If you loved how Franny’s folded maps and Haskel’s art could open impossible doorways in Passing Strange, you’ll savor the way Hassan’s cartography literally redraws the world in The Bird King. Like the moment the lovers slip beyond the reach of 1940s San Francisco by turning art into refuge, Fatima and Hassan flee the fall of Granada by sketching passages that shouldn’t exist. It’s the same hush of wonder—magic that feels like a whispered secret between friends—wrapped around a moving, intimate bond.

If the small, close-knit circle in Passing Strange—Haskel, her lover, and their friends slipping through clubs like Mona’s and back rooms where every glance matters—was what gripped you, A Taste of Honey delivers that same intimacy. It narrows the lens to two people risking everything for love, trading the hidden corners of wartime San Francisco for a lush, quiet fantasy city where every stolen conversation echoes with consequence.

If you were drawn to the steel and ingenuity of the women in Passing Strange—from Haskel outwitting collectors with a painting’s secret to Helen Young lawyering loopholes for her community—The Empress of Salt and Fortune offers a similarly potent charge. Through whispered recollections and hidden artifacts, an exiled empress and her handmaiden bend an empire, much like the women of 1940s San Francisco bend fate, law, and art to protect their own.

If the vibrant, diasporic San Francisco of Passing Strange—its Chinatown ties, queer chosen family, and backroom bargains—spoke to you, Black Water Sister mirrors that energy in modern Penang. As Jess deals with a bossy ghost of her grandmother and a vengeful deity, she faces the same tangle of identity, obligation, and secrecy that Haskel and her friends knew all too well, where every choice reverberates through community and culture.

If the slow-blooming romance at the heart of Passing Strange—two women carving out a sanctuary amid nightclub stages and smoky apartments—stole your heart, you’ll adore the crackling chemistry here. Delly, a fire-wielding con artist, and Winn, a steadfast gentlewoman, fall for each other while guarding a target in a city bristling with enchantment, echoing the way love in Passing Strange grows brave in a perilous world.