The best novels for when something queer’s afoot

Natasha Pulley’s grounded historical novel marries detailed research of late-19th-century England and Japan with something stranger and more fantastical – but these elements together heighten the narrative. Clerk Thaniel Steepleton’s relationship with clockwork-maker Keita Mori centers the story – they change one another in ways that even fate can’t completely anticipate. There’s a lot of tenderness between them, and it captures the way that falling in love can feel like meeting someone again, instead of for the first time. Also, there’s a pet clockwork octopus. That’s vital. 

The Mirror Season is a difficult and beautiful novel about trauma – sexual assault, specifically – and it’s handled so compassionately, kindly, and brightly. Its central metaphor losing your magic after something unthinkable happens to you, left only with broken shards, works on many levels (as all good metaphors do). Ciela and Lock are brought together after one horrible night at a party, and their relationship is rendered realistically – they struggle separately and together. The something queer is pan: enchanted pan dulce, and a pansexual protagonist. 

Short and strange and seductive and sweet, Carmilla is one of the very first works of vampire fiction – called oupires for most of the novella – written almost 30 years before Bram Stoker’s Dracula. When a beautiful young woman crashes her carriage outside Laura’s family house, Carmilla becomes her companion, and their relationship becomes intense fast. Carmilla targets young women, exclusively, but she wants something deeper with Laura. Laura describes being both fascinated and afraid of Carmilla; these feelings are, ostensibly, because Carmilla is a vampire, but the way she describes her feelings is so reminiscent of being a woman attracted to another woman for the first time. 

The premise of Meddling Kids feels like it was concocted especially for me and everyone else who grew up on 70s cartoons and old-fashioned horror; it’s an eldritch twist on Scooby-Doo, where the remaining members of the Blyton Summer Detective Club revisit the scene of their childhood case, realizing there was more to the mystery than originally met the eye. Edgar Cantero’s writing style is an absolute delight – it’s like nothing I’ve ever read before. His humor in each metaphor and personification of so many inanimate objects allow you to really feel every scene, not just witness it. Andy, the tough girl of the group, admits to the smart and beautiful Kerri, with her long, sighing hair, that she’s been in love with her since they were kids. 

Whimsical and funny in a way that makes the book feel like a classic, The House in the Cerulean Sea is a romp that focuses on a somewhat-grounded facet of a fantasy world. Linus Baker is a caseworker sent on special assignment to review an orphanage for children with magical powers, run by Arthur Parnassus. It’s a book about a very lonely man finding an entire family, and it taps into discussions of generational and systemic abuse. Almost nothing hits like two queer characters who find each other when they’re a bit older, especially when both of them have been told they’re off-putting, in one way or another. What a delight when they find in each other everything they’ve always been looking for.