Request for recommendations - light reading

[wildeabandon]

So I have plenty of theology books on the to-read pile for when I'm feeling strong of brain, and I've got Harry Potter à l'Ecole des Sorciers on Audible for when I'm knitting, but I would like some recommendations for some light easy fiction for reading just before bed and in the bath.

I particularly enjoy young adult fantasy and uplifting queer stories, and the intersection of the two is especially excellent. But I'm quite catholic in my tastes, so pretty much anything reasonably page-turny is good. Hit me?

Comments

[the_elyan]

For YA fantasy, I’m a big fan of Frances Hardinge. Her books get darker as they go in, but they are all good fun, in my opinion.
I also love the Rivers of London novels by Ben Aaronovitch, but imagine you’ve either read them already or decided against them (they are not oooilar in all quarters)

[atreic]

Yes, I was about to recommend The Lie Tree :-)

I assume everyone has read A Long Way To A Small Angry Planet and the sequels by now, but if not it’s good, and mostly light and fluffy.

[miss_s_b]

Seconding both of these

[hilarita]

The Name of All Things, Jenn Lyons. Adult fantasy, really long (suggest not getting in dead-tree form, unless you're planning on upping your weights regime ;p ), but a cracking read, with slightly lesbians. And footnotes.

Doing Time, Jodi Taylor. Notionally SF, but it's very silly. Police Academy, only for time cops. Neither YA fantasy, nor queer, but quite page-turny.

Gamechanger, LX Beckett. Mid-future SF, with AI and computer games and shit. Also very page turny, not very queer.

Anything that KJ Charles has written. All historical romances, many of them very, very queer. Comes with content warnings for some of the nastier stuff, but we are in happily ever after territory here, and it's lovely. Fairly substantial back catalogue for when you need feelgood stuff.

Paladin's Grace, T. Kingfisher. Fantasy, involving moody paladins and nervous perfumiers. Fabulous stuff.

Minor Mage, T. Kingfisher. YA fantasy, adorable. Contains armadillo. I'd pretty much rec all T. Kingfisher, they're all great.

Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir. Lesbian necromancers. Fabulous read, great page-turning.

[ludy]

Another vote for Jodi Taylor - both the Time Police book (another is due out later in the year) and the original Chronicles of St Mary's series that's a spin off from

[quizcustodiet]

Seconding anything by T. Kingfisher. The primary romantic relationships are her, but some of her other works (particularly Swordheart) take for granted that queer relationships are perfectly normal and that gender isn't binary.

I just enjoyed "Sorcery of Thorns" by Margaret Rogerson. It's mainly a YA fantasy romance, but the world building is very charming- our heroine has been raised as a foundling in a library/prison for sentient books.

Finally, I'd recommend anything by Drew Hayes- he's got two main series, one about a University training superheroes and one about what happens when non-player characters in an RPG have to go adventuring.

[ofunaq]

I highly recommend the Elemental Logic series (4 books, starting with Fire Logic) by Laurie J Marks. A fantasy series, beautifully queer in an incidental way: most of the relationships are queer, but that’s never really a plot point, just commonplace in the world they inhabit. Really affirming models of strength and diversity and love, a universe in which different modes of seeing the world are a kind of magical power.

[venta]

One more from the not-actually-YA-or-queer pile: Iain Pears' art-history-world whodunnits. Iain Pears also writes (excellent, but much heavierweight) novels, but any of the Jonathon Argyll mysteries are enjoyable frivolous.

[gool_duck]

The Unspoken Name by A K Larkwood: fantasy, YA-ish, f/f

The Goblin Emperor: fantasy, but not queer.

[rmc28]

Seconding all recs for T Kingfisher and KJ Charles. I had an exciting run through KJ Charles's entire back catalogue at the start of the year and would still love to reread more slowly.

Also seconding The Goblin Emperor, which I remember finding very comforting. Lots of hurt/comfort and succeeding through the power of kindness. I should stick that back on my ereader (along with all the longfic for it by my favourite fic authors that I haven't got around to reading yet)

Anything at all by Cat Sebastian: they are basically all queer historical romance and delightful. Mostly m/m, some m/nb, I think a couple which are m/f but at least one protag is bi. "Redressed" is a short f/f story featuring a middle-aged seamstress and a vigilante selkie, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Free from BookFunnel (https://dl.bookfunnel.com/ax50a52jjc) in return for an email address, but the author doesn't seem obnoxious in their use of emails.

Alyssa Cole's romances are mostly m/f, but she has a lovely f/f novella "Once Ghosted, Twice Shy" set in modern New York; also has an f/f novella "That Could Be Enough" which is in a trio of historical romance novellas "Hamilton's Battalion" linked by a loose framing story of people coming to tell Eliza Hamilton stories of her husband.

[miss_s_b]

Definitely the Goblin Emperor, yes!

[miss_s_b]

Jim C Hines' Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse series.

[miss_s_b]

Oh and Benedict Jacka's Alex Verus books if you've not got those yet.
And Stray Souls by Kate Griffin

[damerell]

Seanan McGuire's _InCryptid_ series, not least because she is phenomenally prolific so if it turns out you like her writing there's a lot of it to read.

[juliet]

Seconding recommendations above for The Goblin Emperor, T Kingfisher's stuff, and KJ Charles.

[sfred]

Shira Glassman's Mangoverse books are extreeeeeeeemely fluffy, queer fantasy.

[lovingboth]

If you haven't read them, Philip Reeves' Mortal Engines and its sequels are very good (and vastly better than the film version!)