100 Books Like Harrow the Ninth

This is such a beautiful, gentle and cozy book that I couldn’t put it down. In this story, people were left with no choice but to completely rebuild their society, and they did something wonderful.

This book is like a breath of fresh air, like a quiet, healing journey that doesn’t rely on action—it’s an exploration, a celebration of nature, and society, and connection. It touched me in a profound way. It made me go outside to check if it was raining and stand with my bare feet in the grass, enjoying the coldness and softness of the sensation. 

Csorwe’s fate is to enter the Shrine of the Unspoken and die on her fourteenth birthday. In classic orc lesbian fashion, she decides not to do that, turning her back on destiny to become the sword hand of an outcast wizard (and the tall, buff orc lady of your dreams).

Csorwe’s journey of self-definition begins at fourteen; she knows who she doesn’t want to be. In her burgeoning adulthood, Csorwe is forced to confront who she was and decide who she wants to be; a parallel that will resonate with many queer readers as they cheer Csorwe through swordfights, betrayals, and becoming brave enough to stand up for herself, again.

This is a story that challenges our understanding of identity–Zhu is a girl, and she is a male novice in a monastery. Zhu wears her dead brother’s name like armor and schemes to make his fate hers as well. Zhu is as unapologetically callous as the world that discarded her. Zhu lives as a man and never wishes to live as a woman, but her pronouns never change.

Her story forces the reader to confront the heavy hand of circumstance in our lives and our definition of self. Zhu performs gender without regret or longing, it is a tool of her survival; instead, she defines herself in her ambition. And even though the person that Zhu ultimately chooses to become isn’t one we might admire, her relationship to gender speaks to those of us who sit between the boundaries of gender, who move between, or who fill more than one… show more.

Thirsty for more buff orc lesbians? Legends & Lattes serves up a mug of warm, cozy queer fulfillment. Viv was an adventurer, but she no longer wants to be. Despite her battle scars and intimidating looks, she longs to open her own quiet coffee shop.

The journey to small-business success has challenges, but her determination to live on her own terms brews up a staff of misfits that become a queer-found family. This quiet, low-stakes novel is as sweet as an almond croissant and will leave you hungry for more.

This book is unhinged in the best way. I love Gideon’s unique voice. Around her is a deadly-serious necromancer murder mystery with interplanetary stakes, and she cares more about cracking dirty jokes and finally eating some warm food. Her relationship with her arch-nemesis/only friend Harrow leaps off the page.

I love the scene where they get into a pool so Harrow can finally confess to Gideon her darkest secret—so hot and so disturbing all at the same time. While this book isn’t technically a romance and the genre feels more like a horror fantasy set in space, I couldn’t resist putting it on the list. As Gideon says to Harrow, “One flesh, one end, bitch.”

I love a private eye series because the discoveries I make as a reader about the flawed character of the PI mirror the journey the central character makes over the course of several books. In this masterful series, Cheryl Head creates a PI you want to root for: Charlene “Charlie” Mack. Charlie leads her own Detroit investigation firm and relies on a motley team of experts, each with their own quirks and strengths. In this book, Charlie faces down a widespread conspiracy with anti-Muslim hate crimes at its core. Like many of the private eye novels I admire, this one delves into contemporary social issues with a sharp eye for nuance and realism without skimping on the entertainment and action.

I adore Sherlock pastiches, and this is one of my favorites with its high magic urban fantasy setting, pan sorceress Sherlock, and gay trans man Watson. Obviously, the leads aren’t romantically entwined. Instead, the plot revolves around Sherlock’s ex-paramour and current client, pan Irene Adler, whose impending marriage to a woman is being threatened by blackmail.

It’s joyously irreverent with a ton of literary allusions and dear Watson’s earnest and wholesome narrative voice. If you enjoy magic with your mystery, this book is for you.

This is a story about a personal trainer charged with helping a hockey star get back on the ice. While the focus is very much on the relationship rather than the hockey, I just adored the way Kris Bryant captures the ways an athlete puts so much of herself on the line both physically and emotionally. I love the way Kris writes this “all in” sort of character who charges after what she wants, both in and out of the arena. I think she captured the kind of personality we are all drawn to in people who have the drive to reach the pinnacle of their pursuits.

Exalted follows two women, Emily, an Internet astrologer, and Dawn, a lesbian waitress looking for a connection of any sort.

Dorn’s writing is sharp and funny as she tracks the way that both women are forced to scrape together a living. I love to see a character at work, and Emily’s wry sense of humor as she manipulates viral trends and conjures somewhat bogus readings is a powerful engine for the story.

As the novel progresses, the main characters’ lives begin to overlap, and you begin to wonder whether some destinies are really written in the stars as any good astrologer would insist. 

I first discovered T.S. Eliot Prize Winner Joelle Taylor through a poetry performance online. I was so moved that I immediately bought her poetry book. I found lines in this book that literally took my breath away, made me laugh out loud in recognition, or took me back to people and places dear to me. 

The poems tell stories of butch lesbians in the 1980s and 1990s, stories seldom told, and she tells them brilliantly, with heart, humor, and compassion. Joelle now has a novel out, The Night Alphabet, in which a woman gets all her tattoos connected with one single thread—of blood—connecting her to her past, present, and future—another amazing read.