There’s something magical about reading when the world goes quiet — when your heart feels wide open, and the only thing you need is a story to get lost in.
If you’ve been craving fiction that feels like a warm bath for your soul (or a little red wine in literary form), this one’s for you.
These seven stories, all written and published by Lee on Wattpad, are full of emotion, mood, and magic. From poetic slow burns to mysterious thrillers and soft, intimate reflections, they’re made for readers who want to feel every page.
After catching her fiancé cheating, a pregnant hotel critic escapes to a wild, cliffside guesthouse run by a former flamenco dancer and her fiercely loyal chosen family—queer women who once defied a dictatorship with rhythm, rebellion, and love. Grilled sardines, old secrets, sunset dances, and one unforgettable summer await. → Found family. Flamenco at golden hour. A birth, a death, and the fierce joy in between.
Selena travels to Thailand to recover from tragedy. What she finds instead is a strange stillness, a kind caretaker named Than, and a love story told more through silence than words. But in a hospital where time slips and memories shift, reality begins to unravel. → A poetic, dreamlike story of grief, healing, and unspoken love. Content warning: themes of loss, medical trauma, and emotional complexity.
A tender collection of poems about soft love, brown skin in golden light, late-night longing, and the sweetness of staying—even when it hurts. → For lovers of softness, slowness, and skin-warmed poetry.
Poetry for the ones who fell quietly, loved almost, and remember too much. Every page is a soft ache—a hallway glance, a missed moment, a memory you can’t let go. → Gentle, sad, and beautifully intimate.
Hana wakes up missing a tattoo—and the memories tied to it. As the ink reappears, so do fragments of a buried secret she swore to forget. But some marks aren’t meant to fade… and someone else wants the truth hidden again. → A sharp, atmospheric mystery with memory, magic, and a supernatural twist.
What starts as a craving for snacks turns into a chaotic, hilarious trip through space—complete with talking fruit, emotional frogs, and goodbye wrapped in glitter and weirdness. → Whimsical, trippy, unexpectedly tender. Feels like crying from laughter and love at the same time.
There’s no record of Room 404—but Nawin gets assigned there anyway. He wants quiet. What he gets is Top: cocky, half-naked, and always in his way. Tension turns electric. Arguments get too quiet. And soon, the line between hate and want blurs into something neither of them expected. → A steamy, slow-burn roommate romance set in a room that doesn’t follow the rules—and neither do they.
💻 Read them all by searching BeautyLeeBar on Wattpad
🕯️ Set the Scene: Your Cozy, Luxe Reading Ritual
Reading isn’t just something you do — it’s an entire aesthetic. Here’s how to create your own sacred reading space, BeautyLeeBar style:
Layered Lighting: Golden glows from taper candles, fairy lights, or a vintage lamp.
Signature Scent: Burn a soft woodsy candle or mist your space with rosewater and vanilla.
Mood Pairing: Sip matcha, pour red wine, or curl up with chamomile and chocolate.
Soundtrack: Lo-fi jazz. Rainy nights playlist. Absolute silence — your rules, your ritual.
💬 Bonus Chapter: Join The Chapter Lounge
Looking for a soft place to land between books? Come join The Chapter Lounge — an intimate, cozy-positive community hosted on the @BeautyLeeBar Instagram Channel.
Created for readers, writers, and creatives who feel most at home in quiet corners, this space is all about connection without pressure. Whether you’re curled up with a new read, scribbling lines of poetry at midnight, or just craving good energy—this is your circle.
✨ Expect:
Thoughtful book recs
Gentle writer check-ins
Soft storytelling and creative convos
Emotional support and cozy vibes only
Come as you are. Stay as long as you need. This is a little corner of the internet where art, emotion, and community meet—with blankets, not spotlights.
📖 Love poetry? You’ll find more pieces by Lee on Instagram, too: @leemanuscript ✨ A home for the written word, one soft stanza at a time.
✨ What’s Your Favorite?
Which story spoke to you the most? We’d love to see your dreamy reading setup. Tag @BeautyLeeBar on Instagram or TikTok and share your ritual — candles, playlists, red wine, soft lighting, or whatever helps you unwind best.
Use one of our cozy tags so we can find you: #ChapterLoungeReads | #TheChapterLounge #ChapterLoungeBookClub | #BeautyLeeBarBookClub
Born in New York City to parents of Cuban and Jamaican descent and raised in the Brooklyn neighborhood of East New York, Aja Monet Bacquie began writing poems when she was eight or nine years old.
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At 19, Monet became the youngest winner of Nuyorican Poets Café’s Grand Slam. She later earned her Bachelor of Arts from Sarah Lawrence College and MFA in Creative Writing from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. Not long after graduation, she published two chapbooks: The Black Unicorn Sings (2010) and Inner-City Cyborgs and Ciphers (2014). Both were later released as e-books. Monet also co-edited and arranged the spoken-word collection Chorus: A LiteraryMixtape (2012) with Saul Williams and writer and actress Dufflyn Lammers.
Monet has performed spoken word in France (she lived, briefly, in Paris), England, Belgium, Bermuda, and Cuba. During her visit to Cuba, Monet connected with her extended family there—relatives from whom her U.S.-based family had become estranged after Monet’s grandmother fled the island. In 2018, Monet released her first full-length poetry collection, My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter, dedicated to women of the Black diaspora and mothers. The book was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry.
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The collection includes her best-known poem #sayhername, a dedication to the Black female victims of police brutality often overlooked by news media and activists. Inspiration for the poem came after an event at which Monet read a poem that expressed her solidarity with the struggle of Palestinians. Eve Ensler, who was in attendance, invited Monet to contribute a poem to the #SayHerName vigil. Monet joined Ensler, legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, and others on May 20, 2015, in New York’s Union Square to remember Black women and girls murdered by police.
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Monet, who lives in Little Haiti, Miami, co-founded Smoke Signals Studio in Miami—an arts collective dedicated to music, art, and community organizing. She also manages the poetry workshop Voices: Poetry for the People and organized its first annual Maroon Poetry Festival in the Liberty City section of Miami.
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And for many, she is performance poetry’s reigning “cool girl.” Aja Monet is a surrealist blues poet, storyteller, and organizer. Everyone knows Aja Monet, and everyone wants to be (just a little bit) Aja Monet. Her work is as eclectic and thoughtful as she is, and her voice is one you could listen to forever.
Spoken word poetry has had varying levels of mainstream popularity over the past fifteen years. If you were like me, in the early 2000s, you stayed up anxiously on Friday nights to watch Mos Def host a new episode of Def Poetry Jam on HBO. HBO’s showcase of performance poetry was so successful that it led to Def Poetry on Broadway and created legitimate stars of spoken word poets.
Since then, performance poetry has continued to be an important art form for people who have something to say, want to say it beautifully, and want to ensure others hear them. There are multiple national and international poetry slam competitions all around the world, consistently drawing in audiences and new writer-performers of all ages and backgrounds.
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With its popularity, I think it is easy for people to forget the historical roots of the spoken word and its importance within Black communities and other communities of color. Whether or not a poem is specifically centered around social justice themes or political activism, the simple act of a person sharing their stories and lived experiences makes it empowering and powerful.
And as Black Women, we need to tell our own stories just as much as anyone.
Sonya is a former National and International poetry slam champion from the Bay Area. She is the author of two books, including The Body is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love (Berrett-Koehler Feb 2018), educator and thought leader who has enlightened and inspired organizations, audiences, and individuals from board rooms to prisons, universities to homeless shelters, elementary schools to some of the biggest stages in the world.
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Sonya’s work has been seen, heard, and read on HBO, BET, MTV, TV One, NPR, PBS, CNN, Oxygen Network, The New York Times, New York Magazine, MSNBC.com, Today.com, Huffington Post, USA Today, Vogue Australia, Shape.com, Ms. Magazine and many more. She is a regular collaborator and artist with organizations such as Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Advocates for Youth 1in3 Campaign, Association for Size Diversity and Health, Binge Eating Disorders Association (BEDA), Greater than AIDS Campaign, Yerba Buena Cultural Art Center, and numerous others.
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In 2011, Sonya founded The Body is Not An Apology, as an online community to cultivate radical self-love and body empowerment. TBINAA quickly became a movement and leading framework for the budding body positivity movement. In 2015, The Body is Not an Apology developed a digital magazine, education, and community building platform to connect global issues of radical self-love and intersectional social justice. Today, TBINAA is a digital media enterprise reaching nearly 1 million people per month from over 140 countries.
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Sonya continues to tour globally sharing lectures, workshops and performances focused on radical self-love, social justice, and personal and global transformation. Her work is full of honesty and vulnerability, while also exuding confidence and empowerment. When she performs, her words and her presence often explode off of the stage.
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