Jae's Blog, page 23
March 4, 2021
Character is a book lover (Sapphic Reading Challenge #8)
This week’s Sapphic Reading Challenge features characters who love books.
Most of them work with books for a living. They are writers, librarians, book editors, cover designers, audiobook narrators, bookstore owners/employees, comic book artists, literary agents, translators, book bloggers, reviewers, or avid readers.
Read up on the rules of the Sapphic Reading Challenge
Before you pick a book for the “character is a book lover” category, read up on the rules of the Sapphic Reading Challenge and download your PDF so you can keep track of the books you read this year.
Remember that you can either read one of the 15 books listed below or pick another sapphic book with a protagonist who’s a book lover.
15 sapphic books with a character who’s a book lover
I put together a list of 15 novels featuring a protagonist who works with books. I hope you find at least one you’ll enjoy.
Good Enough to Eat by Jae
Robin’s New Year’s resolution to change her eating habits is as unusual as she is. Unlike millions of other women, she isn’t tempted by chocolate or junk food. She’s a vampire, determined to fight her craving for a pint of O negative.
When she goes to an AA meeting, hoping for advice on fighting her addiction, she meets Alana, a woman who battles her own demons.
Despite their determination not to get involved, the attraction is undeniable.
Is it just bloodlust that makes Robin think Alana looks good enough to eat, or is it something more? Will it even matter once Alana finds out who Robin really is?
Available at:
I Love You, Lola Bloom by Rosy Dee
After a series of disastrous relationships, designer Maddison Appleby is fed up with everything love has had to offer, and can’t help but feel she’s destined to be alone forever. That is, until a chance encounter at a local book club sparks an unexpected connection with the beautiful Ruby Wilson – aka renowned lesfic author, Lola Bloom.
Maddison can’t believe her luck when Ruby asks her to design her new book cover, and as they spend more time together, Maddison sees a glimmer of hope for her dispirited love life.
However, her hopes are soon dashed, and to top it all off, her past makes an unwelcome reappearance which threatens to make her world come crashing down.
Will Maddison get her long-awaited happily ever after? Or will she admit defeat and purchase her one-way ticket to Singledom?
Available at:
Safe Haven by Ellen Hoil (bookstore owner)
When lives intersect what promise, love, and damage can they cause each other and overcome?
Brigid Fitzpatrick had made a life for herself following the death of her soulmate keeping busy with her bookstore, family, and friends. She had not considered her life missing anything until two things happen, a mysterious stranger comes to town and Brigid starts receiving attention from an unknown admirer.
Samantha Bailey walks the streets day after day and Brigid is filled with many questions. The most important is why does the woman never stop her seemingly aimless journey? As Brigid’s friendship with Samantha grows, so does the attention from the unknown admirer. An admirer watching from the dark shadows.
Brigid finds her feelings for Samantha moving from friendship to something more. But will she let herself move on, or will she cling to the comfortable life she has made for herself? Can love overcome the pain and anguish that comes next?
Available at:
The Other Side of Forestlands Lake by Carolyn Elizabeth
As kids, best friends Willa Dunn and Lee Chandler spend every summer together at the idyllic Upstate New York community of Forestlands Lake, nestled in the foothills of the Taconic Mountains. During the summer before they turn sixteen—just as the two are discovering that there might be something more to their friendship—a tragic accident befalls Willa’s family and without warning, Willa and Lee’s world is torn apart.
Twenty-five years later Willa is a successful author of the young adult ghost stories she loved to read as a child. She returns to the lake looking for a writer’s retreat and an opportunity to connect with her troubled teenage sister, Nicole.
Lee, now a single mother to her wise-beyond-her-years teenage daughter Maggie, is the director of the summer camp on the other side of Forestlands Lake.
Before Willa and Nicole even have the chance to unpack, their plans are upset by a mysterious young girl, a near drowning, and a surprise reunion. Soon Willa and Lee are working to protect the girls, reconcile their past and unearth the secrets surrounding Forestlands Lake—putting old ghosts to rest once and for all.
Available at:
A Bittersweet Garden by Caren J. Werlinger
Nora McNeill has always dreamed of exploring her Irish roots. When she finally gets the opportunity to spend a summer in the village where her grandparents grew up, the experience promises to live up to her very high expectations. Except for the ghost that is haunting her rented cottage and is soon invading her dreams.
Briana Devlin has arranged her life the way she likes it: a good dog, good mates, and work with horses. There’s no room in her life for a relationship. Especially with an annoyingly clumsy—and attractive—American who is only going to be around for a few months.
The weeks fly by, and Nora’s ghost becomes more demanding, seeking her help in solving the mystery surrounding her death. Briana watches as Nora becomes more wrapped up in the past, seeming to fade away before her eyes.
Past and present are on a collision course, leaving Nora and Briana caught in a ghostly intrigue that could cost them not only their chance of a future together, but their very lives.
Available at:
Inspiration Takes A Vacation by Annette Mori
Abby Prentice is suffering through the worst writer’s block in her entire career. After deciding to escape her home’s confines, she takes a walk on the beach and meets a mysterious woman who, Abby believes, must be the reincarnation of Helen of Troy. After the strange woman claims that she is on vacation, Abby quickly offers her personal services as a tour guide. Evasive about where she lives and why she has chosen Forks, Washington, as the destination for her three-day vacation, the stranger is only mildly annoying to Abby.
Feeling burnt out, Musetta desperately needs a vacation. Her boss reluctantly agrees to three days. On the first day of her adventure, she is delighted to almost literally run into her favorite writer and begin her three-day adventure. As she spends more time with Abby, she finds it increasingly difficult to return to her job despite the catastrophic consequences of leaving her position. For the first time, Musetta is falling in love.
Soon into their journey, both women notice something odd is happening all around them. Abby is not the only writer experiencing a block. Art in every form has come to a screeching halt in the Northwest. The media is forecasting an end to cultured civilization, beauty, and emotion as we know it. Will the women find a way to return inspiration to the Northwest, and does Musetta have the key to solving the crisis?
Available at:
Musings of a Madwoman by Jazzy Mitchell
Patricia Steitz, a successful romance writer, is flabbergasted when Rudi Singlewood shows up at one of her book signings and initiates a summer romance. She worries that the fantasies she’s harbored regarding the world-renown Broadway actress may prevent her from accepting who Rudi really is. She relates her fears to her best friend, Marcia Struthers, a successful Manhattan litigator.
Knowing that Patricia has dreamed of Rudi for years, Marcia urges her to give the actress a chance by getting to know who she is behind her public persona. While working a high-profile case, Marcia must confront her resurging feelings for lead opposing counsel, Lexie Yamin, and the appearance of an unrequited love. All is not as it seems, however, as Marcia deals with unexpected physical changes and developing mental abilities after an encounter with a meteorite. Marcia’s not the only one dealing with changes induced by an extraterrestrial rock, though.
Kiernan Connelly, who has received intriguing letters over several months, begins to question her lifestyle. Her casual sexual relationship with Rudi and passable acting career no longer fulfill her. As Kiernan makes changes in her life, she finds herself dealing with the strange reality of being able to hear others’ thoughts. Could it be related to her close encounter with a meteorite?
Available at:
Hurricane Season by BJ Phillips
Shawn Richards (aka S.K. Richardson) is a romance author. She’s had her heart broken badly again and is done with love. Ditching San Francisco, she moves back home to Southwest Florida to get her feet back under her and finish her latest novel.
Carrie Alexander is a huge S.K. Richardson fan, but has no idea what she looks like. She does, however, like the looks of the new neighbor down the street, Shawn Richards.
Drawn to each other as friends, Shawn still tries to keep some distance in spite of what she’s beginning to feel for Carrie. Carrie isn’t the kind of woman you just have a fun night with and then move on. Carrie’s the kind you fall in love with and make love to, and live happily ever after with—but she just can’t let herself trust her heart yet. After all, the last time she fell for one of her fans, it ended badly.
Carrie is looking for ‘happy ever after’ just like in all those romance novels she reads. Shawn could be the one, or maybe Carrie’s fooling herself and there’s really no such thing as all that romantic stuff in Shawn’s books.
Shawn is afraid she can’t deliver on that ‘happy ever after’ she knows Carrie wants—and she wants, too, truth be told. Destiny might have given them a push when Carrie tripped at the local grocery store and literally fell into Shawn’s arms. But fear could cost Shawn the woman of her dreams.
Available at:
Hero(ine) Addict by Blythe H. Warren
Harper Maxfield is going to change the world. But first she has to change her life.
Harper’s mundane job provides a steady paycheck but not much else—leaving her feeling frustrated, a little empty, and wondering how she let her girlfriend talk her into it in the first place. Her friends and family wonder how she let her girlfriend talk her into anything—especially a relationship. But how could she help falling for a gorgeous, successful doctor who saves kids from cancer?
At least Harper has her volunteer work with Mental Illness Allies to fulfill her. And if the big fundraiser she’s organizing is the success she hopes it will be, maybe it will end in a full-time position with Allies.
When comic book artist Eliot DeSanto isn’t thinking about superheroes, sidekicks and archrivals, she’s worried about her niece, whose recent cancer diagnosis has turned her life upside down. Eliot has no time for anything outside of work and family. But when eager humanitarian Harper asks for help with a fundraiser, Eliot finds herself unable to resist the attractive young woman.
Their work brings them closer together, but with so many obstacles between them, will they have the courage to follow their hearts?
Available at:
My Lady Lipstick by Karin Kallmaker
Anita Topaz, Queen of the Bodice Rippers, is deliberately a woman of mystery. But pressure is mounting for Anita to reveal herself to her clamoring public. It’s scrutiny that writer Paris Ellison can’t allow, especially since the glamorous “Anita” is a work of pure fiction.
Lady Diana Beckinsale excels at disappearing into a good role. Especially if that role gets her close to certain objects she desires. When Diana proposes the perfect solution to Paris’s predicament, Paris is less than enthusiastic. She can’t let someone as unsettling and observant as Diana get too close.
But Diana is persistent. After all, if she and the handsome, secretive Paris both get what they want out of an unorthodox arrangement, then it’s a win-win for them both.
Available at:
Homecoming by Celeste Castro
Destiny “Dusty” Del Carmen is a bestselling author and much sought-after speaker. An invitation to the Northwest Urban Indian Federation’s annual conference brings Dusty back to her “home” state of Idaho—the one place she swore she would never return to. Dusty does what she does best—smothers the painful memories of her past and picks up the smoking hot bartender at the local lesbian hangout.
Professor Morgan West is eager to attend the Federation’s annual conference and to meet the famous Destiny Del Carmen. A chance encounter leaves them trapped in a rustic cabin and Dusty has nowhere to run from her past pain—or her present fears. Will this accident of fate finally lead her home?
Available at:
Sunsets and Shades by Erica Lee
Kinsley Scott is a lesbian romance author who doesn’t actually believe in love. While her alter ego, Laurel Lake, loves happy endings and epic love stories, Kinsley has a more cynical view of the world.
Grace Harper is a hopeless romantic hanging on every word of the lesbian romance novels she reads. She believes her happy ending is right around the corner if she can just move on from the ex who cheated on her. When Grace’s childhood best friend, Leah, suggests that she comes to Philly to get space from her ex, it seems like the perfect opportunity to start over, especially since Leah’s roommate is none other than Laurel Lake – Grace’s favorite romance author.
Grace quickly learns that people aren’t always how they appear online and is disappointed to find that Kinsley Scott is nothing like Laurel Lake. She’s rude and vulgar and, unfortunately, irresistibly sexy. There is also much more to her than meets the eye, and as the two grow closer, her tough exterior is quickly stripped away, revealing much more than Grace ever bargained for.
Available at:
I Can’t Think Straight by Shamim Sarif
Spirited Christian Tala and shy Muslim Leyla could not be more different from each other, but the attraction is immediate and goes deeper than friendship.
Moving between Middle Eastern high society and London’s West End, this story explores the clashes between East and West, love and marriage, and convention and individuality creating a humorous and tender tale of unexpected love.
Available at:
Crystal’s Heart by B.L. Miller & Verda Foster
Crystal Sheridan is a professional stripper, an alcoholic, a drug user, and homeless. Laura Taylor is a lesbian, professional writer, obsessive tidier, and control freak. Fate brings them together as improbably housemates.
Can Laura and Crystal break through their carefully constructed walls against the past and learn to get along and start to embrace life again?
Available at:
Must Love Silence by Lucy Bexley
Reese Walker doesn’t like people. What she likes is silence and being left alone. The thing she loves most about recording audiobooks is that she doesn’t have to leave her Chicago apartment to do it. And she hasn’t for nearly a year. But with an unavoidable bill going to collections that puts her sister’s treatment at risk, she has no choice but to take a job that pushes her out of her comfort zone.
After a disastrous blow to her career, Arden Abbott needs a comeback. Step one: a successful book launch, including an audiobook. She doesn’t trust anyone else to oversee every aspect of the project. It has to be flawless. Arden knows she’s ready to resume the life she had before her dreams fell apart, all she has to do is prove it to everyone around her.
When Reese and Arden meet, sparks fly and then they combust. Will Reese crack under the constant pressure from Arden? Can she possibly read a sex scene with the woman who wrote it interrupting to correct her pronunciation of words she is saying 100% correctly? Or can they step outside their comfort zones long enough to meet in the middle…
Available at:
Leave a comment
Leave a comment and let us know which book you’ll be reading for the “character is a book lover” category!
Subscribe to this blog to get future Sapphic Reading Challenge posts
If you’d like to get all future Sapphic Reading Challenge posts sent to your in-box, subscribe to my blog.
Happy reading!
Jae
The post Character is a book lover (Sapphic Reading Challenge #8) appeared first on Jae.
February 25, 2021
Character with a disability or mental illness (Sapphic Reading Challenge #7)
Category #7 of the Sapphic Reading Challenge features another group of people that is definitely underrepresented in WLW & lesbian fiction: characters who have a disability.
It can be a book about a character with a physical disability, a chronic illness, or a mental disorder. When you pick the book you’re going to read, don’t forget that some disabilities are invisible or less apparent, for example, chronic pain, fibromyalgia, migraines, and mental illnesses.
Read up on the rules of the Sapphic Reading Challenge
If you are new to the Sapphic Reading Challenge, read up on the rules and download your PDF so you can keep track of the books you read this year. Remember that you can either read one of the 15 books listed below or pick another sapphic book featuring a protagonist with a disability.
15 sapphic novels featuring characters with a disability or mental illness
I put together a list of 15 novels featuring characters with a disability or mental illness. I hope you’ll find one you enjoy.
Just Physical by Jae (character has multiple sclerosis)
It was supposed to be just a one-night stand.
After being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, 25-year-old Jill Corrigan takes herself off the romantic market. Not wanting to become a burden to a potential partner, she focuses on her career as an actress instead.
On the set of a disaster movie, she meets stunt woman Kristine “Crash” Patterson, whose easy smile instantly makes Jill wish things were different. Meanwhile, Crash is trained to fall, but she didn’t count on falling in love.
Despite their growing feelings for each other, Jill resolves to let Crash into her bed, but not her heart.
As they start to play with fire on and off camera, will they really be able to keep things just physical?
Available at:
Invisible, as Music by Caren J. Werlinger (character has polio)
Henrietta Cochran has spent nearly forty years dealing with the effects of the polio she contracted in 1945. Her braces and crutches restrict her, define her, but they also give her independence. Almost. She hates that she has become increasingly reliant on a series of live-in companions to help her. For some reason, the companions never seem to want to stay very long. So Henrietta retreats further and further into her art, where her physical limitations don’t matter.
Into her life sails Meryn Fleming: out, outspoken, and fiercely political. She’s young, enthusiastically diving into her first job as a history professor at the local college. When she falls, almost literally, into Henrietta’s path, she seems like a godsend.
Little does Henrietta know that this young woman is about to upend her carefully structured existence. Ryn challenges everything, barging right through the walls Henrietta has built to keep others at a distance.
To Ryn, Henrietta is an enigma: prickly and easily insulted at the slightest suggestion that she can’t do things for herself; a brilliant artist capable of producing the most beautiful paintings; and sometimes, when Henrietta doesn’t realize she’s letting her guard down, a tender and sensitive woman.
With Meryn’s youthful optimism pitted against Henrietta’s jaded acceptance of the world as it is, life will never be the same for either of them.
Available at:
Mending Defects by Lynn Galli (character has a heart condition)
Life in a small town can be tricky. Laid-back Glory Eiben learned long ago that keeping personal information and opinions to herself goes a long way toward staying hassle free in her chosen home town. Much adored by the residents, she’s maintained the life she’s always wanted with good friends, close family, and a successful career. For someone with a rare congenital heart defect, this life is more than she could have hoped for.
Leaving behind big city excitement, a demanding position, and a failed relationship, Lena Coleridge thinks this small ski town may be exactly what she needs to come back from her wit’s end. She didn’t think that job politics or social landmines would exist in such a small town. Keeping to herself won’t be an option with these nosy locals. It doesn’t help that she lives next door to one of the more popular residents who seems too easy going and nice to be true. Friendship is inevitable, but as she gets to know Glory, friendship isn’t the only thing on her mind. After her last relationship, Lena doesn’t want anything to do with another complication, and dating her neighbor could definitely get complicated.
Available at:
Wounded Souls by RJ Nolan (character lost one leg)
Dr. Ashlee Logan’s world changed forever on a snowy December night in Boston. She has spent the last two years on the road, trying to escape the memory of that fateful night. With only her Great Dane, Drake, as her companion, she has worked her way across country from the Atlantic to the Pacific, working as an ER physician along the way.
While serving her country, former Navy doctor Dale Parker had her life shattered in a single moment on a hot, windswept desert roadside. Now, three years later, although her physical wounds have healed, Dale is forever changed by the experience. Struggling with her self-image, she has dedicated her second chance at life to helping other wounded veterans.
LA Metropolitan Hospital brings the two women together. Drawn together as kindred spirits, neither wants to face the stirring of emotions the other woman invokes.
Together can Dale and Logan move past the horrific events of their pasts, or are they forever destined to be…Wounded Souls?
Available at:
Times Like These by Ana McKenzie (character is losing her sight)
Merren Hardy is delighted when her thirst for new experiences turns into a holiday job for an attractive older woman. She’s more than happy to be muse, model, assistant, and lover – especially lover – for brilliant and successful Bianca Graves. After all, Merren’s smart with a big-picture view of the world and a practical streak wide enough to deal with Bianca’s difficulties. She’s a problem-solver. Except there’s one problem Merren’s never had to solve before – what happens when you fall in love with a woman who can’t see you properly?
Bianca’s an artist losing her sight, desperate to find a way to continue painting and keep her career and sense of identity. She needs more than a muse, more than a young woman to model for her. She needs someone to reach out and touch her when everything’s going dark – and help her find the way back to her life. Which surely means Merren’s too young, too different, worlds apart in experience. Bianca knows a summer fling at such a difficult time is one thing – but it can’t go any further.
As it turns out, however – there’s more than one way to be blind.
Available at:
All in the Family by Q. Kelly (Deaf character)
Allison Albrecht and Samantha Cannizarro are thrown together when their parents become engaged. Sam is deaf, so Allison begins to learn sign language. Allison is eager to please Sam and to make a good impression on her. Sam does not care about good impressions. She is a loner, always has been. She resents her new instant family, especially her stepmother-to-be. Sam is also reluctant to bond with three-year-old Allen. However, Allison and Allen gradually crack Sam’s facade, and the two girls fall in love.
But life in a stepfamily is rarely easy. Throw in romance between two stepsiblings, and the ride is going to be bumpy.
Available at:
Blades of Bluegrass by D. Jackson Leigh (character lost one arm)
Captain Britt Story lost more than her left arm in Afghanistan. She lost faith in honor and humanity when her command’s failure to act cost a young soldier’s life, turning Britt into a ticking political time bomb the U.S. Army and her father, an influential senator, are desperate to disarm.
Occupational therapist First Lieutenant Teddy Alexander was thrust into the national spotlight when she successfully petitioned to receive survivor’s benefits after her wife was killed in Afghanistan days before DOMA was repealed. Six years later, she remains safely cocooned in the past by her military family until her assignment to rehab Captain Story drags them both into a confusing battle between duty, consequences, and hot attraction.
Available at:
Survival Kit by A. H. Haga (character has myalgic encephalomyelitis)
When the dead prowl the streets of Oslo, survivors Kit and Shadia have to get out of there. They decide to go where the dead can’t follow–their family cabin on a remote island–but they have to fight their way out of the city first.
Facing the dangers of this new world, both living and dead, is hard enough, but the couple also has to deal with Kit’s severe Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. It can throw a wrench into the simplest of plans, and Kit’s fear that the sickness may be the death of her seems more a reality for every day.
Despite the odds being stacked against them, Shadia and Kit are ready to fight for their survival and for each other.
Available at:
Finding Jessica Lambert by Clare Ashton (character has anxiety)
Movie star Jessica Lambert is in danger of burning out. Returning to London for the premiere of her latest film, she’s recognised everywhere she goes. When she runs away through the streets of London, she’s taken in by the beautiful and more mature Anna. The two hide in the sanctuary of Anna’s roof-top flat, a haven away from the crowds, but why has Anna removed herself from the world?
As the two women get to know each other, stripping away the layers, both appreciate what each does for the other. This could be the start of something wonderful, more than either of them know.
Available at:
Good Vibes by Cara Malone (character has agoraphobia)
The little details have never interested Libby. From her eclectic style to her carefree attitude about her adult toy shop, she’s all about the big picture. But when her business partner retires, Libby’s safety net disappears and it’s up to her to sink or swim.
For old-school card game nerd Theo, the details are everything. Her anxiety demands to know the rules, the players and the goal in any situation, and it can be hard to even leave her apartment unless she knows exactly what’s coming her way.
When Theo’s sister gets engaged, she’s forced out of her comfort zone and into Libby’s shop on the hunt for bachelorette party supplies.
Opposites attract and Theo is drawn into Libby’s chaotic world. She wants to help Libby save the shop and together they come up with a plan, but will they be brave enough to play the game of love?
Available at:
My Year Zero by Rachel Gold (character has bipolar disorder)
Lauren thinks she has a pretty good life—so why is it that she feels crazy most of the time? She figures it’s nothing she can’t fix by getting her first girlfriend and doing better at school. But how is she ever going to find a girlfriend in Duluth, Minnesota?
When she meets a group of kids who are telling a science fiction story online and gets invited down to the Twin Cities, she gets more attention than she ever expected, from two very different girls: charming Sierra and troublesome Blake.
Blake helps Lauren understand that she’s not the crazy one in her life. But Blake’s attention—and insights into life and living with bipolar disorder—threaten to destroy everything Lauren has created for herself, including her relationship with Sierra.
Available at:
Far from Home by Lorelie Brown (character has an eating disorder)
My name is Rachel. I’m straight . . . I think. I also have a mountain of student loans and a smart mouth. I wasn’t serious when I told Pari Sadashiv I’d marry her. It was only party banter! Except Pari needs a green card, and she’s willing to give me a breather from drowning in debt.
My off-the-cuff idea might not be so terrible. We get along as friends. She’s really romantically cautious, which I find heartbreaking. She deserves someone to laugh with. She’s kind. And calm. And gorgeous. A couple of years with her actually sounds pretty good. If some of Pari’s kindness and calm rubs off on me, that’d be a bonus, because I’m a mess—anorexia is not a pretty word—and my little ways of keeping control of myself, of the world, aren’t working anymore.
And if I slip up, Pari will see my cracks. Then I’ll crack. Which means I gotta get out, quick, before I fall in love with my wife.
Available at:
A Breathless Place by Harper Bliss (character has depression)
When all hope is lost, can music be the ultimate lifeline?
Isabel ‘Izzy’ Adler used to dominate the world’s stages with her vocal acrobatics. But since she lost her voice ten years ago, Izzy’s been to hell—and hasn’t found her way back.
When journalist Leila Zadeh is brought in to finish her biography, Izzy’s dark plans for her life are challenged by the brilliant and gorgeous new woman in her life.
Will the instant attraction between them be enough to stop Izzy from playing out her final song?
Available at:
Shadows of Something Real by Sophia Kell Hagin (character has PTSD)
In some ways, Marine Lieutenant Jamie Gwynmorgan has it pretty good. The motherly kindness of Lynn Hillinger, the senator she saved during the war that nearly killed them both, never wavers. Plus she has a great place to stay while she’s on convalescent leave—and a steady supply of the best lemonade on earth.
But flashbacks and nightmares shadow her as she tries to decide: Attempt a return to active duty, or…what?
Jamie doubts she can ever achieve the peaceful life she dreams of—until she meets smart, idealistic Adele Sabellius. As their relationship deepens, almost anything seems possible.
Soon, however, Jamie learns that something more menacing than nightmares and flashbacks has begun to twist the restless shadows around her. Though she may never understand why Adele loves her, Jamie will do whatever it takes to keep Adele safe when relentless enemies emerge from those darkening shadows to threaten yet another war.
Available at:
Come Away with Me (Midnight in Manhattan Book 3) by Rachel Lacey (character has panic attacks)
A television star and a flight attendant walk into a bar…
Six months after a traumatic event left actress Piper Sheridan confined to her apartment with debilitating panic attacks, she’s determined to start living her life again. Motivated by an upcoming audition, she summons her courage and goes out for a drink, keeping her identity under wraps. It sounds simple enough, but nothing about going out in public is easy for Piper these days. And her hopes of going unnoticed are stymied by the bubbly blonde on the next barstool.
Flight attendant Chloe Carson is only in New York for the night, and she’s only looking for a little casual fun to go with her cocktail. The mysterious woman beside her isn’t fun, exactly…but she’s intriguing. And beautiful. Even without knowing her name, Chloe is drawn to her. When they share an unexpectedly intimate moment, Chloe knows this is a night she’ll never forget.
Can these two strangers turn a chance encounter into something lasting?
Available at:
Leave a comment
Leave a comment and let us know which book you’ll be reading for the “character with a disability” category!
Subscribe to this blog to get future Sapphic Reading Challenge posts
If you’d like to get all future Sapphic Reading Challenge posts sent to your in-box, subscribe to my blog.
Happy reading!
Jae
The post Character with a disability or mental illness (Sapphic Reading Challenge #7) appeared first on Jae.
February 19, 2021
Sapphic Time Travel Books (Book Unicorn post #2)
It’s time for another Book Unicorn post of the Sapphic Reading Challenge. This one features sapphic time travel books.
What is the Book Unicorn?
A quick reminder: The Book Unicorn is a bonus level that you can pick either by itself or as an additional goal. The goal is to read at least 10 sapphic books from a list of 12 harder-to-find genres and themes. You can download a PDF with all 12 categories here.
The second Book Unicorn category: a time travel book
For the second Book Unicorn category, I’d like you to read a sapphic book that includes time travel. I don’t know about you, but I love books in which the protagonist travels into the past or the future, especially if you combine it with a romance to come up with a timeless love story!
Here are the 15 books I picked for the “time travel” category:
The Time Slip Girl by Elizabeth Andre
What if the woman you loved was more than a century away?
Dara, a computer programmer from Chicago, is visiting London when she opens a door in an Edwardian house and slips into Edwardian England. Agnes, a beautiful London shop girl, takes in the bewildered 21st century American lesbian, but, as Dara begins to accept that she is stuck in 1908, she also begins to accept that she has feelings for Agnes that go beyond gratitude. And the longer Dara stays, the harder Agnes finds it to hide her growing love for the accidental time traveller from the future.
Will they overcome grief and prejudice to acknowledge their true feelings for one another? Or will Dara be snatched back to the 21st century before they can express their love?
Available at:
The Pages of Adeena by C.M. Castillo
It’s the summer of 1952, and Adeena “Addie” Kahlo loves her life in Chicago, where she helps run her close-knit family’s nightclub on the south side. But Addie has a dream that she is determined to make a reality; attending college in New York and becoming a published author.
Through a blind date, she meets Alan, who becomes her best friend and closest confidant. They share a secret that they can never divulge. Together, they discover a door that opens to a magical place that leads to other worlds and to times past and future; Cafe du Temp, a nightclub like no other. At Cafe du Temp they listen to soulful jazz, drink fancy cocktails, and slowly begin to understand that its opulent and stunning ambience means something unique and special to each person who enters its doors.
It’s here, in this strange and elegant place, where Addie meets and falls in love with the beautiful poet, Isabelle Androsko. Their chemistry is immediate and powerful. Despite this, they soon discover that their vastly different worlds pose near impossible obstacles to the life they want to build together. Addie believes that the mysterious Cafe du Temp, and its serendipitous existence in their lives, is the catalyst to their future, but can this belief transcend time and heartbreak to bring her to her ultimate destiny?
Available at:
Neither Here Nor There by Nikki Harmon
Kim is your typical rebellious black gay nerd, biding her time in college until she can get to her dream job at NASA. Returning home from work-study in the biology lab one day, Kim experiences a strange kind of double vision. She can somehow see her “choices” before she makes them. Just as she begins to investigate her new skill, Kim is kidnapped. Held in a remote farmhouse, she discovers that her abilities are no accident but that she has been an unwitting subject of an experiment by the professor she is working for at the lab. Confused and overwhelmed, Kim is able to escape using her ability and jumps into a couple of versions of her life until she encounters a group of students with the same ability. They have been looking for her.
Duped and manipulated, the students have been used to re-shape the world for the financial and political gain of the mysterious benefactors who fund them. They convince Kim that she must help them put an end to these devious plans. She joins the group and sets off on a mission to save the world from those who seek to control it for themselves.
Available at:
Kiss Me Every Day by Dena Blake
Wynn Jamison is turning thirty. Her career has made her rich, but her love life is sorely lacking. She’s okay with that until she spends her birthday dinner with the woman who could’ve changed it all. There’s only one problem. She’s married to Wynn’s sister.
Carly Evans is tired of her wife ignoring her needs to put her career first. Family has always been important to her, and Jordan just doesn’t seem to care.
A freak thunderstorm rages during the night, and Wynn finds herself catapulted back in time to the day she made the worst decision of her life—stepping aside to let her sister romance Carly. Reliving the day over and over again, Wynn must decide what is most important: success, loyalty, or love. Given a second chance at happiness, will she take the opportunity and change her destiny?
Available at:
Reflected Passion by Erica Lawson
Dale Wincott is a 27-year-old woman born into Bostonian wealth and groomed to marry into the social hierarchy. Her mother is a hard-hearted society matriarch, but her father feels for his daughter and helps Dale find a life on her own as a furniture restorer.
Françoise Marie Aurélie de Villerey is a 28-year-old Countess, born into the French aristocracy and forced to marry a count much older than herself. For ten years, she was his trophy wife, forced to endure his perverted desires, until the day he finally died. He had broken her emotionally and she no longer cared for what life had to offer, slipping from one sexual partner to another as often as she changed her clothes.
Until… that one night when Françoise looked up during a sexual encounter and saw Dale watching her from the mirror. A veritable angel, full of innocence and curiosity, who touched her very soul.
Available at:
Renegade by Cheyne Curry
What would you do if one minute you were in the 21st century and the next you were in the 19th? One day you’re driving a Mustang and the next day you’re riding one?
Dirty cop Trace Sheridan faces this dilemma as she moves from a present day mob war to a range war over a hundred years in the past. The year is 1879, when cattle barons, crooked lawmen, saloons, painted ladies, cowboys and Indians ruled the Wild West, and laws were only as strong as the gunman who upheld them.
In Sagebrush, the town and the sheriff belong to the Cranes, who take what they want or bad things happen. Trace finds this out firsthand when she ends up on the land of Rachel Young, a struggling ranch woman who won’t give in to the merciless cattle baron and his obsessed son.
For some unexplainable reason, Rachel trusts the enigmatic Trace who uses 21st century sensibilities to battle 19th century turmoil, while Trace is forced to keep the secret of her origin from the attractive and vulnerable Rachel. Renegade is a story of redemption in its purest form as Trace discovers what truly matters in life and how past really is prologue.
Available at:
A Captive in Time by Sarah Dreher
In the Fourth Stoner McTavish Mystery by Sarah Dreher, Stoner gets lost in time… finding herself inexplicably transported to a town in Colorado Territory, circa 1871. There she encounters Dot, the saloon keeper, Blue Mary, a local witch/healer, and an enigmatic teenage runaway named Billy.
As Stoner tries to return home, her life is threatened and she starts to fall in love, out of time…
Available at:
Third by Q. Kelly
Helen Franklin is horrified when her dying father leaves her a most unusual inheritance: a woman. The woman, Anne, is a time traveler with a tragic past. Helen tells herself she does not have time for Anne. Yalia, Helen’s wife, has been distancing herself from Helen for three years, and Helen needs to decide if she wants to save their marriage.
Then the unexpected happens. A romantic relationship develops among Yalia, Anne and Helen. Can the three of them figure out their lives together, especially when time might be running out for Anne?
Available at:
Erased by Robbi McCoy
One moment San Francisco police officer Dani Barsetti is chasing a suspect through an apartment building. The next moment she wakes up in a completely different place and time. It’s the twenty-third century–at least that’s what she’s being told by a group of scientists who aren’t at all happy to see her. Their agent, a man sent back in time to kill a dangerous terrorist, has been killed by the terrorist instead. So now the scientists are proposing to send Dani back in time to finish the job.
It sounds great to Dani, who only wants to get home. Except for one thing–her trip into the future has totally erased her from the past. Her wife Gemma doesn’t know her. Her parents and siblings have never met her. And the police force has no record of her.
Could she start over? Could Gemma fall in love with her all over again? Dani has only two weeks to find out before she must return to the future. But is two weeks long enough to fall in love? Or is it only long enough to say goodbye…
Available at:
Rip van Dyke by Kate McLachlan
When Van is suddenly transported twenty years into the future, she is dumfounded-and furious. Jill’s silly time-travel experiment wasn’t supposed to actually work. But it did, and now Van is stuck in the future. 2008, that is. A future in which Van’s friends and lover have all aged twenty years, but Van has not. Jill, an old woman now, promises to recreate her time-travel machine and send Van back, but Van is skeptical and decides instead to try to make a life for herself in 2008.
It isn’t easy. Patsy, her lover, never recovered from Van’s sudden disappearance in 1988 and is now a deeply troubled old woman, in no condition to offer Van any help. Van has no home, no job, no money, not even a driver’s license. But help and hope arrive in the form of Bennie, the steamy young woman whose intriguing overtures were off limits in the past. Van wrestles with herself. Does she remain faithful to Patsy despite the sudden chasm between their ages, or does she let herself accept the life, love and laughter that Bennie offers?
But when secret agents learn of Van’ s leap through time, Van faces an even tougher decision. This time one of life or death.
Available at:
The Sea Within by Missouri Vaun
Scientists have sounded alarms about the demise of Earth’s oceans for decades, and now the extinction event is here. As the world braces for disaster, paleobotanist Dr. Elle Graham finds a possible cure. Unfortunately, it’s been extinct for over one hundred thousand years.
Captain Jackson Drake lives in the past because she can’t stand to face the present after the woman she loved sacrificed herself to save others, a casualty of a world ravaged by superbugs.
The last person Jackson wants to travel back in time with is another woman trying to save the world at the cost of her own life. When things go sideways on primeval Earth, Jackson and Elle must put aside conflicts and work together to save the mission. Faith in each other just might give them the strength to save the world and rescue a broken heart in the process. But can Elle convince Jackson that the future is worth saving?
Available at:
The Spanish Pearl by Catherine Friend
When Kate Vincent and her partner travel to Spain, Kate is accidentally transported back in time…way back in time…to 1085. What does a woman like Kate do in a world of no antibiotics, no feminism, no Diet Coke? She denies it as long as possible, then sets her mind to getting home. Tricky with her now useless twenty-first century skills.
Things don’t go well. Kate is captured by a band of mercenary soldiers and becomes an unwitting pawn in the violent conflict between the Catholic kings and the Islamic Moors. In her struggle to stay alive and return to the future, Kate must flee exotic harems, filthy dungeons, and treacherous Moorish courts. But when a sword-brandishing woman with an astonishing secret sweeps into Kate’s life, Kate is suddenly torn between two women, and between two centuries.
Available at:
My Heart’s in the Highlands by Amy Hoff
The year is 1888. Brilliant and beautiful, Lady Jane Crichton has fought the constraints of her Victorian Edinburgh upbringing to become one of the first women to attend university for medicine. Denied a degree because of her gender, she decides to marry a closeted gay man, providing him with political and social cover and herself with the time and money to pursue her scientific interests—one of which is a time machine. Jane’s machine works…but not exactly as she expected, and soon she has crash-landed in the 13th-century Scottish Highlands.
There she is rescued by a wild, red-haired warrior woman, Ainslie nic Dòmhnaill, next in line to the chiefship of the great Clan Donald, the rulers of the Sea Kingdom of the Isles. Despite the constant threat of attacks from enemy clans, harsh winters and a touch of homesickness, Jane finds herself bewitched by this land, this time and this magnificent woman. The rough and warlike Ainslie also feels the magic and revels in a passion and love neither she nor Jane had ever imagined.
But Jane is hiding a dangerous secret—one that threatens to tragically transform their Highland fairy tale.
Available at:
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandment finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading.
Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, becomes something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.
Except the discovery of their bond would mean the death of each of them. There’s still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win. That’s how war works, right?
Available at:
One Day You’ll Leave Me by Debra Flores
Karen Stephens is an ordinary woman living an ordinary life in the year 2010. Until the day she hears an unfamiliar song that moves her in a way she cannot understand or explain.
Judy Paige was also an ordinary young woman, who lived an ordinary life, up until the day she sang her song One Day You’ll Leave Me at a show in the year 1964.
When Karen’s curiosity about the song turns into an obsession about the woman who sang it, she’s drawn to the town of Leyfant, Texas. The town in which Judy Paige was born and raised. It’s there that Karen is approached by a man who calls himself Mr. Smith. A man who asks Karen a simple question. “Would you like to meet her?”
The question is simple, but the answer is not.
Because Judy Paige has been dead for almost twenty years.
What would you be willing to give up for the person you love? Your life? Your memories? Everybody and everything you’ve ever known?
Available at:
Leave a comment
Leave a comment and let us know which book you’ll be reading for the “time travel” category?
Special sale: Get Perfect Rhythm for 99 cents for a few days only!
While it doesn’t fit the “time travel” category, I didn’t want you to miss this sale because it’s a rare opportunity to get one of my novels at such a steep discount! My contemporary romance novel Perfect Rhythm is on sale for only 99 cents, but only for a few days (until February 21, 2021), so if you haven’t already read it, make sure you get it before the price goes back up. The discounted book is available at:
Amazon (worldwide)
Happy reading!
Jae
The post Sapphic Time Travel Books (Book Unicorn post #2) appeared first on Jae.
February 18, 2021
Only One Bed (Sapphic Reading Challenge #6)
This week’s Sapphic Reading Challenge category features a trope that seems to be quite popular in women-loving women romance. I call it the “only one bed” trope. It includes two characters who are not (yet) a couple having to share the only available bed.
Usually, that leads to hilarious situations: one character clinging to the edge of the bed so she won’t give away her attraction, or they wake up in the middle of the night, cuddled up to each other. And sometimes, a whole lot more than cuddling happens 😊
Read up on the rules of the Sapphic Reading Challenge
Before you pick a book for the “there’s only one bed” category, read up on the rules of the Sapphic Reading Challenge and download your PDF so you can keep track of the books you read this year.
Remember that you can either read one of the 15 books listed below or pick another sapphic book featuring the “only one bed” trope.
15 sapphic novels that include the “only one bed” trope
I put together a list of 15 sapphic novels in which the main characters have to share a bed. I hope you’ll find one you enjoy.
Just for Show by Jae
What happens when an overachieving psychologist with OCD tendencies and an impulsive, out-of-work actress start a fake relationship?
Claire Renshaw thought she had it all: a successful career as a couples therapist, a publishing contract for her self-help book, and a happy relationship. But her perfect world falls apart when her fiancée calls off their engagement. Because of that, even her book deal might be off the table. After all, readers don’t want relationship advice from someone who can’t even make her own relationship work.
So Claire sets out to hire herself a fake fiancée.
Lana Henderson, the actress who shows up to audition for the role, is not exactly Claire’s ideal woman. Her frankness and the messes she leaves everywhere drive Claire up the wall. At least she won’t fall in love with someone like Lana.
But soon, Lana starts to win her over with her big heart, tickle fights, and—gasp!—carbs after six. The longer they pretend to be a love-struck couple, the less fake their kisses feel and the more the lines between reality and role begin to blur.
Once the book contract is signed, will they walk away or is their relationship no longer just for show?
Role-playing has never been so irresistible in this lesbian fake-relationship romance with a plus-sized heroine.
Available at:
Crier’s War by Nina Varela
After the War of Kinds ravaged the kingdom of Rabu, the Automae, designed to be the playthings of royals, usurped their owners’ estates and bent the human race to their will.
Now Ayla, a human servant rising in the ranks at the House of the Sovereign, dreams of avenging her family’s death…by killing the sovereign’s daughter, Lady Crier.
Crier was Made to be beautiful, flawless, and to carry on her father’s legacy. But that was before her betrothal to the enigmatic Scyre Kinok, before she discovered her father isn’t the benevolent king she once admired, and most importantly, before she met Ayla.
Now, with growing human unrest across the land, pressures from a foreign queen, and an evil new leader on the rise, Crier and Ayla find there may be only one path to love: war.
Available at:
Anyone But Her by Erica Lee
Reagan Cooper has been an out and proud lesbian since high school, but can’t say no when her gay best friend, Jamie Miller, asks her to pretend to be his girlfriend for his family reunion. Jamie has been there for her through everything. Plus, she’s interested in learning more about the family he never speaks of.
Living in California for eight years, Charlie Miller has been able to live authentically, but being back in her small Maryland hometown with her conservative family means going back into the closet. What she didn’t expect was to be so attracted to her brother’s girlfriend.
Available at:
Make the Yuletide Gay by Ivy L. James
Junior editor Grace Taylor is doubling as the temporary assistant to senior editor Nicola Valentine…and harboring a secret crush on her. Grace is devastated when a work conference forces her to miss her big family Christmas. However, she gets a gift she doesn’t expect when a snowstorm strands her and Nicola at a small B&B.
Nicola has no idea how to handle sharing a room with her gorgeous, vibrant assistant. As she learns to share her heart as well, her fear threatens the blossoming relationship. Can she let Grace in, or will Nicola’s past sabotage her chance at happiness?
Available at:
Just My Luck by Andrea Bramhall
Genna Collins works a dead end job, loves her family, her girlfriend, and her friends. When she wins the biggest Euromillions jackpot on record everything changes…and not always for the best.
When Abi Kitson fell in love she always knew it would go unrequited. The woman of her dreams was so close yet seemingly untouchable for so many reasons. Reasons like – they are best friends, or the big age gap, or the ‘other’ woman, nevermind Abi’s own baggage.
And even when those reasons crumble it seems luck just isn’t on her side.
It’s a learning curve for both of them. But what if money really can’t buy you everything you want? What if the answers aren’t hidden in a big, fat bank balance? What if happiness is right in front of them? They just have to reach out…
Available at:
Revel by Bryce Oakley
Billie and Vero are getting married and the gang’s all here, even the only two members left of the Singles Girl’s Club, Isla and Freya.
When the wedding planner mixes up reservations for the wedding, party girl Isla and jaded artist Freya find that they’re either sharing the very last room available or one of them is sleeping out on the beach. There’s just one teeny-tiny problem — the room has one bed. But they’re mature adult friends who can handle a sleepover. Right?
What happens when love is in the air and suddenly, kissing one of your closest friends seems like the world’s best idea?
Get your sandals out for a beachy friends-to-lovers novella with one last sweet ending to The Shrikes’ love stories.
Available at:
Mangos and Mistletoe by Adriana Herrera
Kiskeya Burgos left the tropical beaches of the Dominican Republic with a lot to prove. As a pastry chef on the come up, when she arrives in Scotland, she has one goal in mind: win the Holiday Baking Challenge. Winning is her opportunity to prove to her family, her former boss, and most importantly herself, she can make it in the culinary world. Kiskeya will stop at nothing to win, that is, if she can keep her eyes on the prize and off her infuriating teammate’s perfect lips.
Sully Morales, home cooking hustler and self-proclaimed baking brujita, lands in Scotland on a quest to find her purpose after spending years as her family’s caregiver. But now, with her home life back on track, it’s time for Sully to get reacquainted with her greatest love, baking. Winning the Holiday Baking Challenge is a no brainer if she can convince her grumpy AF baking partner that they make a great team both in and out of the kitchen before an unexpected betrayal ends their chance to attain culinary competition glory.
Available at:
Mrs. Mix Up by Candace Harper
A secret crush. A mix-up in paperwork. And suddenly, a fake marriage that lands two women in one hotel room–and face to face with their denial.
After six months of simmering attraction, librarians Sofiya Anderson and Molly Andersen are ready to burst. There’s a magnetism between them that threatens their commitment to professionalism, and not even a librarian’s stern shushing can quiet it down. But they’ve managed to hold themselves in check…for now.
Until a mistake at a regional conference, a tiny oversight in spelling, makes the coordinators believe they’re a married couple.
Two women. One bed. And a Mrs. Mix-Up that doesn’t quite go by the books. Can they make it through four days of professional development with both their hearts and their jobs intact.
Available at:
All the Reasons I Need by Jaime Clevenger
Kate Owens has kept her attraction to her best friend Mo Calloway a carefully guarded secret for years. But some secrets you can’t hide forever and she’s worried that Mo is beginning to suspect her feelings.
It’s harder than ever to pretend there’s nothing going on when a reservation mistake on a trip to Mexico leads to Kate sharing Mo’s bed for five long nights.
One fateful vacation could change everything. But are Kate and Mo ready to risk their friendship for a chance at love?
Available at:
Love Waits by Gerri Hill
High school sweethearts…and nobody knew.
Ashleigh Pence had been the all-American high school girl: cheerleader, prom queen…and in love with another girl. Gina Granbury hasn’t thought about Calloway High in twenty years, but the arrival of the invitation to the class reunion brings back memories of Ashleigh and the betrayal that drove them apart.
With no real choice, Ashleigh has to go the event, hoping that it’s not the one reunion that Gina decides to attend after all these years. Gina had expected to dismiss the possibility as easily as she has during all the years since, but the curiosity is suddenly strong. Her long-broken heart has never mended, but that’s no reason to go back in time…is it?
Available at:
Cowgirl 101 by Laina Villeneuve
What Jo Harding loves most about the summer is being able to retreat from annoying humans. Though her friends say she’d be happier with someone sleeping by her side, she insists that all she needs to be happy are her mules, her dog, and a trail into the backcountry. She has absolutely no time to teach the incompetent, if attractive, newcomer.
Daisy Lucero is an eager student from the start. Hired for work in the café, her real dream is to explore the High Sierra wilderness on horseback. While she would love to earn the respect of the handsome woman who inspired her adventure, she may have to settle for pestering her with songs and questions.
In the vast classroom of the California wilderness, each woman finds herself tested. Tests of perseverance for Daisy as she learns to ride, and tests of patience as Jo considers whether life is about more than riding alone.
It doesn’t take either of them long, however, to realize that neither one of them needs a lesson in chemistry.
Available at:
Homecoming by Celeste Castro
Destiny “Dusty” Del Carmen is a bestselling author and much sought-after speaker. An invitation to the Northwest Urban Indian Federation’s annual conference brings Dusty back to her “home” state of Idaho—the one place she swore she would never return to. Dusty does what she does best—smothers the painful memories of her past and picks up the smoking hot bartender at the local lesbian hangout.
Professor Morgan West is eager to attend the Federation’s annual conference and to meet the famous Destiny Del Carmen. A chance encounter leaves them trapped in a rustic cabin and Dusty has nowhere to run from her past pain—or her present fears. Will this accident of fate finally lead her home?
Available at:
Alone by E. J Noyes
Half a million dollars will be Celeste Thorne’s reward for spending four years of her life in total isolation. No faces. No voices. No way to leave.
Since Celeste has never really worried about being alone, the generous paycheck she’ll receive for her participation in the solitary psychological experiment seems like easy money.
When she finds an injured hiker in the woods bordering her living compound, her strictly governed world is thrown into disarray. But even as she struggles with the morality of breaking the rules of the experiment, Celeste can’t deny her growing attraction to the kind and enigmatic Olivia Soldano. Still, how much can you really trust a stranger? And how much can you trust yourself when you know all the faces you’ve seen and voices you’ve heard for the past three years have only been your imagination?
But what’s real? Celeste’s reality may lie somewhere between the absolute truth and a carefully constructed deception.
Available at:
Mutual Benefits by HP Munro
Coming out to your loved ones is stressful, so when Hannah Melville’s family not only accept but celebrate her accidental announcement, it should be a relief. Which it would be, if Hannah was gay.
Ashley West isn’t looking for a relationship. When she’s set up by her mother on a blind date, she’s ready to nip any expectations in the bud. She’s less prepared for her love interest to be straight.
What do you get when you combine a fake relationship with two meddling mothers? A laugh-out-loud romantic comedy that will have you glued to the page!
Available at:
The Wrong Date by Sienna Waters
What happens when you fall for Ms. Wrong?
Annie Harland is rich, successful, and very single. So when an invitation to her tenth high school reunion drops on her mat, she’s determined to skip it. Until a drunk evening with her best friend results in an appointment with an escort named Robin.
Robin is supposed to be bookish, well-muscled, and the owner of a golden retriever. Robin is actually tall, curvaceous, and very, very female.
Things should have ended at their very first meeting. But for some strange reason, Annie can’t stop seeing Ms. Wrong. And Robin is Ms. Wrong, if only because she’s a Ms. and not a Mr.
What should have been a story of high school revenge has turned into a romance, and Annie’s life is about to be turned upside down. But love knows no labels, or does it?
Available at:
Leave a comment
Leave a comment and let us know which book you’ll be reading for the “only one bed” category!
Special sale: Get Perfect Rhythm for 99 cents for a few days only!
While it doesn’t fit the “only one bed” category, I didn’t want you to miss this sale because it’s a rare opportunity to get one of my novels at such a steep discount! My contemporary romance novel Perfect Rhythm is on sale for only 99 cents, but only for a few days (until February 21, 2021), so if you haven’t yet read it, make sure you get it before the price goes back up. The discounted book is available at:
Amazon (worldwide)
Happy reading!
Jae
The post Only One Bed (Sapphic Reading Challenge #6) appeared first on Jae.
February 11, 2021
Book from The Lesbian Review’s “Best of the Best” List (Sapphic Reading Challenge #5)
This week’s category of the Sapphic Reading Challenge is a bit different. Instead of putting together a list of my own, I want you to read a book from a list curated by The Lesbian Review.
If you haven’t heard of The Lesbian Review yet, you should definitely check them out. The Lesbian Review is the biggest website dedicated to reviewing women-loving women & lesbian books. They review books (including audiobooks), fanfiction, and movies.
I’ve found a lot of great books by subscribing to their weekly newsletter with book recommendations, checking out their wonderful “best of” lists for every trope and theme you can think of, and joining their Facebook group, called The Lesbian Review Chat.
Read up on the rules of the Sapphic Reading Challenge
If you are just discovering the Sapphic Reading Challenge, read up on the rules before you pick a book for this category. You might also want to download your PDF so you can keep track of the books you read this year.
Read a book from The Lesbian Review’s “best of the best” list
For this category of the Sapphic Reading Challenge, read a book from The Lesbian Review’s “Best of the Best” list. These are highly recommended books that have “favorites” badges from two or more reviewers from The Lesbian Review team.
The “Best of the Best” list contains 14 pages, with 10 books each, so there are plenty of books to choose from. At the bottom of each page, click on “previous” to see the previous page of books.
Important note:
TLR doesn’t charge for reviews, yet running such a big website and newsletter costs a lot of money (not to mention time!). If you buy one of the books from their “best of the best” list, make sure you use their affiliate links so The Lesbian Review gets a small percentage from Amazon.
Leave a comment
Leave a comment and let us know whether you were already familiar with The Lesbian Review and tell us which book from The Lesbian Review’s “best of the best” list you’ll be reading!
Valentine’s Day surprise: Backwards to Oregon will be free this Sunday!
One of the books that The Lesbian Review lists as one of the “best of the best” is my lesbian historical romance Backwards to Oregon. As a Valentine’s Day surprise, my publisher will offer it for free this Sunday, February 14, in the Ylva Publishing webstore.
I’ll send out a newsletter as soon as the book is free, so if you don’t want to miss it, please subscribe to my newsletter.
Happy reading!
Jae
The post Book from The Lesbian Review’s “Best of the Best” List (Sapphic Reading Challenge #5) appeared first on Jae.
February 4, 2021
Character is a Journalist or Reporter (Sapphic Reading Challenge #4)
This week’s category of the Sapphic Reading Challenge features books with a main character who is a journalist or reporter.
Read up on the rules of the Sapphic Reading Challenge
Before you pick a book for the “character who’s a journalist or reporter” category, read up on the rules of the Sapphic Reading Challenge and download your PDF so you can keep track of the books you read this year.
Remember that you can either read one of the 15 books listed below or pick another sapphic book with a protagonist who’s a journalist or reporter.
15 sapphic novels with a main character who’s a reporter or journalist
I put together a list of 15 novels with a reporter/journalist protagonist that I hope you’ll enjoy.
The Red Files by Lee Winter
Ambitious Daily Sentinel journalist Lauren King is chafing on LA’s vapid social circuit, reporting on glam, A-list parties while sparring with her rival—the formidable, icy Catherine Ayers.
Ayers is an ex-Washington DC political correspondent who suffered a humiliating fall from grace, and her acerbic tongue keeps everyone at bay. Everyone, that is, except knockabout Iowa girl King, who is undaunted, unimpressed and gives as good as she gets.
One night a curious story unfolds before their eyes: One business launch, 34 prostitutes and a pallet of missing pink champagne.
What on earth does it mean? King and Ayers join forces but they might find a lot more than just a passion for news on the dusty road to Nevada.
Available at:
Death’s Echoes by Penny Mickelbury
Police Lieutenant Gianna Maglione heads up the DC Police Department’s Hate Crimes Unit. She investigates those who espouse and perpetrate acts of hatred. She hunts them down and infiltrates their habitats, and then she finds out where they live and work and who their friends are. She learns what their next evil acts are likely to be, and who will be their victims. Then, she must stop the violence―because hatred is almost always violent. But what happens to a cop when one of her officers becomes the victim of a brutal hate crime, and her girlfriend is targeted for a hit?
Mimi Patterson is the lead investigative reporter for Washington DC’s top newspaper. She’s not the kind of reporter who skims the surface of any story―she digs deep, asks the hard questions, leaves no stone unturned. She’s looking for facts, for all of them, seeking out the truth. There’s nothing fake about the news she reports, and the truth that she uncovers comes at a terrible price. But what happens when she finds herself unable―or perhaps unwilling―to pursue the big stories that come her way, to follow them wherever they lead?
The evils of racism, sexism, homophobia, misogyny, and religious intolerance pervade every aspect of our modern society. Hatred is a powerful force, one whose goal is to maim, weaken, diminish, and destroy. After so many years and so much hatred, Mimi and Gianna must finally come to terms with the price paid for their personal commitments to their jobs and to each other. And this time, the violence hits close to home, and the voices of its victims live on in the minds and consciences of Mimi and Gianna. They speak to them―and they remind them never to forget that they were denied life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness simply because of who they were.
Available at:
London Holiday by Miranda MacLeod
Jordan is an American journalist living in London, but when her newspaper is sold to an infamous tabloid king, she has one week to produce a tell-all story of the century or she’s out of a job, and out of the country. Then a runaway princess nearly falls into her lap. It seems like the answer to her prayers, but how can she write an exposé on a woman she’s falling in love with?
Abby was a typical California girl, until a twist of fate turned her into Princess Abigail, the heir to the throne of her father’s kingdom. When presented with an opportunity to escape her royal duties for a night out on the town while on an official state visit to London, she seizes the chance. But when she’s rescued by the woman of her dreams, she begins to doubt that she can ever return to royal life again.
As they have a madcap adventure exploring London together, both Jordan and Abby suspect they may have found their perfect match, but if the secrets they are hiding are exposed, will their relationship survive?
London Holiday is a modern-day fairytale inspired by the classic film Roman Holiday, with a lesbian twist.
Available at:
Falling into Place by Sheryn Munir
Romance is not for Tara. Embittered after a college fling, she vows to never fall in love again–especially since she believes there’s no future for same-sex love in her home in urban India. Then, one rain-drenched evening, an insane decision brings the bubbly Sameen into her life and everything changes. Sameen is beautiful, a breath of fresh air…and almost certainly straight. All Tara’s carefully built-up defenses start to crumble, one after the other. But is this relationship doomed before it can even start?
Available at:
The Miracle Girl by T.B. Markinson
Newspaper publisher and world traveler JJ Cavendish continually feels pressured to live up to her Miracle Girl nickname. Not many people know she’s living a carefully crafted lie. She may not hide ties to the LGBT community, but she does hide past struggles with addiction.
When the Colorado native is handpicked to take the helm at a dying Denver newspaper, she ends up reconnecting with her long lost love in this contemporary lesbian romance. Only there’s a catch. If JJ fires the most belligerent editor at the paper, she risks losing the love of her life.
Mid-afternoon office romps abound in this romantic comedy while also focusing on what it takes for a newspaper to remain relevant in this age of social media.
Available at:
SBF Seeking by La Toya Hankins
Four months before her wedding, Yvette Thurman realizes this might be her last chance to have a sexual fling with a white man. But she never thought placing a personal ad would lead her to discover she was a lesbian.
Yvette’s small town life in eastern North Carolina never prepared her for the personal journey she undertakes as she struggles to find her heart’s path.
Through personal ads and late night visits to an adult bookstore, Yvette learns more about her own personal desires than she ever did when she was engaged to be married. If she embraces her true self, can she find acceptance and love from her family and friends? Or will she be forced to hide who she really is from those she cares about the most?
Available at:
The Harbinger by Mary Eicher
In a picturesque California town, the deafening sound of bells brings dozens of people to their knees. Three days later a horrific accident claims their lives. Among the dead is the twin brother of Artemis Andronikos, a beautiful attorney, who abandons the ill-fated vacation and returns home to grieve.
Her mourning is interrupted by Lucy Breem a reporter who suspects a connection between the strange bell sound and subsequent deaths. Disturbed by the possibility that the phenomenon had presaged her brother’s death, Artemis agrees to join forces with Lucy to investigate the mysterious premonitions. Utilizing her considerable physical and deductive talents, Artemis battles nefarious forces and seeks information from friends in high places. Their research takes them to various global venues. But the solution to the mystery proves illusive and the couple discovers that neither science nor religion can provide an explanation for what has become known as the Harbinger.
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The Wolf’s Consort by Max Ellendale
When reporter Mack Parker accepted the task of an exclusive article about suspicious activity at a local hospital, she never expected to stumble into a preternatural world hidden in plain sight. A near-death rescue launches Mack into the arms of Zara Weston; a grumpy, reclusive police officer who impedes Mack’s investigation at the brink of every discovery. Her officious, vigilant demeanor forces Mack to take matters into her own hands. Can the reporter slip under the radar of the meddlesome cop to uncover the truth? Or will their crossed paths bring them closer to each other and to the dangerous world of werecreatures and vampires that haunts the fringes of society?
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The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?
Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.
Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the ‘80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story near its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.
Available at:
Lucy’s Chance by Jackie D.
Lucy severed the connection to her first love when the seduction of college life pulled at her desires. Now in their thirties, Lucy returns home to cover a story where Detective Erica Chance plays a central character. Erica has spent a decade trying to banish the memory of Lucy, and on the surface, she has succeeded. Now, the reporter is back in her life, insisting she is a valued resource in the search for their hometown’s first serial killer. Old wounds are opened and new enemies are discovered as Lucy tries to take her chance.
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The Delicate Things We Make by Milena McKay
Hitting rock bottom in the concrete jungle of Manhattan, investigative journalist Jamie Walker lands the assignment of a lifetime: Find the most elusive artist of a generation, who has enthralled the art and fashion world for over a decade.
This assignment is supposed to finally be Jamie’s ticket to journalistic fame and fortune. The quest, however, proves to be difficult, as—so far—nobody has managed to discover who the legendary DeVor really is.
As Jamie delves deeper into the mysteries surrounding the enigmatic artist, trying to salvage her stagnant career, she risks getting in over her head and losing her heart in the process.
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Skin Deep by Kenna White
Jordan Griffin is an attractive and dedicated assistant editor for Northwest Living Magazine. She is given an assignment to track down and interview one-time nationally renowned broadcast journalist, Reece McAllister who has been living a secretive and reclusive life. To get the story, Jordan follows Reece deep into the backwoods of Washington State. To her surprise, Jordan comes away with far more than just a story.
Should she betray a trust or deny her journalistic conscience? Their future together depends on her making the right choice.
Available at:
Holy Hell by Elizabeth Sims
Lillian Byrd is a small-time reporter with a flair for making big-time mistakes–like getting fired for fending off the boss’s son with an X-Acto knife and breaking up with her girlfriend for no good reason–so her investigation into the disappearances of women in the Detroit area might not be the best idea. But when one of the missing women turns up dead and Lillian recognizes the bizarrely mutilated corpse, she’s in too deep to get out. Of course, it doesn’t help that she’s still fighting off the boss’s son and ducking the aggressively amorous overtures of the roughest dyke in town.
Now, after simultaneously blowing the case for the police and revealing herself to the off-kilter killers, she’s completely on her own. Can she catch the murderers before they catch up with her?
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Lone Ranger by VK Powell
Freelance reporter Emma Ferguson’s assignment to write about a missing member of a local furniture royalty family turns into a murder when she talks to the only survivor of the founding family. While she tries to mine literary gold from the crumbs of a decades-old mystery, commitment-phobic Carter West seems more interested in maintaining the status quo, another puzzle Emma is eager to unravel.
Park ranger Carter West has been dedicated to her family and their close-knit community all her life, so when Emma Ferguson starts poking around in the past, Carter does whatever is necessary to maintain the life they’ve established—including keeping deadly secrets.
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Clichéd Love by Lynn Galli
Vega, a journalist by trade and a cynic for life, came up with a brilliant pitch for a series of articles. Recount the tales of lesbian and gay couples to assure the heterosexual population that the institution of marriage isn’t at risk now that gay marriage is legal. Her editor loved the idea. Vega loved the notion of a long-term assignment that paid regularly. What she didn’t realize until too late was that she’d have to sit through every one of these often banal, regularly nauseating love stories without wanting to hurl herself off the nearest cliff. So much for her brilliant idea.
By the time she arrives in Seattle, she’s already had enough of interviewing couples, but she’s determined to see it through. After all, if the readers of a national newspaper can recognize a love story as a love story, regardless of sexuality, she might change a few minds out there. Helping to temper the discontent is new friend, Iris, who seems to know everyone’s story and, more importantly, shares Vega’s take on them. As the interviews continue and her friendship with Iris grows, Vega wonders if her lifelong cynical attitude toward love might be softening a bit.
Available at:
Lynn Galli generously offers Clichéd Love for FREE until February 11, 2021.
Leave a comment
Leave a comment and let us know which book you’ll be reading for the “protagonist who’s a journalist or reporter” category!
Don’t miss my upcoming surprises!
In February and March, my publisher and I will continue the tradition to support our readers during the pandemic with free books and discounted books. There’ll be a surprise coming from me next week and another one the week after that. If you’d like to get an email so you won’t miss it, please subscribe to my newsletter.
Happy reading!
Jae
The post Character is a Journalist or Reporter (Sapphic Reading Challenge #4) appeared first on Jae.
January 28, 2021
Books with a “Return to Hometown” Theme (Sapphic Reading Challenge #3)
The third category of the Sapphic Reading Challenge is a theme that I see a lot, especially in WLW & lesbian romance: books in which the protagonist returns to her hometown after years away.
Maybe it’s the fact that many queer people have to leave their hometown to be able to be their authentic selves and then have to face their past sooner or later—families that might not have reacted too well to their coming out or a first crush they left behind.
Read up on the rules of the Sapphic Reading Challenge
Before you pick a book for the “return to hometown” category, read up on the rules of the Sapphic Reading Challenge and download your PDF so you can keep track of the books you read this year.
Remember that you can either read one of the 15 books listed below or pick another sapphic book in which the protagonist returns to her hometown.
15 sapphic novels with a “return to hometown” theme
I put together a list of 15 novels with a “return to hometown” theme that I hope you’ll enjoy.
Perfect Rhythm by Jae
A lesbian slow-burn romance about seeking the perfect rhythm between two very different people—and finding happiness where they least expect it.
Pop star Leontyne Blake might sing about love, but she stopped believing in it a long time ago. What women want is her image, not the real her. When her father has a stroke, she flees the spotlight and returns to her tiny Missouri hometown.
In her childhood home, she meets small-town nurse Holly Drummond, who isn’t impressed by Leo’s fame at all. That isn’t the only thing that makes Holly different from other women. She’s also asexual. For her, dating is a minefield of expectations that she has decided to avoid.
Can the tentative friendship between a burned-out pop star and a woman not interested in sex develop into something more despite their diverse expectations?
Available at:
Big Girl Pill by KD Williamson
Maya Davis is done hiding. It’s left her empty and out of touch with her family. Now she’s a young woman on a mission: getting rid of residual feelings for her former best friend from college. Her plan is to put herself through a wringer by being in Nina’s upcoming wedding and burning away whatever emotions are left, so she can start anew. Her plan, however, has big holes, and everything she’s been feeling rushes through and leaves her thinking that this was a bad idea.
Nina Sterling is a work in progress, torn between being two very different things—the person others expect her to be and who she wants to become. For the past couple of years, it’s been easier to give in to her demanding, steamroller of a mother and her pleasant but controlling fiancé, but with Maya’s return for a lengthy stay in town, and encouragement from Nina’s hilarious cousin, seeds of rebellion are sown.
As Maya and Nina try to patch up the past and get closer, old sparks rekindle, and as they both grow into who they are meant to be, those sparks might just become a fire.
Available at:
In the Black by Luci Dreamer
What if you got a second chance at first love?
Hotshot firefighter captain Michelle ‘Mitch’ Mitchell loves her job, loves her dog, and loves her best friend Fish. She did love a girl once, but that girl left their small town, taking Mitch’s heart with her.
Lilly never meant to hurt Mitch. She just wanted some time to figure out who she was. Now ten years later, she’s back in her hometown dealing with an ailing aunt, a failing family bar, and a girlfriend she can’t seem to fall in love with.
When grief brings Mitch and Lilly together, secrets are revealed, old wounds are reopened and long-smoldering feelings reignited. Will they be able to forgive past mistakes and start over again?
Available at:
The Long Way Home by Rachel Spangler
They say you can’t go home again, but Raine St. James doesn’t know why anyone would want to.
Rory St. James was disowned after she came out at seventeen. She rebounded by moving to Chicago, changing her name to Raine, and putting down her hometown to audiences around the country. Now, ten years later, too old to be considered a gay youth, broke, evicted, and fresh off a much needed breakup, Raine St. James is forced to accept a job teaching at Bramble University in Darlington, the town she’s been publicly bashing for the last decade.
Beth Devoroux was born and raised in Darlington. Despite losing her parents at a young age, she is well loved by everyone who knows her. She leads a comfortable life with good job at Bramble University, a long-term but closeted relationship, friends that she can count on, and everything she thinks she wants, so why is she so drawn to a rabble-rouser like Raine St. James?
Can Raine and Beth face their pasts and come to terms with their differences in order to have any hope for a future together?
Available at:
Full Circle by Dillon Watson
Sara Gordon knows better—don’t sleep with women she works with. It just leads to awkward mornings and moving on. But she did and it does. Now she’s in her hometown of Atlanta, looking back at a string of broken relationships and making the same promise to herself on the eve of yet another new posting.
Mikaela Small’s last date set personal and regional records for Worst Ever. On the upside, there’s a plum job opening in her firm, but the competition for it will be fierce. This is not a good time to make an epic mistake, like falling into the arms of the gorgeous new security guard.
This time will be different. Neither of them knows how right they are.
Available at:
Lockset by Brenda Murphy
After a string of failed relationships, brilliant litigator Eunice Park is determined to stay single. Who needs distractions when you’re trying to make partner at Chicago’s most prestigious law firm? A Sunday afternoon visit from the police is the beginning of a series of events that turn Eun’s life upside down, and she’s forced to return to her hometown and confront her estranged family.
Morgan Wright, locksmith and part-time animal shelter volunteer, is convinced the perfect woman exists, just not for her. After a chance encounter with Eun, Morgan becomes embroiled in Eun’s family drama.
Charmed by Morgan’s easy swagger, Eun invites her back to her hotel room. Bone-melting sex and a surprisingly soulful connection leaves Eun questioning her return to Chicago. But not everyone in Sikesville is happy Eun has returned.
Available at:
Turning for Home by Caren J. Werlinger
Like her mother before her, Jules Calhoon couldn’t wait to escape her small Ohio town. Unlike her mother, though, Jules couldn’t disappear forever. When she’s called back for her grandfather’s funeral, the visit unleashes a flood of memories and starts her on a lonely—and familiar—path.
Her partner, Kelli, feels Jules slipping away but can’t figure out how to pull her back. In desperation, she turns to Jules’s oldest friend—and her ex—Donna. The problem is, Donna never could figure out why her relationship with Jules ended so long ago, and she never stopped loving Jules.
When a lonely, confused teenager reaches out to Jules for help, the past and present are set on a collision course, igniting a chain of events that will leave none of them unscathed.
Available at:
Back to the Start by Monica McCallan
When Remy’s grandmother dies, it means leaving her life in San Francisco and returning to a town she swore she’d never revisit, forced to confront a world she’d worked hard to put behind her over the last twelve years.
She’s not expecting that the first girl to ever steal her heart, the pretty, popular Fallon Lewis is still around, and in a town this small, their paths continue to cross much to Remy’s dismay. It’s hard enough seeing her first love, but it’s exponentially more difficult when she can barely stand to look at the woman.
Remy’s trip back has the possibility to open up doors she believed were shut long ago, but she’s never planned on staying, and she definitely never planned on letting Fallon back into her life.
If she thought being a teenager in a small town was hard, she’s about to find out how much harder life is when there’s no one but herself to blame for her problems.
Available at:
Crossed (A Luce Hansen Thriller, book 1) by Meredith Doench
Agent Luce Hansen returns home to Willow’s Ridge to catch a serial killer who has been murdering young women. It’s the case she’s been waiting for, the case that compels her to return to the small town she turned her back on nineteen years ago, the case she plans to ride from the Ohio BCI all the way to the FBI.
The case worth risking her shaky relationship with her lover, Rowan. But the horrors of the case recall the unsolved murder of Luce’s first girlfriend, and Luce is forced to confront the local ex-gay ministry that haunted her youth. When the past crosses the present, will Luce lose everything she’s worked so hard to build?
Available at:
Choosing Love by MB Panichi
Amry Marasich is a lesbian novelist whose day job is editing for a local paper in Minneapolis. Vacationing in her hometown of Hibbing in northern Minnesota’s spectacular Iron Range, she meets forestry officer Takoda Running Bear while cycling the scenic Mesabi Trail. The attraction between them is instantaneous and almost magical.
Unfortunately, reality rears its ugly head, in the form of Amry’s homophobic siblings. Although they both profess to “love the sinner, hate the sin,” like so many of their ilk, “hate” seems to be the operative word—reviving in Amry painful memories of growing up different in a close-minded small town and reminding her of why she chose to leave it for the anonymity of the big city.
Neither Amry nor Takoda are interested in a summer romance, so the geographically challenged couple struggle to make time for each other with long phone calls and short, passionate visits. But for Amry, falling in love would mean falling back into a life she fled. When fate turns her world upside down, will she have the courage to surrender the past and commit to a new life and an unknown future with Takoda?
Available at:
Unbroken Circle by Mary Griggs
Sallie Lee Hybart doesn’t see many strangers at her diner counter. Pennington, Alabama, is a town the interstate passed by, so newcomers are rare. But this one looks familiar.
Janet Bouton has nothing and no one. Her life has been stripped down to the clothing on her back. Counting out her meager change to pay for a stick-to-the-ribs meal, she is hoping to escape the diner unrecognized. She shouldn’t have come back…but no place else on earth was familiar.
An act of kindness sets a chain of events in motion and pulls Sallie Lee and Janet together, but the past has the power to tear them apart. There are still people in Pennington who remember Janet too well. Small town memories have had a lot of years to simmer, and love may not be the recipe for happiness.
Available at:
Chasing Shadows by Lila Bruce
Avery Smith, who returned to her hometown of Bethel Springs after time spent away in the big city, is finally beginning to absorb the culture shock and settle into her job at the local Sheriff’s Department. The pay’s not great, there’s a decided lack of decent coffee and available women in town, but those are sacrifices she’s willing to make to in order to be closer to her aging and increasingly eccentric grandmother. When the discovery of a dead body in the county coincides with the arrival of attractive but irritating tv personality Cameron Reinhart, Avery has to put aside her feelings of skepticism and disbelief when Cam claims to have seen Avery’s murder victim — after she was murdered.
Available at:
Sunlight in the Shadows by Gail Newman
How the hell did this happen? Kate asked herself. She was sitting in the passenger section of the ferry holding her overnight case on her lap. She never could have imaged herself in this position with life as she knew it seemingly falling apart. Staying with her Aunt Constance was something she never could have imagined. What were the secrets that this small island held about her aunt and grandmother? Reconnecting with people and memories of her past Kate desperately tries to find the strength within herself to rebuild her life. As if there is not enough to deal with add in the fiery Faith and lovely Lane vying for her affections. While life may never be the same it is certainly going to get interesting.
Available at:
A Heart to Call Home by Jeannie Levig
Dakota Scott has spent her entire adult life trying to outrun her past, but even the privilege and reputation her family name affords her haven’t helped her forget. Her mother’s mental illness and the memory of the night that haunts her from so long ago won’t release her. When the one woman with the power to set her free shows up, Dakota is drawn to her, but she is a painful reminder of everything Dakota has been trying desperately to escape.
When Jessie Weldon returns to her hometown after thirty years of avoiding it, she knows she has demons to face and a conflicted past to resolve, but she has no idea love awaits her. Can she give her heart to Dakota with the tragic past that lies between them?
Available at:
Addie Mae by Addison M. Conley
Twenty years after leaving Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, Maddy Carlton moves back to her hometown. She’s split from her husband, and all she wants is to get her life in order, help her son, and move on.
Surrounded by old friends, she begins to see hope, but things turn ugly when her husband and father-in-law uncover her secret. Maddy doesn’t want to play dirty, but discovering a few skeletons in her husband’s family may be the only way out.
Mysterious, Jessie Stevens is like a daughter to the woman dating Maddy’s grandfather. She bonds with Maddy over scuba diving. As their friendship grows, so does the attraction. Jessie silently hopes for more, but Maddy isn’t free, and Jessie isn’t sure how Maddy identifies. And then, there’s Jessie’s little secret.
Will their choices bring them closer together, or will it push them apart?
Available at:
Leave a comment
Leave a comment and let us know which book you’ll be reading for the “return to hometown” category!
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Happy reading!
Jae
The post Books with a “Return to Hometown” Theme (Sapphic Reading Challenge #3) appeared first on Jae.
January 21, 2021
Character with an everyday job (Sapphic Reading Challenge #2)
It’s time for the second category of the Sapphic Reading Challenge. This one features sapphic books with main characters who have an everyday job.
As you probably know, a lot of books—especially in WLW and lesbian romance—feature characters who are actresses, famous musicians, surgeons, or CEOs of big companies. That’s why I’d like to spotlight protagonists who don’t have glamorous jobs. Instead, they make a living as a waitress, cashier, mechanic, massage therapist, or work in another everyday job.
Read up on the rules of the Sapphic Reading Challenge
Before you pick a book for the “character with an everyday job” category, read up on the rules of the Sapphic Reading Challenge and download your PDF so you can keep track of the books you read this year.
Remember that you can either read one of the 15 books listed below or pick another sapphic book featuring a protagonist with an everyday job.
15 sapphic novels featuring characters with an everyday job
I put together a list of 15 novels featuring characters with an everyday job. I hope you’ll find one you enjoy.
Wrong Number, Right Woman by Jae (cashier & crafter)
Flirting has never been Denny’s strong suit, but so what if she’s too shy to ask women out? She’s content with her simple life, working as a cashier and helping her sister raise her niece.
But then she gets a wrong-number text message from a stranger named Eliza, asking her of all people for dating advice!
Eliza is Denny’s total opposite: witty, outgoing—and straight. Despite their differences, the accidental text sparks an unlikely friendship. Soon, Eliza—self-proclaimed queen of disastrous first dates—would rather banter back and forth with Denny than to keep trying her luck at online dating.
When they meet in person, there’s an instant connection. But what Eliza is feeling can’t be attraction, right? It doesn’t mean a thing that she’s starting to wish the guys she dates would be more like Denny. Or does it?
Can the wrong number lead to the right woman after all?
Wrong Number, Right Woman is a light-hearted, slow-burn lesbian romance that embraces likable characters without all the drama.
Available at:
On the Square by Brenda Murphy (contractor)
Dropped from her television show after a very public split with her cheating ex, celebrity chef Mai Li wants nothing more than to reopen her parents’ shuttered restaurant and make a fresh start in her former hometown. So what if twenty years of neglect has left the building in need of a major renovation?
Seduced by Mai’s charm and determination, hard-edged contractor Dale Miller agrees to take on her renovation project.
After a spring storm causes significant damage to the building and renovation costs exceed Mai’s budget, Dale offers her a deal, but is it a price Mai is willing to pay?
Available at:
Contract for Love by Alison Grey (waitress)
Single mom Sherry lives in a trailer park with her six-year-old son Jake, trying to make ends meet as a waitress.
Madison’s life couldn’t be more different. She’s been raised by her rich grandmother, and her only goals are partying and bedding women.
When her grandmother threatens to disinherit her if she doesn’t clean up her act, Madison has to find a way to convince her she’s changed.
After a chance encounter with Sherry, Madison comes up with a crazy idea that will rock both of their worlds: she wants to hire Sherry to play her fake girlfriend.
Available at:
Valerie by Kit Eyre (taxi driver)
A taxi driver saves a damsel in distress with car trouble only to find there’s a spark between them.
But with a General Election on the horizon and a whole host of secrets ready to implode, the scene is set for a bruising campaign where political capital and love collide.
Max Jarvis has never been one for falling hard, especially when a woman as vibrant as Valerie Smythe crosses her path. Yet she can’t deny they work as a couple, even if she’s skittish about going all-in.
As the election draws closer and loyalties are tested, will Max and Valerie make the right choices?
Available at:
Love by Design by S.W. Andersen (interior designer)
Cassie Carl believes she has it all. On the cusp of achieving her professional goals and soon to marry the man of her dreams—the handsome, kind and loving Stefan Van Allen—it seems she’s found the life every woman dreams of.
What else could a girl want?
Peyton Kingston is a beautiful, talented interior designer on the rise, whose sole focus is building her business. She loves what she does and has little time or patience for relationships. She’s happy with her life.
What else could a girl need?
When Cassie’s wealthy fiancé brings Peyton in to do a renovation on their home before the big engagement party, sparks fly, leaving both Cassie and Peyton to question everything they thought they already had.
What happens when the thin veil of perfection becomes riddled with holes?
Available at:
Playing Catch-Up by Zoey Lennox (youth counsellor)
Twenty-three-year-old Alexis Lenz’s life is a mess: she hates her job, has lost touch with most of her friends, and her love life is non-existent.
When she meets LGBTQ youth counsellor Ramie Ramirez at a dinner party, sparks fly. But Ramie is still putting herself back together after an acrimonious split from her long-term girlfriend and is only looking for something casual. If living with the repercussions of her ex’s lies has taught her one thing, it’s to keep her heart locked up tight.
As the two women begin to date, Alexis finds herself in a predicament. She’s never dated a woman before and is afraid Ramie will dump her sorry arse once she finds out.
What’s a girl to do? A little white lie can’t hurt, can it? It’s not like they’re going to do something stupid like fall in love…
Available at:
Tailor-Made by Yolanda Wallace (tailor)
Before Grace Henderson began working as a tailor in her father’s bespoke suit shop in Wiliamsburg, Brooklyn, she established a hard and fast rule about not dating clients. The edict is an easy one for her to follow, considering the overwhelming majority of the shop’s clients are men. But when Dakota Lane contacts her to commission a suit to wear to her sister’s wedding, Grace finds herself tempted to throw all the rules out the window.
Dakota Lane works as a bicycle messenger by day and moonlights as a male model. Her high-profile career, gender-bending looks, and hard-partying ways garner her plenty of romantic attention, but she would rather play the field than settle down. When she meets sexy tailor Grace Henderson, however, she suddenly finds herself in the market for much more than a custom suit.
Available at:
Lost For Words by Andrea Bramhall (massage therapist)
Sasha Adams has it all. Fulfilling career, loving family, great friends, and… Who’s she kidding? She lives at home with her aging mother, Fleur. She works as a massage therapist, and spends all her time with her best friend, Bobbi. But damn it, she’s happy. Well, okay, maybe not happy, but she’s content. It’s enough. Until the well-meaning but meddlesome women in her life, Fleur and Bobbi, team up and enter Sasha into a writing competition with the potential to change her life.
Film producer and director Jac Kensington has the career she’s spent thirty years honing to perfection, with little thought to her personal life. She helps run an annual scriptwriting competition in search of new talent and projects for her company to produce.
Meddling might have brought Jac and Sasha together, but fate has plans of its own. Sasha’s life is on the brink of changing beyond all recognition in this bittersweet lesbian romantic comedy.
Available at:
Reverie by Eliza Andrews (hairdresser & auto shop owner)
Lucinda Hamilton settles down in sleepy Reverie, South Carolina, because she’s running from the troubles of her past. But when her dangerous ex-husband evades law enforcement, she fears that no amount of running will ever make her safe again.
Two women are determined to keep Lucinda’s past at bay — the mysterious young nurse living on the other side of Lucinda’s duplex, who won’t even tell Lucinda her name, and Ardie Brown, an ex-marine who’s recently moved back to Reverie herself. It’s hard for Lucinda to trust either one of them; it’s even harder to admit to herself that she’s falling for both of them.
What will happen when Lucinda’s ex-husband finally catches up to her? Will the girl next door or Ardie have the power to stop him?
Or will Lucinda finally have to face her past all by herself?
Available at:
The Grim Assistant by Jodi Hutchins (postal carrier)
Postal carrier and amateur surfer, Samantha Diaz, lives an uncomplicated life. Well, other than helping her sister with childcare, crushing on her unavailable customer, Lauren Brennan, and catching as many waves as possible before hurricane season begins. Suffice to say, she isn’t looking for much more, but when Lauren invites her to a monthly game night at her house, Sam happily agrees.
When Sam sets out on an early morning surf, the last thing she expects to do is die, but a sudden thunderstorm thrashes offshore, creating a riptide that steals Sam’s life. She awakens to a snarky woman named Margo speaking cryptic nonsense. Not only does she claim to be one of the many Grim Reapers, or Grims, in the world, Margo makes Sam an offer: she’ll bring Sam back from the dead, as long as she becomes Margo’s temporary assistant. Sam accepts but soon realizes the deal was too good to be true, and the consequences she faces may be worse than the death she dodged.
Available at:
Rules of the Road by K. Aten (dental assistant & engineer)
Jamie is an engineer who keeps humor close to her heart and people at arm’s length. Kelsey is a dental assistant who deals with everything from the hilarious to the disgusting on a daily basis. What happens when a driving app brings them together as friends? The nerd car and the rainbow car both know a thing or two about hazard avoidance. When a flat tire brings them together in person, Jamie immediately realizes that Kelsey isn’t just another woman on her radar. Both of them have struggled to break free from stereotypes while they navigate the road of life. As their friendship deepens they realize that sometimes you have to break the rules to get where you need to go.
Available at:
Regal Crest/Flashpoint Publications
Ticket to Love by Donna Jay (mechanic & office manager)
When Tara’s mother catches her in a compromising position, she’s given an ultimatum – A therapist to help her get over her issues or a one-way ticket to New Zealand.
From the moment Tara walks through her door, Kathryn’s orderly life is knocked off-kilter. The sassy Australian, ten years her junior, is as charming as she is off-limits.
When lines are crossed, fireworks explode, and not all of them good. Emotions run high, loyalties are tested, bonds are made, and bonds are broken.
Just when Tara thinks life has settled into a comfortable routine, a door to her past looms ahead. Taking a giant leap of faith, with Kathryn by her side, she steps through.
Available at:
Temptation by Kris Bryant (nanny)
Cassie Miller is broke. Her parents cut off all funding when she dropped out of medical school, and graduate school is expensive. A full-time nanny job at the Wellington estate is the answer to her problems, except working for beautiful, successful Brook Wellington wasn’t in the job description.
Brook has always had a head for business. Born into a global shipping empire, she sits at the helm running it with skill and savvy. But success comes at a cost. Her priority is her six-year-old son, but she can’t be in two places at once. Hiring a nanny isn’t the perfect solution, but it would certainly help, and Cassie came highly recommended. If only she wasn’t so damn attractive.
Can Cassie and Brook deny their growing attraction and keep things professional? Or will they sidestep propriety and give in to temptation?
Available at:
Up on the Roof by A.L. Brooks (accountant)
Book-loving Lena likes order, cleanliness, peace, and quiet. When Megan, a loud and clumsy young woman, moves into the flat below hers, chaos ensues, and Lena’s already-high anxiety rockets. It gets even worse when a devastating storm leaves Lena needing a place to live.
Against her better judgment, Megan offers her a spare room, and they both know it’s a terrible idea. After all, they’ve clashed from the first moment they met. It can surely only end in disaster.
As time passes, Lena and Megan realize that, underneath their differences, there’s an inexplicable pull between them that seems hard to resist. Can they learn to deal with their clashing personalities and let the attraction blossom? Or will what divides them be too much to overcome?
Available at:
Just One Taste by CJ Birch (cook & waitress at a diner)
Frustrated with small-town life, Hayley moves to the city only to get fired and lose her apartment all in the same day. Desperate, she takes a job as a short order cook in a quaint diner. Now she just has to find a place to live and learn how to cook.
Lauren manages Greta’s Diner the same way she manages everything in her life, with calm and order. All that changes the moment Hayley walks through the door. She’s loud, opinionated, wild, and completely alluring. When Lauren finds out that Hayley’s been sleeping in the diner, she makes a decision that will change both their lives forever.
Available at:
Make the Sapphic Reading Challenge more interesting!
If you’d like to get more book suggestions, talk about the books you are reading, and chat with other readers participating in the Sapphic Reading Challenge, join either my Facebook group for readers or the Goodreads group for the Sapphic Reading Challenge.
Leave a comment
Leave a comment and let us know which book you’ll be reading for the “character with an everyday job” category!
Subscribe to this blog to get future Sapphic Reading Challenge posts
If you’d like to get all future Sapphic Reading Challenge posts sent to your in-box, subscribe to my blog.
Happy reading!
Jae
The post Character with an everyday job (Sapphic Reading Challenge #2) appeared first on Jae.
January 14, 2021
Book with a butch/butch pairing (Book Unicorn post #1)
Welcome to the first Book Unicorn post of the Sapphic Reading Challenge.
What is the Book Unicorn?
A quick reminder: The Book Unicorn is a bonus level that you can pick either by itself or as an additional goal. The goal is to read 10 sapphic books from 10 of 12 harder-to-find genres and themes. That means you can skip two of the Unicorn categories. I’ll post book suggestions for one Book Unicorn category each month. You can download the PDF to fill in the books you read for the Book Unicorn challenge here.
Make the Sapphic Reading Challenge more interesting!
If you’d like to get more book suggestions, talk about the books you are reading, and chat with other readers participating in the Sapphic Reading Challenge, join either my Facebook group for readers or the Goodreads group for the Sapphic Reading Challenge.
The first Book Unicorn category: a book featuring a butch/butch couple
For the first Book Unicorn category, I’d like you to read a book about two butch women falling in love or being in an established relationship with each other.
For the unlikely case that you aren’t sure what being butch means: Stonewall defines it this way: “Traditionally, in lesbian culture, the word ‘butch’ refers to a woman whose gender expression and traits present as typically ‘masculine’.”
When I put together a list of books about a butch/butch couple, I was amazed about how few there are! I think this is pretty much the only category for which I didn’t manage to find 15 books. So if you know of any others, please leave a comment with the title and author, and I’ll add the book to the list.
10 books featuring a butch/butch couple
I put together a list of 10 books featuring a butch/butch couple. I hope you’ll enjoy them!
Life Rewired by Lynn Galli
Two years ago, Molly Sokol decided she wanted to get serious about finding that special someone. She could picture her perfectly—petite, feminine, excitable, adoring, and ultra-affectionate. When the opposite of all that comes along in the form of Falyn Shaw, Molly never thought they’d be anything more than friends. Being wrong has never felt so good.
Available at:
Night Call by Radclyffe
All medevac helicopter pilot Jett McNally wants to do is fly and forget about the horror and heartbreak she left behind in the Middle East, but anesthesiologist Tristan Holmes has other plans.
When Jett comes home from the war and destruction in the Middle East, flying and the adrenaline rush of a crisis are the only things that make her happy, and she volunteers to fly night call where all the action is whenever she can. So maybe once in a while she takes a few chances. Hey, that’s life, right?
Dr. Tristan Holmes is an expert at two things—high-risk anesthesia and pleasing women. Tristan gave up expecting anything other than a good time from the women in her life long time ago, and casual relationships are the perfect prescription for stress release. She doesn’t do relationships, so she can’t quite understand why it bothers her when Jett makes it clear she doesn’t want one. High-stakes medical drama, life on the edge, and love in the fast lane—it’s all just routine for Night Call.
Available at:
Complex Dimensions by Brenda Murphy
Sick of living in her parent’s basement and encountering her ex-girlfriend on a regular basis, former graduate student Veronica Fletcher signs on to manage the stable for Rowan House, Skye’s most exclusive resort for women. After arriving at Rowan house Veronica’s vow to remain celibate is tested when she meets Millie Reid.
Sexy, sweet, and funny, Millie is the woman of Veronica’s dreams. Or is she? When Millie’s past threatens their future together, Veronica is faced with a choice she doesn’t want to make. The butterfly effect has never been more personal.
Available at:
Waking the Dreamer by K. Aten
By the end of the 21st century, the world had become a harsh place. After decades of natural and man-made catastrophes, nations fell, populations shifted, and seventy percent of the continents became uninhabitable without protective suits. Technological advancement strode forward faster than ever and it was the only thing that kept human society steady through it all. No one could have predicted the discovery of the Dream Walkers. They were people born with the ability to leave their bodies at will, unseen by the waking world. Having the potential to become ultimate spies meant the remaining government regimes wanted to study and control them. The North American government, under the leadership of General Rennet, demanded that all Dream Walkers join the military program. For any that refused to comply, they were hunted down and either brainwashed or killed.
The very first Dream Walker discovered was a five year old girl named Julia. And when the soldiers came for her at the age of twenty, she was already hidden away. A decade later found Julia living a new life under the government’s radar. As a secure tech courier in the capital city of Chicago, she does her job and the rest of her time avoids other people as much as she is able. The moment she agrees to help another fugitive Walker is when everything changes. Now the government wants them both and they’ll stop at nothing to get what they want.
Available at:
Desperate Times by Hildred Billings
Is it possible to be so much alike that you’re completely incompatible?
Tess and Sidney have both committed the greatest online dating faux pas possible: uploading old pictures. When the two tough butches meet at a small town bar, they think they’re getting the femmes of their dreams.
So begins the awkward – yet sordid – acquaintance of the only two lesbians in town. Local rancher Tess doesn’t have time for women who aren’t her type, and new-girl-in-town Sidney isn’t interested in someone who only sees her as a piece of fresh meat.
Yet they keep bumping into each other… is it fate, or just small town karma?
A bad date turns into a one-night stand. A one-night stand turns into a casual relationship. A casual relationship becomes Sidney’s greatest amusement, and Tess’s biggest nightmare as she’s slowly forced out of the closet in conservative River Rock.
Desperate times are afoot in the sleepy, gossipy hamlet of rural America. It’s going to take more than nerves of steel to survive the isolationism and people with nothing better to do than ruin their neighbors’ lives.
It’s going to take a whole lotta introspection – and love.
Available at:
The Weight of the Stars by K. Ancrum
A vivid, evocative YA lesbian romance about how the universe is full of second chances
Ryann Bird dreams of traveling across the stars. But a career in space isn’t an option for a girl who lives in a trailer park on the “wrong” side of town. So Ryann becomes her circumstances and settles for acting out and skipping school to hang out with her delinquent friends.
One day she meets Alexandria: a furious loner who spurns Ryann’s offer of friendship. After a horrific accident leaves Alexandria with a broken arm, the girls are brought together despite themselves—and Ryann learns her secret: Alexandria’s mother is an astronaut who volunteered for a one-way trip to the edge of the solar system.
Every night without fail, Alexandria waits to catch radio signals from her mother. And now it’s up to Ryann to lift her onto the roof day after day until the silence between them grows into friendship, and eventually something more.
Available at:
The Swashbuckler by Lee Lynch
Frenchy Tonneau leaves her closeted home in the Bronx for the bars of New York City, the freedom of Provincetown, and the liberation of Greenwich Village in the 1960s and 1970s. Her hangouts, her women, her small yet universal world tell the stories of the times – and the stories of lesbians today. A timeless journey and a riveting read, The Swashbuckler is heart-wrenching, heartwarming, and unforgettable.
Available at:
Beyond the Checkpoint by Addison M. Conley
Beyond the Checkpoint is a combination of military action, suspense, and romance.
In 2008, Intelligence officer Ali Clairmont joined her agency’s deployment program. She’s openly gay because it’s not a punishment in the federal workforce. Air Force Major and NSA SIGINT officer Lynn Stewart is deep in the closet because DADT is still in effect.
Over ten years, they cross paths three times – twice in Afghanistan and finally at home. In 2008, they attempted to keep everything professional, but add a little coffee and close quarters and the attraction ignites. In 2010, a spy is selling secrets. Lynn is brought into the investigation, but once again, mission above all else takes a toll.
As the years go by, neither can forget the other. Ali isn’t happy when Lynn walks into her life again as her new civilian supervisor in 2017. Then Ali’s cousin arranges for a part-time handywoman to help with home renovations. When Lynn shows up, the fireworks go off. Eventually, the ice begins to melt. But is it too late for love? Is a cordial friendship all they can hope for?
Available at:
Five Moons Rising by Lise MacTague
Unknown to regular citizens, nightmarish creatures lurk in the dark underbelly of human civilization. The presence of these supranormals (“supras”)—werewolves, vampires, demons—is a closely guarded government secret, as is the existence of a cadre of specially engineered Hunters charged with exterminating them.
Code-named Malice, Hunter Mary Alice Nolan was genetically modified and rigorously trained to use her great strength, heightened senses, and killer instincts to track and eliminate supras who prey on the innocent. A loner by choice, her only real link to the human world is her close connection to her mother and sister—until the unthinkable happens…
Ruri Samson has been a werewolf for more than a century and is comfortably situated as the Beta of her peaceful pack. Until she is betrayed by the woman she loves and an evil outsider massacres her Alpha and his most loyal followers. Barely escaping with her life, Ruri is forced to tread the perilous path of a lone wolf while vowing vengeance against the usurper and his minions.
Although these two powerful women should rightfully despise each other, fate will soon compel them to join forces on a dangerous quest to avenge their loved ones—and will ignite a forbidden passion that neither of them ever imagined.
Available at:
Take a Chance by D. Jackson Leigh
Veterinarian Trip Beaumont likes being a big fish in a small pond. There’s hardly an animal she can’t heal or a woman she can’t charm within fifty miles of Pine Cone, Georgia—except for the irritating and elusive new cop who keeps leaving parking tickets on her truck.
Officer Jamie Grant has never liked rule breakers, but she’s especially incensed when she discovers Trip owns the truck that is constantly parked illegally. She’s searched carefully for a quiet, eclectic community to settle down with her drug-sniffing—albeit gastric-challenged—canine partner, Petunia. Instead, she finds herself on a collision course with the woman who stole her college girlfriend and broke her heart after an ill-conceived threesome.
Available at:
A Jade’s Diamond by Char Dafoe
After five long years as a slave to the hard, cold streets, Nayvee LaCroix was done selling their soul. Desperately at the end of their rope, Nayvee knew something had to change before they made the grave decision to end it all, permanently. The night Nayvee had given up hope they met a fellow lonely soul who also had been yearning for more in life.
Trystan Diamond, successful entrepreneur with more money than anyone could dream of, was instantly attracted to Nayvee and their chivalrous charm and boy-ish good looks before gaining any knowledge of what Nayvee really was. Switching on their charm, Nayvee scored the biggest payload of their life that could help get them off the streets, but what Nayvee wasn’t expecting was for the charming and handsome millionaire to fall in love with them. Living life by the rules of the ruthless streets, Nayvee’s defenses were always up, creating a hardened wall for anyone to break past their offense, including Trystan.
Little by little, Nayvee’s less than desirable lifestyle mixed and mingled with Trystan’s refined, sophisticated life, slowly chipping away at that wall, letting an astronomical and blinding bright light of love to penetrate Nayvee’s heart. Just when Nayvee and Trystan slowly find their footing on the shaky ground of their budding romantic relationship, in stepped Rian, a ghost from Nayvee’s past, and partner on the streets, stirring up old emotions in Nayvee and new ones in Trystan.
Available at:
Shattered by Lee Winter
Shattergirl, Earth’s first lesbian guardian, is refusing to save people and has gone off the grid. Lena Martin, the street-smart tracker with a silver tongue and a disdain for the rogue guardians she chases, has only days to bring her home. As the pair clash heatedly, masks begin to crack and brutal secrets are exposed that could shatter them both.
Available at:
Upcoming books with a butch/butch pairing
If you’ll be reading a book for the butch/butch couple category later this year, keep an eye out for two butch/butch books that will be published in spring 2021:
Cold as Hell by Neen Cohen (to be published in April 2021)Prize Money by Celeste Castro (to be published in May 2021)Leave a comment
Leave a comment and let us know whether you are trying for a Book Unicorn badge or sit this one out. If you do want to become a Book Unicorn, which book will you be reading for the “butch/butch pairing” category?
Subscribe to this blog to get future Sapphic Reading Challenge posts
If you’d like to get all future Sapphic Reading Challenge posts sent to your in-box, subscribe to my blog.
Happy reading!
Jae
The post Book with a butch/butch pairing (Book Unicorn post #1) appeared first on Jae.
January 7, 2021
Sapphic enemies-to-lovers romance novels (Sapphic Reading Challenge #1)
Welcome to the Sapphic Reading Challenge 2021! I hope you had a good start into the new year and are ready for the first category: enemies-to-lovers romance novels!
In an enemies-to-lovers romance, the two main characters start out hating or disliking each other. Maybe their personalities are clashing, or they are rivals in their jobs, or they have a history that turned them into enemies. The protagonists might spend a portion of the book butting heads, but the sexual tension between them is undeniable.
The rules of the Sapphic Reading Challenge
Before you pick a book for the enemies-to-lovers category, here’s a quick rundown of the rules of the Sapphic Reading Challenge:
The goal is to read sapphic books that fit as many of the 50 categories listed below as possible. You can read ebooks, paperbacks, or audiobooks; and they can be new-to-you books or re-reads. I’ll post book recommendations for a new category once a week. Of course, you could also just read whatever books you want and then, afterwards, see what categories they fit into.
Depending on how many sapphic books you manage to read in 2021, you can earn different badges and book prizes.
For the longer version of the rules, a bonus level you could go for, and an explanation of the prizes you can win, read the kickoff post here.
If you have any questions about the Sapphic Reading Challenge, take a look at the FAQs.
Are you ready to get started?
Keep track of the books you’re reading for the Sapphic Reading Challenge
The first thing you might want to do is to download this PDF that allows you to keep track of the books you read this year. You can either type in the PDF or print it out and fill it in by hand.
If you’d like to have a digital version of the book journal I created for the Sapphic Reading Challenge, you can download it here. Please note: This is for personal use only. If you’d like to share it with anyone else, please direct them to this post.
15 sapphic enemies-to-lovers romance novels
I put together a list of enemies-to-lovers romances that I hope you’ll enjoy. Remember that you can either read one of the 15 books listed below or pick another sapphic enemies-to-lovers romance.
Paper Love by Jae
Susanne Wolff isn’t thrilled when her mother sends her all the way across the country to Freiburg to save her uncle’s stationery store from bankruptcy. Freiburg is too provincial for her taste, and besides, pen and paper are outdated anyway.
Anja Lamm, Paper Love’s only full-time employee, takes an instant dislike to the arrogant, digital-loving snob who’s supposed to be her temporary boss.
But thanks to a meddling cat, a business trip to a stationery fair, and an armada of origami boats, Anja soon starts to see beneath Susanne’s aloof exterior, and Susanne discovers how sexy pens and notebooks can be—at least when Anja handles them.
As the end of Susanne’s three-month stay approaches, will she stick to her plan to leave, or will she open her heart to more than just paper love?
Available at:
Tell Me How You Really Feel by Aminah Mae Safi
The first time Sana Khan asked out a girl—Rachel Recht—it went so badly that she never did it again. Rachel is a film buff and aspiring director, and she’s seen Carrie enough times to learn you can never trust cheerleaders (and beautiful people). Rachel was furious that Sana tried to prank her by asking her on a date.
But when it comes time for Rachel to cast her senior project, she realizes that there’s no more perfect lead than Sana—the girl she’s sneered at in the halls for the past three years. And poor Sana—she says yes. She never did really get over that first crush, even if Rachel can barely stand to be in the same room as her.
Told in alternative viewpoints and set against the backdrop of Los Angeles in the springtime, when the rainy season rolls in and the Santa Ana’s can still blow—these two girls are about to learn that in the city of dreams, anything is possible—even love.
Available at:
Heart Failure by Chris Zett
Dr. Jess Riley’s life is perfect, ticking all the boxes—successful cardiologist, newborn daughter, and a luxurious condo. That is, until she suddenly collapses from acute heart failure. Her entire world crumples along with her exhausted body.
Jess is forced to face facts—she can’t keep working endless hours, and she’ll have to move back home to recover.
To her shock, her mother has already taken in Lena Walker, a struggling artist who isn’t a stranger to heartbreak either.
At first, an unimpressed Jess resents Lena’s cheerful presence. Gradually, though, the two women form a tentative friendship over tai chi, picking fruit, and evening walks with the baby. A sexy massage leads to friends-with-benefits fun. But is it all too soon? Should two barely mended souls try to risk a future together?
Available at:
Crier’s War by Nina Varela
After the War of Kinds ravaged the kingdom of Rabu, the Automae, designed to be the playthings of royals, usurped their owners’ estates and bent the human race to their will.
Now Ayla, a human servant rising in the ranks at the House of the Sovereign, dreams of avenging her family’s death…by killing the sovereign’s daughter, Lady Crier.
Crier was Made to be beautiful, flawless, and to carry on her father’s legacy. But that was before her betrothal to the enigmatic Scyre Kinok, before she discovered her father isn’t the benevolent king she once admired, and most importantly, before she met Ayla.
Now, with growing human unrest across the land, pressures from a foreign queen, and an evil new leader on the rise, Crier and Ayla find there may be only one path to love: war.
Available at:
Line of Duty by VK Powell
What happens when a police officer’s fight for justice conflicts with an ER doctor’s commitment to patient care?
Police officer Finley Masters wants to interview an injured suspect and make an arrest so she can move on to the next case. As long as she keeps closing cases she can hide the pain of caring for her alcoholic father. Dr. Dylan Carlyle dedicates herself to healing the sick and looking after her family. She doesn’t have time for dating, especially not a reckless cop who thinks she’s God’s gift to women. When Finley Masters strolls into the emergency room making demands, Dylan protects her turf and her heart.
A tragic incident brings them together, but their feelings keep them coming back.
Available at:
All at Sea by Cheyenne Blue
An enthralling, opposites-attract lesbian romance about what lies beneath.
Stevie Sterling is having a day from hell. Snubbed—yet again—by her unsupportive parents, she runs out on their posh party and takes refuge on a deserted yacht. Waking the next day with the world’s worst hangover, Stevie finds herself far from shore.
As if being trapped on the yacht in only her party dress isn’t bad enough, Stevie’s frantic that she’ll miss the first day of her new job as a nurse. She has so much to prove in her career—to herself and her parents.
The yacht’s cute but unimpressed captain, Kaz Malone—an eco-warrior who hits the seas with Sinbad the cat—is on a mission: There’s a nuclear-waste-dumping tanker to harass.
Kaz is as single-minded as she is stubborn and she’s not about to turn around for some stowaway with a new job. Hell, no. Saving the planet comes first.
But perhaps there’s more than one way to a destination?
Available at:
Unadulterated Something by MJ Duncan
Emma Beauchamp and Campbell Jordan’s rivalry on the ice was legendary. Retirement should have closed that chapter of their lives, but when Campbell joins the faculty at Stonebridge—the prestigious Berkshires boarding school where Emma now teaches—it takes on a brand new life.
There’s plenty of distrust and lingering animosity, but as circumstances force them to find a way to not only coexist, but work together, Emma and Campbell find that being on the same team isn’t as awful as they’d feared. Will their years spent battling it out for team and country be too much to overcome? Or will they finally acknowledge the truth behind the electric connection they share?
Available at:
Falling Slowly by Lila Bruce
Badly wounded in Afghanistan when the helicopter she is piloting goes down under enemy fire, Captain Quinn Briscoe is struggling to rebuild her life. Facing not only a disfiguring injury, but a medical discharge and the end of a serious relationship, Quinn increasingly shuts herself—and her heart—off from the rest of the world. Her first meeting with lovely, self-confident and successful business owner Alison Jenkins is disastrous, and Quinn feels an instant antipathy for the woman, along with an undeniable attraction.
Trying to get along for the sake of her sister Rebekah, who’s gone to work for Allie, Quinn offers to fly the attractive boutique owner to a family wedding. However, what should have been a quick one day trip to the mountains of North Carolina suddenly turns into a long weekend at a romantic lodge. When a series of circumstances makes it increasingly clear that Quinn won’t be able to deny the growing passion between them much longer, will she be able to put the scars of the past aside to build a relationship with Allie worth fighting for?
Available at:
The Brutal Truth by Lee Winter
Take one ice queen media-mogul boss, an assistant with a crush on her, throw in a truth bet, and as their secrets pour out in this slow-burn lesbian romance, neither woman will be the same again.
Australian crime reporter Maddie Grey is working the night shift, out of her depth in New York, miserable, and secretly crushing on her twice-married, media-mogul employer.
Elena Bartell is a brilliant, fierce, ice queen boss who eats failing newspapers for breakfast and believes to her core that everything would be much simpler if people told each other the whole, unvarnished truth.
As work takes them to Australia, Maddie is goaded into a brief, seemingly harmless bet with her enigmatic boss—where they can’t lie to each other. The bet backfires spectacularly as Elena realizes that the brutal truth might not be what she wanted after all.
A beautiful lesbian workplace romance about the lies we tell ourselves.
Available at:
Anyone But You by KG MacGregor
An underground pipeline has ruptured, spilling oily sludge into Minnesota’s pristine Lake Bunyan. Taking the media’s heat for Nations Oil is Corporate Communications Director Cathryn Mack, an old pro when it comes to spinning the facts in her company’s favor.
Stuck in Duluth to handle the press during eight weeks of cleanup, she finds a silver lining when Stacie Pilardi pops up on SappHere, a mobile app that seeks out nearby lesbians. Stacie is smart, funny, sexy as hell, and wants a longterm relationship as much as Cathryn—which is to say, not at all.
A perfect arrangement, until they realize they’re rivals—Stacie is head of the Clean Energy Action Network, in town to protest the greed and recklessness of oil companies and the havoc they wreak on the environment.
It’s best for everyone involved if they end this, and that’s exactly what they intend to do. Eventually…
Available at:
A Heart to Trust by A.L. Brooks
What happens when you find out your stuck-up, blissfully straight colleague may be none of those things? A delicious enemies-to-lovers, lesbian workplace romance.
Change is not Jenny Quinn’s strong suit, but she’s happy enough with her easy-going life, friends, and job as a TV production assistant. That is until a company shake-up foists the infuriating Olivia Sinclair on her. The woman is uptight, snobby, and has some perfect and famous motor-racing husband.
TV and theater producer Olivia moved to New York from the UK to marry her longtime friend. It’s a sham marriage, a favor to a man she loves as a brother, but the strain is beginning to take its toll. How can she even meet women when she’s the picture of heterosexual bliss? Add in her stressful new job, an irritating colleague called Jenny, who thinks being goofy is some kind of admirable work ethic, and life can be a grind some days. The worst part isn’t the office politics or clashing personalities, but the fact there’s an attraction between both women that’s gradually becoming impossible to ignore.
So…should they stop ignoring it? That would mean learning to trust your heart that this is the right woman. And that’s a huge step.
Available at:
Exception to the Rule by Cindy Rizzo
What will keep you safe—and sane—when you find yourself in a new and unfamiliar place convinced you’ll never find anyone like you?
For Robin and Tracy, it’s the rules they set for themselves as they begin their first semester at Adams University near Boston.
Robin is determined to hide in her room writing until she can get back to her homeless gay friends in New York City, whose easy exchange of sex and friendship inspires her creativity. She’s sworn off perfect princesses like Tracy Patterson, no matter how attractive she finds the mysterious Southerner on her hall with the long blonde hair and tight jeans.
And Tracy has no interest in cynical, smart-mouthed Northerners like Robin. She has her own set of rules—fine-tuned back home in North Carolina where she had a fake boyfriend and an uncomplicated string of older female lovers, including her mother’s best friend. Here at college, she already has her first conquest planned, and it’s certainly not Robin Greene.
This is a love story about two young women who can only find their true selves by finding one another. But are Robin and Tracy willing to give up all they think they know in order to find happiness?
Sometimes in life, the person who will matter most is the one who’s an exception to the rule.
Available at:
Bait and Switch by Blythe H. Warren
Full-time marine biologist and part-time heartbreaker Liv Cucinelli knows that there are plenty of fish in the sea. So why can’t she seem to escape the lure of the one woman she hates the most?
When Liv is unexpectedly reunited with Mira Butler—the homophobic princess who ruined Liv’s college career—the last thing she wants is to spend even a second in the company of her former nemesis. Having loathed Mira for years, she’s not prepared to forgive her, let alone pursue a friendship. But Mira, who is oblivious to the destruction she caused, refuses to leave Liv alone.
Once Liv learns the truth about their shared past, she begins to see there is more to Mira than she could have ever anticipated.
Can they overcome their stormy history to become friends? Or maybe even more?
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Other Girls by Avery Brooks
Once upon a time, Sam and Ashley were other girls.
Three years after the loss of her wife to a brain aneurysm, 34-year-old Samantha Parker focuses her energy on caring for her young son, Jake. She can’t imagine ever falling in love again, so she focuses on putting one foot in front of the other and being the best mom she can be. It’s not a perfect life, but as long as her son is happy and her softball team keeps winning, everything is fine. That is, until Ashley Valence, the girl who bullied Sam throughout high school, moves back to New Orleans and joins the softball team. As tensions rise on the field, unexpected chemistry between the two women begins to grow.
No matter how much Sam wants to hate Ashley for the pain and anguish those teenage taunts caused, Ashley’s eyes hold only warmth now. And, as Sam slowly introduces Ashley into her life with Jake, she begins to let go of the past. But as their relationship progresses, all of the former hurts and resentments resurface for Sam, and she lashes out at Ashley. Sam understands that her anger is a byproduct of the events of the past and that Ashley isn’t the same girl she used to be. But when Sam begins to realize that she’s fallen in love with Ashley, she has to decide if she can truly trust her heart and find happiness with the woman who once hurt her so deeply.
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44 Hours by Donna Jay
The universe is definitely trying to punish Jennifer Andrews. Her new colleague, Ellaine Baxter, is not only an annoying, ambitious hard-ass, she’s the woman who broke Jennifer’s best friend’s heart. Now, for added torture, they have to drive to a teambuilding conference together.
On their three-hour journey, things go from tense to catastrophic after an unscheduled stop in New Zealand’s wildly beautiful Kaimanawa Forest. Getting lost is just the start of the nightmare.
For forty-four exhausting hours, the warring pair must find a way to work together. They might even survive…if they don’t kill each other first.
An enemies-to-lovers romance about finding love with the person you least expect.
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Happy reading!
Jae
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