Sunflowers and Lavender: A Graphic Novel

by Maisy Valais

Fans of the Heartstopper series will love this adorable LGBTQ+ romantic comedy set in sunny Australia!

When awkward, hopeless-romantic Penny meets Bianca, an aspiring musician, she instantly confesses her love... to a can of baked beans. Despite their unusual initial encounter, the two are drawn to each other through a series of events including an accidental dognapping, rival bakeries, poorly drawn notes, a broken coffee machine, and lots of cake.

Can Bianca overcome a bad case of stage fright in time for her New Year's Eve concert? Will Penny find out why her best friend, Tristan, has been so moody? Sunflowers and Lavender is a sweet story for readers struggling to navigate love!

Genres: Graphic Novels, Romance, Young Adult, LGBT, Contemporary, Queer, Comics

176 pages, Hardcover

Published April 7, 2026

Reviews

[tillie hellman]

agh i hate writing bad reviews esp for books not a lot of ppl have read and that are new but yikes this was not very good. i mostly liked the art? except it went into more idk anime-y style that i wasn’t super into. everyone’s outfits being pride flag colors was kinda cringe ngl. and the plot and writing… were just so bad. no personality, awful choices on everyone’s parts, and just like not well written at all. also stupid not at all researched lines from the “jewish” character (first line to prove she’s jewish: i made challah for my cousins’ bat mitzvah. which like sure. why not. weird statement that i wouldn’t say in this context at all but like i guess that could happen. but the second thing was that she WENT AWAY for HANNUKAH for a MONTH (a MONTH) and had no CELL SERVICE. this was literally to explain why she didn’t know her friend was dating someone. just like lazy and stupid writing and completely nonsensical. i was just like hello????????????????????? what does this even mean???????????). anyways. at least it was short lol.
(i will say, there was a cat named Bindi which was maybe a little fun and def wild. except idk white person naming their cat Bindi… but maybe they are australian who knowssss)

[Myles Patton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This art is breathtaking and so gorgeous I can't even put it into words. I've fallen in love with every character, each of whom is witty, humorous, and relatable. The representation of cultures, identities, disabilities is just wonderful. This book is a rainbow of joy.

[Clodagh · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Every Relationship I've ever had has barely lasted a week-maybe a month if I'm lucky. I guess I'm used to just like... giving up? But shes amazing enough to put herself out there for something she really cares about. I wanna do the same!"

The sun is out and girls are falling in love! We are so back!

You ever hang out with your friends and think wow, theres no one else I would rather be? This comic is that feeling pressed on to paper. The colours, the art, the expressiveness of every illustration it's all so deeply endearing I found myself continuously smiling at these characters and their world as I was reading. Comical moments are paired with sensitive conversations and neither feels out of place or unjustified. Sunflowers and Lavender is earnest, charming and well drawn. It's having fun for the love of the game! We are talking Superman 2025 for gay people!

[Vanna Book-Mage · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was very chaotic, but the illustrations were beautiful. Loved the representation and the very real gay panic.

[Two Left Knees McGee]

It was super cute and silly with fantastic and diverse representation, but it was slightly hard to follow at certain points throughout

[Whitney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two things: I loved this and I'm going to need Valais to create more art, please!

While there is an ensemble cast and each character has a narrative reason for being there, the two mains are Bianca and Penny. The story is a Bi4Pan, sapphic romance when Penny accidentally runs into Bianca at a grocery store and babbles. Hijinks ensue. The story is short and sweet. It could've been longer and I would've been happy. It's a very quick read, though.

I apparently need to read more queer graphic novels from New Zealand. This reminded me of Tea Dragon Society in that there is an ensemble cast and it's super inclusive and diversity normative as a book. The story is so cute and has universal themes, even for non-queer readers. We can all relate to having a crush in high school and being too shy to talk to them or embarrassing ourselves. The cast includes a wheelchair user, a partial amputee with a prosthetic, a Jewish FMC, an implied blended family (two siblings who are not blood related), a character with albinism, a character with vitiligo, and an entirely queer cast. It's SO detailed, as well. I didn't realize until I was looking at the creation materials in the back that each character's outfits are color-coded to their pride flags. It's so beautifully done. Trans rep without making it invasive (for the trans character, meaning that no one is asking which gender they were born in or about any surgeries). PAN rep, which I never see! Made me so happy as a pan reader.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really, really, really enjoyed the art style, color palette, and inclusive cast of characters! However, there just wasn't enough plot for me to get invested in the characters. The ending was also really abrupt and didn't feel like an ending to me. I know this is the author's debut though, so I'd definitely be willing to give their next graphic novel a chance!

[Hailey Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really hate to do this but I had to DNF, this book is definitely for some people just not me. I was excited to find a LGBTQ+ book especially in this comic/Manga style and in color but as I started to read it the writing just isn't great? (Maybe just not for me) it feels very gen-z as a gen-z, the art is beautiful I do like the style but I was very confused in the beginning. I thought this was late high-school/college then as reading it felt very middle school and I found out they are actually 16 and up. I love that its LGBTQ+ and inclusive with religion and race but this almost feels forced like trying to cram every thing that makes people different or special into every character.

[Emily Pencil · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was so cute! I loved the art style and the coloring choices. I loved watching Bianca and Penny clumsily make it through their meet cute. Also, all their friends added more funny anecdotes and wholesomeness. My only complaint is that I wish that this was longer, I wished we actually saw Bianca and Penny actually go on a date, and develop further into a relationship, and how that affects their friendships. But overall, sweet, cute, adorable, like eating a cupcake.

[Lexy Kelleher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very cute! Not much else, but cute.

I really enjoyed the art style, and I did like the cutesy characters. However, this just didn't have a lot of substance. For all the characters the author introduced, we only got a surface-level look at all of them, including the two main characters. I don't know much about any of them other than their identities, which feels like a loss.

I think I would really enjoy a longer entry with either more going on, or a deeper look into the characters presented.

Edit to add: I really loved that the speech bubbles were different colors depending on who was speaking. Brilliant - more graphic novels should do this!

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cute, somewhat chaotic sapphic graphic novel romance with a fun meet-cute, a great cast of diverse, queer young adult characters and a sweet ending. I really enjoyed the artwork in this one - it's bright, colorful and captivatingly unique. It was a quick read and I'd definitely enjoy reading a sequel.

[Michael Perez · Rating 1 out of 5]

The art style really didn't do it for me...it's almost TOO high energy. The romance feels too reliant to doing queer tropes or miscommunication romance tropes. I think this would have benefitted from being longer and slowing down the pacing to do more character work.

Maybe different audiences would love this more?

[Michal]

Adorable

[Amanda [Novel Addiction] · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short, but cute.

[Kayla · Rating 4 out of 5]

INCREDIBLY cute!! Loved the color work :)

[soph · Rating 5 out of 5]

cuuuuuuuute ♡

[Marissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a sweet read! I also love the diverse and inclusive characters in the story! The style is also super cute

[Katrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really cute story with great diverse characters

[Kyrie ⌒☆ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aaaaaaah! I thought that artwork looked familiar! I remember when she was first creating the icons that she's turned into the characters. 🥰

[Miracle Luckett · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was so cute to read. At only 161 pages, this graphic novel ate *clocks tea* although I felt this book was rushed cuz it was such a short story....

[Frank Chillura (OhYouRead) · Rating 4 out of 5]

What if Heartstopper was a Disney movie? I mean the plot is completely different and this book is sapphic, but those are the vibes I got while reading Sunflowers and Lavender. Set in Australia, this adorable YA romcom graphic novel is chock full of BIPOC characters and queer joy. It left me with a stomach full of butterflies, hearts in my eyes, and multiple audible “AWWWWWWH!”

Penny is a hopeless romantic who loves to bake. She’s had her fair share of exes, but it’s only because she is open to finding love all around her.

Bianca is a musician who’s afraid of performing. Even though she has a solid group of friends telling her how amazing she is, stage fright can come for us all.

Their grocery store meet-cute should have been the start of something, it gets awkward with Penny starting to stumble over her words and instead of sticking around to even find out each other’s names, they’re both gone in a flash. That should be it, but they seem to keep running into each other, which is fate working to bring them together. Then Bianca drops coffee on Penny’s backpack and Penny knocks over a coffee grinder, making both of them stop and finally talk to one another…

I’m an awkward person when I first meet people, so the whole stumbling over words, making a fool of yourself thing felt very autistic and I felt seen. 👉🏻👈🏻 There is a lot of great representation in this less than 200 page book. Not only were there characters of every color (including one with vitiligo and one with albinism), there are also ones from many different letters of the gay alphabet. The character info at the back of the book shows the flags that represent each of them.

This was so sweet that I got a toothache and I loved it so much. If you love Heartstopper, Daybreak, Bloom, Mooncakes or Lovely Recipe, you’re going to LOVE this book!

Thank you to Little Bee/Yellow Jacket books for my gifted finished copy of Sunflowers and Lavender.

[Uma Banerjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

they were so adorable!!!!!!!!!!

[Sheba Hector · Rating 3 out of 5]

So cute and light

[K.C. Norton]

The art was pretty cute, like Rainbow Brite but even gayer. I liked the rep, or at least the attempts at rep, I guess? But overall the plot didn't exist and the writing was rough to get through. I thought this may have been a webtoon released by a teenager, but this does not seem to be the case. IDK, other people seem to love it but I would not recommend this one on the strength of its storytelling.

[Lesbiantoinette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muito fofinho 🥺💕 nunca vi algo com tanta representatividade, ansiosa pelas atualizações

[miki larson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A super cute and heartwarming sapphic story! Loved the illustration style and the use of color to identify characters!

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 for plot. 4 for diversity/inclusivity in a book. 4.5 for illustrations/art style. Rating it by worldly standards.

The art style is cute - I loved the facial expressions, the lines for movement, the emotions depicted. You can definitely see the characters’ panic and clearly can pick up on things unmentioned in the text, like disabilities. The coloring is vivid.

The story is pretty simple - short cute loud baker girl (Penny) has a meet-cute moment in a grocery store with tall pretty musician girl (Bianca), but then Penny runs away in embarrassment. By chance they see each other again at a bakery, but Penny runs away again, leaving her bag there and with Bianca’s best friend Alizee’s dog following Penny. Penny returns the dog and gets her bag back and Bianca invites Penny to her music show, so Penny bakes her a cake. Both girls freak out about it. This whole time, Penny’s bestie Tristan is trying to tell her something but she won’t listen because she’s distracted by things with Bianca. Finally Tristan runs off and Penny goes after him to help him, they talk about it (Tristan wants to tell Penny he dated a guy while she was away and they broke up), and they make up. In the end, Penny and Bianca meet and talk more under fireworks for the New Year. Happy ending!

Typical meet-cute with no heaviness or trauma, so it’s good if you want a fluffy work. My main gripe is that we don’t get to see Tristan/Gabe interact or to have any closure on that after that big reveal at the end of the work, but my teen told me this is apparently a WebToon so I’m sure the series continues and will cover that. I liked that it was clear Penny falls in love easily, but I feel like we barely learned much about how Bianca feels about relationships, and I think Alizee could be a helpful character in exposing that information. I liked how all the characters and places connected and think that can be useful as the story continues.

It’s a very queer-heavy work. The back matter includes sketches of the characters with different Pride rep flags (I had to look up the flags) and then character profile pages showing each character’s name, flags, age, and pronouns. Penny is Jewish and pansexual. Tristan is trans, bisexual, and has a skin condition. Noah is nonbinary and pansexual with a wheelchair. Bianca is bisexual. Alizee is bisexual and asexual. Gabe is asexual and aromantic with a prosthetic leg. Lily is a lesbian and asexual. Therese is trans and an older young adult. Georgie is a trans and genderfluid kid. Includes LGBTQIA+ resources in the back with the making of the comic panels.

Queer friendly/queer representation heavy.

[Snow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Spoilers below
3.75 or 4 stars

We follow two teenagers, Penny and Bianca, and they accidentally run into each other and find that they are into one another, but this leads to multiple miscommunications and embarrassing moments of them trying to eventually confess how they feel. We learned that Bianca is a guitarist, and she is going to perform for New Year’s. We’ve also followed multiple points of friends and family to learn about their characters in the plot. Eventually Penny ends up going to the performance and brings her a cake, and they eventually confess that they would like to spend more time together and try and see where things go. 

I think that it was overall a sweet story in some parts. I thought it was funny. I thought it was realistic sometimes, but they’re also deeper parts of it, especially with Penny‘s best friend and the complicated thing that they go through, which is just not being connected to each other as much until they talk at the end of the book. I think at the start of the book we introduce so many characters and learn about that. I think the resolution of the novel can feel a little flat if you want a lot more wrapped up with other characters other than just Penny and Bianca.

I thought that the art style was cute. I liked the lighter colors and pastels. I like the character designs and a lot of the dialogue and references that happen within illustrations and with word-for-word Internet-based jokes and references. I think you can read that without knowing it, but I notice a lot of humor that is in certain groups that I’ve been in for some time, so something to consider.

I feel like I have a bias in the regard that I knew the artist/author's characters because I’ve seen them when they were originally their first few designs, so I knew everybody pretty much going into it. I feel like if you didn’t, though I’m going with the expectation that you didn't, I feel like all the introductions can be overwhelming, but I think it depends on you.

Themes of a lot of things in young adults and teenagers do show. I think they were communication of talking through things and being honest and being and expressing yourself. I think sometimes it might not feel as realistic as some people may want, especially since not everything gets solid resolve for characters in a complete way, but I thought it was decent from what it was. I was feeling for the characters at times; I was smiling; at times I thought it was funny, and I’m happy I read it.

[Abigail Espinal · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfully simplistic middle grade graphic novel centering LGBTQ+ friendship, romance, and whimsey on every beautifully designed page! I could speak for hours on the character designs alone; each outfit represents a different pride flag—how amazing is that? This is exactly the kind of novel children need during these troubling times, full of censorship and hateful behavior; a pretty, pastel light in the dark abyss of our country! I also greatly admire the focus on friendship rather than romance—queer friends are so often overlooked in literary media in favor of romantic love. Platonic love is just as beautiful, and Valais not only does a brilliant job of detailing exactly that, but also of the ups and downs of childhood crushes. Adorable, important, and all around gorgeous!

[Ariette Cuore · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love how colorful and diverse the art for this title is! Everyone has very unique features and is memorable. Penny’s awkwardness is both endearing and slightly cringy; it hurts to watch her struggle in conversations, but it also shines when she's ranting about things she enjoys. While it's not stated that she has it, she’s a great example of ADHD. I am not one for the misunderstandings/ awkward relationships trope, so the plot wasn’t my favorite, but this would be loved by someone who likes sugar-sweet romantic comedies.