16 Top queer books like Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens

Cover of Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens

Briefly, A Delicious Life

By: Nell Stevens

3.77

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

A playful and daring tale about a teenage ghost who falls in love with the writer George Sand.In 14…

"I don't want to be alone, I said. I don't understand why I am here alone."

-Nell Stevens, Briefly, A Delicious Life

"I was tired. I had been conscious for three hundred and seventy-nine years."

-Nell Stevens, Briefly, A Delicious Life

"The world is full of cowards she thinks. And it turns out sometimes the opposite of cowardice is playfulness."

-Nell Stevens, Briefly, A Delicious Life

"(...) thought of all that could be done between two women in possession of bodies, what effects could be achieved with fingers and tongues."

-Nell Stevens, Briefly, A Delicious Life

If you liked the queer plot in Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens , here is a list of 16 books like this:

Cover of I Who Have Never Known Men by Ros Schwartz, Jacqueline Harpman

1. I Who Have Never Known Men

By: Ros Schwartz , Jacqueline Harpman

4.22

Format: 208 pages, Paperback

"As far back as I can recall, I have been in the bunker." A young woman is kept in a cage underg… read more

Similar categories in Ros Schwartz's I Who Have Never Known Men book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • literary fiction
  • fantasy
  • fiction
"Survival is never more than putting off the moment of death."

-Ros Schwartz, I Who Have Never Known Men

"I thought it was unfair, and then I understood that, alone and terrified, anger was my only weapon against the horror"

-Ros Schwartz, I Who Have Never Known Men

"Look at them. They’re pretending, they behave as though they still have some control over their lives and make momentous decisions about which vegetable to cook first."

-Ros Schwartz, I Who Have Never Known Men

"Only now, I tell myself that what I'd felt for her, the trust that slowly built up, the constant preference for her company and the joy each time I was reunited with her after an expedition were prob…"

-Ros Schwartz, I Who Have Never Known Men

Cover of Perfume & Pain by Anna  Dorn

2. Perfume & Pain

By: Anna Dorn

4.06

Format: 352 pages, Paperback

A controversial Los Angeles author attempts to revive her career and finally find true love in this… read more

Similar categories in Anna Dorn's Perfume & Pain book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • romance
  • lesbian
  • literary fiction
  • lgbt
  • fiction
  • queer
"I sit down wanting to write the great lesbian love story, but wacko bitches just keep coming out."

-Anna Dorn, Perfume & Pain

Cover of Rouge by Mona Awad

3. Rouge

By: Mona Awad

3.56

Format: 383 pages, Kindle Edition

From the critically acclaimed author of Bunny comes a horror-tinted, gothic fairy tale about a lone… read more

Similar categories in Mona Awad's Rouge book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • literary fiction
  • magical realism
  • fantasy
  • fiction
"If I had beauty, I decided then, I would never throw it away. I would never give it up."

-Mona Awad, Rouge

"I mean, we all have our dark days. Very dark days, sometimes. When our demons come out to play. No one lives entirely in the light, right?"

-Mona Awad, Rouge

"That I can’t protect you from my terrible places that I still go, can’t help but go because no one protected me, no one saved me, no one ever held out their hand and walked me away. But I’m trying to…"

-Mona Awad, Rouge

Cover of Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

4. Our Wives Under the Sea

By: Julia Armfield

3.78

Format: 240 pages, Paperback

Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep-sea mission that ende… read more

Similar categories in Julia Armfield's Our Wives Under the Sea book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • lesbian
  • literary fiction
  • lgbt
  • fiction
  • queer
"El océano profundo es una casa embrujada: un lugar donde se mueven en la oscuridad cosas que no deberían existir."

-Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea

"She refused almost every aspect of my help, the way women will when they've been bred to accept little more than the baset civility."

-Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea

"I don't know why I expected you to read my mind,' I say, when I call back to leave her a message, 'I was just doing what I always do, assuming the world revolves around me."

-Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea

"The space around us is a claw half grasped, holding tight without quite crushing, and I wish, in the idle way I always wish these days, that I felt more confident in my ability to breathe."

-Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea

Cover of My Husband by Maud Ventura

5. My Husband

By: Maud Ventura

3.68

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

In this suspenseful and darkly funny debut novel, a sophisticated French woman spends her life obse… read more

Similar categories in Maud Ventura's My Husband book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • romance
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
"When it comes to love, I’ve learned nothing: I love too intensely and I’m consumed by my own love (analysis, jealousy, doubt)—so much that when I’m in love, I always end up slightly extinguished and …"

-Maud Ventura, My Husband

Cover of Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval

6. Paradise Rot

By: Jenny Hval

3.55

Format: 160 pages, Paperback

A lyrical debut novel from a musician and artist renowned for her sharp sexual and political imager… read more

Similar categories in Jenny Hval's Paradise Rot book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • lesbian
  • literary fiction
  • magical realism
  • lgbt
  • fiction
  • fantasy
  • queer
"I took a bite of a Bloody Ploughman. Even the flesh was red. 'Bloody,' Carral said. 'Nice colour,' I answered. 'It looks sinful. I bet that was the apple Eve ate, you know, in the Bible, the forbidde…"

-Jenny Hval, Paradise Rot

"I'll tell you the fairy tale of the apple. Eve ate the apple, and then Adam came and did so too. Afterwards the apple was forgotten, and it was assumed that it rolled away in the grass while Adam and…"

-Jenny Hval, Paradise Rot

Cover of Penance by Eliza  Clark

7. Penance

By: Eliza Clark

3.90

Format: 336 pages, ebook

Do you know what happened already? Did you know her? Did you see it on the internet? Did you li… read more

Similar categories in Eliza Clark's Penance book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
"Do you know what happened to her already? Did you catch it in the papers? Are you local? Did you know her? Did you see it on the internet? Did some website the trawls local news for the worst details…"

-Eliza Clark, Penance

Cover of Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth

8. Motherthing

By: Ainslie Hogarth

3.67

Format: 288 pages, Paperback

A darkly funny domestic horror novel about a woman who must take drastic measures to save her husba… read more

Similar categories in Ainslie Hogarth's Motherthing book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • fiction
"Too much human touching will change a thing."

-Ainslie Hogarth, Motherthing

"A Good Woman butchers her meat properly, without cruelty."

-Ainslie Hogarth, Motherthing

"I can save you. With Secrets of a Famous Chef I can save you."

-Ainslie Hogarth, Motherthing

"I bubble again with blinding-hot, spine-severing cumshitkill."

-Ainslie Hogarth, Motherthing

Cover of Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors

9. Blue Sisters

By: Coco Mellors

4.21

Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

Three estranged siblings return to their family home in New York after their beloved sister's death… read more

Similar categories in Coco Mellors's Blue Sisters book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • literary fiction
  • queer
  • fiction
  • lgbt
"A sister is not a friend. Who can explain the urge to take a relationship as primal and complex as a sibling and reduce it to something as replaceable, as banal as a friend? Yet this status is used a…"

-Coco Mellors, Blue Sisters

Cover of Chlorine by Jade Song

10. Chlorine

By: Jade Song

3.72

Format: 256 pages, Hardcover

In the vein of The Pisces and The Vegetarian, Chlorine is a debut novel that blurs the line between… read more

Similar categories in Jade Song's Chlorine book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • lesbian
  • literary fiction
  • lgbt
  • fiction
  • fantasy
  • queer
"Nearly every human memory is corrupted by the fact that it is a memory of being human"

-Jade Song, Chlorine

"Would a mermaid who stays at home, much-loved, with two beautiful parents and loving sisters who share everything, be worth memorializing? No."

-Jade Song, Chlorine

"Humans break so easily. They break their bones, their bodies, their hearts. I, too, as a girl, once broke. My head. And when this happened, I, like many other humans, did not allow myself the time an…"

-Jade Song, Chlorine

Cover of Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda

11. Woman, Eating

By: Claire Kohda

3.46

Format: 240 pages, Hardcover

A young, mixed-race vampire must find a way to balance her deep-seated desire to live amongst human… read more

Similar categories in Claire Kohda's Woman, Eating book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • literary fiction
  • fantasy
  • fiction
"People---aging and mortal---are like flowers, seasonal, wilting and finite; while I'm like a tree."

-Claire Kohda, Woman, Eating

"I become aware of the duck blood circulating around my system; I can almost feel it, moving down my arms, reaching my fingertips, looping back up, searching for wings on my back."

-Claire Kohda, Woman, Eating

"there always seems to be something that suffers of dies as a result of any form of food consumption, and once all suffering is whittled out of a human's diet, they can't survive themselves."

-Claire Kohda, Woman, Eating

"The beginning of love, maybe, but not quite that either. The feeling that comes from being brought to almost-life by a person, of having tasted their blood, of feeling the rhythm of contractions, the…"

-Claire Kohda, Woman, Eating

Cover of I'm a Fan by Sheena Patel

12. I'm a Fan

By: Sheena Patel

3.32

Format: 207 pages, None

In I'm A Fan, a single speaker uses the story of their experience in a seemingly unequal, unfaithfu… read more

Similar categories in Sheena Patel's I'm a Fan book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • romance
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
"It is toxic. I am familiar"

-Sheena Patel, I'm a Fan

"Happiness or safety. Or isn't that the same thing?"

-Sheena Patel, I'm a Fan

"I never came with him. I never felt safe enough to."

-Sheena Patel, I'm a Fan

"The world is made for couples. Even the unhappy ones."

-Sheena Patel, I'm a Fan

Cover of Death Valley by Melissa Broder

13. Death Valley

By: Melissa Broder

3.49

Format: 240 pages, Hardcover

A woman arrives alone at a Best Western seeking respite from an emptiness that plagues her. She has… read more

Similar categories in Melissa Broder's Death Valley book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • literary fiction
  • magical realism
  • fantasy
  • fiction
"My body is the real problem here. If I could be bodiless - or at least, senseless - I’d be better off."

-Melissa Broder, Death Valley

"This is the problem with human relationships: you come to a person with one feeling and they’re having another."

-Melissa Broder, Death Valley

"I am going to die out here. I might. I could. Die. All this time I should have been practising for dying. What was I doing instead? Reading reviews for sweatpants."

-Melissa Broder, Death Valley

"Stop placing so much value on the known, I tell myself. Fake like this is the hero’s journey. It’s good to get lost. Good for the soul. But how lost is the good amount of lost? If I die here, is that…"

-Melissa Broder, Death Valley

Cover of Salt Slow by Julia Armfield

14. Salt Slow

By: Julia Armfield

3.99

Format: 193 pages, Hardcover

This collection of stories is about women and their experiences in society, about bodies and the bo… read more

Similar categories in Julia Armfield's Salt Slow book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • lesbian
  • literary fiction
  • magical realism
  • lgbt
  • fiction
  • fantasy
  • queer
"She was a gentle sort of horror,"

-Julia Armfield, Salt Slow

"The night is wide, uncurving, like the earth might be flat and walkable from end to distant end."

-Julia Armfield, Salt Slow

"Sleeping gave me time off from myself — a delicious sort of respite. Without it I grow overfamiliar, sticky with self-contempt."

-Julia Armfield, Salt Slow

"Occasionally, I convinced myself I had made it all up — love, attraction, all of it — that I had made it up with everyone I'd ever met."

-Julia Armfield, Salt Slow

Cover of Brutes by Dizz Tate

15. Brutes

By: Dizz Tate

3.18

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

The Virgin Suicides meets The Florida Project in this wildly original debut—a coming-of-age story a… read more

Similar categories in Dizz Tate's Brutes book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
"to be loved, was just to be watched"

-Dizz Tate, Brutes

"We feel chased. It doesn't matter if it's only by our own shadows."

-Dizz Tate, Brutes

"and now I think that to humiliate a woman is the only way some men know how to love one."

-Dizz Tate, Brutes

"To be loved was just to be watched, or in my case, to imagine you are loved is to imagine you are watched all the time."

-Dizz Tate, Brutes

Cover of Evenings and Weekends by Oisín McKenna

16. Evenings and Weekends

By: Oisín McKenna

3.96

Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

For fans of Sally Rooney and Torrey Peters, a taut and profoundly moving debut that follows a cast … read more

Similar categories in Oisín McKenna's Evenings and Weekends book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • literary fiction
  • queer
  • fiction
  • lgbt
Cover of Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth

17. Sunburn

By: Chloe Michelle Howarth

4.33

Format: 288 pages, Paperback

Selected as an Evening Standard 'one to watch in 2023' It's the early 1990s, and in the Irish vi… read more

Similar categories in Chloe Michelle Howarth's Sunburn book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • romance
  • lesbian
  • literary fiction
  • lgbt
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • queer
"It's a shame that you can't even come out to me."

-Chloe Michelle Howarth, Sunburn

"People say 'lesbian' sometimes, they say 'dyke' more."

-Chloe Michelle Howarth, Sunburn

"I hope your bed is warm and you sleep well. See you tomorrow, Lucy x"

-Chloe Michelle Howarth, Sunburn

"My heart lurches, as if it wants to leave my awful body and go make a home in her."

-Chloe Michelle Howarth, Sunburn

Cover of Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh

18. Cursed Bread

By: Sophie Mackintosh

3.28

Format: 184 pages, Kindle Edition

From the Man Booker-nominated author of The Water Cure comes an elegant and hypnotic new novel of o… read more

Similar categories in Sophie Mackintosh's Cursed Bread book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • historical
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
"Pain becomes an animal, walking at your side. Pain becomes a home you can carry with you."

-Sophie Mackintosh, Cursed Bread

"The world is only ever one breach away from being unpeeled entirely, one tragedy, one glimpse behind the curtain."

-Sophie Mackintosh, Cursed Bread

"I've been looked at in pity and in fear and I've learned that the only way to really be seen is through desire. To be looked at and found whole. Found alive."

-Sophie Mackintosh, Cursed Bread

"I don't want a book, I don't want the trouble of it, he said. I don't want to get involved, I just want to watch what's going on. I know what's going to happen and then it happens, and I can go outsi…"

-Sophie Mackintosh, Cursed Bread

Cover of A Good Happy Girl by Marissa Higgins

19. A Good Happy Girl

By: Marissa Higgins

3.01

Format: 256 pages, Hardcover

A poignant, surprising, and immersive read about a young professional woman pursuing an emotionally… read more

Similar categories in Marissa Higgins's A Good Happy Girl book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • romance
  • lesbian
  • literary fiction
  • lgbt
  • fiction
  • queer
Cover of Big Swiss by Jen Beagin

20. Big Swiss

By: Jen Beagin

3.68

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

Greta lives with her friend Sabine in an ancient Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, New York. The house is … read more

Similar categories in Jen Beagin's Big Swiss book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • romance
  • lesbian
  • literary fiction
  • lgbt
  • fiction
  • queer
"¿Habla más de un idioma?"

-Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

"You bullied other bullies,"

-Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

"she’d always been less of a shit-talker and more of a shit-thinker"

-Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

"At least I know where the hell I am and what’s happening. Which way is north?"

-Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

Cover of Patricia Wants to Cuddle by Samantha  Allen

21. Patricia Wants to Cuddle

By: Samantha Allen

3.56

Format: 256 pages, Hardcover

The contestants of a reality television dating show compete for love—and their lives—in this pulse-… read more

Similar categories in Samantha Allen's Patricia Wants to Cuddle book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • romance
  • lesbian
  • lgbt
  • fiction
  • fantasy
  • queer
Cover of Fruit of the Dead by Rachel  Lyon

22. Fruit of the Dead

By: Rachel Lyon

3.54

Format: 320 pages, Hardcover

An electric contemporary reimagining of the myth of Persephone and Demeter set over the course of o… read more

Similar categories in Rachel Lyon's Fruit of the Dead book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • literary fiction
  • fantasy
  • fiction
Cover of Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K. Reilly

23. Greta & Valdin

By: Rebecca K. Reilly

4.05

Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

An irresistible and bighearted international bestseller that follows a brother and sister as they n… read more

Similar categories in Rebecca K. Reilly's Greta & Valdin book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • romance
  • lesbian
  • literary fiction
  • lgbt
  • fiction
  • queer
"I wonder what plant I would be, if I were a plant. Maybe something with big leaves that droop sulkily if not provided with the exact right amount of water and light."

-Rebecca K. Reilly, Greta & Valdin

Cover of Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter

24. Ripe

By: Sarah Rose Etter

3.63

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

A year into her dream job at a cutthroat Silicon Valley startup, Cassie finds herself trapped in a … read more

Similar categories in Sarah Rose Etter's Ripe book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • literary fiction
  • magical realism
  • fantasy
  • fiction
"The open office floor plan is a form of strangulation."

-Sarah Rose Etter, Ripe

"Maybe there must always be two of us—our real selves and the ones we create to survive in the world as it is."

-Sarah Rose Etter, Ripe

"When you're young, every part of life seems big and monumental. Once older you can see it for what it is: smaller pieces of a larger game you have no choice but to play."

-Sarah Rose Etter, Ripe

"If the brain is elastic and memory is faulty, maybe all of these stories are wrong. Maybe it happened a different way altogether. Maybe I was happy and I just forget that now."

-Sarah Rose Etter, Ripe

Cover of Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens

25. Briefly, A Delicious Life

By: Nell Stevens

3.77

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

A playful and daring tale about a teenage ghost who falls in love with the writer George Sand.In 14… read more

Similar categories in Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • romance
  • lesbian
  • literary fiction
  • magical realism
  • lgbt
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • fantasy
  • queer
"I don't want to be alone, I said. I don't understand why I am here alone."

-Nell Stevens, Briefly, A Delicious Life

"I was tired. I had been conscious for three hundred and seventy-nine years."

-Nell Stevens, Briefly, A Delicious Life

"The world is full of cowards she thinks. And it turns out sometimes the opposite of cowardice is playfulness."

-Nell Stevens, Briefly, A Delicious Life

"(...) thought of all that could be done between two women in possession of bodies, what effects could be achieved with fingers and tongues."

-Nell Stevens, Briefly, A Delicious Life

Cover of Sirens & Muses by Antonia Angress

26. Sirens & Muses

By: Antonia Angress

3.94

Format: 368 pages, Hardcover

Four artists are drawn into a web of rivalry and desire at an elite art school and on the streets o… read more

Similar categories in Antonia Angress's Sirens & Muses book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • romance
  • lesbian
  • literary fiction
  • lgbt
  • fiction
  • queer
"It was finally April, and the dogwoods were in bloom, flowerbeds everywhere lurid with color."

-Antonia Angress, Sirens & Muses

"They sat there in silence, each avoiding the other's gaze, and Karina felt the moment slipping away from her. "I think--" she began. "I think that the people we become infatuated with are the ones wh…"

-Antonia Angress, Sirens & Muses

"I think it's easy, when...when you're neglecting your own happiness, to inadvertently neglect the happiness of the people you love. It's sort of like you think you're being selfless or self-sacrifici…"

-Antonia Angress, Sirens & Muses

Cover of La alegría del padre by Didí Gutiérrez

27. La alegría del padre

By: Didí Gutiérrez

3.81

Format: 224 pages, Paperback

«—¿Estás bien, mi amor? No pasa nada, ven —me protegió detrás de él. —Maté a alguien. —¿Qué dice… read more

Similar categories in Didí Gutiérrez's La alegría del padre book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

Cover of Mrs. S by K.    Patrick

28. Mrs. S

By: K. Patrick

3.63

Format: 240 pages, Kindle Edition

A sublime and sensual debut novel exploring the nature of queer love and attraction, the transforma… read more

Similar categories in K. Patrick's Mrs. S book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • romance
  • lesbian
  • literary fiction
  • lgbt
  • fiction
  • queer
"I live in hope it is her, I live in fear it is her, it is never her."

-K. Patrick, Mrs. S

Cover of Perlas de araña by Valentina Winocur

29. Perlas de araña

By: Valentina Winocur

4.15

Format: 208 pages, Paperback

La Nona y Catalina, abuela y nieta, tienen que huir a México a causa de la dictadura argentina. Las… read more

Similar categories in Valentina Winocur's Perlas de araña book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

Cover of Star Rats by Idalia Sautto

30. Star Rats

By: Idalia Sautto

3.78

Format: 224 pages, Paperback

None read more

Similar categories in Idalia Sautto's Star Rats book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

Cover of Private Rites by Julia Armfield

31. Private Rites

By: Julia Armfield

3.92

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

From the award-winning author of Our Wives Under the Sea, a speculative reimagining of King Lear, c… read more

Similar categories in Julia Armfield's Private Rites book and Nell Stevens's Briefly, A Delicious Life

  • lesbian
  • literary fiction
  • lgbt
  • fiction
  • queer
"To be misunderstood is one thing, but the curious hostility of a sibling's approach lies less in what they miss than in the strange backdated nature of the things they choose to know. A person can be…"

-Julia Armfield, Private Rites

28 best-selling fiction books like Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens

Transform Your Habits

I Who Have Never Known Men

Ros Schwartz , Jacqueline Harpman

4.22

Transform Your Habits

Perfume & Pain

Anna Dorn

4.06

Transform Your Habits

Rouge

Mona Awad

3.56

Transform Your Habits

Our Wives Under the Sea

Julia Armfield

3.78

View all the books

20 best-selling fiction books like Salt Slow by Julia Armfield

Transform Your Habits

Her Body and Other Parties: Stories

Carmen Maria Machado

3.84

Transform Your Habits

I Who Have Never Known Men

Ros Schwartz , Jacqueline Harpman

4.22

Transform Your Habits

Rouge

Mona Awad

3.56

Transform Your Habits

Bliss Montage

Ling Ma

3.91

View all the books

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