappearance, Dee has a chance to get answers with the help of her virtual detectives and the intriguing new girl at school. But how much of her own story is she willing to reveal in order to uncover the truth?

Fast-paced and intricately plotted, I Hope You’re Listening is a fresh addition to the mixed media + podcast motif in thrillers that fans of Sadie will want to pick up! Many mystery/thriller stories are told with the past and present interwoven together in a nonlinear exposition. But let me tell you: Tom Ryan impressed me with his use of this storytelling device with the tonal shift between flashbacks and present day POVs!

Crier’s War by Nina Varela

Publisher: Quill Tree Books  •  Publication Date: October 1, 2019  •  Genre: Sci-fi  •  Pages: 435

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Impossible love between two girls —one human, one Made.
A love that could birth a revolution.

After the War of Kinds ravaged the kingdom of Rabu, the Automae, Designed to be the playthings of royals, took over the estates of their owners and bent the human race to their will.

Now, Ayla, a human servant rising the ranks at the House of the Sovereign, dreams of avenging the death of her family… by killing the Sovereign’s daughter, Lady Crier. Crier, who was Made to be beautiful, to be flawless. And to take over the work of her father.

Crier had been preparing to do just that—to inherit her father’s rule over the land. But that was before she was betrothed to Scyre Kinok, who seems to have a thousand secrets. That was before she discovered her father isn’t as benevolent as she thought. That was before she met Ayla.

Set in a richly-imagined fantasy world, Nina Varela’s debut novel is a sweepingly romantic tale of love, loss and revenge, that challenges what it really means to be human.

I read an eARC of this book in Fall 2019 and let me tell you: I still think about it. I adored the book so much but never got around to writing a review (what are words?!). Enemies to lovers and sapphic, but the whole world is so good. I really should re-read this one.

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Publisher: Saga Press  •  Publication Date: July 16, 2019  •  Genre: Sci-fi  •  Pages: 209

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Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading. Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.

Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There’s still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war.

This is a beautifully written and poetic experience masquerading as a novella. This Is How You Lose the Time War is a character-driven story; it is all about Red and Blue and their unlikely correspondences through time and space. There is much that you can glean from these letters about the world of this story, bits that you can piece together into a tableau. But this is not a book you strive to understand or pick apart. Its beauty lies in the purple prose, the story within two characters on opposing sides of war.

Her Royal Highness (Royals #2) by Rachel Hawkins

Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers •  Publication Date: May 7, 2019  •  Genre: Contemporary •  Pages: 274

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Millie Quint is devastated when she discovers that her sort-of-best friend/sort-of-girlfriend has been kissing someone else. And because Millie cannot stand the thought of confronting her ex every day, she decides to apply for scholarships to boarding schools . . . the farther from Houston the better.

Millie can’t believe her luck when she’s accepted into one of the world’s most exclusive schools, located in the rolling highlands of Scotland. Everything about Scotland is different: the country is misty and green; the school is gorgeous, and the students think Americans are cute.

The only problem: Mille’s roommate Flora is a total princess.

She’s also an actual princess. Of Scotland.

At first, the girls can barely stand each other–Flora is both high-class and high-key–but before Millie knows it, she has another sort-of-best-friend/sort-of-girlfriend. Even though Princess Flora could be a new chapter in her love life, Millie knows the chances of happily ever afters are slim . . . after all, real life isn’t a fairy tale . . . or is it?

Boarding schools and royalty? Check. Set in Scotland? Check! This is a fluffy contemporary and I adore it. The characters feel like real people with complex histories in this will-they-won’t-they sapphic romance. While Her Royal Highness is second in a series (which the publisher has since canceled due to low sales 😭) but can be read as a standalone. The first book, Royals, is also fluffy and fun, but is not sapphic.

Want MORE Sapphic Book Recommendations?

This recommendation list is focused on books in which the main character is sapphic and in a f/f relationship, but there are lots of amazing books I’ve read with on-page f/f representation with the ensemble cast.

• Check out the f/f romance tag to see all books I’ve reviewed on Reader Voracious with feature sapphic characters – and check out the Diversity Index if you’re looking for other specific rep!
• Fadwa @ Words Wonder shared a master list of 400+ f/f books!
• Follow Reads Rainbow, a blog dedicated to LGBT media for reviews and book recommendations , and check out their sapphic tag
• Follow LGBTQ Reads, a blog dedicated to LGBTQ books run by author Dahlia Adler

Bookshop List

The publishing industry is always focused on the new and shiny releases, typically ceasing promotion within a week of the book birthday. I hope that this list brought some new books to your attention and I hope you are able to support the ones you’re interested in!

Let’s Chat!

Which sapphic books have you read and would recommend? Let’s talk in the comments!