WLW Books: 24 Sapphic Reads in Every Genre

WLW stands for "women loving women", and WLW books are stories that centre queer women: lesbians, bisexual and pansexual women, and everyone else under the sapphic umbrella. The best news for readers is that these books now exist in every genre. You can find a sapphic epic fantasy, a sapphic murder mystery, a sapphic space opera and a sapphic gothic novel, not just contemporary romance.

This guide picks 24 WLW books across 13 genres, so you can start with what you already love. Every title links to its full review on Lesbian Romance Reads. For an even bigger shelf with two picks per genre, see their sapphic books hub. If you are here mainly for love stories, go straight to the best sapphic romance books.

Literary fiction

The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

Isabel guards her late mother's country house and everything in it, until her brother's girlfriend Eva arrives to stay. Suspicion turns into obsession, and obsession into something else. Tense, sensual and quietly devastating.

Contemporary romance

Delilah Green Doesn't Care by Ashley Herring Blake

Photographer Delilah goes home for her stepsister's wedding and falls, against every intention, for the bride's best friend, a single mom. Prickly, funny and warm.

Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur

A disastrous blind date between an astrologer and a numbers-only actuary turns into a holiday fake relationship. A witty, award-winning rom-com.

Those Who Wait by Haley Cass

A grad student and New York's deputy mayor try friends with benefits. It does not stay simple. The indie slow burn many readers recommend first.

Spicy romance

Mistakes Were Made by Meryl Wilsner

A college senior has a hot, anonymous night with an older woman, then discovers on family weekend that she is her best friend's mom. High heat, complicated feelings.

Fantasy

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

A sprawling epic of dragons, rival faiths and a queendom that depends on its queen producing an heir. A mage sent to protect the queen in secret becomes far more than a bodyguard.

The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri

An exiled princess and a maidservant hiding a dangerous past are pulled into rebellion against an emperor. Rich, political and charged.

Romantasy

Malice by Heather Walter

Sleeping Beauty retold from the villain's side, where the outcast Dark Grace is supposed to be the princess's curse, not the one who falls for her.

Can't Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne

A queen's guard and a powerful mage walk away from the palace to open a bookshop in a quiet little town. Cozy and sweet.

Historical

The Price of Salt (Carol) by Patricia Highsmith

A young shop assistant and an elegant older woman going through a divorce meet across a department-store counter at Christmas, then set out on a road trip. A classic that still feels electric.

The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite

An astronomer and a widowed countess, a French treatise and a Regency romance built on mutual admiration.

Bone of My Bone by Johanna van Veen

1635, a Bavarian forest torn by war. A young nun and a sharp-witted peasant flee soldiers while hunting a saint's skull.

Mystery

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

In an alternate 1912 Cairo where djinn walk the streets, agent Fatma el-Sha'arawi investigates the murder of a secret brotherhood, with her girlfriend at her side.

The Verifiers by Jane Pek

Claudia Lin works for an agency that checks whether people on dating apps are who they claim to be. Then a client dies.

Science fiction

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

Two agents on opposite sides of a war fought across time start leaving each other letters. Taunts become curiosity, then longing.

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

A sword-swinging, foul-mouthed heroine is dragged into a deadly trial in a haunted palace by the necromancer she hates most.

Horror and gothic

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

Miri's wife comes home from a deep-sea mission that went wrong, and she is no longer quite herself.

Plain Bad Heroines by emily m. danforth

A cursed New England girls' school in 1902, and a film crew telling its story a century later.

Dark romance

Tryst Six Venom by Penelope Douglas

A closeted lacrosse captain at a Catholic prep school torments the openly gay outsider she can't stop wanting, until their cruelty becomes a secret. Check content notes before reading.

Cozy

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

An orc mercenary retires to open the first coffee shop in a town that has never heard of coffee.

Payback's a Witch by Lana Harper

A witchy tournament, a rival-family witch and a shared grudge against the same man.

Young adult

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

Lily Hu falls for her classmate Kath and the lesbian bar where they find each other, at the height of the Red Scare.

You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson

Liz Lighty needs the prom-queen scholarship to leave her small Indiana town, and the new girl competing against her makes it hard to concentrate.

Classics

Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown

Molly Bolt is adopted, poor, brilliant and completely unapologetic about loving women, from rural Pennsylvania to New York.

Where to start

If you have never read a WLW book before, try Delilah Green Doesn't Care for romance, The Priory of the Orange Tree for fantasy, or The Safekeep for literary fiction. Then explore the full sapphic books guide, which adds manga, memoir, indie lesfic and new releases.

Which genre should we cover next? Let us know in the comments.