Story Recs

Story Recommendations

If you are on this site, then you are probably queer and fond of literature. Luckily, so are we. The list of things we can recommend is small for now, but it’s going to grow as we find more stuff over time.

First, some stipulations. Most stories included in this list are self-published ebooks, webnovels, webcomics, and games. Many of them will be sapphic or transmasc and many of them will be fantasy stories, because that’s our main preference. We only include works we have had time to experience ourself. None of this is fanfiction; you’ll want to hit up Ao3 for that!

We don’t rate anything by stars because we personally dislike applying numerical rating systems to literature. (Quantitative measurement is an unhelpful way to sort qualitative experiences.)

We also don’t necessarily give out all relevant content warnings for a work. Plenty of these works warn for themselves, and we over at Gaily Novelry sometimes have difficulty telling when content is severe or significant enough to warn for. We trust you to do your own digging! We may not necessarily summarize plots here either; if our ramblings intrigue you, then you can find the proper summaries in the links.

We do try to describe genre and tone. We will label NSFW content when we can!

Finally, we will let you know what the cost of any given story is. Many of these are free, which means you can get to reading right away. Happy explorations to you!



Book Lists & General Resources



Short Fiction



Novels & Novellas

  • Butcher of the Forest, by Premee Mohamed — 4.99$, ebook. A classic callback to the spirit of old fairytales without falling to their biases. I love it when old women get to be protagonists. Veris greatly intrigued me, and the great delay in unspooling her backstory — why she came to do the great deed of her past — played well with the tension. Filled with both tragedy and hope, the final reveal and its outcome was beautifully set-up.
  • Defekt, by Nini Cipri — $15.99 in paperback. A novella about a fucked up IKEA expy. Significantly less horror-focused than some of the marketing implies; queer, found family dynamics. Derek was a little too relatable in some of his thought processes.
  • The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe, by Kij Johnson — $14.99 in paperback. A slim travelogue set in the Dreamlands from Lovecraft's mythos; features rich description and a quiet interrogation of the relative absence of women in Lovecraft's work.
  • The Fate Of, by J.E. Lynn — $4.99, for ebook, $20.99 for physical. This dark fantasy left us aching for its three protagonists by the end of it. If you're not fond of vulgarity, you probably won't like Harr, but that just gives her character. Harr has a tragic gay romance in her past, and Dianthus is absent of gender. Setting and character descriptions are light and easy to miss, but the world takes wonderful form after you start to put all the vagaries together. The inside of the book warns for suicide, depression, gore, and cannibalism, so be prepared for a dark read. Worth noting that this is the first book in a planned series.
  • Forevermore, by S. Jean — $2.99, or more if you want to tip. A good, hard hit of mlm romantic tragedy. It is immensely satisfying to see all the dreadful threads of implication weave together at the end. The portrayal of necromancy and related magic is very engrossing as well. Contains some NSFW content.
  • The Light in Front of Me, by Aria Morgan Howell — Free or name-your-own-price. A light, fun queer fantasy. Main romance is sapphic, significant trans & nonbinary characters. This is the author’s first book, but it helped us get back into reading at one point, so we’ll happily forgive some formatting awkwardness.
  • The Sapling Cage, by Margaret Killjoy — $17.95 for physical copy. We appreciated the nuance with which the text handled characters who had the capacity to be allies, but had farther to go, and there were charming moments where the dry, directness of the text made us feel like we were getting a glimpse into a teenager’s blunt travelogue to someone she trusted. It was nice to have another book to recommend to transfemme and supportive friends!
  • Unathorized Bread, by Cory Doctorow — Free excerpt of a larger collection. A compelling dance with technocapitalist dystopia that begins with one jailbroken toaster. Falls on the longer end of short fiction, so we sorted it with the novels and novellas.
  • An Unauthorized Fan Treatise, by Lauren James — Free. We’re including this one because it is unhinged (complimentary) and we binged the whole thing in an afternoon and an evening. Very fandom-in-the-2010s oriented, so if you’re not familiar with that, it might be harder to understand. Gottie needs to be studied under a microscope.
  • The Warden, by Daniel M. Ford — It’s traditional publishing, so it’s on the pricier side; $27.99 hardcover, $19.99 paperback, $12.99 ebook. Consider asking your local library to stock it. Fuck I love Aelis as a protagonist. Bold, practical, with just a hint of wet cat about her. She’s a glittering fish out of water, and you can’t help but root for her as she flops around on the sand and gets her bearings. The magic feels like science in procedure without taking the mystery away entirely; feels like hard work and study. Her love of the subject is so genuine. And none of that even touches on the intriguing plot, larger-than-is-seen world, and compelling side characters.


Video Games

  • Bad Faith, by Mado — $10.00 on Itch.io. A short, sapphic psychological horror visual novel following Magda, a timid young woman trying to stay out of scrutiny and live a normal life within the strange cult of Haven . . . and the secret that blows everything apart. The game does get very intense at the end, so make sure you’re in the right headspace for it.
  • Crowscare, by arcadekitten — Free or name-your-own price. Short horror game, happy ending possible. Do you like fall vibes? This game has fall vibes. We like to consider this game experientially-queer in its approach to family. The protag from It’s Not Me, It’s My Basement makes a quick cameo. Ryo’s dad is hot and possibly ace (according to Blackout Hospital.) Love this game to bits.
  • The Evolution of Trust, by nicky case — Free in-browser game. An interesting little experience about trust, statistics, and sociology.
  • In Stars and Time, by insertdisc5 — $19.99 on Steam and Itch.io. An RPG, and also the best timeloop game ever. Seriously, go play it, it’s well worth the price. The found family is cute, the mental health is bleak, the worldbuilding sure is built, and there’s casual queer rep abound. The fact that it’s in black-and-white is even a legitimate part of the setting. Someday, we would like to make something half as good as this.
  • It’s Not Me, It’s My Basement, by arcadekitten — Free or name-your-own-price. Ungendered protag. Short horror game, one somewhat interpretable ending. Has a melancholy, dreadful feel that we love. Noting here that arcadekitten has plenty of other great games, but we’ll cut the list short at two in order to highlight other creators on here.
  • Of The Devil, by Nth Circle — Free for Episode 0, $9.99 for Episode 1, both exclusive to Steam. Vaguely sapphic, very cyberpunk, delicious worldbuilding. It’s a fresh take on some twists that under other circumstances I would gag at. I’d explain in further detail, but I think this game is best when one goes in with as little information as possible.
  • Pocket Mirror (Classic), by AstralShift — Free or name-your-own-price for the original. The newer version is not free, and is on Steam. Gorgeous game. The prequel to this, Little Goody Two Shoes, is also very sapphic.
  • Rituals in the Dark, by ebi-hime — $6.99 on Itch. A mid-length sapphic visual novel with significantly less dark magic than the title suggests. It reads more as a young contemporary romance with a moody, magical atmosphere. If you dislike “teenager is underconfident in herself” and “teenager learns that other people have interiority too” narration, then it won’t be for you. The twist at the end is both sensible and charming, and it won’t be the twist you first expect. The creator has plenty of other visual novels to check out too.
  • Serre, by insertdisc5 — $5.00 on Itch. A short-and-sweet visual novel about a cute bee alien crash-landing into the perspective character’s greenhouse. Very sapphic.
  • Starry Flowers, by NomnomNami — $3 on Itch. Cute, cozy mlm romance story with some NSFW content, packaged in a dress-up game visual novel. The dress-up game aspects were a little less pronounced than we’d expected, but given how much thought was put into the story and artwork, we don’t really mind that. There are almost fifty pages of bonus art. Clearly, this was a passion project! While this game is a lot fluffier than we usually prefer, it’s nice to unwind with something like this every now-and-again.


Web Comics

  • Court of Roses, by Kelsey Peterson and co-author Miranda Wright — Free spiderforest webcomic. Endearing characters, open queerness; story is about a party of bards who band together to investigate a music festival murder mystery. Classical fantasy and DnD-esque theming. Very enthused rendering of music notes.
  • Phantomarine, by Claire Niebergall — Free Hiveworks webcomic. Impeccably worldbuilt. A tale of two charismatic gods, the people they move like pawns, and a sea full of undead, the lattermost of which may have something to do with the formermost.
  • Runaway to the Stars, by Jay Eaton — Free on the website, but Patreon gets pages ahead of time. Spacefaring, highly worldbuilt; the comic is just beginning, but the characters and setting have a lot of foundational material you can sift through. Check out the pages on alien biology!
  • Sleepless Domain, by Hiveworks / Oskar Vega / Mary Cagle — Free Hiveworks webcomic. Do you like dark magical girls and soft sapphic stuff? Boy do we have the webcomic for you. Find yourself emotionally devastated by the end of Chapter Two, then realize that there are twenty more chapters to go. Hooray!
  • Softies, by Kyle Smeallie — Free webcomic. Cute, funny, queer little comic with a more somber and existential side under the surface. A lot of “using humor to cope with the horrors of life" in this one. Get to the stubbed toe part and see why it made us cry. Love Kay's silly hair swoop, and the casual spacefaring atmosphere.
  • Tigress Queen, by Allison Shaw — Free Hiveworks webcomic. A barbarian warlordess and a pampered prince dance around an arranged marriage that may be the only way to save their kingdoms.
  • True Magic, by Aja and co-author :D — Free webcomic. It feels queer to us, and it helped get us into art, and that's good enough for this list. Henson and Jen gave us gender envy as a wee teen, Kiku is adorable, Bob is utterly fascinating, and Joe is trying so hard to Leader. We sometimes contribute to the TvTropes page for it. The worldbuilding is goofy, but not thoughtless, and there's a dry edge to the humor in certain parts. I genuinely don't know if it will ever finish. I'm glad we read it anyway.


Indie Animations

  • Cybermind Y2K, by 0046incognito — Free on Youtube. A story formatted as a lost media cartoon from the early 2000s. Only one episode so far, but very intriguing and delightfully eerie in places. Think Powerpuff Girls meets My Life as a Teenage Robot.
  • Epithet Erased, by Brendan Blaber — Free on Youtube. The creator is bi and sprinkles in some good GNC energy into many places in the show, so I feel comfortable plonking this one down here in our nice good queer stuff recs right here. The art style actually fits the tabletop RPG-esque origins of the show and its humor very well.
  • Humans-B-Gone, by . . . Humans-B-Gone? — Free on Youtube. If you like bugs, xenobiology, and stories that indulge in footnotes, this is for you. Sophadra is a giant alien space mantis with a hyperfixation on vertebrates in a society that primarily considers them (or us, more accurately) to be pests. Don’t be fooled by her attempts to appear sexy. She is a nerd through and through.
  • No Evil, by Betsy Lee — Free on Youtube. This one is kind of like if one person and a group of friends decided to make a long-running cartoon. Furry adjacent. It is is folklore-heavy, and the lore is intricate; it takes a rewatch or two to fully get what's going on, but episodes are comfortably short and the music is pretty enough that you'll probably be okay watching it even while you're a little confused. The audio quality gets better after the first few episodes. Corn is one of our favorites, but all of the characters are lively and interesting in their own ways!


Hope-To-Read

  • Hunger Phangs, by Joy Demorra — Both versions should be $4.99 for ebook and $18.99 for audiobook on her payhip. Also has a cheap short story and a book donation option! Will read once we decide whether we want to the Fluff or the Fangs version.
  • Hymn of Memory, by S. Jean — $3.99, or more if you want to tip. Currently planning to read this one; will report back once we finish it!
  • Defender of Histories, by Haley Walden — A seriously cheap $0.99 ebook; we got it for free during some kind of queer distribution site event a while ago.