Hello and welcome to the May edition of the Queer Lit Review! This month we have a mother rediscovering her love for her ex-girlfriend, side characters from Pride and Prejudice under the spotlight, and a crime lord's daughter working in the palace to bring the system down.
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Happy Reading!
Title: Ordinary Love by Marie Rutkoski
Reviewer: Tali
Summary: As she separates from her wealthy, abusive husband and tries to make a new life with her children, Emily finds herself drawn once again to Gen, the ex-girlfriend who broke her heart years ago.
Year of Publication: 2025
Genre/Sub-Genre: Literary fiction, romance
Book Format: Physical Book
Length: 368 pages
LGBTQ+ Orientation: Bisexual main character, lesbian love interest, queer and sapphic side characters
Content Warnings: Extensive depiction of domestic abuse (emotional, verbal, and physical), homophobia (including familial rejection)
Ratio of Sex/Plot: There are several explicit but brief sex scenes. The focus is mainly on characters and plot.
Well-Written/Editor Needed: The prose is generally well-written and literary, though the plotting can be cliché and over the top. This book sometimes feels like it walks a fine line between “sapphic Sally Rooney” and “sapphic Colleen Hoover.”
Would I Recommend?: For the right reader
Personal Thoughts: Ordinary Love was an engaging page-turner that I sped through in a single day, staying up later than I should’ve to finish the last few chapters. So, with some caveats, I enjoyed it and found it compelling overall.
I do wish the book’s marketing had been more upfront about the prominence of abuse in the narrative. The book jacket blurb merely says that “Emily’s marriage is in trouble,” but in fact she’s married to an intensely abusive man who manipulates her every time he’s on the page. I found this frustrating as the husband, Jack, is an infuriating and one-dimensional character who takes up a lot of space in the narrative. In general, Emily and Jack’s divorce heavily shapes the plot. The reader sees Emily work to repair her damaged friendships, develop professional and financial independence, and figure out how to protect her children from her husband’s abuse. Some readers will find this plotline cathartic, but I personally prefer to avoid this kind of story when I’m looking for a sapphic read.
Fortunately, Ordinary Love shines when it focuses on the second-chance romance between Emily and Gen. The two of them have palpable chemistry in every scene they share. Their story effectively tugs at the heartstrings and evokes strong feelings of yearning, regret, nostalgia, and hope that make the reader root for them as a couple. Their complex history and lingering feelings for each other feel lived-in and real. And in a literary landscape where butch characters are all too rare, Gen is a breath of fresh air as a butch love interest who is complex and appealing without being objectified.
Ordinary Love may particularly resonate with those who came out later in life and/or went through divorce. This is a well-crafted if imperfect read that is worth a look for bi and sapphic readers.
Title/Author: The Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet by Lindz McLeod
Reviewer: Ana
Summary: Side characters of Pride and Prejudice get the spotlight in this Jane Austen-inspired romance — but don’t worry, you don’t have to have read the original. Widowed at just 31, Charlotte knows that her only options in Regency-era England are either to remarry or return to her parents’ house. As she begins her period of mourning, her best friend Lizzie sends her younger sister, Mary, to keep Charlotte company. But Mary is nothing like Charlotte remembers: she’s grown up to be a talented scientist who speaks her mind. The more time Charlotte spends with Mary, the more she wonders if there are other options available to her…including love.
Series/Standalone: Austentatious book one, but can be read as a standalone
Genre/Sub-Genre: Historical Romance
Book Format: eBook
Length: 298 pages
LGBTQ+ Orientation: Lesbian main characters, lesbian love interests (though the word “lesbian” itself isn’t used due to when the story takes place). Gay, lesbian, bi, and poly side characters
HEA/HFN: HEA
Content Warnings: Deaths of partners (past), internalized homophobia, period-typical sexism, mentions of past emotional manipulation, and sex
Ratio of Sex/Plot: 95% plot, 5% sex
Well-Written/Editor Needed: Well-written
Would I Recommend it?: Yes, especially to Jane Austen lovers!
Personal Thoughts: I’m a simple person: I see a queer book inspired by Jane Austen, I read it. And as much as I enjoy reading them, most of the time they don’t really feel like anything special. But this? A game changer! It only took me two days to finish reading it because the book pulled me in so strongly. From the lovable cast to the gorgeous prose to the swoon-worthy romance, Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet is just an utter delight.
I see so many of my own experiences as a late-blooming-lesbian mirrored! Lindz McLeod absolutely nails the various emotions that realizing something new and important about yourself can bring. As deeply sad as it makes me to think about queer people having to hide their relationships, it's simultaneously empowering and fascinating to reflect on our resilience throughout the centuries.
To my pleasant surprise, this book also contains a good deal of humor. It's difficult (in my opinion) to pull this off in historical fiction; you run the risk of either sounding pretentious or sounding so modern that it takes you out of the story completely. The author strikes the perfect balance here. Additionally, McLeod does a marvelous job capturing the vibes of Austen's original story in a way that feels completely natural. I've never wanted to go wander around a rose garden so badly.
A second novel set in this world (starring other Austen characters) publishes this month, so what better time to get into this?
Title/Author: The Mercy Makersby Tessa Gratton
Reviewer: Puck M.
Summary: Iriset is the sheltered daughter of the powerful crime lord Isidor the Little Cat; her alter ego Silk is the Little Cat’s pet apostate, using the magic of design in ways that veers dangerously close to forbidden human architecture, allowing the Little Cat’s minions to change their appearance and leave no evidence of their crimes. When Silk’s activities are traced by the theocratic government’s forces, leading to her father’s downfall, Iriset enters the palace as a handmaiden, entangling her life with those of the empire’s ruling siblings in a desperate bid to rescue her father before his scheduled execution. If an apostate can thrive in the very heart of religious power, she might even be able to bring the whole system down…
Series/Standalone: First book of The Moon Heresies
Genre/Sub-Genre: Fantasy
Book Format: eBook
Length: Paperback is 560 pages
LGBTQ+ Orientation: Cis bisexual woman main character; side characters with various gender and sexual identities
Content Warnings: Murder, blackmail, loss of agency, rape (characters have sex while one is magically disguised as someone else); state violence; imperialism; religious discrimination; structural and individual racism
Well-Written/Editor Needed: Extremely well-written
Would I Recommend?: Wholeheartedly
Personal thoughts: This book is easily my favorite read of the year: the worldbuilding is phenomenal; the characters are fully four-dimensional (with change over time); the central magic system is really interesting, with the characters able to manipulate physical forces as if they were building a house (it’s called “architecture” and “design” for a reason); and the prose is lush, sensual, and exquisitely deliberate. I know we’re only five months into 2026, but I think I’ll be hard-pressed to find anything to top this in the next 7 months.
One of the things I particularly liked about The Mercy Makers is the intriguing narrative POV. There’s clearly someone telling this story, because they have a clear perspective, indicated with asides to the reader. And this someone knows a lot about the characters, because we occasionally have extremely tight narration of individual characters’ emotions and motivations. They also know a great deal about the living, dead, and departed gods of both the empire in which the main action takes place and other localities (such as the Ceres Remnants). We don’t find out their identity in this book, but wondering about it as the narrative dipped in and out of different characters’ minds and actions added a layer of intrigue to the reading experience that I really enjoyed, not dissimilar to the way I felt about the footnotes in The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson and A Choir of Liesby Alexandra Rowland.
The plotline was character-driven in the way that raises a television show to my list of near-perfect shows — every single member of the cast has their own agendas and competencies and when the plot goes off the rails, it’s not because the author/showrunner is messing with the reader/audience, but because characters are acting in ways that make sense for them but that completely slam up against my expectations of where something goes.
And the worldbuilding is excellent not just in the magic system, but also in the way the cultures of this planet are constructed. Each one feels real and lived in — through gender roles, racial politics, religious practice, family structures, and government — in ways that are not just copies of existing cultures here on Earth. And the narrative doesn’t shy away from the ways in which people operate inside or push against the constraints of their home cultures.
Finally, the representation — across multiple identity categories — is wonderful. One that stood out to me in particular is Amaranth mé Esmail Her Glory, an unapologetically powerful and sensual fat woman. Now, granted, Iriset is hornier than your average main character, so she turns a sensual gaze on most of the people she meets, but it’s not just that. Amaranth deliberately wields her sensuality and her power in a way that I don’t often see in fat characters and which I found extremely refreshing.
I was surprised to discover that this book was the first in a series (because I hadn’t checked ahead of time), but I’m not sorry to have read it, despite being eager for more. There’s so much here that it’s still worth a read. In fact, I liked it so much that after finishing the eBook, I immediately borrowed the audiobook, and while I’m not very far in it as yet, I can confirm that so far the narration is excellent.
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