Twitter is a marvellous place. Full of chat about llamas and politics and good boy dogs and sapphic fiction. If llamas are missing from your timeline, you need to rectify that. Meanwhile, you’re reading this list because on my timeline, I follow @LesbianReviews who have the most wonderful reviews and chat that flicks vertically past my eyeballs.
A few days ago, TLR posted a review of ‘Write Your Own Script’ and I commented that this book was one of six in my favourite books ever. Then Sheena said, “Hey there, KJ. I’m intrigued. What other titles are on that list?” Me. She asked me. Kj, the essay-thingy writer who rambles for 800 – 1000 words in one review. Me…to succinctly tell the world what my top 6 sapphic titles were. So of course I gave her 20.
1 The Goodmans by Clare Ashton
Published by Breezy Tree Press
Synopsis
The lovely doctor Abby Hart lives in her dream cottage in the quintessential English border town of Ludbury, home to the Goodmans.
Maggie Goodman, all fire and passion, is like another mother to her, amiable Richard a rock and 60s-child Celia is the grandmother she never had.
But Abby has a secret. Best friend Jude Goodman is the love of her life, and very, very straight. Even if Jude had ever given a woman a second glance, there’d also be the small problem of Maggie – she would definitely not approve.
But secrets have a habit of sneaking out, and Abby’s not the only one with something to hide. Life is just about to get very interesting for the Goodmans.
Things are not what they used to be, but could they be even better?
“If you ever wanted to know how straight women become lesbians, how lesbians fall in love, make love and almost ruin love, The Goodmans is the book for you!” – TT Thomas
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2 Requiem for Immortals by Lee Winter
Published by Ylva Publishing
Audiobook Yes, narrated by Anais Inara Chase
Audiobook Publisher Tantor Audio
Synopsis
What would make the most dangerous ice queen of them all, ruthless underworld assassin Requiem, hesitate?
Professional cellist Natalya Tsvetnenko moves seamlessly among the elite where she fills the souls of symphony patrons with beauty even as she takes the lives of the corrupt of Australia’s ruthless underworld. The cold, exacting assassin is hired to kill a woman who seems so innocent that Natalya can’t understand why anyone would want her dead. As she gets to know her target, she can’t work out why she even cares.
This powerful, enemies-to-lovers lesbian thriller has compelling characters and twists galore.
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3 Write Your Own Script by AL Brooks
Published by Ylva Publishing
Synopsis
A sizzling lesbian romance about finding out what’s important in life.
Beloved famous British actress Tamsyn Harris is in her early fifties and works hard to prove she’s still got “it”, despite her age. That means never revealing she’s a lesbian, for fear it would threaten her acclaimed career. After an on-set incident blows up, she disappears to a retreat to lay low for a while.
Maggie Cooper is a successful author with two pseudonyms and suffering from burn out. It’s hard enough trying to maintain both worlds, let alone keep them separate from real life. After checking herself into a retreat in Norfolk, the last thing she expects to find is the respected, beautiful actress she’s had a crush on her whole life.
As passion sweeps them up, they agree it can only be a holiday fling. But is that enough? Can they just return to their lives and leave each other behind?
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4 Kiss The Girl by Melissa Brayden
Published by Bold Strokes Books
Audiobook Yes, narrated by Felicity Munroe
Audiobook Publisher Audible Studios
Synopsis
Sleeping with the enemy has never been so complicated.
Twenty-eight-year-old Brooklyn Campbell is having a bad day. A speeding ticket, a towed car, and a broken heel are all working against her laid-back vibe. To top it all off, her birth mother, whom she’s never met, has requested contact. The only bright spot is an impromptu date with a beautiful and mysterious brunette.
Jessica Lennox is what you would call a high-powered executive. She’s the head of a multimillion-dollar advertising firm in New York City, and it didn’t happen by accident. But when the blonde head turner from the wine bistro turns out to be her number one competitor, her life gets infinitely more complex.
Is New York big enough for both Brooklyn and Jessica? Maybe it’s just time they experienced it together…
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5 Starting From Scratch by Georgia Beers
Published by Brisk Press
Audiobook Yes, narrated by Georgia Beers
Audiobook Publisher Dog Ear Audio
Synopsis
What happens when your life takes an unexpected turn?
What happens when you need to protect the one you love from the one you want to love?
What happens when you lose something you never knew you wanted?
Lambda and Golden Crown Literary Award-winning author Georgia Beers brings to you her long-awaited seventh novel, Starting from Scratch, a story where learning, laughing, loving, and baked goods are just a few of life’s basic ingredients.
Starting from Scratch…where life is what you make it.
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6 Hunter’s Way by Gerri Hill
Published by Bella Books
Audiobook Yes, narrated by Abby Craden
Audiobook Publisher Audible Studios
Synopsis
Homicide detective Tori Hunter was used to doing things her way. But even after six different partners in seven years, she was not prepared for the hot-tempered Samantha Kennedy. Samantha, on the other hand, was trying to juggle a new job and a demanding boyfriend and now finds herself with an even greater challenge – being partnered with the most difficult detective in the entire squad.
After a brief terrorist scare disrupts their serial killer investigation, the two women find themselves growing closer. Sam begins to question the relationship with her longtime boyfriend, and Tori, never one to allow anyone to get too close, begins to feel her defenses slipping in Sam’s presence.
While facing a serial killer and drug deals gone bad, the two detectives struggle with their feelings, trying to maintain their professional relationship while keeping their nearly flammable physical relationship in check.
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7 Too Late…I Love You by Kiki Archer
Published by Indie author
Audiobook Yes, narrated by Ella Lynch
Audiobook Publisher K.A. Books
Synopsis
Too Late…I Love You is the new novel from best-selling, award-winning author Kiki Archer.
Connie Parker isn’t convinced by this falling in love lark. Falling hurts, you end up with bruises and scars.
She has the perfect answer: She’ll write about love instead. But what happens when the novel-in-progress describes more about Connie’s own dull existence than she wants to admit? And when will she realize that her hero is beginning to resemble her new best friend Maria – a woman who seems to turn every simple outing with their three-year-olds into a fun-filled adventure for them all?
In trying to make sense of the puzzle of her life, Connie learns there is no perfect person. Just that person who’ll fit you perfectly.
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8 Art on Fire by Hilary Sloin
Published by Bywater Books
Synopsis
Art on Fire is the apparent biography of subversive painter Francesca deSilva, the founding foremother of “pseudorealism,” who lived hard and died young. But in the tradition of Vladimir Nabokov’s acclaimed novel Pale Fire, it’s a fiction from start to finish. It opens with Francesca’s early life. We learn about her childhood love, the chess genius Lisa Sinsong, as well as her rivalry with her brilliant sister Isabella, who publishes an acclaimed volume of poetry at the age of twelve. She compensates for the failings of her less than attentive parents by turning to her grandmother who is loyal and adoring until she learns Francesca is a lesbian, when she rejects her. Francesca flees to a ramshackle cabin in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, working weekends at the flea market. She breaks into the gloomy basement of a house, where she begins her life as a painter. Much to her confusion and even dismay, fame comes quickly.
Interspersed with Francesca’s narrative are thirteen critical “essays” on the paintings of Francesca deSilva by critics, academics, and psychologists—essays that are razor-sharp satires on art, lesbian life, and the academic world, puncturing pretentiousness with every paragraph. Art on Fire is a darkly comic, pitch-perfect, and fearless satire on the very art of biography itself.
Art on Fire is the latest winner of the Bywater Prize for Fiction and was a finalist for the Heekin Foundation Award, the Dana Awards, and the Story Oaks Prize. It was mistakenly awarded the nonfiction prize in the Amherst Book and Plow Competition.
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9 Reaping the Benefits by EJ Noyes
Published by Bella Books
Audiobook Yes, narrated by Abby Craden
Audiobook Publisher Audible Studios
Synopsis
Morgan Ashworth isn’t having a good day. The award for Minion of the Year is slipping out of reach, and she has to administer an afterlife package to one of her human employees. An employee she’s attracted to. An employee who’ll soon know Morgan isn’t quite what she seems.
Jane Smith was having a great day. Until her hot boss dropped a bombshell. It’s time for Jane to complete the questionnaire to decide where she’ll spend her afterlife. Oh, and her boss is immortal and also Death’s Head Minion. Yes, Death, as in the Grim Reaper.
Jane decides to bargain—if Morgan needs her to sign the afterlife document, she can use her unlimited resources to help Jane with her bucket list. Seems straightforward. Except for the matter of their mutual attraction, and the fact one of the items on Jane’s list is “Sleep with my boss.”
The more time Morgan and Jane spend together, the more they realize mutual attraction barely scratches the surface. But can Jane heal the broken heart Morgan has nursed for centuries? And will Morgan risk loving, then losing, another mortal woman when she knows it means an eternity of heartbreak?
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10 Must Love Silence by Lucy Bexley
Published by Indie author
Audiobook Yes, narrated by Abby Craden
Audiobook Publisher Tantor Audio
Synopsis
What happens when a misanthrope meets the one person she doesn’t want to be without?
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…
Must Love Silence is an enemies-to-lovers slow burn workplace lesbian romance featuring a lovable misanthrope and a heroine in recovery? It’s funny and a little dark, and it firmly believes that everyone deserves a chance to change.
Content Warning: This book contains characters in recovery from substance addictions and references to their recovery. It also contains depictions of anxiety from the main character.
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11 Poppy Jenkins by Clare Ashton
Published by Breezy Tree Press
Synopsis
Two old friends, one hot summer, a whole load of confusion.
Poppy Jenkins makes everyone smile. She’s the heart of Wells, a beautiful village in mid-Wales, leaving light and laughter in her wake. She has a doting family, an errant dog and a little sister with a nose for mischief. But she’s the only gay in the village and it’s a long time since she kissed a girl: the chance of romance in sleepy Wells is rarer than a barking sheep.
If she doesn’t think too hard, life is cosy, until a smart sports car barrels into town with the last woman Poppy wants to see behind the wheel. Beautiful Rosalyn Thorn was once Poppy’s high school BFF even though she was trouble. Then one day she abandoned Wells and Poppy without explanation. Now the highflier is back and bound to cause fresh havoc in the village and with Poppy’s heart; folk are not happy.
Wells needs to wake up to the 21st century and Rosalyn can help, but old prejudices die hard. If they can be friends it could be the chance to make everyone’s happy ever after. Couldn’t it?
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12 Shattered by Lee Winter
Published by Ylva Publishing
Audiobook Yes, narrated by Abby Craden
Audiobook Publisher Tantor Audio
Synopsis
Earth’s first black, lesbian superhero has had enough of humanity and disappeared. A stubborn tracker is sent to bring her home…any way she can.
Shattergirl is a brilliant but aloof black, alien superhero who can hurl and destroy large objects. The world reveres her and other guardians like her, yet she’s suddenly refusing to save people and has suddenly disappeared.
Lena Martin, the street-smart human tracker with a silver tongue and a disdain for the rogue guardians she chases, has only days to bring Shattergirl home.
As the pair clash heatedly, masks begin to crack, and brutal secrets are exposed that could shatter them both.
An award-winning, opposites-attract, lesbian science fiction story about embracing the special people who pass through our lives and change us forever.
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13 The Delicate Things We Make by Milena McKay
Published by Indie author
Audiobook Yes, narrated by Abby Craden
Audiobook Publisher Tantor Audio
Synopsis
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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14 The Midnight Hunt by LL Raand
Published by Bold Strokes Books
Audiobook Yes, narrated by Maxine Mitchell
Audiobook Publisher Audible Studios
Synopsis
What do you do when you wake up to a whole new life…with dangerous urges you can’t control?
Medic Drake McKennan has never been good at following protocol, so she doesn’t think twice about rendering emergency care when a teenager’s life is at stake—even if the young girl is in the throes of Were fever and any sane human should know better. It isn’t the bright shining pain of the bite or even the wrenching agonies of the fever that convinces Drake everything in her life has changed. It’s the way she feels about the blonde with the wolf-gold eyes who awakens a dark hunger she can’t control…and doesn’t want to. Sylvan, the Alpha of the Adirondack Timberwolf Pack, is the one female Drake can’t have. And the only one she craves.
A Midnight Hunters novel
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15 Nothing To Lose by Clare Lydon
Published by Custard Books
Audiobook Yes, narrated by Gabrielle Baker
Audiobook Publisher Custard Books
Synopsis
Can you find love in a hopeless place?
Nobody would ever describe Scarlet Williams as a ray of sunshine, but that doesn’t mean she deserves the flood that wipes out her basement flat, making her temporarily homeless.
Enter Joy Hudson, local mayor & sunshine specialist, who opens her house to flood refugees and ends up with Scarlet on her doorstep. Two more opposing characters you couldn’t fail to meet, and yet, somehow, they strike up a friendship. But when the rain stops and the sun comes out, could that friendship blossom into something more?
Fans of contemporary lesbian romance will love Scarlet & Joy’s story, bursting with real characters and shot through with British wit. From the international best-selling author of London Calling and This London Love comes a heart-warming tale of love & redemption.
Find out if opposites really do attract: buy Nothing To Lose today!
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16 Blessed Twice by Lynn Galli
Published by Penikila Press
Synopsis
The problem with starting over in another state after losing your partner is that your new friends don’t understand why you can’t just get over it. They never saw how you were together, how much you loved her, how she was your life. They only see a number: three, as in, the number of years since she died. That’s all the evidence they need to begin pressuring you to get back out there again. It doesn’t matter that you’ve told them to back off. No, they feel it is their duty to butt into your life and ambush you with blind dates.
This wasn’t a predicament Briony Gatewood anticipated when she relocated for tenure at a prestigious university. Yet after a year with her new friends, they’ve ceased being merely concerned and moved on to obnoxious. As if being fixed up wasn’t bad enough, the dean at her college just volunteered her to teach a potentially career damaging class. Along for the experimental course is the socially challenged M Desiderius, a fellow professor who won’t ever win a faculty popularity contest. But as they start working together, Briony begins to understand M’s aloofness and is intrigued by the shy, brilliant, passionate woman. Enough so that she’s starting to believe her friends when they say it’s time to move on. And M, as complicated as her past has been and reticent as she seems now, may be the perfect person to help Briony finally heal and love again.
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17 Miss Match by Fiona Riley
Published by Bold Strokes Books
Audiobook Yes, narrated by Melissa Sternenberg
Audiobook Publisher Bold Strokes Books
Synopsis
When Samantha Monteiro launched Perfect Match, Inc. a few years ago, she never imagined her matchmaking business would be booming while her own love life floundered. When her business partner drags her out of hiding to attend the wedding of one of their successful client matches, she meets a dancer with a dark past and a penchant for secrecy who excites her in a way she hadn’t thought possible. Samantha wonders if Lucinda Moss is the key to solving not one but two matches that have eluded Samantha since everything around her fell apart or if she is destined to find love for everyone but herself.
In a world where nothing is constant, Lucinda has learned to keep herself emotionally at arm’s length and given up on the chance to find true happiness. Can the notorious Miss Match help her forget her troubled past?
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18 Unexpected by Jenny Frame
Published by Bold Strokes Books
Audiobook Yes, narrated by Nicola Victoria Vincent
Audiobook Publisher Bold Strokes Books
Synopsis
Self-made business owner Dale McGuire has always enjoyed two things in life: women and fast cars. Now in her mid thirties, she’s restless and can’t work out why. Then one day a ten-year-old boy turns up, claiming to be her son, and her simple ordered world turns upside down.
Rebecca Harper bears the emotional scars of her father’s crimes, and now she has two rules: never let anyone get too close, and never admit weakness. Thanks to an anonymous egg donor, infertility didn’t stop her from having her son Jake. Now pregnant for a second time, she’s horrified when Jake brings home the woman he believes is his other mother.
When distrust turns to understanding and passion, can Dale and Rebecca, two women bound by fate, make a family neither expected?
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19 Heart Trouble by Jae
Published by Ylva Publishing
Audiobook Yes, narrated by Abigail Rakocy
Audiobook Publisher Ylva Publishing
Synopsis
Dr. Hope Finlay loves her job as an emergency room physician, especially since it allows her only brief encounters with her patients. She learned early in life not to get attached to anyone because it never lasts.
Laleh Samadi, a waitress at her aunt’s restaurant, is the exact opposite. She easily connects with people and loves her big, boisterous Persian family, despite their tendency to meddle in her life.
When Laleh needs to be rushed to the ER with heart trouble, Hope saves her life. Afterwards, strange things begin to occur: Why does Laleh suddenly know even the most obscure diseases, while Hope is fluent in Farsi?
Soon, they can no longer deny that there’s a mysterious connection between them – one that becomes stronger with each passing day.
Are they losing their minds…or their hearts?
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20 Departure From The Script by Jae
Published by Ylva Publishing
Audiobook Yes, narrated by Abigail Rakocy
Audiobook Publisher Ylva Publishing
Synopsis
It’s aspiring actress meeting photographer, femme meeting butch in this light-hearted lesbian romance set in Hollywood.
Aspiring actress Amanda Clark and photographer Michelle Osinski are two women burned by love and not looking to test the fire again. And even if they were, it certainly wouldn’t be with each other.
Amanda has never been attracted to a butch woman before, and Michelle personifies the term butch. Having just landed a role on a hot new TV show, she’s determined to focus on her career and doesn’t need any complications in her life.
After a turbulent breakup with her starlet ex, Michelle swore she would never get involved with an actress again. Another high-maintenance woman is the last thing she wants, and her first encounter with Amanda certainly makes her appear the type.
But after a date that is not a date and some meddling from Amanda’s grandmother, they both begin to wonder if it’s not time for a departure from their usual dating scripts.
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If you enjoyed this list by KJ then check out all of TLR’s reviews of KJ’s books
