It's that time of year again when all you want to do is snuggle up next to a fire with a hot chocolate and a good Hallmark-style romance. From sapphic longing to bisexual fake dating and festive meet-cutes, here are ten of our favorite queer holiday rom-coms that are worth a read this winter:
Holiday Rom-Com - Fiction
Queer Rep: Queer Women
Reading Age: 18+
It's the perfect Christmas love story. Margot Murray is a newly single, high-flying businesswoman with no interest in a cutesy seasonal romance. Ben Gibson is an unlucky-in-love sweetheart in need of a woman to bring home for the holidays.
Together, they make a pact: Margot gets two blissful weeks away from London in a picture-perfect manor, in exchange for posing as Ben's girlfriend. The story can only go one way. Margot is sure to fall in love for real.
And she does. With Ben's sister, Ellie.
Holiday Rom-Com - Fiction
Queer Rep: Queer Men
Reading Age: 17+
Hay-on-Wye’s only queer bookshop is always a hive of activity. So when it’s threatened with closure, its owner Quinn Oxford is determined to do whatever it takes to save his beloved shop.
That is until romantic novelist Noah Sage arrives in town. Gorgeous, brooding and clearly unhappy to be there, Noah is the distraction Quinn doesn’t need. Noah has a history with Hay and it’s one he’d rather not face. But when the snow leaves him stranded, he’s left with no choice.
Hay is a small town, meaning Quinn can’t help but bump into Noah wherever he goes. And as the two grow closer together, is it possible that Noah’s feelings towards Hay will thaw? Can Quinn have a real-life romance and save his beloved bookshop, or will he need a Christmas miracle?
Holiday Rom-Com - Fiction
Queer Rep: Queer Women
Reading Age: 18+
Miriam Blum has no choice but to face the past she thought she’d left behind when she inherits her great-aunt’s Christmas tree farm in this witty, glittering, heart-filled romcom.
Thanks to her thriving art career, Miriam Blum finally has her decoupaged glitter ducks in a row - until devastating news forces her to a very unwanted family reunion. Her beloved great-aunt Cass has passed and left Miriam part-owner of Carrigan’s, her (ironically) Jewish-run Christmas tree farm.
But Miriam’s plans to sit shiva, avoid her parents, then put Carrigan’s in her rearview mirror are spoiled when she learns the business is at risk of going under. To have any chance at turning things around, she’ll need to work with the farm’s grumpy manager—as long as the attraction sparking between them doesn’t set all their trees on fire first.
Holiday Rom-Com - Fiction
Queer Rep: Queer Women
Reading Age: 18+
Bee Tyler needs a break. In the bustling San Francisco tech community, no one ever seems to stand still - especially her perfect sister and business partner, Beth. So when her best friend suggests a getaway on the wildly popular house-swap app, Vacate, Bee decides a countryside retreat might be exactly what she needs.
Clover Mills has had a year. Between losing her mother and making the complicated decision to leave her fiancé, sticking around the idyllic Christmas-obsessed town of Salem, Ohio, just doesn’t feel right. So when she hears about Vacate, she jumps at the chance to spend the holidays in the unfamiliar city of San Francisco.
Soon enough, Bee is living in Clover’s cozy Salem cottage, and Clover is living in Bee’s sleek San Francisco apartment. As Clover can’t seem to stop running into Bee’s frustratingly gorgeous sister, Beth, and Bee finds herself spending more and more time with Clover’s ultra-charming ex-fiancé, Knox, the two women realize that this Christmas they may find just what they were looking for and more…
Holiday Rom-Com - Fiction
Queer Rep: Queer Women
Reading Age: 18+
Two exes find themselves stuck at the same house for Christmas in this holiday romance by Ashley Herring Blake, USA Today bestselling author of Iris Kelly Doesn't Date.
As the holidays draw near, her ensemble mate Sloane persuades Charlotte and the rest of the quartet to spend Christmas with her family in Colorado - it is much cozier and quieter than Manhattan, and it would guarantee more practice time for the quartet's upcoming tour. But when Charlotte arrives, she discovers that Sloane's sister Adele also brought a friend home - and that friend is none other than her ex, Brighton. All Brighton Fairbrook wanted was to have the holliest, jolliest Christmas - and try to forget that her band kicked her out.
But instead, she's stuck pretending like she and her ex are strangers - which proves to be difficult when Sloane and Adele's mom signs them all up for a series of Christmas dating events.
Holiday Rom-Com - Fiction
Queer Rep: Queer Women
Reading Age: 14+
Kelly Quindlen meets Casey McQuiston in this sapphic Jewish twist on the classic Christmas enemies-to-lovers rom-com, as college freshman Shani’s internship is interrupted by a whirlwind winter fling.
Attempted vehicular manslaughter was not part of Shani’s plan. She was supposed to be focusing on her monthlong paleoichthyology internship. She was going to spend all her time thinking about dead fish and not at all about how she was unceremoniously dumped days before winter break... It could be going better.
But when a dog-walking gig puts her back in May’s path, the fossils she’s meant to be diligently studying are pushed to the side—along with the breakup.
Holiday Rom-Com - Fiction
Queer Rep: Demisexual Women, Queer Women
Reading Age: 18+
Daring, witty, and strange, the twelve stories in Large Animals confront what it means to have a body. Jess Arndt's often-unnamed narrators battle with inhabiting a form that makes them feel both deeply uncomfortable and detached, constantly challenging the limits of gender and reality as they try to connect with other people and with themselves. These are stories that rebel against accepted ideas of human identity and present a new normal that is as ambiguous as it is messy.
Soupy, visceral, and often disconcerting, Large Animals sets a new standard for language, challenging our concepts of gender and body in a way that feels radical, insightful, and incredibly relevant.
Holiday Rom-Com - Fiction
Queer Rep: Queer Men
Reading Age: 18+
Ready to spend a quiet Christmas with his nearest and dearest, Christopher has closed up shop in his bakery, he's wrapped up and packed up his presents, and he's found someone to stay in his flat over the festive period.
Everything is under control. That is until the mysterious person he's rented his flat to turns out to be none other than Nash Nadeau, an actor - and the star of all Christopher's favourite Christmas movies.
For Nash, this Christmas was a chance to escape Hollywood, to go to a small town and hide away, alone, in a place where no one knows who he is. But when a huge snowstorm hits, the whole country grinds to a halt. There's no way Christopher is leaving, and there's nowhere else for Nash to stay. The two of them are just going to have to weather this together, snowed in for Christmas...
Holiday Rom-Com - Fiction
Queer Rep: Queer Women
Reading Age: 18+
After a year from hell, Haf is ready to blow off steam at a Christmas party: a kind stranger, a few too many drinks and suddenly she's kissing Christopher under the mistletoe - in front of his ex-girlfriend.
The next day the news is out that they're apparently a couple, madly in love and coming to Oxlea to spend the festive season with Christopher's family. But Haf doesn't have better holiday plans and to save her new friend from embarrassment, she agrees to pretend to be Christopher's girlfriend for Christmas.
It has the makings of a hilarious anecdote they'll be telling for years. Until Haf meets Christopher's sister: the mysterious, magnetic and utterly irresistible Kit. Maybe love was waiting for Haf in this quiet little town all along . . .
Holiday Rom-Com - Fiction
Queer Rep: Queer Men
Reading Age: 18+
Patrick Hargrave and Quinn Muller have been married for less than a year, but their passionate romance is cracking under the pressures of domestic life and a cumbersome mortgage. That's until Christmas Eve when Patrick wakes Quinn up 'I think I've killed a man.'
Quinn realizes the 'burglar' Patrick knocked out is none other than Mr. Claus himself. Instructed by a harried elf to don the red suit and take the reins of the reindeer-guided sleigh up on the roof, Quinn and Patrick work together to save Christmas.
But as the sun rises on Christmas morning, the sleigh brings them back to the North Pole instead of New Jersey, and they're in for a massive shock. The couple must assume the roles of Santa Claus and the first ever Merriest Mister or Christmas will be cancelled... permanently.
Romance Anthology - Graphic Novel
Queer Rep: Queer Men
Reading Age: 18+
Sure, it's an anthology with a whole bunch of different stories, but it's worth an honourable mention in this list of holiday romcoms just for Hamish Steele's contribution of 'Big Man' alone.
Young Men In Love is an original graphic novel anthology of queer male romances by a host of amazing queer male (cis/trans) creators. Haphazard pirates, wayward ghosts, holiday romances, dashing knights, rampaging kaiju and down-to-earth regular joes are all assembled here to amaze and delight you in a wildly unique anthology celebrating love between men, from an astounding array of comics creators who know exactly how it feels.
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