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Bitterthorn: TikTok made me buy it! A sapphic Gothic fantasy for fans of Samantha Shannon

Kat Dunn

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Blumwald is a town overshadowed by an ancient curse: in a sinister castle in the depths of the wild wood lives a monstrous Witch. Once a generation, she comes to claim a companion to return with her—never to be seen again. Now that time is drawing near once more...

Mina, daughter of the duke, is grieving and lonely. She has lost all hope of any future for herself in Blumwald. So when the Witch demands her next companion, Mina offers herself up—though she has no idea what fate awaits her.

Stranded with her darkly alluring captor, the mystery of what happened to the previous companions draws Mina into the heart of a terrifying secret that could save her life, or end it.

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Wanderland Reads\ \ Sayer\ \ • Mar 16

[Sapphic Speculative Fiction Expands the Imagination\ \ Many people approach queer romance through familiar frameworks. Modern settings. Recognizable social rules. Families that resemble the structures most of us grew up around. I wrote about this a week or two ago, about looking beyond contemporary romance for great sapphic stories.\ \ Those stories matter. They reflect lived experience and present-day struggles.\ \ Yet some of the most thought-provoking sapphic stories appear in places where the rules look completely different.\ \ Speculative fiction offers writers a simple but radical tool. The ability to ask what happens when the world operates under different assumptions?\ \ What happens when gender does not function the way our societies expect?\ \ What happens when colonial hierarchies collapse or never existed in the first place?\ \ What happens when family and community follow different structures?\ \ Sapphic speculative fiction thrives in these questions.\ \ What counts as speculative fiction?\ \ Speculative fiction serves as an umbrella term for stories that imagine worlds different from our own.\ \ Fantasy explores magic, mythology, and alternate societies.\ \ Science fiction looks at future technology, space exploration, and evolving social systems.\ \ Alternate history reimagines historical timelines.\ \ Dystopian and utopian fiction examine political systems taken to extreme outcomes.\ \ Magical realism blends ordinary life with elements that challenge reality.\ \ All of these genres share a common feature. They build worlds where the assumptions we treat as natural begin to shift.\ \ When those foundations move, storytelling changes.\ \ Reimagining gender systems\ \ Many speculative worlds question the rigid gender frameworks common in contemporary culture.\ \ Some settings include fluid understandings of gender. Others remove the strict gender hierarchy. Some societies organize identity through entirely different categories.\ \ When gender works differently, relationships evolve as well.\ \ Characters express attraction without the scripts that dominate many romance narratives. Partnerships develop around compatibility, trust, or shared goals rather than predetermined roles.\ \ For readers, this shift opens new ways of thinking about identity and connection.\ \ Challenging colonial power structures\ \ Speculative fiction often explores empire, conquest, and resistance.\ \ Many worlds center characters fighting against oppressive systems or rebuilding communities after political collapse. Some stories draw inspiration from Indigenous traditions or non-Western perspectives to imagine societies structured around different values.\ \ Within these settings, sapphic characters frequently appear as leaders, rebels, scholars, or explorers. Their relationships unfold inside larger struggles over power, survival, and cultural memory.\ \ Love does not exist in isolation. It grows alongside questions about justice, resistance, and the future of entire communities.\ \ Rethinking family and community\ \ Another striking feature of speculative fiction involves how stories approach family.\ \ The nuclear family model rarely stands as the only option. Characters often live within chosen families, cooperative communities, traveling crews, or political alliances.\ \ Romantic relationships exist inside these broader networks of care.\ \ Two people falling in love may also share responsibilities to their crew, their village, or their resistance movement. Partnership becomes part of a wider web of loyalty and support.\ \ For many readers, this structure feels both imaginative and deeply familiar.\ \ Common tropes in sapphic speculative fiction\ \ Speculative fiction combines romance with adventure and conflict. Certain narrative patterns recur.\ \ A princess guarded by a loyal warrior or knight who begins to question her duty.\ \ Rival soldiers from opposing factions are forced to work together.\ \ A scholar and a fighter navigating a dangerous quest.\ \ Political enemies are forming uneasy alliances during a rebellion.\ \ Explorers encounter unfamiliar worlds and build trust through survival.\ \ These tropes create tension, intimacy, and emotional growth while the larger story unfolds.\ \ Why these stories expand the imagination\ \ Speculative fiction does more than entertain. It shifts perspective.\ \ When readers step into worlds built on different assumptions, the systems shaping their own lives become visible. Gender roles, political hierarchies, and family structures reveal themselves as historical constructs rather than permanent truths.\ \ Sapphic speculative fiction takes this imaginative shift even further.\ \ Queer women appear not as side characters but as central figures in the story of the world itself. They lead revolutions. Build communities. Explore unknown territories. Fall in love while reshaping the societies around them.\ \ These stories ask readers to imagine something larger than representation.\ \ They ask us to imagine entirely different ways people live together.\ \ An invitation to explore\ \ If you have not spent time with sapphic speculative fiction, consider this an invitation.\ \ Explore fantasy worlds where magic reshapes power.\ \ Read science fiction that questions identity in future societies.\ \ Look for stories where love grows alongside resistance, exploration, and discovery.\ \ These books stretch the imagination in ways that linger long after the final page.\ \ I am especially interested in reading more sapphic speculative fiction this year.\ \ Which books expanded your worldview?\ \ Which stories stayed with you long after you finished them?\ \ Here is a list of books I've read and books on my TBR!\ \

Worlds Where Sapphic Stories Rewrite the Rules

26 books

Wanderland Reads\ \ Sayer\ \ • Jan 12

I started the year one way and somehow ended up somewhere else. This stack tells a story. A strange one. A good one.\ \ Bitterthorn by Kat Dunn\ \ This started my year. A gothic YA, Mina offers herself up as the Witch's latest companion. The town is under an ancient curse and a far up in the forest lives a witch who comes to town once a generation to take a companion who is never seen again. Mina, the daughter of the duke offers herself as a sacrifice. While in the castle she attempts to solve the mystery of what happened to the previous companions. This one has longing in the hallways and emotional tension pressed into every page. You got yearning and slow burn and mood. This is actually my least favorite of all her books because there is so much of the book that drags - No.\ \ To the Bone by Kylie Cross\ \ Book one of a why choose (f/f/f/x) killer sorority sisters trilogy. I enjoyed it, it could have been shorter. Our main MC, whose name alludes me, gets invited to a sorority of women who kill the men on campus who are violent and rapists. The concept works for me but the commitment feels a bit to large right now because all three books are chonky - Yes to the concept, maybe to the series.\ \ Parrhesia by Ren Rousseau\ \ Portal fantasy meets court politics. The heir to the Unseelie Court quits her throne and builds a utopian society in St. Louis called The Pax. A cursed succubus enters the story. Someone wants to destroy the peace. I read this as a sensitivity reader and still got pulled into the world and the stakes - Yes\ \ A Hunger Soft and Wild by Moira Darling\ \ An escaped vampire. A mercenary in the woods. A court hunting her. You get danger and closeness and tension. The book moved fast and hit hard. I have been told the editing sucks but I listened to it - Maybe to yes\ \ Architecti by Ruby Roe\ \ A demon cursed to serve her father. A reaper whose life belongs to the same man. One year left to live. A magic academy with secrets. I signed up for high stakes and the hot lesbian sex and got them - Yes\ \ Spellfire by Agatha Willow\ \ This one slowed everything down. Cozy. Soft. Second chance romance in an arcane academic setting. It felt gentle and safe while still being sapphic and romantic. Also the cover is deliciously adorable. - Maybe\ \ Need by Lily Hardt\ \ Set in a sex club and full of potential. I saw the spark. YoIu also noticed internalized transphobia in one of the main characters and that broke the flow. A mixed experience. - No\ \ In the Roses of Pieria by Anna Burke\ \ If An Education in Malice worked for you, this one hit in a similar way. An adjunct professor whose are of expertise is ancient poetry. A dream archival job. A mysterious collection of ancient sapphic poems and stodgy assistant. Sparks fly but the assistant and the collection owner are keeping secrets. Something is off under the surface. I stayed hooked. - Yes\ \ Party Favors by Erin McLellan\ \ Online best friends take a girls trip and the chat goes offline. The book leaned hard into heat and chemistry. I knew the tone going in and I got exactly what I wanted. Fisting, toys, clamps galore. - Yes\ \ The Witches Grave by E.L. Eldridge\ \ This one I finished last night. A buttoned up college student takes trip to a witch’s grave with her roommate, her roommates boyfriend and a third. The third attempts to assault her. Enter the real witch who intervenes. Revenge. Desire. Justice. All in forty four pages. \ \ My 2026 sapphic reading list already includes witches, vampires, demons, reapers, cursed courts, haunted academics, killer sororities, cozy magic, sex clubs, and messy love. My shelf looks unhinged in the best way. \ \ I tried to start a sapphic contemporary tonight and I think my brain still needs like dark academia or romantasy. Any suggestions?

Sapphic Books I Read in 2026 So Far. A Report From the Chaos Desk

8 books

Wanderland Reads\ \ Sayer\ \ • Apr 7 2025

Sapphic Reading Challenge Recommendations: Witchy

What sapphic witchy and magical reads do you recommend?

Here are more recommendations for the Sapphic Reading Challenge.

There are 178 people in the challenge on Storygraph and it would be incredible if we could get at least 200! If you haven’t joined us, what are you waiting for?

#sapphicreadingchallenge #wanderlandreads #sapphicromance #wlw #sapphicbookstagram #sapphicbooks #lgbtqreads

22 books

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