Need some more queer books to add to your ever growing TBR?
A.K. Mulford, author of our December book, A River of Golden Bones, has five unbelievably brilliant queer fantasy books to add to your list!
1. The Unbroken by C.L. Clark
“Know a person's desires, and you have leverage- Give a person their desires, and you have an extension of your own will”
Touraine is a soldier. Stolen as a child and raised to kill and die for the empire, her only loyalty is to her fellow conscripts. But now, her company has been sent back to her homeland to stop a rebellion, and the ties of blood may be stronger than she thought.
Luca needs a turncoat. Someone desperate enough to tiptoe the bayonet's edge between treason and orders. Someone who can sway the rebels toward peace, while Luca focuses on what really matters: getting her uncle off her throne.
Tropes:
🗡 Butch BIPOC FMC
💕 Noblewoman and bodyguard
👥 Forced Proximity
2. Malice by Hannah Walter
“You were never a villain to me.”
A princess isn’t supposed to fall for an evil sorceress. But in this darkly magical retelling of “Sleeping Beauty,” true love is more than a simple fairy tale.
Once upon a time, there was a wicked fairy who, in an act of vengeance, cursed a line of princesses to die. A curse that could only be broken by true love’s kiss.
You’ve heard this before, haven’t you? The handsome prince. The happily-ever-after.
Utter nonsense.
Let me tell you, no one in Briar actually cares about what happens to its princesses. Not the way they care about their jewels and elaborate parties and charm-granting elixirs. I thought I didn’t care, either.
Until I met her.
Tropes:
👸 Curse Princess
😴 Sleeping Beauty Retelling
🖤 Villain falls for the hero
3. The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri
“Truth and lies were both tools, to be used when most necessary.”
Imprisoned by her dictator brother, Malini spends her days in isolation in the Hirana: an ancient temple that was once the source of the powerful, magical deathless waters — but is now little more than a decaying ruin.
Priya is a maidservant, one among several who make the treacherous journey to the top of the Hirana every night to clean Malini’s chambers. She is happy to be an anonymous drudge, so long as it keeps anyone from guessing the dangerous secret she hides.
But when Malini accidentally bears witness to Priya’s true nature, their destinies become irrevocably tangled. One is a vengeful princess seeking to depose her brother from his throne. The other is a priestess seeking to find her family.
Together, they will change the fate of an empire.
Tropes:
🌺Forbidden Nature Magic
💕Princess and Maidservant
💅Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss
4. Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree
“Things don’t have to stay as what they started out as.”
After a lifetime of bounties and bloodshed, Viv is hanging up her sword for the last time.
The battle-weary orc aims to start fresh, opening the first ever coffee shop in the city of Thune. But old and new rivals stand in the way of success — not to mention the fact that no one has the faintest idea what coffee actually is.
If Viv wants to put the blade behind her and make her plans a reality, she won't be able to go it alone.
But the true rewards of the uncharted path are the travelers you meet along the way. And whether drawn together by ancient magic, flaky pastry, or a freshly brewed cup, they may become partners, family, and something deeper than she ever could have dreamed.
Tropes:
🗡Retired Adventurer FMC
🔍Cozy Mystery
📜The Epilogue your D&D Character Deserves
5. Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao
The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn't matter that the girls often die from the mental strain.
When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it's to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister's death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected—she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed.
She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead.
Tropes:
🖤Mortally Grey FMC
🗡Supporting Women’s Wrongs
🔺Closed Romance Triangle
If you haven't picked up A River of Golden Bones by Ali yet, make sure you do!
A young heir begins a journey of self-discovery, romance, and adventure as she comes out of hiding to save her sister from a malicious, powerful sorceress and her dangerous sleeping curse…
A sleeping curse. A fallen court. A secret twin.
Twins Calla and Briar have spent their entire lives hiding from the powerful sorceress who destroyed their kingdom…and from the humans who don’t know they are Wolves. Each twin has their own purpose in life: Briar’s is to marry the prince of an ally pack and save the Golden Court. Calla’s purpose is to remain a secret, her twin’s shadow . . . the backup plan.
No one knows who Calla truly is except for her childhood friend—and sister’s betrothed—the distractingly handsome Prince Grae. But when Calla and Briar journey out of hiding for Briar’s wedding, all of their well-made plans go awry. The evil sorceress is back with another sleeping curse for the last heir to the Golden Court.
Calla must step out of the shadows to save their sister, their kingdom, and their own legacy. Continuing to hide as a human and denying who she truly is, Calla embarks on a quest across the realm, discovering a whole world she never knew existed. Outside the confines of rigid Wolf society, Calla begins to wonder: who could she be if she dared to try?