Home › Books Like… › Books Like Atmosphere
An astronomer, a mission specialist and a love nobody at NASA can know about.
18 verified books · all LRR reviewed · 15 L1–L3 · 1 explicit · 7 with a confirmed HEA or HFN
This page contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you.
Atmosphere is a love story between two women in NASA’s 1980s astronaut corps, Joan Goodwin and Vanessa Ford, who cannot afford to be caught. It is closed-door, deeply emotional, and happy at the end.
The books below share at least two of its qualities: women in science or space, a love that has to stay hidden in a 20th-century setting, a career on the line, or the big-hearted, crossover feel of Taylor Jenkins Reid. Each card says what it shares, how it differs, and what the heat and ending are. If you came for Reid’s other sapphic novel, see Books Like The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.
Quick answer
Read next: Last Night at the Telegraph Club for a hidden mid-century love with a heroine who dreams of rockets, The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics for an astronomer’s romance with a happy ending, Desert of the Heart for two grown women in a hostile era, and Those Who Wait if you want the closeted-career tension with much more heat.
| Label | What it means on LRR |
|---|---|
| Romance role | Central, major or secondary: how much of the book the relationship is. |
| Science and space | Astronomy, space programmes, starships or a science career. |
| Hidden love | A relationship that must stay secret because of the era or a job. |
| Ending | HEA or HFN only when our review confirms it. |
Start Here: 8 Books Like Atmosphere
A 1950s girl who dreams of rockets, a Regency astronomer, two women in late-1950s Reno, a 1980s workplace love, a love story about one-way space missions, a closeted politician, a starship captain who runs a donut shop, and a woman lost from the 1970s.
First row: what it shares with Atmosphere, the ending and the heat. Second row: romance role and setting.
Every card names its source: our review, an LRR guide, or the publisher and reader-database record we checked.
Heat and endings appear only when a source confirms them.
Last Night at the Telegraph Club
Malinda Lo
In 1954 San Francisco, seventeen-year-old Lily Hu, who wants to work on rockets, falls for her classmate Kath and finds a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club.
Why start here: The closest match in spirit: a love that has to stay hidden in mid-century America, and a heroine whose head is already in space.
How it differs: young adult, and the ending is open rather than happy. Content: homophobia, racism, deportation threat, a police raid.
The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics
Olivia Waite
Astronomer Lucy Muchelney translates a French astronomy text for the widowed Countess of Moth, and the two fall in love.
Why start here: Joan Goodwin is an astronomer too: this is the same pleasure of watching a brilliant woman do science while falling in love, with a happy ending.
How it differs: Regency rather than 1980s, and a warmer, lower-stakes story. Content: grief, sexism in academia.
Desert of the Heart
Jane Rule
A divorcing English professor falls for a casino worker fifteen years younger in late-1950s Reno.
Why start here: Two adult women thinking through a love their era punishes, written with the same seriousness Atmosphere brings to Joan and Vanessa.
How it differs: talky and literary, with no workplace stakes. Content: suicide attempt, homophobia, addiction, death of a child.
Returns and Exchanges
Kayla Rae Whitaker
A married co-owner of a Kentucky discount chain falls for one of her employees, inside a family saga that runs from 1979 to 2015.
Why start here: The same decade and the same problem: a woman who loves another woman at work, when being found out would cost her everything.
How it differs: a family saga first; the romance is one major thread. Content: homophobia, child death, child abuse.
The Weight of the Stars
K. Ancrum
A butch teen caretaker falls for a loner whose mother left on a one-way space mission.
Why start here: Space as a place that takes people away, and a love story that has to reckon with it. Readers finish it in tears, as they do Atmosphere.
How it differs: young adult, butch/butch, and bittersweet rather than happy. Content: sexual assault, bullying, parental abandonment, grief.
Those Who Wait
Haley Cass
A grad student and a closeted deputy mayor go from friends to lovers while keeping it secret for the sake of a political career.
Why start here: A woman whose job depends on nobody knowing, and a partner who has to decide how long she can wait.
How it differs: contemporary, much spicier and a lot longer. Content: secret relationship, coming out, explicit sex.
Light From Uncommon Stars
Ryka Aoki
A cursed violin teacher falls slowly for an alien starship captain who runs a donut shop.
Why start here: Stars, starships and two grown women courting carefully. It shares Atmosphere’s warmth and its found family.
How it differs: genre-blending SFF, with music and demons, not history. Content: transphobia, child abuse, sexual assault, self-harm.
One Last Stop
Casey McQuiston
A cynical twenty-three-year-old falls for a punk who has been stuck on the Q train since the 1970s.
Why start here: The other big crossover sapphic hit readers pair with Taylor Jenkins Reid: a love story with a lost decade at its heart.
How it differs: a funny contemporary rom-com with a time-slip, not a period drama. Content: homophobia, grief, a hate crime, fire injury.
Science, Space and the Stars
Women whose work or dreams point upward: astronomers, scientists and starship captains.
The Space Between Worlds
Micaiah Johnson
A traveller between parallel worlds falls for the watcher who sends her out, across a city wall that divides rich from poor.
Why it fits: Dangerous, high-stakes work in a scientific programme, and a slow-burn love between two women doing it.
How it differs: a multiverse thriller, not historical fiction. Content: intimate-partner abuse, violence, murder, implied rape.
Evidence: LRR review
“Tropes: Slow burn, class difference, workplace proximity, bisexual Black heroine, multiverse travel, survivor guilt, ex-lover as antagonist, first-person POV,” Source → Heat: LRR review. Ending: not confirmed by a source.
The Mimicking of Known Successes
Malka Older
An investigator and a scholar, former lovers, work a missing-person case on the rings around Jupiter.
Why it fits: Two clever women, a scientific project to save humanity, and a love that rekindles slowly.
How it differs: a cozy Holmes-style mystery with formal prose. Content: disappearance, climate collapse, peril.
Evidence: LRR review
“Tropes: Sapphic Sherlock Holmes, former lovers as detective partners, second chance, slow burn, cozy mystery, missing person case, academic setting, space col” Source → Heat: LRR review. Ending: LRR review.
From Fan to Forever
Tiana Warner
A medical-physics student ends up dating the A-list actress she has had a crush on for years.
Why it fits: A heroine with a science career, and a relationship conducted under the glare of public attention.
How it differs: light, contemporary wish fulfilment. Content: homophobia, biphobia, outing, a toxic ex.
Evidence: LRR review
“Tropes: Celebrity/fan, famous/non-famous, age gap, insta-attraction, workplace (science consultant), bisexual heroine, paparazzi, HEA.” Source → Heat: LRR review. Ending: LRR review.
Also on this shelf: Last Night at the Telegraph Club, The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics, The Weight of the Stars, Light From Uncommon Stars.
Hidden Love in the 20th Century
A love story the decade will not allow, from the 1950s to the 1980s.
Carol (The Price of Salt)
Patricia Highsmith
A nineteen-year-old shopgirl falls for Carol Aird, a woman in her thirties in the middle of a divorce.
Why it fits: The classic of loving a woman when the world is watching, and of what it costs to choose her.
How it differs: quieter and more passive than Joan’s story, with an open ending. Content: homophobia, surveillance, a custody threat, suicidal ideation.
Evidence: LRR review
“Tropes: Age difference, class difference, queer awakening, secret relationship, road trip, Christmas meeting, cold heroine, shy heroine, forbidden love, hopef” Source → Heat: LRR review. Ending: LRR review.
The Wife Next Door
Helena C. Blanche
Two neighbouring wives in 1950s suburbia fall into a forbidden love.
Why it fits: Coded desire under a pastel surface, and two women who risk their whole lives for each other.
How it differs: domestic rather than workplace, and no science. Content: repression, unhappy marriages, era-typical prejudice.
Evidence: LRR review
“Tropes: 1950s suburbia · forbidden love · married women · neighbors · slow burn · standalone” Source → Heat: LRR review. Ending: not confirmed by a source.
Big London Dreams
Clare Lydon
Two young women fall in love in late-1950s London, are torn apart by the times and meet again sixty years later.
Why it fits: Atmosphere’s frame story looks back across decades at a hidden love; this one does the same, and readers call it Lydon’s most emotional book.
How it differs: London, and the heart of it is the long separation. Content: period homophobia, forced separation, death of a parent.
Evidence: LRR review
“Tropes: Second chance, first love, forbidden love, dual timeline, historical, older leads.” Source → Heat: LRR review. Ending: LRR review.
Getting Back
Cindy Rizzo
A publishing CEO meets the college girlfriend who left her thirty years earlier to marry the man her father chose.
Why it fits: A love story told across a span of years, between two accomplished women, with history pressing on both of them.
How it differs: slow and heavy on backstory, and readers argue about the heroine. Content: family pressure to marry, homophobia, 9/11.
Evidence: LRR review
“Tropes: Second chance, first love, college reunion, dual timeline, forced marriage in the past, older heroines, historical backdrop.” Source → Heat: LRR review. Ending: LRR review.
Also on this shelf: Last Night at the Telegraph Club, Desert of the Heart, Returns and Exchanges.
Careers on the Line
Women who must keep their love hidden to keep their jobs, or who meet at work.
Cover Story
Celia Laskey
In 2005, a grieving lesbian publicist is told to keep a rising gay actress in the closet, and falls for her on the press tour.
Why it fits: The job is to stay hidden: the same pressure that shapes Joan and Vanessa, moved to Hollywood.
How it differs: heavier and more divisive, set in the 2000s. Content: death, grief, outing, rape.
Evidence: LRR review
“Tropes: Closeted celebrity, forbidden workplace romance, grief, second chance at love, press tour, early-2000s setting.” Source → Heat: LRR review. Ending: not confirmed by a source.
Something to Talk About
Meryl Wilsner
A Hollywood showrunner and her assistant are rumoured to be dating, and the rumour starts to come true.
Why it fits: A slow burn between two women at work, where being seen together has consequences for a career.
How it differs: contemporary, with a boss–assistant power gap. Content: workplace harassment, misogyny, tabloid intrusion.
Evidence: LRR review
“Tropes: Boss and assistant, slow burn, age gap, workplace romance, an accidental fake-dating rumour, forced proximity, dual POV, found family, celebrity setti” Source → Heat: LRR review. Ending: LRR review.
Flight to the Horizon
Julie Tizard
After an emergency water landing, an airline captain falls for a flight attendant hiding from her abusive ex.
Why it fits: Written by a real pilot: competent women in flight, and a crisis in the air.
How it differs: contemporary action-romance with a domestic-abuse plot. Content: domestic abuse, plane crash, peril.
Evidence: LRR review
“Tropes: Workplace (airline crew), survival, single mom, domestic abuse escape, forced proximity, instalove.” Source → Heat: LRR review. Ending: not confirmed by a source.
Also on this shelf: Those Who Wait, Returns and Exchanges.
How We Chose These Books
Every book here has a full LRR review. We started from our catalogue and kept books that share at least two of Atmosphere’s defining qualities: women in science or space, a love that must stay hidden in a 20th-century setting, a career at stake, a big emotional arc, or a crossover, book-club feel. Each card says what it shares and how it differs.
Atmosphere itself is closed door (L2). Several matches are hotter, and one is explicit, so read the heat line. Heat uses the LRR scale and comes from our review; where our sources disagree, the card says the heat is disputed. Endings appear only when our review confirms them.
Complete Collection
All 18 verified books, each listed once. Tap a filter to narrow the table.
18 of 18 books shown
| Book | Why it fits | Heat | Ending | LRR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Big London Dreams Clare Lydon | Love the era would not allow, A love across decades, Big emotion, Romance: central, Late-1950s and present-day London | Heat not rated | Reunited in the present | Review |
| Carol (The Price of Salt) Patricia Highsmith | 1950s secrecy, Everything at stake, An older, assured woman, Romance: central, 1950s Manhattan and the road west | L1 · Kisses | Reunion, open ending | Review |
| Cover Story Celia Laskey | Closeted for the job, A forbidden work romance, Grief, Romance: central, Hollywood, 2005 | L2 · Low | Ending unverified | Review |
| Desert of the Heart Jane Rule | A love the era will not allow, Two grown women, Careful, adult intimacy, Romance: central, Late-1950s Reno | L2 · Understated | Hopeful, open ending | Review |
| Flight to the Horizon Julie Tizard | Women in a cockpit, Life-or-death competence, A disaster survived, Romance: central, Commercial aviation, Hawaii and the Pacific | L2 · Low | Ending unverified | Review |
| From Fan to Forever Tiana Warner | A physics student, Stars in her eyes, Public scrutiny, Romance: central, Vancouver and Hollywood | L3 · Open door | HEA | Review |
| Getting Back Cindy Rizzo | First love in the 1970s, A love across decades, Career women, Romance: central, 2008, and a women’s college in the late 1970s | Heat not rated | Happy ending | Review |
| The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics Olivia Waite | A woman astronomer, Science as a calling, Slow-building desire, Romance: central, Regency England | L3 · Open door | HEA | Review |
| Last Night at the Telegraph Club Malinda Lo | Hidden love in a hostile era, A girl who dreams of rockets, Slow first love, Romance: central, 1954 San Francisco | L2 · Closed door | Bittersweet, open | Review |
| Light From Uncommon Stars Ryka Aoki | Starships and the stars, A slow adult courtship, Found family, Romance: major, San Gabriel Valley, California | L2 · Closed door | Happy ending | Review |
| The Mimicking of Known Successes Malka Older | Science and scholarship, Former lovers, Life beyond Earth, Romance: major, Human settlements on Jupiter | L1 · Kisses | Case resolves; romance continues | Review |
| One Last Stop Casey McQuiston | A woman out of the 1970s, Big-hearted crossover hit, Found family, Romance: central, Brooklyn, with a 1970s past | L3 · Open door | HEA | Review |
| Returns and Exchanges Kayla Rae Whitaker | 1980s setting, Forbidden love at work, Big family saga, Romance: major, Louisville, 1979–2015 | Heat disputed (L1 or L2) | Ending unverified | Review |
| Something to Talk About Meryl Wilsner | A powerful career woman, Workplace slow burn, Public scrutiny, Romance: central, Contemporary Los Angeles | L3 · Open door | HEA | Review |
| The Space Between Worlds Micaiah Johnson | Science-fiction stakes, Women doing dangerous work, Slow burn, Romance: major, Wiley City and 380 parallel Earths | L1 · Kisses | Ending unverified | Review |
| Those Who Wait Haley Cass | A closeted career woman, A secret relationship, Friends to lovers, Romance: central, Contemporary D.C. and New York | L4 · Explicit | HEA | Review |
| The Weight of the Stars K. Ancrum | One-way space missions, Love against the clock, Grief, Romance: central, Near-future small town | L1 · Sweet | Bittersweet | Review |
| The Wife Next Door Helena C. Blanche | Mid-century secrecy, Two women next door, Social risk, Romance: central, 1950s suburban America | L3 · Sensual | Ending unverified | Review |
Checked and Not Included
Checked and not included
- The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo: Reid’s other sapphic novel has its own read-alike guide.
- Moss’d in Space: a fun space adventure, but the romance stays in the background and the book ends on a cliffhanger.
- Space and science-fiction books where the sapphic relationship is minor (on our sci-fi guides).
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Atmosphere a sapphic romance?
Yes. The central love story is between Joan Goodwin and Vanessa Ford, and our review confirms a happy ending. It is closed door (L2).
Are there other sapphic books about astronauts?
Very few with a full LRR review. The closest are <em>The Weight of the Stars</em> (one-way space missions), <em>Light From Uncommon Stars</em> (a starship captain) and <em>Last Night at the Telegraph Club</em> (a girl who dreams of rockets).
Which of these have a happy ending?
Use the HEA/HFN filter. Several of the period books, including <em>Carol</em> and <em>Desert of the Heart</em>, end open or bittersweet, and the cards say so.
Are any of these spicier than Atmosphere?
Yes. <em>Those Who Wait</em> is explicit (L4), and several are open door (L3). The heat line on every card is from our review.
How many books are on this page?
18 verified books, every one with a full LRR review. 7 have a confirmed HEA or HFN.
Affiliate links: we may earn a commission at no cost to you. Checked October 2026.