Teaching the other character a skill (Micro-Trope #9)
It’s time for another Micro-Trope category. This one features sapphic books in which one character teaches the other character a skill.
It could be a practical skill such as cooking or fighting, a sport, or a craft such as pottery, woodworking, or knitting.
15 sapphic books with the “teaching the other character a skill” micro-trope
Below, you’ll find 15 sapphic books that include at least one scene in which one character teaches the other a skill.
Just for Show by Jae
What happens when a perfectionist, overachieving psychologist 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?
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Learning Curves by Rachel Lacey
For Audrey Lind, working with clay still evokes memories of her favorite professor. The woman’s zeal for art history ignited Audrey’s own academic career—and her tweed blazers and British accent kindled her first female crush. After fate brings Audrey back to Northshire University to teach, she’s thrilled to be working alongside her former mentor, but the grumpy woman she encounters upon her return is nothing like the dynamo she remembers.
Divorce and a stalling career have turned Dr. Michelle Thompson bitter and guarded. When Audrey swoops in to teach the Women in Art class Michelle’s been pitching for years, she longs to hate her. But her young rival is too kind, too enthusiastic, too irresistible. And her passion for life slowly reawakens Michelle’s own.
Wary of age gaps and workplace politics, they suppress their smoldering attraction—until one wine-filled night at the pottery wheel puts their romantic truce to the test. Will they keep things on the tenure track or risk it all for love?
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No Shelter But The Stars by Virginia Black
Kyran Loyal is the last heir to the lost throne of a forgotten planet, the figurehead of a nomadic people fleeing the galactic tyranny of a brutal regime. Davia Sifane is the unrecognized daughter of an imperial despot. When happenstance pits them against each other in battle, neither expects the outcome: they are the only two people to survive. Marooned on a barren moon, their only hope of survival is to rely on each other, but what they learn will either kill them or change the galaxy forever.
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Just Marry Her by L.R. Martiny
Missy Greenwood moves to St. Croix to take on her dream job as the assistant to famous television dog trainer Quincy Adams. She’s long harbored a crush on her hot boss as she watched her from the mainland. But now she’s face to face with her idol, and the young protégé is lost in lust.
Quincy’ new assistant landed on her set just in time. Quincy’s ex is trying to weasel her way back into her life and the press is hounding her about her non-existent dating scene. Her solution: ask Missy to enter into a fake marriage that will get everyone off her back.
It all seems simple enough, but Missy wants more than a marriage of convenience with her boss. And when the honeymoon gets super steamy, she wonders if can she manage to train Quincy’s hardened heart.
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Holy Water and Whiskey Scars by Ali Spooner
Faith Wilson and Logan Bronson have family secrets to protect and a legacy to uphold to support their small rural Appalachian community. Their commitment to each other is strong, and their desire to aid the struggling families however they can, lead them both down an exciting but dangerous path. Will their love continue to grow and be the glue that binds the community together, or will they flee the withering community?
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Amazon
Sour Grapes by Eliza Lentzski
At this stage in her life, June St. Clare never imagined she’d be starting all over again—a new job, a new city, a new love? Looking for a fresh start after tragedy, June finds herself the unexpected owner of Lark Estates—a micro winery in the heart of Napa Valley. There, June is determined to learn the business and do her best, even if she’s convinced that her assistant winemaker, the beautiful but elusive Lucia Santiago, wants to see her fail.
Lucia Santiago grew up on vineyards, almost like a grapevine herself, working her way up from cellar rat to assistant winemaker. When the property where she works is suddenly sold to a woman with no prior experience, she can’t help but feel resentful of the winery’s lovely but inexperienced new owner. It’s too bad June’s helplessness is almost endearing, stirring up emotions Lucia didn’t quite expect.
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Sister Matthew and Sister Rose: Novices in Love by Carol Anne Douglas
Maureen Collins, recently named Sister Matthew in the novitiate at St. Euphrosnye’s convent in Western Maryland in 1962, doubts the existence of God. She entered the convent for several reasons: she thinks being surrounded by believers might help her believe; she knows she’s attracted to women and wants to avoid pressure to date men and marry; and she feels guilty about something that happened when she was in high school.
She quickly falls in love with Rose Clancy, now Sister Rose, another novice who also is attracted to women. Rose is more religious, but she reciprocates Sister Matthew’s feelings. She grew up with an alcoholic mother and found a refuge among the nuns who taught her.
As the two move through postulancy and the novitiate, they encounter many challenges from the strict rules to memories of their respective pasts. The memory of an old murder intrudes in the present.
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Out at the Plate: The Dot Wilkinson Story by Lynn Ames
“Dot Wilkinson was the greatest female catcher ever to play softball. A bold, pioneering athlete, she refused to let others define her and instead defined herself. Her story is an inspiration to people everywhere.” —Billie Jean King, Sports Icon and Champion for Equality
It’s not simply that Dot Wilkinson was one of the most decorated women’s softball players, bowlers, and athletes of all time and one of the original players from the three-time-world-champion PBSW Phoenix Ramblers softball team (1933–1965). Nor was it the length of her time here on Earth—over a century—although any of these things by themselves would be impressive.
The magic of Dot’s story is in the details. It’s the tale of a childhood spent in poverty, an indomitable, unbreakable spirit, a determination to be the very best to play whatever sport she undertook, the independence to live her personal life on her own terms, and her tremendous success at all of it.
Over more than a decade of countless conversations and interviews, Dot shared all of it with her dear friend, author Lynn Ames. Dot held nothing back. Out at the Plate, told through the lens of Dot and Lynn’s friendship, is the story of a forgotten era in women’s history and sports, and one extraordinary woman’s place at the center of it all.
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Hot Honey Love by Nan Campbell
Chef Stef’s passion for her profession is being severely tested. After a disastrous appearance on a cooking competition show, she has become a meme. The entire Internet now knows her as the Kitchen Bawler. Her ascent through the fine dining kitchens of New York City has been thoroughly derailed, but she has a plan to get her career back on track. She’ll make cooking videos on YouTube to foil the algorithm and overhaul her search engine results. One problem: she knows nothing about creating video content.
Enter Mallory Radowski. She’s a talented filmmaker currently earning a living as a wedding videographer, with complicated reasons of her own for her reluctance to help Stef. Mallory lives with anxiety, and is the pickiest eater imaginable. Food—Stef’s love language—is untranslatable to her. How can she make Stef’s food look delicious if she won’t eat any of it?
Stef has to trust that Mallory’s videos can get her cooking food she’s proud of again, but it’s out of the frying pan and into the fire when she starts to fall for her.
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Moon Over Cape Cod Bay by Renn Loraine
Marion has been discovered in a locked room, covered in blood, next to the lifeless body of her father – a man she hated. She knows she’s in trouble. She knows what it looks like. And what’s worse, no one believes her when she tells them she saw his killer.
Intent on protecting her young niece from a threat she knows still exists, Marion hires a woman to watch over her – the attractive and engaging Sena. But things get complicated when Sena awakens something in Marion that she has long suppressed.
Marion knows that the investigators are targeting her, and she’s running out of time. Because they’re going to find her guilty of murder – unless she can find the killer who walks through walls.
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The Relationship Mechanic by Karmen Lee
Jessica Jae-un Miller came to Peach Blossom, Georgia, for a visit, not a breakdown. But when her rental car dies on the outskirts of town, mechanic Lavenia ‘Vini’ Williams provides a tow — and a very welcome jump start to Jessica’s heart. It’s been a minute since Jessica’s last fling — her relationship specialty — and Vini checks all the right boxes. If only the sexy car whisperer seemed interested…
Vini knows herself and what she wants. She loves her job, her family, her hometown — but she’d love to fall in love. Jessica stirs up all the right feelings, but the city girl has no intention of staying in Peach Blossom. Why sign up for a broken heart?
But the temptation is real as Vini goes out of her way to drive a carless Jessica around town. The pair can’t seem to keep their distance — or their hands to themselves. With only six weeks to figure out where their red-hot chemistry might lead, Vini and Jessica will have to decide if home can be where the heart is when the heart only knows how to run.
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The Lily and the Crown by Roslyn Sinclair
Ariana “Ari” Geiker lives an isolated life on an imperial space station commanded by her father. The skilled, young botanist rarely leaves her living quarters, where she maintains an elaborate garden. When an imperious older woman is captured from a pirate ship and given to her as a slave, Ariana’s perfectly ordered life is thrown into chaos. Her nameless slave is watchful, intelligent, dangerous, and sexy, and seems to know an awful lot about tactics, star charts, and the dread, marauding pirate queen, Mir. What happens when the slave also reveals an expertise in seduction to her innocent mistress?
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Straight Girls Don’t Cry by S.E. Chandler
Canny, well, she goes by her last name because Rose never fit her anyway, is getting by week to week–and sometimes, table to table–after dropping out of art school. So what if she’s talented. Life isn’t supposed to work out for the daughter of an addict and get-rich-quick (get-broke-quicker) schemer.
Still Canny believes in humanity and helps out an overwhelmed mom of three, Ella, struggling to enjoy a meal out with a useless husband, Callahan. Ella offers Canny a nanny job, but she has reservations–and no idea what a nanny does. Of course, she falls in love with the Three Amigos, and can’t believe her luck with Ella’s generous offer.
She soon finds herself falling for Ella too. Useless Husband’s philandering pushes them together…but then drives them apart. Will her lost chances and found family go the distance or end in agony ever after?
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Witchbound: Book One by Sable Cross
A forbidden book…
A forbidden spell…
A forbidden love…
Strawberry has always struggled for recognition, among her magical superiors, hindered by her unconventional talents and her family’s disgraced legacy. Seeking the opportunity to prove herself, she takes an ancient and prohibited tome written in mysterious runes, and strikes a dangerous bargain with the formidable Eris Divine, the seductive and coldly regal vampire queen who rules the city’s supernatural underworld.
As Strawberry delves deeper into her magical studies under the irresistibly aloof Eris, forbidden passion blossoms, and an undeniable spark ignites between the optimistic witch and the immortal queen.
Eager to gain Eris’s approval, Strawberry performs a forbidden spell so powerful it almost kills her, and binds the unsuspecting vampire queen to the witch priestess.
Overcome with guilt, Strawberry struggles with the knowledge and subsequent result of the binding spell. And with the supernatural factions on the brink of war, how will she confess to the already overworked Eris what she’s done?
How does she face the woman she loves more than life with a secret and a betrayal so devastating?
And how will the supernatural factions react when they learn of Strawberry’s reckless disregard for the most powerful of all magic?
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Rand by Silvia Shaw
Three hundred ago, Rand’s most powerful talisman, a medallion called the “Circle of Sheda”, was taken through the portal into Earth and lost. When Dr. Savannah Cole is on an archeology dig in Algeria, she takes shelter from a violent sandstorm and discovers the mysterious artifact under a Berber ruin. She soon learns unknown forces are at play, powerful secret forces beyond her control.
Compelled to wear the medallion, she is swept through the portal into Rand. There, she must forge a new life and embrace her role as the wielder of ancient magic. Never before has someone from the “other world” been chosen to bear the medallion, someone not a warrior. It’s a puzzle Savannah must solve before it’s too late. Why has she been chosen? As she battles demonic creatures and dark sorcery, she fights to take her place as the rightful bearer in the long line of warrior women. But, the question remains; what is coming that the lost medallion must resurface after so many years?
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What book will you be reading for the “teaching the other character a skill” micro-trope category? Let us know in the comments!
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