12 of the Best Queer Historical Romance Books

Eliza Hamilton’s maid and assistant, Mercy Alston, knows avoiding the kind of love Eliza had with her late husband is in her best interest. Especially after she and Eliza have spent so long preserving Alexander’s memory. The beautiful and talented dressmaker Andromeda Stiel changes all that with one interview. Andromeda is working as a seamstress, shopkeeper, and burgeoning boarding house owner. She doesn’t have time for someone as interesting as Mercy, but in this sapphic historical novella, both Mercy and Andromeda will have to forgo their fears of heartbreak if they want to live a life full of love.

In Regency London, Robert “Robin” Selby’s only concern is finding his sister a proper match. Robin doesn’t have connections or money, and he used to be a housemaid named Charity Church. Charity knows she feels at home in between her life as Robert and Charity, but that life will disappear when her best friend and faux sister marries. Robin’s situation worsens when she asks the upstandingly handsome Alistair, Marquess of Pembroke, for his help securing said match. When layers of truths begin to unravel, Alister will have to decide if he wants to cling to the respectable life he built or rearrange his plans to be with someone as wonderful as Robin. You cannot go wrong with any Sebastian, but I love to introduce people to her mass market with nonbinary and bisexual representation whenever possible.

It’s the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris, and the streets are full of sapphics. Manuela del Carmen Caceres Galvan is spending her last summer before marriage showing her paintings and thriving with her two friends in the city. Hearing Manuela has land she swore to never sell, Cora Kempf Bristol, Duchess of Sundridge, knows this is her chance to get ahead of her business rivals. They come to an agreement satisfying both parties: Manuela’s land in exchange for a fun and fearless summer with Cora. Their business proposal creates a hot summer and a scandalous path to happiness that could change their lives forever.

The underground queer club The Curious Fox is run by former socialite and current bisexual David Forester. In 1885 London, there is no safer place to cross-dress or be comfortably queer, but if David wants to keep it that way, he will have to contend with the baron who owns the Fox and is looking to close the establishment. David’s best friend since boarding school, Noah Clarke, is one of the best tailors in London who uses his talents off the clock to create beautiful gowns for her outfits as Penelope Primrose at the club. Noah will do anything to protect the best friend he is almost certain he is falling for, even if it risks the stability of his life outside the Fox.

In 1925, even the prohibition could not stop the masquerade drag balls, revelry, and cultural exchange in Harlem. One nightclub chorus girl, Dinah Hampton, was just looking for a better opportunity to support her family. She never expected to meet a woman like Celine Montre in the Harlem nightlife. The Montre family’s scandal pushed them out of New Orleans, and Dinah was the first person to help Celine find a foothold—and someone to love—in New York. But when a notorious gangster decides to seduce Celine, he threatens everything. Now Celine and Dinah will have to determine what they are willing to do to secure a future together.

When the demiromantic, pansexual, international spy Lady Lisbeth Medford assumed the role of a feared pirate to infiltrate a smuggling ring in the West Indies, she never expected to meet a smuggler quite like Raphael Saint, the Duc de Viel. Not only is the man infuriatingly handsome, but he is also kind and noble, and he keeps saving her life. Raphael has worked as a merchant with ties to smugglers for years, all to get revenge on his uncle for his father’s death. Meeting Beth, someone who also wants to take his uncle down, is pure kismet. Raphael might even be able to convince Beth that they could both benefit from a mutual attraction while making the high seas a slightly safer place to fair.

Sir Gareth Inglis, unused to comfort since growing up with a detached father, does not know how to react when he dies, and Gareth is left with a family title and a manor in the far-flung, smuggler-run Romney Marsh. Running into his former hook-up, Joss Doomsday, in a heated courtroom was the last thing the new baronet thought he would encounter. Joss, it turns out, is the head of the Doomsday smuggling clan, and he will do anything to stop his sister from hanging for smuggling, even if it means blackmailing his former lover. The gentleman and the smuggler will have to learn how to live together if they want to secure peace for everyone in the Marsh.

Ottoman brings his best to this trans, polyamorous historical set in 1949 New York. Madeline Slaughter is done trying to become New York City’s next great literary mind. So, she accepts a position as bestselling novelist, Victor Hallowell’s live-in companion in Upstate New York. Madeline expects a chance to pause, but between her attraction to Victor and his charming neighbor, Audrey Coffin, time is flying by. After all, Victor and Audrey are ex-lovers, and she is unexpectedly falling for them both. But who knows, maybe if they are all together, they can write a new ending to their story.

Alban delivers a Victorian sapphic Parent Trap hot enough to make you swoon. Beth and her mother only have one season for Beth to secure a match before they will be thrown out of their home. It’s Gwen’s fourth season, and her carefree attitude and charming smile are the only things that make Beth want to go out. They have one brilliant realization: their parents are single, and if they get married, Beth won’t have to. Unfortunately, their parents are still holding a grudge over a failed courtship from their youth. Gwen and Beth will just have to match-make harder, but in doing so, they might just start falling for each other.

Florence Wickes-Barnes is said to be Montana’s most dramatic, passionate woman, and she is determined to find a love like her mother and father’s. When she meets the new to town and clearly in love Ansel Ortega and Brenden Black, she falls fast. The only question left is if they have room in their hearts to fall for her too. Book four in the Gold Sky series continues to offer readers queer interracial relationships flourishing in the American West.

The seaside offers former painter Kit Griffith the perfect opportunity to create a new life for himself after leaving the Sisterhood of Women Artists to become a bicycle seller in Victorian England. He hasn’t been able to paint since he left his former community, so when botanist Muriel Pendrake commissions him to illustrate British seaweeds, he wants to decline. But Kit needs Muriel’s help proving to the local all-male cycling club that women can cycle just as well as men, so now they are on a seaside bicycle trip, and Kit has promised to complete the illustrations. Their unexpected trip is leading to an unlikely romance that might be made to last.