Who doesn’t love a princess? Or a knight? Or a witch? Fairytales have survived thus far as part of our collective cultural conscience, which is why updating them is so much fun (both for readers and writers!). The magic lands of old are populated by all sorts of female archetypes and female issues, so it’s no wonder that they’re ripe soil for a little female on female love.
Take a look at these recommendations, and enjoy!
Ash
In the wake of her father’s death, Ash is left at the mercy of her cruel stepmother. Consumed with grief, her only joy comes by the light of the dying hearth fire, rereading the fairy tales her mother once told her. In her dreams, someday the fairies will steal her away. When she meets the dark and dangerous fairy Sidhean, she believes that her wish may be granted.
The day that Ash meets Kaisa, the King’s Huntress, her heart begins to change. Instead of chasing fairies, Ash learns to hunt with Kaisa. Their friendship, as delicate as a new bloom, reawakens Ash’s capacity for love–and her desire to live. But Sidhean has already claimed Ash for his own, and she must make a choice between fairy tale dreams and true love.
Beneath The Loch: A Novella: A Dark Lesbian Romance
As a child, Mairi made a deal with a young fae – a kiss in exchange for gills.
Now, betrothed to a man she hardly knows, Mairi is desperate to escape her fate. When she finds that same fae at the river’s edge, she’s offered a proposal that makes her skin grow cold . . . and her blood run hot.
Romance meets horror in this lesbian fairytale. Do you dare dive . . . Beneath the Loch?
Caged Bird Rising: A Grim Tale of Women, Wolves, and other Beasts
“Women don’t ask questions. Let alone clever ones.”
Robyn lives in a world where proper girls are raised by men. She, who grew up with only her grandmother, has to go out of her way to meet the requirements of being a fertile wife. It’s the greatest honor Robyn could have dreamed of that Hunter Wolfmounter, the handsome and brave Captain of their village’s guardsmen, wants her of all women to become his wife.
Cinderella
Cinderella is the first book in the Lesbian Fairy Tales Series, and a tale of romance between two women.
Check out the rest of the series here!
Cinder-Ella
Ella is transgender. She’s known since she was young; being a woman just fit better. She was happier in skirts than trousers, but that was before her stepmother moved in. Eleanor can’t stand her, and after Ella’s father passes she’s forced to revert to Cole, a lump of a son. She cooks, she cleans, and she tolerates being called the wrong name for the sake of a roof over her head. Where else can she go?
An opportunity to attend the royal ball transforms Ella’s life. For the first time, strangers see a woman when she walks down the stairs. While Princess Lizabetta invited Cole to the ball, she doesn’t blink an eye when Cinderella is the one who shows. The princess is elegant, bold, and everything Ella never knew she wanted. For a moment she glimpses a world that can accept her, and she holds on tight.
Girls Made of Snow and Glass
Entwining the stories of both Lynet and Mina in the past and present, Girls Made of Snow and Glass traces the relationship of two young women doomed to be rivals from the start. Only one can win all, while the other must lose everything―unless both can find a way to reshape themselves and their story.
Gretel
Once in a while love gives us a fairy tale…
Tormented by a pack of bloodthirsty wolves, Hans and his sister Gretel, run for their lives.
Desperation leads them into the comforting arms of a beautiful woman who asks for nothing in return for her kindness. While Gretel finds herself drawn to the seductress, Hans grows suspicious of her motives. Torn between a brother she adores and a woman she can’t help but admire, Gretel is forced to make a choice.
Will sibling bonds override the lure of a newfound love?
Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins
Thirteen tales are unspun from the deeply familiar, and woven anew into a collection of fairy tales that wind back through time. Acclaimed Irish author Emma Donoghue reveals heroines young and old in unexpected alliances–sometimes treacherous, sometimes erotic, but always courageous. Told with luminous voices that shimmer with sensuality and truth, these age-old characters shed their antiquated cloaks to travel a seductive new landscape, radiantly transformed.Cinderella forsakes the handsome prince and runs off with the fairy godmother; Beauty discovers the Beast behind the mask is not so very different from the face she sees in the mirror; Snow White is awakened from slumber by the bittersweet fruit of an unnamed desire.
Like A Queen: Lesbian Erotic Fairy Tales
Five lesbian fairy tales that feature classic stories like “Cinderella” and “The Princess and the Pea” with a queer twist. What are the erotic possibilities of the enchanted princesses and forbidding queens that we learned about as children? Discover the love story between Gretel and the Witch and the intoxicating tale of Cinderella’s seductively severe stepmother. It wasn’t a pea in her mattress that kept the Princess up all night, and the story didn’t end when the Prince found Snow White in the woods. Instead of competing for princes or beauty, the women in these stories are made more powerful by their desire for each other.
Roses and Thorns: Beauty and the Beast Retold
A greedy father. A beautiful daughter. A faceless noble. With a word, Aloysius bargains away Angelique’s future for a hefty bride-price, and no one, not even Angelique’s beloved mother can save her. Angelique is taken to a strange and marvelous estate where she is befriended by Culdun, her Liege’s fey companion. And though Culdun hints at darker forces, Angelique is drawn to her host and ever so slowly, she wins Drew’s trust. But old fears and an older curse resurface, threatening to drive them apart and banish Drew into an eternity of loneliness. Will Angelique’s growing love be strong enough to save her Liege? Or will she flee once the secret is revealed?
Seeing Red: A Contemporary Red Riding Hood Lesbian Romance
Hunter has spent the last two years running in place.
Trying to get ahead of the bills.
Trying to provide for her sister, Piper, and her nephews.
Trying to finish her nursing education.
Trying to keep Piper out of her criminal husband’s claws.
Then along comes a beautiful girl in a red cap. Her grandmother is sick, she needs Hunter’s nursing help, and the pay is great. It’s just what they need and soon Hunter is able to catch her breath. Stop running in place. Start to feel something that she hasn’t had time for in years.
Sleeping Beauty, Indeed & Other Lesbian Fairytales
Fairy tales have long intrigued readers. They’re the first stories we remember, and they resonate within us as adults. In Sleeping Beauty, Indeed, editor JoSelle Vanderhooft offers us a new take on an ancient theme: fairy tales from a lesbian perspective. From Cinderella to Sleeping Beauty, from original myths by talented authors to classics retold with a deft hand, these tales are by turn erotic and sensuous, loving and wicked. Take a bite of the magic apple and make this anthology your bedtime story tonight.
So Fey: Queer Fairy Fiction
The legends of Fairyland tell that one should never taste the food or sip the drink, or else risk being caught there forever. But the tempting morsels in So Fey are irresistible! Lambda Award-nominated editor Steve Berman brings together acclaimed fantasy writers with some of the brightest names in speculative and LGBT fiction to create tales that are moving and magical. These stories of romance and grief, adolescence and identity, struggle and hope will enchant readers who long for a fantastic escape—and a wonderful twist! One sample of this bewitching treat is sure to trap you in its pages!
From the pains of loss in Holly Black’s “The Coat of Stars” to dealing with issues of identity in Richard Bowes’s “The Wand’s Boy” to Melissa Scott’s look at the dangers of love in “Mister Seeley,” So Fey: Queer Fairy Fiction takes you into worlds that are at once amazing and familiar. With tales that tear and tug at the heart but never cease to enchant, this exciting and unique collection will long last in the minds of readers.
The Beast that Never Was
What if Beauty was the Beast?
Lise’s father is dead, and the life of plenty and freedom that she has known as the daughter of the King’s Huntsman is gone. She must now live a life of duty to her mother and sisters, helping them to cope in their altered circumstances. But where her mother would have her wed a childhood friend to secure their future, Lise knows that is not what she longs for.
When she meets a mysterious woman in the forest, Lise feels the stirrings of emotions she cannot give voice to, but with this woman, she doesn’t have to say anything—Senna knows.
The Raven & The Reindeer
When Gerta’s friend Kay is stolen away by the mysterious Snow Queen, it’s up to Gerta to find him. Her journey will take her through a dangerous land of snow and witchcraft, accompanied only by a bandit and a talking raven. Can she win her friend’s release, or will following her heart take her to unexpected places?
The Second Sister
ELEANOR OF SANDLEFORD’S entire world is shaken when her father marries the mysterious, reclusive Lady Kingsclere to gain her noble title. Ripped away from the only home she has ever known, Ellie is forced to live at Baxstresse Manor with her two new stepsisters, Luciana and Belladonna. Luciana is sadistic, but Belladonna is the woman who truly haunts her. When her father dies and her new stepmother goes suddenly mad, Ellie is cheated out of her inheritance and forced to become a servant. With the help of a shy maid, a friendly cook, a talking cat, and her mysterious second stepsister, Ellie must stop Luciana from using an ancient sorcerer’s chain to bewitch the handsome Prince Brendan and take over the entire kingdom of Seria.
The Spindle and Other Lesbian Fairy Tales
A collection of four short stories and one full-length play about lesbian princesses, woman-princes, goddesses, and fairy godmothers! Magic, mystery, romance… with a radical politic!
Winterglass
The city-state Sirapirat once knew only warmth and monsoon. When the Winter Queen conquered it, she remade the land in her image, turning Sirapirat into a country of snow and unending frost. But an empire is not her only goal. In secret, she seeks the fragments of a mirror whose power will grant her deepest desire.
At her right hand is General Lussadh, who bears a mirror shard in her heart, as loyal to winter as she is plagued by her past as a traitor to her country. Tasked with locating other glass-bearers, she finds one in Nuawa, an insurgent who’s forged herself into a weapon that will strike down the queen.
Share your faves in the comments!
Lola Andrews 