Valentine’s Day reading list: Queer romances that make hearts flutter and end on a happy note

The apparently-frivolous romance genre has always had a subversive thread at its heart: by centring the perspectives and desires of women when these were not often valued, romance served an important function. And authors are continuing this grand tradition by creating main characters with diverse backgrounds and personalities.

In the only genre that promises happy endings, it can be incredibly satisfying to meet a main character who is queer and/or marginalised in other ways, and know from the beginning that they’ll find love and happiness. The anticipation of assured future happiness can be sweet for readers who are not used to characters like these getting a love story, or at least one that doesn’t end in tragedy. Many wonderful queer romances have been published (especially in Western fiction) in the last decade, and you can find many lists and round-ups. But if you need a guide, here are my hand-picked favourites.

Adiba Jaigirdar’s Bengali-Irish girls

Adiba Jaigirdar writes delicious YA (young adult) novels about Bengali-Irish teenage girls falling in love (often with another Bengali-Irish girl). In Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating, nerdy, ambitious, maybe-lesbian, atheist, Indian-Bengali Ishita (dak naam: Ishu) fake-dates soft, people-pleasing, popular, bisexual, Muslim, Bangladeshi Humaira (dak naam: Hani) for convoluted teenager-logic reasons. As...

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