Here are 100 books that The Tell Tale fans have personally recommended if you like
The Tell Tale.
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When I was a queer teen in the early 2000s, I didn’t have sapphic books or media available to me aside from anime, and even then, the dubbed versions on TV were scrubbed of queerness (I’m looking at you, Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura). I did have Revolutionary Girl Utena, and it was everything to me: fantasy, ballgowns, and girls dancing together. I wrote my book for that me who craved to see herself in beautiful, fantastical stories, and it’s why I love the fact that we have so many more out there right now that I can recommend to all of you!
This book has all the things I love about a swashbuckling fantasy–found family, romance, and magic. The art is gorgeous, the characters are loveable, and the world is bustling with excitement and danger at every turn.
I loved the One Piece vibes, and it’s so wonderful to see queerness just be there. I could not stop turning the pages.
Our Flag Means Death gets a magical, sapphic twist in this swashbuckling young adult graphic novel adventure full of high-stakes adventure, fantastical creatures, and a swoony enemies-to-lovers romance perfect for fans of In Deeper Waters and The Prince and the Dressmaker.
“I want to be beautiful. I want to be interesting. I want to be enough.”
That was Ferra Brickminder’s prayer to win back the love of her life. And the gods answer—just not in the way she expected. After hoping for a miracle, Ferra instead watches her skin turn into delicate and dangerously breakable porcelain.
When a mermaid masquerading as human boards a scientific research ship in her quest to reclaim an ancient treasure, she’s stalled by a suspicious marine geologist.
If the human’s interference weren’t so frustrating, she’d allow herself to be intrigued. But she’s not here to get to know people. Or flirt.…
I have been writing about LGBTQ+ culture for magazines and newspapers for almost a decade, and am a voracious consumer of queer stories. Queer literature makes our various needs and desires as a community come alive on the page, and helps us to connect with and understand one another. Reading LGBTQ+ books is a way to learn about contemporary queer life, and work out what more we can be doing to help those more marginalised than us.
The follow-up to his acclaimed book What Belongs to You, Cleanness is a relatively short but gorgeously executed novel about an American teacher living in Sofia, Bulgaria. It gives snapshots of his relationship, as well as dating app hooks ups – for better or worse. Greenwell is one of the greatest writers of our time, and he turns each sentence beautifully.
Longlisted for the Prix Sade 2021 Longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize Longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize
A New York Times Notable Book of 2020 A New York Times Critics Top Ten Book of the Year Named a Best Book of the Year by over 30 Publications, including The New Yorker, TIME, The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, and the BBC
In the highly anticipated follow-up to his beloved debut, What Belongs to You, Garth Greenwell deepens his exploration of foreignness, obligation, and desire
Sofia, Bulgaria, a landlocked city in southern Europe, stirs with hope and impending upheaval.…
I don’t know if I have an expertise in queer indie fantasy (quite the opposite, in fact). I just know as a queer person who loves magical worlds, I want to help elevate as many of them as possible. Over the past few years, I’ve aimed to read almost exclusively queer books with a focus on indie books (well, any indie books really). My hope is for other people to find and uplift indie books. There are so many beautiful hidden gems that just need a little more exposure to find their reader homes.
This book has so many tropes that I despise, such as miscommunication, deceit/manipulation, and third-act breakups. Yet somehow, Bryn managed to execute them all with such finesse that I fell in love.
Both main characters are adorable in completely different ways. Wes is such a confident goof, while Vincent is so sad and adorable that I just want to hug him. The romance is cute but fades to black. However, there are apparently some spicy short stories that follow up with the lives of Wes and Vincent. I need to get my next dose of these cute boys.
Vincent Barnes has suffered four years as a vampire, and they’ve been the most miserable years of his pathetic life. Too poor for black market blood, he feeds from sleeping humans to survive. He tries to never intrude on the same prey twice, but after a single delicious taste of a long-lost childhood neighbor, he can’t help returning for seconds.
Wesley Garcia has been waking up with fang marks. Lucky for him, he needs a vampire—to use as bait. He’s certain Vitalis-Barron Pharmaceutical killed his mother, but to gain access to their covert research labs, he has to bring them…
When a mermaid masquerading as human boards a scientific research ship in her quest to reclaim an ancient treasure, she’s stalled by a suspicious marine geologist.
If the human’s interference weren’t so frustrating, she’d allow herself to be intrigued. But she’s not here to get to know people. Or flirt.…
I loved books as a kid, especially fantasy books, but could never find anyone like me within their pages. I’m a lesbian Chinese writer who adores stories about messed-up, complicated queer people. I’m thrilled by the range of books available now that feature queer, messy characters. We all deserve representation, and to me that means representation that’s complex, that encompasses the ugly and the beautiful. One of my goals as an author is to make you fall in love with monsters—brutal, flawed women who may not deserve love, but who demand it all the same.
The Witch’s Daughter is the third book in the Amendyr quartet, but can be read on its own. It’s a sapphic fantasy romance told from the point of view of Mother Gothel’s witchy daughter, Ailynn, who falls in love with Rapunzel.
It’s my favorite book of the quartet, possibly because Ailynn has a somewhat complicated relationship with Rapunzel, further harmed by an instance of betrayal (content warnings apply, although they’re also spoilers—seek them out before reading if it concerns you). The Witch’s Daughter is a tale of two damaged girls trying to grow beyond their trauma bond, with found family and major parental issues.
Ailynn Gothel has always been the perfect daughter. Thanks to her mother's teachings, she knows how to heal the sick, conjure the elements, and take care of Raisa, her closest and dearest friend. But when Ailynn's feelings for Raisa grow deeper, her simple life falls apart. Her mother hides Raisa deep in a cave to shield her from the world, and Ailynn must leave home in search of a spell to free her. While the kingdom beyond the forest is full of dangers, Ailynn’s greatest fear is that Raisa will no longer want her when she returns. She is a…
I'm an Emmy Award-winning writer, wife, and adoptive mother with an unapologetic passion for Black queer stories. I'm also an artist-activist who takes great pride in producing content that sparks honest dialogue and positive change. Life's complexities energize me, and, as a queer artist of color, I'm committed to reflecting these intricacies in my work. I write, produce video, and host allyship seminars as well as art as activism workshops for LGBTQ+ youth. If you're both inspired and entertained by layered depictions of BIPOC queer culture then please check out the recs in my Queer-tastic reading list. Enjoy!
I've always loved a steamy MM romance, so thebogus boyfriend premise was an easy sell for me. However, as a foster mom turned adoptive mother, I'll forever have a special place in my heart for BIPOC navigating child protective services. Whether the narrative focused on Carlton's traumatized niece and the therapy she so desperately needed or the number of hoops that the LGBTQ+ community jumps through to even be considered for adoption, this story hit home on multiple fronts.
It was inspiring to watch Carlton and Deion navigate the many facets of queer culture, including their newfound fatherhood. Mainly because while stories like theirs happen every day, we don't see them nearly enough. Faux couple or not, Carlton and Deion were the safe space that Olivia needed and the mainstream representation that readers like myself consistently crave.
“The friends-to-lovers trope feels fresh in Ellis’s hands, in part because it’s underpinned by a lovingly drawn depiction of Black family dynamics.” —Publishers Weekly
Carlton Monroe is finally getting his groove back. After a year playing dad to his nephew and sending him safely off to college, it’s back to his bachelor ways. But when his teenaged niece shows up on his doorstep looking for a permanent home, his plan comes to a screeching halt. Family is everything, and in the eyes of social services, a couple makes a better adoptive family than an overworked bachelor father. A fake relationship…
Growing up in an eccentric, liberal family, as a member of the Church of England, under the shadow of the British Government’s homophobic Section 28, the messages I received were distinctly mixed. If I’d heard the word ‘bisexual’ before the age of twenty my life might have been very different. And to this day, the most common assumption is that one can’t be simultaneously queer and Christian. As I’ve discovered, and as these books show, that isn’t true – and moving beyond that assumption reveals new and fascinating horizons.
If ever there was a book that felt like it had been written just for me, this is it. Set in a fictional European country in the early nineteenth century, it has swashbuckling, nights at the opera, complicated family history, politics, magic, and lesbians. The way that Christianity is integrated into the fantastic element won’t be for everybody, but I was won over by Margerit’s earnest insistence on claiming her identity as a queer woman of faith and power. I’d wholeheartedly recommend the rest of the series, too.
Margerit Sovitre did not expect to inherit Baron Saveze’s fortunes—even less his bodyguard, a ruthlessly efficient swordswoman known only as Barbara. Wealth suddenly makes Margerit a highly eligible heiress and buys her the enmity of the new Baron. He had expected to inherit all, and now eyes her fortune with open envy.
Barbara proudly served as the old Baron’s duelist but she had expected his death to make her a free woman. Bitterness turns to determination when she finds herself the only force that stands between Margerit and the new Baron’s greed.
At first Margerit protests the need for Barbara’s…
The short version: I just really love television! The slightly longer version is that, in my career, I’ve had a very unusual perspective on both entertainment and activism. My first jobs out of college were at companies like Lucasfilm and The Jim Henson company, where I saw first-hand just how important pop culture and fandom can be for audiences. And I also worked extensively on queer causes, eventually making activism my full-time job when I joined the team that brought marriage equality to the US Supreme Court. Through that work, I became more and more interested in the ways that pop culture – particularly television – has been a tool for advancing civil rights.
Although this book is about film, rather than television, it’s impossible to understand the TV landscape without also understanding what was happening at the movies.
And then there’s Vito Russo’s incredible research and activism, which made this book possible – an inspiration for anyone interested in how media can make the world a better place.
Praised by the Chicago Tribune as "an impressive study" and written with incisive wit and searing perception--the definitive, highly acclaimed landmark work on the portrayal of homosexuality in film.
I’ve adored holiday love stories ever since I was a kid watching Hallmark movies. There’s something about the magic of the holidays that makes two people falling in love even more special. That’s why I chose a contemporary holiday romance for my debut. And we see so much straight romance on TV and in bookstores, but I want to contribute to the queer community with my writing. I write a mix of sexualities;Make the Yuletide Gay features two lesbian women. All that to say, I just love queer holiday romances!
This book made me not notice the traffic on the drive to and from my day job. I love how petty Kiskeya is, especially in the first few chapters. Also, both the leads are funny in their narration. It’s great for a li’l tee-hee-hee. I also like how the characters manage to be both similar and different – there’s enough to bond over, but they aren’t duplicates or stereotypes. Plus, who’s gonna turn down a grump/sunshine-baking partners story? Not me.
"I had so much fun reading Mangos and Mistletoe and now I want everyone else to read it too. This is Adriana Herrera's first f/f romance and I hope it's not her last..." -The Lesbian Review
One is grumpy. One is sunshine. There is only one bed.
Kiskeya Burgos left the tropical beaches of the Dominican Republic with a lot to prove. As a pastry chef on the come up, when she arrives in Scotland, she has one goal in mind: win the Holiday Baking Challenge. Winning would prove to her family, her former boss, and most importantly to herself,…
The short version: I just really love television! The slightly longer version is that, in my career, I’ve had a very unusual perspective on both entertainment and activism. My first jobs out of college were at companies like Lucasfilm and The Jim Henson company, where I saw first-hand just how important pop culture and fandom can be for audiences. And I also worked extensively on queer causes, eventually making activism my full-time job when I joined the team that brought marriage equality to the US Supreme Court. Through that work, I became more and more interested in the ways that pop culture – particularly television – has been a tool for advancing civil rights.
An absolutely exhaustive catalog of queer milestones on television, I’m constantly consulting this amazing book.
There’s no more authoritative examination of the people, shows, and trends that shaped queer representation in broadcast media over the 20th century. Exhaustively researched, it’s not just a must-read – it’s a must-read-multiple-times.
I own two copies, each one jam-packed with bookmarks and notes to myself about the best bits.
Definitive, vibrant, and utterly fascinating, Alternate Channels traces the monumental growth of gay, lesbian, and bisexual images on radio and television from the 1930s to the present. Splashed against the tumultuous backdrop of the McCarthy witch hunts, Stonewall and the gay liberation movement, the birth of the 700 Club and the religious right, the outbreak of AIDS and the arrival of in-your-face queer activism, this chatty, authoritative broadcast history tells the stories of such notorious and noteworthy moments as
- 1947: Radio gays--A bitchy fashion photographer throws fits at the drop of a designer hat on the adaptation of Moss…
As someone who’s never been allowed to drive, but gets motion-sick reading in a bus or car, I’ve been a lover of audiobooks since I had my Walkman and a backpack full of audiobook cassettes. As a queer man, I’m always looking for more immersive stories about people like me. Finding queer voices and queer narratives is so important to me as a way to offset how queer people don’t have an inherited continuance of our culture as most marginalized people do; books are a way to fill that gap. I do own a rescued husky, and there’s nothing like an engrossing audiobook to get me through those minus-forty Canadian winter walks with a dog.
You can actually get this novella as part of a four-pack of audio novellas by Cole, which I’d also recommend, but this sapphic historical novella is set against the backdrop of American History—any fans of Hamiltonreading this should take note—and manages to be both hopeful and unblinking in the face of reality of what Black queer women face in the time and place in this perfect balance I cannot praise enough. These two women couldn’t be more different: one is a maid to Eliza Hamilton and devoted to as simple a life as possible, the other is a dressmaker who refuses to be anything but audacious, and the result is brilliant. Also, Karen Chilton’s performance is just fantastic.
Mercy Alston knows the best thing to do with pesky feelings like "love" and "hope": avoid them at all cost. Serving as a maid to Eliza Hamilton, and an assistant in the woman's stubborn desire to preserve her late husband's legacy, has driven that point home for Mercy—as have her own previous heartbreaks. When Andromeda Stiel shows up at Hamilton Grange for an interview in her grandfather's stead, Mercy's resolution to live a quiet, pain-free life is tested by the beautiful, flirtatious, and entirely overwhelming dressmaker.
Andromeda is a woman who knows what she wants and resolutely overcomes anything that…
