The Intimacy Experiment by Rosie Danan (bi m/f)
Unwritten Rules by KD Casey (m/m)
Knit One, Girl Two by Shira Glassman (f/f)
A Shot in the Dark by Victoria Lee (trans m/pan f)
Season of Love by Helena Greer (f/f)
Bonus: For an entire series dedicated to Sapphic romances set during Jewish holidays, check out Roz Alexander’s Hot for the Holidays series
Shhhh it’s really six. Tell no one.
The Summer of Jordi Perez by Amy Spalding
Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli
Bearly a Lady by Cassandra Khaw
The Seafarer’s Kiss by Julia Ember
Knit One, Girl Two by Shira Glassman
Final Draft by Riley Redgate
In my novel The Last Beginning, the main character Clove is going through a lot. She gets rejected after kissing her best friend Meg in the same week that she finds out she’s adopted. She relies on a sassy artificial intelligence called Spart for emotional support – and a girl from the future called Ella keeps interfering with her life and telling Clove that she’s her girlfriend. She’s having a pretty hard time of it, so I thought I’d recommend some books to help her chill out a little bit.
Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour
More than anything, Clove just needs to relax. This sweet and cute lesbian rom-com, set in sunny Hollywood, will help her forget all her worries. For a little while, at least!
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Clove’s future girlfriend Ella is a Classics major, and as Clove is more into computer science, she doesn’t know much about Greek myths. This retelling of Achilles and Patroclus’ love story will give her a starter in all things Classical, to help her keep up with Ella.
Clove’s adoptive parents, Tom and Jen, are both scientists working on building the world’s first time machine. Clove has been listening to their discussions about time travel since she was a little girl, so she would feel right at home reading this gay love story set in a world where time can stop and start at will.
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley
In this book, Thaniel falls in love with Keita, a Japanese watchmaker with clairvoyant powers. Just like Ella, Keita has knowledge of his future relationship with Thaniel. I think this book would help Clove deal with the crazy frustrations of dating someone who thinks they know more about you than you do.
Knit One, Girl Two by Shira Glassman
Clove knits while she’s waiting for code to compile, and to calm her nerves. She also woos Ella by giving her a green scarf she makes – so this lesbian love story about girls meeting over yarn would be perfect for them both!
In Radio Silence, British teenagers Frances and Aled are facing a breakdown of everything they thought they knew about themselves and what they wanted from life. Clove goes through something similar in The Last Beginning, so she would definitely relate.
Gena/Finn by Hannah Moskowitz and Kat Helgeson
Ella is from the future, so she and Clove face the prospect of a long-distance relationship across several centuries. She would probably like this novel about the internet relationship between two girls, told through their messages and emails, just like the conversations between Clove and Ella.
The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee
When Clove travels back in time to 1745, she feels the need to hide her sexuality, because she knows people will react badly if they found out she liked girls. In her time of 2054, sexuality isn’t an issue, and she proudly wears a rainbow wristband given to her by her dad Tom. She would probably find it comforting to read this historical novel about boys on a grand tour of Europe, which shows that there is a place for LGBT characters throughout history.
When Clove kisses her best friend Meg and gets rejected, she feels like her life is over. She doesn’t think their friendship will ever survive Clove’s advances. She would love this graphic novel series about a group of freshman girls at a British university, whose tight knit friendship group constantly faces the strain of fighting over romance, school and sexuality – and survives.
Clove would love all of these books, although she’s probably too busy to read them during The Last Beginning. I would apologise, but giving my characters tough things to deal with is one of the best parts of being a writer.
***
Lauren James is the author of Young Adult science fiction, including The Next Together series and The Loneliest Girl in the Universe. The Last Beginning was published by Sky Pony Press in March. You can find her on Twitter at @Lauren_E_James, Tumblr at @laurenjames or her website http://www.laurenejames.co.uk, where you can subscribe to her newsletter to be kept up to date with her new releases and receive bonus content.
So excited to welcome author Shira Glassman to the site, this time with a guest post on her brand-spankin’-new release, Knit One, Girl Two! God, does that cover alone not just make you the happiest person alive?
Small-batch independent yarn dyer Clara Ziegler is eager to brainstorm new color combinations–if only she could come up with ideas she likes as much as last time! When she sees Danielle Solomon’s paintings of Florida wildlife by chance at a neighborhood gallery, she finds her source of inspiration. Outspoken, passionate, and complicated, Danielle herself soon proves even more captivating than her artwork…
Buy it: Amazon
A little note on the content, as provided by the author:
Fluffy Jewish f/f contemporary set in the author’s childhood home of South Florida. This one is rated PG and features a chubby love interest and a brief exploration of the dynamic between people with differing levels of religious observance. (Clara is secular, Danielle goes to temple and keeps “kosher-lite”)
And now, please welcome Shira Glassman!
On the heels of trauma, I spent New Year’s weekend at the home of a dear friend who dyes yarn for a living (Caitlin’s String Theory ColorWorks.) We were instant friends the first time I met her at our university’s knitting club thirteen years ago, and I remain consistently fascinated by her work process – thinking up colors, naming them, watching happy customers turn her shop updates into a feeding frenzy. Reaching out for story ideas to bring me back to writing after a six month drought, I realized the perfect subject was right in front of me.
Sock clubs are a staple of the knitting world. Sometimes your treats are a complete surprise, other than the knowledge you already have of the dyer’s style. Sometimes, as with Lorena’s HaldeCraft, the club yarns come in themes—she’s done obscure fairy tales, Star Wars, Farscape, and the next one is based on beloved pets. Sometimes they come with little treats, i.e. “swag”, such as miniature handmade soaps, buttons, or stitch markers (little charms attached to a jump ring that you use to mark off sections in complicated patterns so you know where you are. Think of them as the tape on the stage in a theater.)
But before you can get to any of that, you have to have the ideas. Inspiration can come from anywhere, and in my story Clara finds it in Danielle’s paintings.
The South Florida I’m writing about is the Ft. Lauderdale I grew up in. I brought a closed Jewish deli back to life so that my ladies can go where I can’t anymore. The museum that forms part of their date is not only where I volunteered as a teenager but also where I first realized I liked girls. Everything I love and miss about the southern part of my state, 300 miles away, is in this story. Clara even works in the box office of the theater where I took lessons, attended performances, and played in All-County.
I’ve joked to my friends that a good tag line for this story is “what if the Manic Pixie Dream Girls just dated each other instead?” Danielle’s Going Through Some Things, so beside Clara’s sunny placidity the two of them might resemble the Tragedy and Comedy masks. But sometimes sad people don’t want to be alone, and the people who let us be sad and social at the same time make the world go around.
I’ve given you a fantasy Florida in my Mangoverse books, where there are dragons under the palm trees. Now come see the real one, where there might not be a palace—just the ordinary magic of “…I met this girl….”
*****
Buy Shira’s books here
Shira Glassman is a bisexual Jewish violinist passionately inspired by German and French opera and Agatha Christie novels. She lives in north central Florida, where the alligators are mostly harmless because they’re too lazy to be bothered.
Val’s relationship with Ashton is complicated. As the son of Ashton’s beloved nanny, Val has always bounced between resenting Ashton and regarding him as his best friend. And then there’s the sexual attraction between them that Val tries so hard to ignore.
When Ashton flees his glitzy lifestyle, he finds refuge with Val in the Bronx. Between Val’s training for an upcoming fight and dodging paparazzi, they succumb to their need for each other. But before they can figure out what it all means—and what they want to do about it—the world drags them out of their haven, revealing a secret Val has kept for years. Now, Ashton has to decide whether to once again envelope himself in his party-boy persona, or to trust in the only man who’s ever seen the real him.
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But when the bejeweled vase she just tried to hawk turns out to be a jinni’s vessel, Rebel gets lost to her world and dragged within another. Now every magical being in the city wants the vase for himself.
Thrust into a game of cat and mouse in a world she never knew existed, Rebel must use her uncanny skills to find a way to free Anjeline the Wishmaker.
But wishes have consequences. And contracts. Anjeline’s freedom could unravel a love like Rebel has never known, or it could come at the cost of Rebel’s heart…
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Her attempts to lay low until she graduates are disrupted when she meets Eva, a girl with her own share of ghosts she’s trying to outrun. Grief-stricken and lonely, Eva pulls Grace into midnight adventures and feelings Grace never planned on. When Eva tells Grace she likes girls, both of their worlds open up. But, united by loss, Eva also shares a connection with Maggie. As Grace’s mother spirals downward, both girls must figure out how to love and how to move on.
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Then the school gets a mass email: A spot has opened up in the Sharpshooters, Kensington’s elite a cappella octet. Worshiped … revered … all male. Desperate to prove herself, Jordan auditions in her most convincing drag, and it turns out that Jordan Sun, Tenor 1, is exactly what the Sharps are looking for.
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*Release is of a new translation of the Chinese
Set in the post-martial-law era of 1990s Taipei, Notes of a Crocodile depicts the coming-of-age of a group of queer misfits discovering love, friendship, and artistic affinity while hardly studying at Taiwan’s most prestigious university. Told through the eyes of an anonymous lesbian narrator nicknamed Lazi, Qiu Miaojin’s cult classic novel is a postmodern pastiche of diaries, vignettes, mash notes, aphorisms, exegesis, and satire by an incisive prose stylist and countercultural icon.
Afflicted by her fatalistic attraction to Shui Ling, an older woman who is alternately hot and cold toward her, Lazi turns for support to a circle of friends that includes the devil-may-care, rich-kid-turned-criminal Meng Sheng and his troubled, self-destructive gay lover Chu Kuang, as well as the bored, mischievous overachiever Tun Tun and her alluring slacker artist girlfriend Zhi Rou.
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Determined to forge a different fate, Ersel seeks help from Loki. But such deals are never as one expects, and the outcome sees her exiled from the only home and protection she’s known. To save herself from perishing in the barren, underwater wasteland and be reunited with the human she’s come to love, Ersel must try to outsmart the God of Lies.
Buy it: Amazon * Book Depository * Wordery * Interlude
Since then, it’s been Ramona and her family against the world. Standing over six feet tall with unmistakable blue hair, Ramona is sure of three things: she likes girls, she’s fiercely devoted to her family, and she knows she’s destined for something bigger than the trailer she calls home in Eulogy, Mississippi. But juggling multiple jobs, her flaky mom, and her well-meaning but ineffectual dad forces her to be the adult of the family. Now, with her sister, Hattie, pregnant, responsibility weighs more heavily than ever.
The return of her childhood friend Freddie brings a welcome distraction. Ramona’s friendship with the former competitive swimmer picks up exactly where it left off, and soon he’s talked her into joining him for laps at the pool. But as Ramona falls in love with swimming, her feelings for Freddie begin to shift too, which is the last thing she expected. With her growing affection for Freddie making her question her sexual identity, Ramona begins to wonder if perhaps she likes girls and guys or if this new attraction is just a fluke. Either way, Ramona will discover that, for her, life and love are more fluid than they seem.
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Sixteen-year-old Sana Kiyohara has too many secrets. Some are small, like how it bothers her when her friends don’t invite her to parties. Some are big, like that fact that her father may be having an affair. And then there’s the one that she can barely even admit to herself—the one about how she might have a crush on her best friend.
When Sana and her family move to California she begins to wonder if it’s finally time for some honesty, especially after she meets Jamie Ramirez. Jamie is beautiful and smart and unlike anyone Sana’s ever known. There are just a few problems: Sana’s new friends don’t trust Jamie’s crowd; Jamie’s friends clearly don’t want her around anyway; and a sweet guy named Caleb seems to have more-than-friendly feelings for her. Meanwhile, her dad’s affair is becoming too obvious to ignore anymore.
Sana always figured that the hardest thing would be to tell people that she wants to date a girl, but as she quickly learns, telling the truth is easy… what comes after it, though, is a whole lot more complicated.
Caden is a Nice: The boy next door, sculpted to physical perfection. Dylan is a Bad: The brooding, dark-souled guy, and dangerously handsome. The girl they are competing for is important to the organization, and each boy will pursue her. Will she choose a Nice or the Bad?
Both Caden and Dylan are living in the outside world for the first time. They are well-trained and at the top of their games. They have to be – whoever the girl doesn’t choose will die.
What the boys don’t expect are feelings that are outside of their training. Feelings that could kill them both.
She’s also feeling the pressure of family: parents who married too young and have differing parenting styles; a younger sister in a wheelchair from whom adults expect either too little or too much; and her popular older brother who takes pleasure in taunting Keira. She finds solace in preparing for the regional finals of figure skating, a hobby she knows is geeky and “het girl” yet instills her with confidence. But when she meets a girl named Jayne who seems perfect for her, she isn’t so confident she can pull off her charade any longer.
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As an independent filmmaker, Katie Cherry is used to difficult shoots—but a band’s music video in a tiny lesbian bar is proving worse than most. Stress-busting, expectation-free sex with Zay, the calm, gorgeous bartender, seems just the ticket. But then she and Zay discover the band’s lead singer beaten into a coma in the bar bathroom. They need an alibi, but playing girlfriends is a role Katie’s never excelled at, so she can’t see this ending well.
Zay Fahed-Smith finally getting her life back together after her junkie ex broke it apart. She’s working part-time while pursuing her dream of being a lawyer, and definitely keeping things chill on the girls front. Of course, that’s when a crime happens in her bar and her ex shows up wanting to try again. “Dating” Katie seems like the best way for Zay to keep her head down and teach her ex a lesson.
Except pretty soon, the charade begins to feel less and less like acting. And when the attacker turns his attentions toward Katie, they have to cut through the lies to discover what’s real.
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Brandon Evans is everything Jeremy isn’t: carefree, outgoing, and openly gay. With his bright-blue eyes and dramatic tattoos, he’s a temptation that Jeremy refuses to acknowledge. But Jeremy can’t ignore how talented Brandon is—or that Brandon has no interest in using his diving skills to compete.
They’re opposites who are forced to work together as teammates, but Jeremy’s fear of his own sexuality and Brandon’s disinterest in anything “not fun” may end their partnership before it begins. Until a single moment changes everything, and they help each other discover that “team” can also mean family and love.
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