There is nothing wrong with YA, I love YA. And I'm also aware that a lot of fantasy written by women gets shunted into YA even when it shouldn't be because it's seen as less "adult" than fantasy novels targeted at men. I know, but please hear me out.
If I have to read about one more freaking teenager or barely 20 something I'm going to loose my mind.
I want to read compelling stories set in interesting settings about actual adults, ideally queer adults, going on cool adventures or solving tricky problems. As examples of this I've absolutely devoured all of T. Kingfishers fantasy novels aimed at adults (the Paladin's Grace series in particular💜💜💜) and I've been reading some of K J Charles books recently. I also really enjoyed books like Hungerstone and The Stone Witch of Florence.
Does anyone have any suggestions? Books written by queer authors get extra bonus points
by abeautifulfallday
5 Comments
The Golden Terrace is the English translation of the Chinese popular webnovel 《黄金台》 and I think that fits the bill! It’s an arranged marriage, rivals to lovers, political conspiracy, historical adventure.
Voyage Of The Damned by Francis White
Discworld is an AMAZING fantasy series following older adults. There are a few YA books in the series but that’s 5 out of 40+; multiple subseries following different protagonists/groups
While only a few characters are explicitly queer, the world itself and most of the characters read queer to me. It’s an excellent series and one of my favorites of all time
*The Steel Remains*, by Richard Morgan
Not historical, but the Cemeteries of Amalo series by Katherine Addison (first book is Witness for the Dead) is a good fantasy mystery series whose main character is a gay man.