5 Sapphic Fantasy Books That Are Dark and Funny
5 Sapphic Fantasy Books That Get Dark but Still Make You Laugh
There’s something particularly good about a fantasy book that can make you genuinely nervous for its characters and then, three pages later, make you laugh at something they absolutely should not be joking about.
Darkness and humor work surprisingly well together. The danger gives the jokes an edge, while the humor makes the characters feel like people you actually want to spend hundreds of pages with. Add sapphic romance, morally questionable women, monsters, assassins, necromancers, and the occasional terrible decision, and you have a very specific kind of book that’s difficult to put down.
These five do it particularly well.
1. Demonic Reign by Devorah Leah Barrocas
Nyx is an assassin entering a series of deadly trials when she becomes tangled in something far larger than the competition she expected. Demons, angels, ancient powers, and secrets surrounding her own existence begin closing in, while the people she has reluctantly collected along the way become something dangerously close to family.
It gets dark. Nyx just happens to be very funny about it.
A lot of the humor in Demonic Reign lives inside Nyx’s head. Her internal commentary is sarcastic and occasionally wildly inappropriate considering what is happening around her. Her companion is just as quick-witted, and putting the two of them together only makes matters worse.
Then there’s her found family.
They argue, antagonize each other, make jokes when they probably shouldn’t, and somehow remain funny even as the circumstances around them become increasingly dangerous. That contrast is part of the charm. The comedy never makes the threats feel less serious. It makes you care more about the people facing them.
For readers who like sapphic dark fantasy with assassins, deadly trials, morally gray characters, strange creatures, angels and demons, and a found family incapable of behaving appropriately, this is a good place to start.
2. Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
If necromancy had a resident smartass, it would be Gideon Nav.
Gideon wants to escape the Ninth House and the woman she has spent most of her life fighting with, Harrowhark Nonagesimus. Instead, Harrow needs a cavalier and Gideon finds herself accompanying her to a mysterious competition involving the heirs of the Emperor’s Houses.
It doesn’t take long before the competition becomes something much stranger. There are locked rooms, ancient secrets, necromantic experiments, and bodies appearing where bodies really should not be appearing.
Meanwhile, Gideon remains Gideon.
Her narration is irreverent, immature in exactly the right places, and frequently at odds with the gothic nightmare happening around her. Her relationship with Harrow is equally entertaining. These are two women with years of resentment behind them, and neither has any interest in making the other’s life pleasant.
Tamsyn Muir lets the macabre and ridiculous sit comfortably beside each other. The result is a book about death that is somehow extremely alive.
3. The Ruthless Lady’s Guide to Wizardry by C.M. Waggoner
Dellaria Wells has fire magic, very little money, and absolutely no objection to lying when the situation calls for it.
So when she spots an opportunity to become part of a magical bodyguard detail protecting a wealthy young woman, she talks her way in. Unfortunately for Delly, the assassination attempts they’re supposed to prevent are not theoretical.
What follows is a fantasy mystery populated by witches, criminals, aristocrats, dangerous magic, and women with enough personality to make almost any interaction entertaining.
Delly is the reason it works. She’s clever without being particularly responsible, self-interested without becoming impossible to root for, and capable of talking herself both into and out of trouble. Her romance with a fellow bodyguard gives the story another source of warmth and humor without sanding down her less respectable qualities.
It’s a great choice for anyone who prefers their fantasy heroines a little dishonest.
4. This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Red and Blue are enemies.
Not metaphorically. They are elite agents working for opposing sides of a war stretching across centuries, realities, and alternate versions of history. Their job is to manipulate timelines and undo each other’s victories.
Then they start leaving each other letters.
At first, the messages are essentially elaborate taunts. Each woman wants the other to know exactly how cleverly she has ruined her plans. But rivalry becomes curiosity, curiosity becomes flirtation, and suddenly two people who should be destroying one another are risking everything to continue a conversation neither is supposed to be having.
This isn’t comedy in the same way as Gideon the Ninth. The pleasure is in the wit. Red and Blue are showing off for each other long before either is willing to admit that’s what they’re doing.
It’s romantic, strange, occasionally funny, and built around one of the most enjoyable possibilities in sapphic fiction: what if the woman ruining your life is also, unfortunately, fascinating?
5. A Pirate’s Life for Tea by Rebecca Thorne
After assassins, necromancers, and wars across time, we deserve pirates.
A Pirate’s Life for Tea is the lightest entry here, leaning much more toward cozy fantasy than the darker books above. But it earns its place through sheer sapphic chaos.
Kianthe and Reyna are searching for missing dragon eggs when they encounter Serina, a feared river pirate, and Bobbie, the constable determined to capture her. There is just one complication. Serina and Bobbie have history, and Kianthe and Reyna quickly become far too invested in it.
Pirates, dragons, magic, matchmaking, enemies-to-lovers tension, and some unapologetically terrible puns follow.
The danger is lighter and the comedy more overt, making this the book to pick up when you want the same combination of sapphic adventure and character banter without quite as much emotional destruction.
Why are funny characters so good in dark fantasy?
Maybe because nobody is funny only when things are going well.
There’s a particular intimacy in watching characters develop their own language with each other. The insults that aren’t really insults anymore. The joke made at exactly the wrong moment. The companion who knows precisely what to say to make an already terrible situation more annoying.
In a darker story, those moments matter.
They give you something worth protecting alongside the characters. You’re not simply waiting to find out whether everyone survives. You want these particular people to survive because you’ve spent enough time listening to them argue, flirt, complain, and make each other laugh that losing one of them would actually hurt.
And really, if you’re going to fight demons, necromancers, assassins, pirates, or an enemy spanning all of time, you may as well have someone funny beside you.