Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu
Follows Laura, a young woman living in isolation, whose life changes when the mysterious Carmilla comes to stay at her family’s castle. Their bond quickly becomes intense and intimate, with Carmilla expressing passionate affection that carries clear romantic undertones. As Laura grows weak and local girls die from a strange illness, Carmilla is revealed to be a vampire who preys on young women she seduces. The novella is especially notable for its overtly sapphic tension, making female desire central to both its horror and its lasting literary impact.
Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth
A coming-of-age novel set in a small Irish town, where Lucy finds herself drawn into an intense and secretive relationship with her friend Susannah during one transformative summer. As Lucy navigates family expectations, religious pressure, and the suffocating closeness of rural life, her growing desire for Susannah becomes both exhilarating and frightening. The novel centers its sapphic romance with tenderness and realism, exploring the vulnerability, longing, and quiet rebellion of queer first love in a community where such feelings are meant to remain unspoken.
Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk
A genre-blurring gothic novel that shifts between 19th-century and present-day Buenos Aires, following a centuries-old vampire fleeing Europe and a modern woman struggling with her mother’s terminal illness. When the two women meet in a cemetery, a powerful, unsettling connection ignites between them that defies time, mortality, and the boundaries between the living and the undead. At the heart of the story is a haunting exploration of female desire, agency, and longing, with the intense, sensual bond between the vampire and the living woman foregrounding a queer, sapphic undercurrent that drives both its horror and its emotional pulse.
Big Swiss by Jen Beagin
A darkly funny contemporary novel about Greta, a woman in her forties who transcribes therapy sessions for a sex therapist and becomes infatuated with one client she calls “Big Swiss,” a tall, reserved married woman whose life and voice captivate her. After a chance meeting, their connection quickly deepens into an intimate affair that upends both their lives, blending humor, vulnerability, and emotional messiness. At its heart, the book foregrounds a sapphic romance between two complicated women navigating desire, guilt, trauma, and connection, making their queer attraction central to the story’s emotional and narrative drive.
Sirens & Muses by Antonia Angress
A literary novel set around an elite art school and the New York art world during the 2011 recession, following scholarship student Louisa Arceneaux as she navigates creative ambition, class divides, and personal identity. At its core is Louisa’s intense, sensual relationship with her charismatic roommate, Karina, a bond that intertwines artistic inspiration with desire and becomes one of the novel’s emotional centers. Their sapphic connection, charged with intimacy and artistic tension, drives their growth even as external pressures—from classmates, lovers, and the competitive, cutthroat art scene—force them to redefine themselves and what they truly want