Rachel Runya Katz’s sapphic road trip through grief and Southern Jewish history has a five-star friendship at its heart and a romance readers say gets crowded out. Here’s what the evidence says.
Clare Lydon’s Christmas road trip strands two women in a Glasgow blizzard. Warm, funny and 4/5 on heat, but the mishaps repeat and the last act stalls. 3.6/5.
Verdict: A sunny, cosy fake-dating road trip: two van-life vloggers team up down the Oregon coast, and their followers start rooting for them before they admit anything themselves. Readers love the scenery, the dog and the realistic look at influencer life; the influencer angle and a quick family resolution kept others at three stars. Best … Read more
Updated on October 9, 2026 Verdict: A tender butch/butch novella about two women around fifty finally acting on years of pining, held back by a page count that stops just as the relationship starts and by rough language a vocal minority could not get past. Best for: Readers who have been waiting for older, working-class … Read more
Updated on October 9, 2026 Verdict: The founding novel of contemporary trans women’s fiction — funny, furious and more honest about the inside of a trans lesbian’s head than almost anything before it, undercut by a slack plot, a voice that grates on some readers and an ending built to frustrate. Best for: Readers who … Read more
Updated on October 5, 2026 Verdict: A warm, surprisingly explicit winter road trip that reunites two estranged best friends, held back by a slow first half and a central conflict that one honest conversation would have settled. Best for: Readers who want a low-angst, sex-positive sapphic road trip with real heat, and who can wait … Read more
Verdict: A Lambda-winning road-trip romance that handles a dying mentor and two women who ruined each other’s lives with real weight, undercut by a verbal tic almost every reader mentions. Best for: Readers who want a romcom that is actually about grief, enemies who were once best friends, and an ADHD and anxiety portrait that … Read more