5 Lesbian Fall Reads: Curl Up With One of These Stellar Sapphic Books

Nothing’s better for cozy cuffing season than a good book—or five. From an in-depth look at polyamory, to coming-of-age tales from rehabilitated teens and COVID-era college students, to good old-fashioned horror and romcom, these sapphic reads go down smooth with a warm sweater, a hot latte, and a cute fellow bookworm by your side.

For a queer romcom with a supernatural twist, check out Take a Chance, Sasha Sinclair. In the latest from USA Today-bestselling author Ashley Herring Blake, Sasha Sinclair—a wannabe filmmaker who can’t commit to a location, let alone a woman—seeks to fulfill her late parents’ legacy by finishing the documentary they never got to make. Meanwhile, Margot Bishop, descendant of Alice Bishop, whose unique gifts put Clare Mountain, N.C. on the map and earned her an unfavorable reputation as a “witch,” will protect her family’s legacy at all costs, even if Sasha is very cute. Opposites attract, secrets are revealed, and there might be magic involved. If Sasha’s story sounds fun, check out Blake’s previous books in this small-town series, Dream On, Ramona Riley, and Get Over It, April Evans, or her standalone holiday romance, Make the Season Bright.

Sink into a unique Black coming-of-age tale with Free Girls. For Jasmine “Jas” Cooper, everything is new. Her mother has remarried a wealthy man, so Jas also has a stepsister and a different address. She’s been enrolled at a prestigious school. Most of all, Jas is as free as a sixteen-year-old girl can be, after spending the past year at the Guiding Hearts Home for Troubled Girls—in other words, a juvenile detention facility. Jas’s mother, eager for a new start for them both, insists that Jas keep the past twelve months a secret, and for a while it works, as Jas falls in with a friend group, bonds with her stepsibling, and develops a crush on a pretty classmate. But what happens when a friend from Guiding Hearts wants to reconnect? Follow Jas’s journey in Kristen McCallum’s young adult novel about mothers and daughters, queer love, and what it truly means to “rehabilitate.”

If “dark academic horror with sapphic tension” sounds irresistible, preorder Your Beloved Remains. What to do with a manuscript pickled in formaldehyde? For Celia Keel, you use it to save your school—if obsession doesn’t take over first. Celia’s an archivist who’s spent her career at Basin, a once-thriving women’s college in the Southern Ozarks that’s now on the verge of closure. The solution may lie in Celia’s recent discovery: the lost work of controversial 19th-century author Beatrice Donahue, whose endowment has barely kept Basin open, as well as Celia’s fixation since childhood. If Celia can forge Donahue’s final manuscript, she can stay at Basin—but she’ll need the help of her professional rival, literature postdoc Joan Harriot. Donahue’s last story is a horrific one, and as Celia and Joan fall deeper into their scheme, a tale of murderous rage emerges—and not just on the page.

Literary fiction meets Gen Z womanhood in Unprecedented Times. Rishi used to want to save the world, until she burned out as a climate activist. Now she just wants to have gay sex, and a lot of it. Her first year at Stanford is looking promising, especially when it means escaping her Florida childhood and overbearing family for a chance to study literature, write about her new life, and fall in love. When the COVID-19 pandemic throws a wrench into her college experience, Rishi and her new friends eschew virtual schooling in favor of working together on a farm collective. In their bubble of the great outdoors, political discussions get heated, ideals are formed and shattered, and sexual tension reaches a boiling point. This debut adult novel from author, journalist, and organizer Malavika Kannan explores how a young woman writes her own story when “precedented times” are a thing of the past.

A queer literary legend explores polyamory in Free Love. Michelle Tea’s icon status cannot be understated: she’s done everything from co-creating the Sister Spit literary performance tours, to brainstorming Drag Queen Story Hour, to reading tarot cards for Phoebe Bridgers and Roxane Gay. Tea’s writing is equally wide-ranging: her novel Valencia is a cult classic, her most recent memoir Knocking Myself Up chronicled her own fertility journey and subsequent parenthood, and she’s penned books about modern magic and tarot. Using her trademark graphic and hilarious candor, Tea looks at polyamory: once considered an “alternative lifestyle,” it’s become part of the mainstream conversation. Perhaps polyamory is the revolutionary relationship dynamic that will save us all, or at least foster more honest communication in and out of bed.

Note: While these books can be found on multiple platforms, all links in this article lead to Bookshop, which supports independent bookstores — and they have ebooks too. Happy reading!