By: Leah
Top Ten Tuesday used to be a weekly post hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, but was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl. “It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.” This is definitely something I can understand and want to participate in.
Originally posted on Leah’s Books.
Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, so today’s topic is a love freebie. However, I’ve never really been one to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Instead, I always try to get together with one of my single friends and celebrate what we have always called “Galentine’s Day.” It’s a time when we do something fun and relaxing together: either a nice dinner out, or as I’ve gotten older, it has tended to be a night in practicing self-care. In the last few years, that means spending an evening in my pajamas, putting on a mask and a good movie, and having a couple of drinks with another single woman.
So my love freebie this week is going to be about books that feature platonic or non-traditional romantic relationships. I’ll explain more about why I chose each book in the list. And here it is, in no particular order:
- Finlay Donovan is Killing It by Elle Cosimano. The relationship between Finlay and Vero is a wonderful thing to see, and it only deepens over the course of the series.
- Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree. It’s hard not to love this cozy fantasy, and the sapphic relationship between Viv and Tandri is nothing out of the ordinary in this queernormative world, where no one bats an eyelash at an orc and a succubus dating, either.
- The Combat Codes by Alexander Darwin. I know it seems weird to find this kind of book on a list like this, but there’s a really cool mentor/mentee relationship that develops between Murray, an old washed-up knight working as a talent scout, and Cego, a young fighter that he works hard to acquire and then mentor.
- Fractured by Karin Slaughter. Another strange choice, but the bond between law enforcement officers that work as partners has to be solid—they trust each other with their lives every day. The relationship between Georgia Bureau of Investigations Special Agents Will Trent and Faith Mitchell begins in book 2 of this series, and only grows stronger throughout the series. I love watching these two interact and learn how to work with each other.
- She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan. In this book, a girl steals the fate of her dead brother, abandoning her fate of becoming nothing. She lives her life as a man, and marries a woman, and the relationship between the two of them is a cool one to see mature and grow as they do and have to face shifting power dynamics.
- Belladonna by Adalyn Grace. While Signa does fall in love with a male character, it is anything but traditional. Her love is none other than Death himself. It makes for quite an interesting series.
- The 99 Boyfriends of Micah Summers by Adam Sass. This was such a cute, gender-bent take on Cinderella, so we get to see Micah search for his prince only to discover that it wasn’t who he expected it to be all along. I loved how adorable and gay this story was.
- Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher. I’m such a big fan of her work, especially after seeing how she subverted Sleeping Beauty and made it interesting and even centered the story around a growing relationship between Toadling, a human that was kidnapped to Faerieland and raised there after her birth, and Halim, a gentle and open-minded knight.
- The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker. I’ve been including this one on a lot of lists, but the friendship that grows between Chava and Ahmad is one that elevated this book from a good one to a great read.
- The Secret, Book, and Scone Society by Ellery Adams. This is the perfect Galentine’s Day read, since it features four women who become new friends. Over the course of this book, and then into the rest of the series, their friendship blossoms and deepens, and expands to include additional friends.
Functionally Fictional 
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