Sapphic Winter Romances With a Strong Sense of Place
Short answer: For sapphic holiday romances where the setting is a character, go to Sweden with A Swedish Christmas Fairy Tale (Amanda Radley), the Scottish Highlands with The Highland Hideaway (Sally Brooks), Glasgow-to-Devon with The Christmas Catch (Clare Lydon), a Minnesota blizzard with I Will Always Love You (Maybe) (Dana Hawkins) and Washington, D.C.'s Smithsonian with How to Excavate a Heart (Jake Maia Arlow).
Generic snow is easy to write. A specific place is harder: the smell of a Highland hotel bar when the storm comes in off the North Sea, the particular grey of a Devon motorway services at 4 p.m. in December, the silence of a Swedish village after the last train. The books below are rooted somewhere real, and the romance grows out of the ground.
Every title links to its full review entry on Lesbian Romance Reads, with heat level, content notes and where to buy. The backlist titles live on the Lesbian Romance Reads holiday hub; the 2026 releases are on the 2026 sapphic holiday release tracker.
Scandinavia and the North
A Swedish Christmas Fairy Tale
Amanda Radley · 2018 · Heartsome · 298 pages
A London publishing employee is sent to Sweden with one job: win the rights to a famous fairy-tale collection from its reclusive heir. The trip runs into Christmas, and she stays. Radley keeps everything quiet and slow. Snow, candlelight, a small Swedish community and two people who take their time. The romance is closed-door, and the neurodivergent lead is written as a person, not a lesson.
Read it if: you want a hygge Christmas with no big angst spikes.
Read the review on Lesbian Romance Reads →
Ash and Amber
Eline Evans · 1 November 2026 · Self-published · Standalone
Selma Selander runs the toyshop she inherited from her father in the small town of Norstad, and she has decided the kind of love she wants isn't coming. As the Christmas rush starts, her uncle gives her an ancient, masterfully made doll. The next day a frightened stranger called Lilja walks in asking for a job. What follows is a sapphic retelling of The Nutcracker and The Snow Queen, with a quest that begins on Christmas night and Nordic folklore underneath it.
Read it if: you want your Christmas romance with fairy-tale magic and a winter quest.
Read the review on Lesbian Romance Reads →Britain
The Highland Hideaway
Sally Brooks · October 2026 · Ackroyd Publishing · Wanderlust Series, Book 2
Hannah Castle never hated Lottie Duvall at university. She just didn't like her: Lottie had money and confidence, and Hannah had to work for everything. Twenty years later Hannah is a divorced, take-no-prisoners broadcast journalist who has just broken the story of her life and run to a Highland hotel where nobody knows her. Lottie is behind the bar. Then the storm comes in, and nobody is leaving.
Read it if: you like old class resentment, grown-up leads and a snowed-in hotel doing the work.
Read the review on Lesbian Romance Reads →
The Christmas Catch
Clare Lydon · 2022 · Custard
Two childhood friends have to get from Glasgow to Devon to make it home for Christmas, and the whole length of Britain in winter sits between them. They share beds along the way. Lydon gets the texture of a December road trip right, the weather and the service stations and the long dark afternoons, and the friends-to-lovers turn has real heat once it arrives.
Read it if: you've ever been stuck travelling home for the holidays.
Read the review on Lesbian Romance Reads →
Mangos and Mistletoe
Adriana Herrera · 2019 · Novella
Two Dominican bakers meet in a holiday baking competition in Scotland. Herrera brings Bake Off energy to a Scottish winter with Caribbean flavour, so the setting works twice: the cold place they are and the warm place they carry with them. It's a novella, so the romance moves fast and lands clean.
Read it if: you want a one-sitting holiday read with food at the centre.
Read the full review on Lesbian Romance Reads →
Make You Mine This Christmas
Lizzie Huxley-Jones · 2022
A fake-dating scheme ends up at a countryside family Christmas in a British village, which is exactly where a fake relationship gets tested: the relatives, the traditions and the close quarters. Huxley-Jones writes the village Christmas from the inside.
Read it if: fake dating is your favourite trope and you like a crowded house.
Read the full review on Lesbian Romance Reads →
The Christmas Elf
Emily Banting · October 2026
Lucie loses her job, goes home to Winterbourne and takes a seasonal job as an elf at the hall. Frances runs the trust that owns it, is under pressure to deliver a flawless festive season and is caring for her mother at the same time. The distance between an elf on a zero-hours contract and the granddaughter of a marquess is built into the setting, and the book uses it.
Read it if: you like workplace romance with a real power and class gap.
Read the review on Lesbian Romance Reads →North America
I Will Always Love You (Maybe)
Dana Hawkins · 2026
Six years after her wife died, Colby lives alone in a cabin with her dog. A house call from Josie, a chaotic pink-haired vet tech, turns into a one-night stand, and then a blizzard closes the roads for a week. The forced proximity doesn't need an invented excuse. It's Minnesota in winter. Grief sits beside the romance without swallowing it.
Read it if: you want a grieving heroine, a chaotic one and a cabin with nowhere to go.
Read the full review on Lesbian Romance Reads →
Hearthside Holidays
Maris Calloway · 2026
Harper Reed is a celebrity interior designer with a carefully curated public image, and the last place she wants to be is Evergreen Falls, Vermont. Then her grandmother's inn faces closure, and she has to come home for the holidays and take on the renovation with her first love. A failing family business, a small town that remembers her, and a deadline.
Read it if: you love second-chance romance and a fixer-upper with stakes.
Read the review on Lesbian Romance Reads →
Pining for You
Stef Ferrari · 2026 · YA
Bennie runs her family's Connecticut Christmas tree farm and is the town's designated holiday enthusiast. She meets Eve, a girl visiting from Brooklyn, and lets her leave without getting her number. Then she crosses New York City in a snowstorm to find her. Two settings in one book: a small-town tree farm and the city at its most chaotic.
Read it if: you want a sweet YA holiday story with a big romantic search.
Read the review on Lesbian Romance Reads →
How to Excavate a Heart
Jake Maia Arlow · 2022 · YA
A winter-break internship at the Smithsonian puts the behind-the-scenes life of a museum at the centre of the story, and Washington, D.C. in December is more than a backdrop. The romance builds over the break and comes to a head in a Christmas Eve snowstorm. Closed door, warm and clever.
Read it if: you like nerdy heroines and a setting you can learn something from.
Read the review on Lesbian Romance Reads →
Year of the Kiss
Giselle Fox · 2018 · Short read
One magical New Year's Eve in Boston. Two women meet, get separated in the crowd, and one of them goes looking. The whole story runs on a single night and a single city, which makes it a good pick for the gap between Christmas and New Year when you only have an evening.
Read it if: you want a short, romantic read for 31 December.
Read the review on Lesbian Romance Reads →
Jingle Bell Hops
Kat Paige · December 2026
A brewery called Mistletoe & Malt in Frosty Pines, Montana, and a heroine who arrives broke and out of work. Small-town Montana in December, with craft beer in place of cocoa and a business that needs saving as much as anyone's heart does.
Read it if: you want small-town cosy with a working setting.
Read the review on Lesbian Romance Reads →Quick picks by place
| Place | Book | Heat |
|---|---|---|
| Sweden | A Swedish Christmas Fairy Tale | Fade to black |
| Nordic town (fantasy) | Ash and Amber | Not yet rated |
| Scottish Highlands | The Highland Hideaway | Steamy |
| Glasgow → Devon | The Christmas Catch | 4/5 explicit |
| Scotland | Mangos and Mistletoe | See review |
| English village | Make You Mine This Christmas | See review |
| English stately home | The Christmas Elf | See review |
| Minnesota | I Will Always Love You (Maybe) | Open door |
| Vermont | Hearthside Holidays | Not yet rated |
| Connecticut → NYC | Pining for You | YA |
| Washington, D.C. | How to Excavate a Heart | Closed door |
| Boston, NYE | Year of the Kiss | Not rated |
| Montana | Jingle Bell Hops | Not yet rated |
Reading by place
A good place-led romance tells you something you couldn't get from a postcard: how locals talk, what the weather does to plans, what a town does at Christmas that no other town does. If you want to travel by book this winter, pick one setting you know and one you don't.
More snowbound settings, including blizzard-sealed lodges, are on the Christmas mysteries and winter thrillers list. The sapphic holiday favorites page covers the backlist titles above in full.
Full reviews, heat levels and content notes
Every book on this list is reviewed at Lesbian Romance Reads
Browse the holiday reading guide →FAQ
Is there a sapphic Christmas romance set in Scotland?
Yes: The Highland Hideaway by Sally Brooks (October 2026) and Mangos and Mistletoe by Adriana Herrera (2019).
What sapphic holiday book is set in Scandinavia?
A Swedish Christmas Fairy Tale by Amanda Radley, and the Nordic-folklore fantasy Ash and Amber by Eline Evans.
Which sapphic winter romance is snowed in?
I Will Always Love You (Maybe) by Dana Hawkins (a Minnesota cabin, roads closed for a week) and The Highland Hideaway (a Highland hotel in a storm).
Is there a YA sapphic Christmas book with a strong setting?
Pining for You by Stef Ferrari (Connecticut and New York City) and How to Excavate a Heart by Jake Maia Arlow (the Smithsonian in D.C.).
Where can I browse sapphic romance by setting?
Eikna lets you explore sapphic romance by mood and setting. The Eikna Editorial Team publishes setting-led lists at WLW Romance Books.
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