One Last Stop asks a lot of any book that follows it. August Landry moves to Brooklyn, works nights at a twenty-four-hour pancake diner, lives with a household of people who become her family, and falls in love with a woman on the Q train who turns out to have been stuck there since the 1970s. It is a rom-com, a mystery, a book about queer history, and it ends happily. Nearly three hundred thousand Goodreads ratings later, people are still looking for the next one.
Here is the finding that shaped this list, and you deserve it before the recommendations rather than after.
The exact combination does not exist. A contemporary sapphic romance, set in New York, with a real speculative hook, a comic voice, a found-family ensemble and a guaranteed happy ending — no such second book. We looked properly. What exists instead splits cleanly in two: books that keep the magic and the comedy and the happy ending but move to a small town, and books that keep New York and the found family but drop the supernatural entirely. The list below is organised that way.
And the speculative shelf is witches, not time travel. If you go looking for sapphic time-slip romance you will find very little, and most of what you find is literary fiction that ends sadly. What the genre actually built instead is a large, healthy shelf of sapphic witch and ghost rom-coms. Those are the first four entries here, and they are the honest answer to what you are asking for even though none of them involves a subway.
Two books at the bottom are warnings. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and, to a lesser extent, Honey Girl get recommended to One Last Stop readers constantly. They are both good. Neither will do what you want, and one of them will hurt. We have said why.
This post contains affiliate links to Amazon, Bookshop.org and Libro.fm. If you buy through them we may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes which books make the list. Our full review of One Last Stop is here.
All 12 Books at a Glance
| Book | Setting | Found family | Queer community | Speculative hook | Tone and ending |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| One Last Stop (the original) | Brooklyn, the Q train | Roommates and a diner | Central | Time-slip | Rom-com, HEA |
| Pumpkin Spice and Poltergeist | A Halloween town | Some | Yes | A poltergeist | Rom-com, HEA |
| Payback’s a Witch | Thistle Grove | Strong | Yes | Inherited magic | Rom-com, HEA |
| Rise and Divine | Thistle Grove | Strong | Yes | Magic and the dead | Rom-com, HEA |
| With All My Haunted Heart | A small-town B&B | Yes | Yes | A ghost | Cosy, HEA |
| Once Ghosted, Twice Shy | NYC, a stalled train | No, novella | Some | None | Rom-com, HEA |
| Chef’s Kiss | Manhattan | Workplace family | Central | None | Rom-com, HEA |
| A Restless Truth | An ocean liner, 1909 | A murder crew | Period | Magic | Comic, happy for now |
| Even Though I Knew the End | Chicago, 1941 | No | Some | Demonic contract | Noir, not a rom-com |
| The Space Between Worlds | Parallel Earths | No | Yes | Multiverse travel | SF, not a rom-com |
| I Kissed Shara Wheeler | Small-town Alabama | Yes | Closeted | None | Rom-com, HEA, YA |
| Honey Girl | Brooklyn | The best here | Central | None | Not a romance |
| The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo | Los Angeles | No | A closet | None | No happy ending |
1. Pumpkin Spice and Poltergeist by Ali K. Mulford
A cosy sapphic rom-com set in a town that does Halloween the way other towns do Christmas, with a genuine poltergeist in it and an autumn cafe you will want to move into.
Why a One Last Stop reader wants it: This is the closest thing on the shelf to what One Last Stop actually is: a supernatural presence, a warm queer-friendly town, comedy, explicit heat and a guaranteed happy ending. The setting does the same work Billy’s diner does — a place you want to keep going back to.
How it differs: The town is not New York and the found family is thinner. The romance also moves from strangers to soulmates inside about a week, which is the opposite of August and Jane’s long, stubborn, evidence-gathering courtship.
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2. Payback’s a Witch by Lana Harper
Emmy Harlow comes home to Thistle Grove after nine years away to arbitrate the town’s magical tournament, and joins forces with Talia Avramov and her own ex-best-friend to take revenge on the man who played all three of them.
Why a One Last Stop reader wants it: Magic treated as ordinary, a town with rules and history, a tight friend group doing something ridiculous together, and a comic voice that will feel familiar. It is the most-read sapphic magical rom-com there is, by a wide margin.
How it differs: The magic is inherited and systemic rather than an inexplicable event happening to one person. And the heat is much lower — essentially one fade-to-black scene, where One Last Stop is open door.
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3. Rise and Divine by Lana Harper
The final Thistle Grove book, and the one that goes furthest into the dead. Grief, necromantic edges, and the most explicit relationship in the series.
Why a One Last Stop reader wants it: If you liked Payback’s a Witch but wanted the heat One Last Stop has, this is where the series gets there. The writing on grief is the best in the five books.
How it differs: It is book five, so it assumes the town and the families. The reconciliation resolves faster than it earns, which is the recurring complaint. And it is still not New York.
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4. With All My Haunted Heart by Isabel Sterling
A witch is hired by a small-town bed and breakfast to haunt it rather than to clear it out. The ghost stays. So does she.
Why a One Last Stop reader wants it: A supernatural presence somebody chooses to keep rather than fix — which is close to the emotional logic of One Last Stop, where the problem is not that Jane is stuck so much as what it would cost to unstick her. It is genuinely good on grief and found family.
How it differs: Cosy and low-stakes where One Last Stop is loud, and several early readers found the chemistry slow to arrive. Small town, not New York.
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5. Once Ghosted, Twice Shy by Alyssa Cole
Likotsi, personal assistant to a prince, runs into Fabiola — the woman who vanished on her months earlier — on a stalled New York subway train. They spend the rest of the day walking the city and working out what happened.
Why a One Last Stop reader wants it: Two women, one stopped subway car, one city. Structurally this is the closest anything gets to One Last Stop‘s central image, and the New York in it is specific and lived-in rather than decorative.
How it differs: It is a novella of about 120 pages, so no found-family ensemble and no room for a community. Nothing supernatural happens. And it is a quiet book with a small readership — a few hundred ratings against One Last Stop‘s three hundred thousand.
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6. Chef’s Kiss by TJ Alexander
Simone Larkspur is a perfectionist pastry chef at a New York cookbook publisher that has decided to become a video company. Ray Lyton is the new test-kitchen manager she did not ask for. Ray comes out as nonbinary partway through and the workplace has to catch up.
Why a One Last Stop reader wants it: Manhattan, a workplace that turns into a found family, and a book that takes queer community seriously as a thing with texture and disagreement rather than a backdrop. The comic register is close to McQuiston’s.
How it differs: Nothing speculative. And the central pairing is a bisexual cis woman and a nonbinary person, so whether it counts as sapphic for your purposes is your call — we think it does, but you should know before you buy.
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7. A Restless Truth by Freya Marske
Maud Blyth boards an ocean liner to escort an elderly magician across the Atlantic. The magician dies before the first night is out. Violet Debenham, an actress with a scandalous family and real magic, helps her work out who did it.
Why a One Last Stop reader wants it: Magic plus a murder plus a genuinely funny book — a locked-room comedy where the locked room is a ship. It is the closest thing to One Last Stop‘s combination of a mystery you are solving and a romance you are enjoying while you solve it.
How it differs: Edwardian, not contemporary. It is book two of a trilogy and ends happy-for-now rather than closed. And the ensemble is a murder-solving crew rather than a household you would want to live in.
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8. Even Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk
Chicago, 1941. A magical detective who sold her soul has three days left on the contract and one last case that might buy it back. The woman she loves is the reason she wants to.
Why a One Last Stop reader wants it: Supernatural machinery, a mystery structure, a city rendered with real specificity, and a sapphic love story at the centre of all of it. If the noir-inflected part of One Last Stop‘s investigation was what you liked, this is that at full strength.
How it differs: This is not a comedy and it is not a romance in the genre sense. It is a novella with a countdown clock and a price attached. Go in expecting to feel something other than delight.
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9. The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson
Cara can travel to parallel Earths because she is already dead on most of them. She works for a company that harvests data across worlds, and she is hiding which version of herself she actually is.
Why a One Last Stop reader wants it: It is the only book here that does what One Last Stop does mechanically: a woman who does not belong to this version of reality, and the question of what it costs to keep her. The sapphic relationship is central and the world-building is superb.
How it differs: Science fiction, not romance. It is angry, class-conscious and often brutal, the comedy is scarce, and the ending is earned rather than happy. Do not hand this to someone who wants another rom-com.
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10. I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston
Chloe Green is going to be valedictorian of her Christian academy in Alabama. Shara Wheeler kisses her, then disappears a month before graduation, leaving a trail of notes for the three people she kissed. Chloe teams up with the other two to find her.
Why a One Last Stop reader wants it: It is the same author and the same voice — the jokes, the rhythm, the way a group of misfits becomes the actual point of the book. If what you loved about One Last Stop was McQuiston writing, this is the only other f/f she has.
How it differs: Young adult, closed door, small-town Alabama, and the mystery is a scavenger hunt rather than anything supernatural. The queer community here is closeted and under pressure rather than out and around every corner.
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11. Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers
Grace Porter finishes her astronomy doctorate, goes to Las Vegas, and wakes up married to a woman whose name she does not know. She spends the summer in New York with Yuki and Yuki’s friends, avoiding the rest of her life.
Why a One Last Stop reader wants it: Brooklyn, a household of queer friends who function as a family, and a late-night radio show that does exactly what Billy’s diner does — makes a place for people who are awake when nobody else is. The community writing is the best on this list.
How it differs: It is not a romance and it does not follow romance rules. It is literary coming-of-age with a love story inside it, the ending is hopeful rather than guaranteed, and it is closed door. Read it for the found family, not the couple.
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12. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
An ageing film star finally tells her story to an unknown journalist. Seven marriages, and one actual love: Celia St. James.
Why a One Last Stop reader wants it: You are going to be recommended this book. Every list that mentions One Last Stop puts it two entries down, and it is the most-read sapphic love story in the world by an enormous margin.
How it differs: We are listing it to warn you. It is Los Angeles, not New York. It is not funny. The queer community in it is a closet, because that is the point. And Evelyn and Celia do not get to be happy — they are kept apart for decades and then it ends the way it ends. It is a very good novel. It is not another One Last Stop, and readers who go in expecting one come out wrecked.
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If You Only Read One
For the magic and the comedy and the happy ending: Pumpkin Spice and Poltergeist. It is the closest tonal match on the list, small town notwithstanding.
For New York: Chef’s Kiss for the workplace family, or Once Ghosted, Twice Shy if you specifically want two women and a stopped subway train.
For the found family: Honey Girl, as long as you accept it is not a romance.
For more McQuiston: I Kissed Shara Wheeler. It is her only other book with a sapphic couple at the centre — Red, White & Royal Blue and The Pairing are not.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there another sapphic time travel romance like One Last Stop?
Not really, and this surprised us. Searching sapphic time travel returns mostly literary fiction with unhappy endings, plus a handful of time-loop stories with very small readerships. Nobody has written a second book where a person from another decade is physically present in the now, being courted, with a guaranteed happy ending. If someone does, we will add it here.
Which of these is actually set in New York?
Once Ghosted, Twice Shy (a stalled subway train, specifically), Chef’s Kiss (Manhattan) and Honey Girl (Brooklyn). Everything else on the list trades the city for something else.
Should I read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo?
Yes, at some point, but not as a follow-up to this. It is Los Angeles, it is not funny, the queer community in it is a closet, and the sapphic love story does not end happily. It gets recommended to One Last Stop readers constantly and it is the wrong book for that moment.
What else has Casey McQuiston written?
Red, White & Royal Blue is m/m. The Pairing pairs a nonbinary lead with a man. I Kissed Shara Wheeler is the only other book of hers with a sapphic couple at the centre, and it is young adult.
What if none of these is quite right?
Tell us the book, not the trope. Our Books Like directory takes a title and routes you to the closest read-alike list we have — and if we have not written that one yet, it points you at the trope pages that get nearest and records what you searched for, so it gets built next.
Looking for read-alikes for a different book? Browse the full Books Like directory — search any sapphic title and we will point you at the closest match we have.