F/F Books with Disabled Characters (Lesbian Book Bingo #19)
Much too often, the characters in lesbian books, especially in romance novels, are all too perfect. They have perfect looks, perfect jobs, perfect health, perfect everything. That’s just not a realistic representation of our lives.
So for this square of the Lesbian Book Bingo, we’re focusing on novels featuring characters with a disability. It can be a physical disability, a chronic illness, or a mental disorder.
If you need to brush up on the rules of Lesbian Book Bingo, check out the rules post.
15 GREAT F/F BOOKS FEATURING CHARACTERS WITH A DISABILITY
I’ve put together a list of 15 women-loving-women books about disabled characters I hope you’ll enjoy.
Rain Falls (Rain Falls series, book 1) by Kelli Jae Baeli (main character uses crutches)
Two women. One, a freelance writer, editor and sci-fi author, who is also an emotionally unavailable and closeted lesbian. The other, a disabled romantic lesbian fiction writer, who believes no one will ever love her. In a writing cabin outside the tourist town of Rain Falls, Colorado, the two struggle with the temptation and absurdities their situation inspires.
Available at:
Amazon
Making a Comeback by Julie Blair (blind character)
Jazz pianist Liz Randall is reeling from her wife’s death and struggling to keep their band together. An invitation to play at the prestigious Monterey Jazz Festival is an opportunity she can’t turn down, and a challenge she might not be up to until she enlists the help of a mysterious neighbor who’s surprisingly knowledgeable about jazz. When Jac Winters reluctantly agrees to help, a past she wants to forget threatens to destroy the carefully ordered life she’s built with her guide dog, Max. Will Liz and Jac play it safe or risk everything on making a comeback?
Available at:
Bold Strokes Books
Amazon
Apple iBooks
Audible (audio book)
Far From Home by Lorelie Brown (character with 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.
Available at:
Riptide Publishing
Amazon
Apple iBooks
Reluctant Hope by Erin Dutton (cancer survivor)
Cancer survivor Addison Hunt knows she can’t offer any guarantees, in love or in life, and after experiencing a loss of her own, Brooke Donahue isn’t willing to risk her heart. But spending time together while working on a project to raise money and awareness for cancer research has them both questioning their convictions.
Available at:
Bold Strokes Books
Amazon
Apple iBooks
Mending Defects by Lynn Galli (character with a heart condition)
Small town life for Glory Eiben has always been her ideal. With her rare congenital heart defect, keeping family and friends close by preserves her easygoing attitude. When Lena Coleridge moves in next door, life becomes anything but easy. Lena is a reluctant transplant and even more reluctant friend. Their growing friendship adds many layers to Glory’s ideal.
Available at:
Amazon
Just Physical (Hollywood series) by Jae (character with multiple sclerosis)
After being diagnosed with MS, actress Jill takes herself off the romantic market. On the set of a disaster movie, she meets stunt woman Crash, whose easy smile makes her wish things were different. Despite their growing feelings, Jill is determined to let Crash into her bed, but not her heart. As they start to play with fire on and off camera, will they be able to keep things just physical?
Available at:
Ylva Publishing
Amazon
Apple iBooks
The Loudest Silence (Part One) by Olivia Janae (deaf character)
Kate, an up and coming cellist, is new to Chicago and the Windy City chamber ensemble. During her first rehearsal, she is surprised and intrigued to meet Vivian Kensington, the formidable board president who also happens to be deaf. As she develops a tentative friendship with her cold-hearted boss, she begins to wonder if it’s possible for two women, one from a world of sound and one a world of silence, to truly understand each other?
Available at:
Heartsome Publishing
Amazon
Apple iBooks
Locked Inside by Annette Mori (character with locked-in syndrome)
How much does the power of love matter to someone who has overcome obstacles greater than most people face in a lifetime? Carly, a beautiful and vivacious young woman, sees something in the semi-comatose Belinda and they form an unusual bond. Can Carly help Belinda break free from her emotional prison?
Available at:
Affinity Rainbow Publications
Amazon
Apple iBooks
Frame by Frame by CJ Murphy (character with PTSD)
Valkyrie (Val) Magnusson, a former Marine photographer, injured while covering a goodwill mission with Iraqi children. Haunted by flashbacks, Val travels the country as a photographer for Rider magazine. A self-proclaimed nomad, Val has little inclination to settle down. Something or rather someone keeps calling her back to a little tourist trap called Cool Springs in rural West Virginia.
Available at:
Desert Palm Press
Amazon
Apple iBooks
Wounded Souls by RJ Nolan (character with a lower leg amputation)
Dr. Ashlee Logan has spent the last two years on the road with only her Great Dane as a companion, trying to escape her past. While serving her country, former Navy doctor Dale Parker had her life shattered in a single moment. LA Metropolitan Hospital brings the two women together. Can they overcome their pasts and find happiness together, or are they forever destined to be…Wounded Souls?
Available at:
Ylva Publishing
Amazon
Apple iBooks
Battle Scars by Meghan O’Brien (character with PTSD)
Returning Iraq war veteran Ray McKenna struggles with battle scars that can only be healed by love. Ray McKenna returns from the war in Iraq to find that she had attained unwanted celebrity status back home. As the only surviving American soldier of a well-publicized hostage crisis, she is the center of attention at a time when all she wants is solitude.
Available at:
Bold Strokes Books
Amazon
Apple iBooks
Audible (audio book)
Five Feet or Less by Erik Schubach (main character uses a wheelchair)
Reese is a programmer and tech geek who was confined to a wheelchair at a young age. Since then she has locked herself away from the outside in her virtual world. Until a chance meeting with an ex-punk rocker girl, Sarah, who teaches her that her world is not defined in five feet or less.
Available at:
Amazon
Apple iBooks
Audible (audio book)
Up the Ante by PJ Trebelhorn (character with MS)
Jordan Stryker’s multiple sclerosis diagnosis changed her life. She left the FBI and decided to try her hand at professional poker. She’s played poker for years, but no amount of practice could have prepared her for what she’d face in Las Vegas away from the tables—Ashley Noble, the woman she had an affair with fifteen years ago, long before her diagnosis.
Available at:
Bold Strokes Books
Amazon
Apple iBooks
Blindsided by Karis Walsh (blind character)
Guide dog trainer Lenae McIntyre left the high-speed world of television news writing behind, and now she helps other visually impaired people adjust to life with their canine companions. Cara Bradley compensates for her family’s shallow celebrity lifestyle by devoting her life to helping others, while keeping to the background. When Cara gets roped into puppy walking one of Lenae’s young dogs, their lives become intertwined with more tangles than Pickwick’s leash.
Available at:
Bold Strokes Books
Amazon
Apple iBooks
Audible (audio book)
Don’t Let Go by Sheryl Wright (character with traumatic brain injury & PTSD)
Tyler quickly realizes Georgie is not the damaged goods everyone sees. She recognizes something special in Georgie DiNamico, garnering trust, loyalty, and something more…something Tyler hasn’t thought about for a very, very long time.
Available at:
Bella Books
Amazon
Apple iBooks
If you haven’t done so already, download your bingo card, pick the book you want to read for the “disabled character” square, and start reading! Remember that you can either read one of the 15 books listed above or pick another f/f book featuring a character with a disability.
Lesbian Book bingo giveaway: Win a book by leaving a comment
For the Disabled Character square, I’m giving away an e-book copy of:
Just Physical by Jae
Blindsided by Karis Walsh
Locked Inside by Annette Mori
Anyone can enter. To be entered into the drawing, leave a comment on this blog and let us know which book you’re going to read for the “disabled character” square or if you can think of other lesbian books that fit this category.
Entries close on Thursday, September 27, 2018, 10 a.m. CET, when I’ll draw the winners using a random numbers generator. I’ll notify winners via email. Your email address won’t be used for any other purpose.
Subscribe to this blog so you won’t miss the next book bingo post
The reading list for the next bingo square—books with butch/femme couples—will be posted on October 4. Subscribe to my blog so you won’t miss it. There’ll be another giveaway too!
Happy reading!
Jae
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