Feature: Holiday Traditions, Queer Love, and What These Books Get Right

There’s something magical about a good holiday romance: the snow, the lights, the traditions that bring people together. But what makes the season even brighter is seeing queer love at the heart of those stories, authentic, warm, and unapologetically joyful. This winter, three books by Rachael Lippincott and Alyson Derrick deliver exactly that kind of sparkle: She Gets the Girl (not a holiday book but the first book before Joy to the Girls), Joy to the Girls, and Make My Wish Come True.

Together, they show how holiday settings can be more than cozy backdrops; they can become spaces of belonging, transformation, and celebration for queer characters who deserve every happy ending the season promises. And they’re all out now and ready for your holiday TBR!

Joy to the Girls (She Gets the Girl, #1.5)

by Rachael Lippincott, Alyson Derrick
Published by: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
on September 30, 2025
Genres: Contemporary Romance, LGBTQIA+, Romance, Young Adult
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Goodreads

For Alex and Molly, the last three years have felt like Christmas every day. So what better way to celebrate their final winter break of college than a romantic holiday getaway in a town right out of a Christmas-card?
Aside from sampling all the holiday cheer Barnwich has to offer, Alex and Molly have an important mission this weekend: to help their friend, Cora, get her crush to fall for her. But in between ice skating, snowball fights, and matchmaking schemes, it becomes obvious that both of them have another mission this weekend: to not reveal the huge secrets they’re each keeping from the other. Secrets about their post-college plans that just might threaten to tear them apart.
Will these two be able to help Cora get the girl and keep theirs—or will this be the last Christmas of Alex and Molly’s love story?

Familiar Traditions; Fresh Representation

Holiday romances are built on ritual, family dinners, hometown parades, snowball fights, or nights spent lighting candles. What Make My Wish Come True does so beautifully is take those beloved tropes and make space for queer joy within them. The story follows Hollywood actress Arden, who returns to her Christmas-obsessed hometown and fake-dates her ex-best friend, Caroline, for the holidays. Between cookie swaps and family Hanukkah parties, what begins as a favor turns into something real.

Rachel and Alyson have said they wanted to capture everything that makes a holiday rom-com special while centering lesbian characters. That simple shift changes everything. The traditions feel familiar, but the representation feels revolutionary.

In Joy to the Girls, Alex and Molly (the beloved couple from She Gets the Girl) take their relationship on a snowy getaway to a town straight out of a Christmas card. There are ice-skating dates, snowball fights, and a sprinkle of small-town chaos, but also real questions about identity, change, and how love evolves after college. The holidays amplify it all: the warmth, the wonder, and the tension of growing up together. And we love a good novella follow up to see what’s happening with our favs (looking at you, I’ll Be Home for Christmas by Mason Deaver

What makes these romances work isn’t just that they’re queer love stories; it’s that they thrive in their holiday worlds. In She Gets the Girl, we first meet Alex and Molly as college opposites: one confident and flirtatious, the other shy and overthinking everything. Their friendship-turned-romance feels earned, awkward in all the right ways. Joy to the Girls picks up their story later, as they navigate real-world transitions while surrounded by snow and twinkle lights. The setting mirrors their emotional landscape, beautiful but uncertain, full of both joy and change.

Meanwhile, Make My Wish Come True takes a familiar rom-com setup, fake dating during the holidays, and lets it unfold with depth and tenderness. Arden and Caroline’s reconnection isn’t just about holiday chemistry; it’s about confronting old wounds and redefining what family and love can look like. These are the kinds of romances that make you believe in second chances, snow-covered miracles, and the beauty of seeing yourself reflected in the love stories you read.

Setting is everything in these books. The snow-covered streets, candlelit dinners, and twinkle-light towns aren’t just decorations; they’re characters of their own. The covers say so! Barnwich, the holiday-obsessed town in Joy to the Girls, is equal parts charming and chaotic. The hometown in Make My Wish Come True practically smells like pine and sugar cookies. Even the college campus in She Gets the Girl sets the stage for the kind of growth that blooms into something bigger once winter rolls in. Holiday stories thrive on nostalgia, but in these books, the setting also creates safety. The coziness isn’t just about romance; it’s about belonging. These are spaces where queer love isn’t hidden in the margins; it’s celebrated under the glow of string lights and snowfall.

For so long, queer readers have been given tragedy when it comes to love stories, or at best, stories about struggle. What these three novels offer instead is joy. They remind us that queer love belongs in every genre, in every season, and especially in the moments of comfort and tradition that define the holidays. They’re not just cute holiday reads (though they are that, too). They’re stories about family, self-discovery, and what it means to be seen and loved exactly as you are, cocoa in hand, snow falling outside.