Welcome to week 5 of the 2022 IHL Sapphic Reading Challenge. Before we get to the books, we want to remind you of two ways you can interact with other readers to enhance your experience during the challenge this year.

First, you can join the I Heart Lesfic Facebook reader group. Every Monday we will announce the category for the week, and every Wednesday you will have the opportunity to post what book you are reading and be entered into the monthly drawing for a $25 Amazon gift card. (For those who are not on Facebook and still want to enter, remember you can email your reading selection to tbm@iheartlesfic.com).

Second, we have created a Goodreads group where readers can discuss books, swap recommendations, and generally have a good time.

Gift Card Winner

Lynda won the January $25 Amazon gift card. Congrats and happy reading Lynda!

Love After 50

Now, to get to the task at hand. We paired Love After 50 with American Heart Month, because we believe love, no matter your age, is good for the heart.

Below you’ll find reading suggestions. Better yet, 10 of them are on sale, so scoop up a fantastic read at a bargain. Before you click any buy buttons, please ensure the sale price matches. (Some international prices may vary.)

The following books are on sale to celebrate Love After 50 week: February 7 through February 11

The Startling Inaccuracy of the First Impression

by Amanda Radley

$0.99 $7.99 

Woodlands Avenue is a peaceful and tranquil street, picturesque with Victorian-era homes and lined with trees. Verity Forsyth lives at 27A, and is enjoying her early retirement, active social calendar and occasional babysitting duties.

Katie Ross is starting over, leaving her old home and her controlling ex behind and moving into a new apartment. When Katie and her beloved motorbike move into 27B, she finds herself immediately in conflict with her upstairs neighbour, Verity.

Two such forceful personalities under one roof is a recipe for disaster.

When disaster strikes, will they be able to put aside their differences and call a truce?

The Visitor

by Angela McKenna

$0.99 $2.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)

Secrets. Lies. Love?

Lesbian Professor Helen Miller arrives in England from America. The last thing she expects is to be lodging with her friend Sophie’s reserved and anxious mother, Ingrid, but Sophie has told a big lie which pushes them all together under one roof and when Ingrid catches them both in what appears to be a compromising position, sparks fly.

Helen lurches from one calamity to another as she attempts to navigate through the storm of a family drama, teetering on the verge of being cast out, but desperate to stay. You see, despite Ingrid’s angry words and cold demeanour, Helen likes her, in fact, she likes her rather a lot and she’s wondering if, underneath all that cold fury, Ingrid likes her too…

With only three weeks left until she must return home to San Francisco, Helen fights for the true love she has always craved but will her own past, and Sophie’s lies, wreck any chance of future happiness? The clock is ticking.

She Sings of Old, Unhappy, Far-off Things

by Caren J. Werlinger

$0.99 $6.99 

Margaret Braithwaite was a rising Regency scholar and an acclaimed author. Thirty years later, she’s a one-book wonder, a fifty-something college professor with the dubious distinction of being an expert on Jane Austen, hidden in the shadow of her famous husband and his Civil War novels. “Too young to retire, and too old to start over,” Margaret feels as dried up and dead as the neglected gardens her husband took such pride in before he became ill.

Wyck Fitzsimmons is the Asheville landscape architect Gavin Braithwaite hires to restore his precious gardens to their former glory. She learned a long time ago that plants and trees are safer and more reliable companions than other people.

Under Wyck’s care, the gardens begin to come back to life, but the flowers aren’t the only thing blossoming. For the first time in decades, Margaret feels the stirrings of love, but those long-buried feelings frighten her more than the prospect of withering away alone in her ivory tower of academia.

Gavin, more observant than most people give him credit for, sees the attraction developing between his wife and his gardener. Using every means at his disposal, he arranges things so that Margaret has no choice but to remain faithful to him, even after death.

Margaret, confused and faced with losing everything that offers her any kind of security, flees to England – to Austen and Wordsworth country – where she tries to forget Wyck and all the feelings she has awakened.

Back in North Carolina, Wyck must come to terms with her own past and somehow find a way to forgive before it’s too late to make amends.

Love, it seems, can take root in even the most barren hearts, if only Margaret and Wyck can find the courage to let it grow.

Warm Pearls and Paper Cranes

by E.V. Bancroft

$0.99 $4.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)

A family torn apart by secrets. Love is the only way forward.

Maud Heaston has been in love with Beatrice Williams since they first met in 1939. They’ve been through hell and back; family, careers, and secrets have threatened to tear them apart, but their love has endured it all. Until now. Old age and illness have forced them into separate nursing homes and the family Maud trusted to take care of them are only out for themselves.

Hannah Jones is trying to put her past behind her and find her place in the world. Midway through a doctorate and living with Suki, the woman she’d like to be more than just friends with, the last thing she needs is Gammy, her interfering great aunt, back in her life. Though Gammy took Hannah in when her mother died, her overbearing nature and constant criticisms forced them apart. Now they barely speak.

Maud needs Hannah’s help to be reunited with the love of her life. Hannah needs Suki to take a chance on love. Can a reconciliation between Maud and Hannah free them both to be with the women they love or will the past destroy their future?

Christmas in the Canaries

by Teresa Purkis

$0.99 $3.69 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)

An engaging and moving story of another chance at love between two older women. Christmas in the Canaries follows the fortunes of Alison and Maddie as they both embark on a cruise over the holiday season. Alison needs a holiday from her lonely, loveless life. Her previous controlled and abusive relationship had recently ended acrimoniously. Maddie was still grieving the loss of her wife after untimely death. Both are trying to sort out their lives away from the everyday norm. Neither want to be alone at Christmas. Both want to re-evaluate their lives. Brought together by chance. Exploring together by choice. After two incredible weeks cruising in the Canaries, will the new found friendship of these two older women become something more?

High October

by Elena Graf

$0.99 $5.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)

Liz Stolz and Maggie Fitzgerald were college roommates until Maggie confessed to her parents that she’d fallen in love with a woman. Maggie gave up her dream of becoming an actress and married her high school boyfriend. Liz became a famous breast surgeon. Maggie is performing in a summer stock production near the Maine town where Liz is now a general practitioner. When Maggie breaks her leg in a stage accident, she lands in Dr. Stolz’s office. Is forty years too long to wait for the one you love?

A Brief Debacle

by Nicole Higginbotham-Hogue

$0.99 $2.99 

Edna and Gertie Simmons live a leisurely life, and as they have aged into their seventies, their thirst for adventure has slowly diminished. However, when Edna finds that her briefcase, containing some of her most sentimental pieces of jewelry, has vanished, she contracts Gertie to go on an unforgettable journey to locate it.

Evolution

by MJ Duncan

$1.99 $6.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)

Life in The Royal Ballet comes with a set of unwritten rules, and no one knows them better than Nina Devereaux. Even in her current role as the Company’s Artistic Director, those expectations still loom menacingly over her life. But when she’s granted the opportunity to bring her revolutionary ballet to stage, the little voice that has always kept her playing by the rules begins to waver as she watches her love letter to the woman who has held her heart for years come to life. She knows better than most that it’s a long road from wanting something to having it, but perhaps this time she’ll finally manage to get it right.

And The Truth Is…

by Jamey Moody

$2.99 $5.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)

When the love you’ve been searching for magically appears in the most unexpected person.

Lauren Nichols’ longtime marriage was over. She’d done what was expected, married her high school sweetheart, raised two great kids and now what? There had to be more to life than work. She wanted to share the passion she knew lived deep in her heart.

When she meets the bigger-than-life award-winning actress Tara Holloway something kindles deep inside her.

Can passion pull Tara all the way from Hollywood to a small Texas lake town? Is this the true love they have both been seeking? And can love overcome distance, fame, and family objections? Or is this love so hot they both get burned?

Let’s go back to Lovers Landing for another romance on the lake with Krista and friends. Can Lovers Landing cast it’s magical spell on Tara and Lauren? The truth is…

Trails of the Heart

by Ruby Scott

$2.99 $5.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)

Brilliant but socially awkward, trauma specialist Rachel Adams is all about making a difference. Returning to the US after working with Doctors Beyond Borders in Haiti, she faces the challenge of settling into ‘normal’ life as part of the City General ER team. But all she has is her work.

Andy (Andrea) Jones, a no nonsense Medevac pilot has always played the field since her Air Force days, having never met the right woman. Charming, charismatic and caring, women rarely say no to her, that is, until she meets Rachel.

Attractive women make Rachel flustered. Confident, attractive medevac pilots who flirt with her, send her into a tailspin.

There are a hundred reasons to say no; one is older, the other young; one is outgoing, the other quiet; one loves nature, the other loves their couch. But will a hundred reasons to say no blind them to the thousand reasons to say yes?

Keep scrolling for more suggestions!

The Second Wave

by Jean Copeland

Alice never imagined that meeting co-worker Leslie would lead to an all-consuming love affair. But even in the anything-goes 1970s, feminist attitudes and the sexual revolution can’t change the fact that Leslie is a traditional married mom of two who won’t chance losing her children to follow her heart and divorce her husband. Their year of risk, passion, and heartache takes its toll on both women. Tired of only receiving crumbs from Leslie, Alice makes the toughest choice of her life and moves on.

Although their affair is short-lived, their desire to be together never dies. Nearly forty years later, Alice returns to Connecticut after learning Leslie has suffered a stroke. She soon realizes that time and distance haven’t doused the fire for Leslie that’s always burned in her heart. But is it too late to pick up where they left off?

Never Too Late for Heroes

by A.L. Brooks

This cracking adventure with a side of romance is for lovers of tough, jaded, lesbian cops, superheroes and villains, and feisty retirees who don’t take retirement lying down.

Agent Geena Fox is counting down the days to her retirement. On one bittersweet day six years ago, her team of superheroes defeated Jewel, the world’s most evil villainꟷbut Geena’s secret lover died in the process. Now her boss has assigned her a rookie partner, Leigh Walker, and that’s the last thing Geena needs. She sends the woman off on a wild goose chase searching for a long-lost missing person to get her out of her sight. However, what Leigh finds will turn Agent Fox’s world upside down.

Meanwhile, over in a retirement home in Missouri, four old women sharing the surname Power are arousing suspicion with their strange behavior. Their nosy nurse is convinced they are not what they seem. Geena and Leigh meet with the mysterious Powers, and realize the women might hold the key to stopping Jewel, once and for all.

A Light on Altered Land

by Becky Bohan

Available in Kindle Unlimited

llie Belmont, a retired college teacher, wants to leave the house she shared with her wife, who died three years ago. Kathryn Kepler, a retired psychotherapist, finds life as a country club divorcée lonely. They meet by chance at a coffee shop and bond over downsizing. Sparks of attraction ignite on a road trip from Minnesota to California. After a romantic few days in Yosemite, they must deal with the real world—Kathryn’s homophobic daughter, medical cannabis, and a run-in with the law. A love story about mature passion and personal integrity, A Light on Altered Land has readers cheering for this winsome couple.

The Hum of Bees

by Patricia Spencer

Sometimes When You Think You’ve Failed, You Actually Haven’t.

Eugenia Gallant has given everything up for her work life. Now she is being thrown under the bus by her superior. He has replaced her with an interim, taken away her work keys, and ordered her to take her three months accrued vacation ‘to think things over’ before testifying at the upcoming court case. Exhausted, betrayed, and reviled, all she wants to do is hide out for the summer someplace where no one knows her. But where in Canada can a woman go to hide from the nationwide media storm she herself unleashed?

Darcy Gordon is all but a recluse. She lives on her farm outside the village of Wellington on Lake Ontario and minds her own business. She doesn’t watch TV, doesn’t have internet, not even a data plan on her phone. Returning to her ancestral home after a spectacular crash and burn, she is hiding out, afraid that her past may come to light–or worse, that she might get pushed so hard again that she will repeat the unthinkable.

When a mutual friend asks Darcy if Eugenia can stay in the little cabin on her property, Darcy agrees as a favour, not knowing it will turn both their lives upside down. For what future can there be for love between a recluse and a prominent public figure ordered by the courts to return to the limelight? Between a woman based in Ontario and one who must return to British Columbia?

Country Living

by Jen Silver

When Peri Sanderson achieves her dream of moving from London to a cottage in the English countryside, she expects her domestic bliss will be complete when her wife, Karla, leaves her London job to join her. Peri sees their future together as growing vegetables, tending some chickens, and chatting with the locals by a roaring log fire in a quaint village pub. Sexy urbanite, Karla, has other ideas and they don’t include a move to the countryside. Secrets are everywhere. Peri quickly senses something not quite right among her rural neighbours, and Karla is not quite the worldly wise woman-about-town that she thinks she is. Temptation, betrayal and intrigue combine to change the lives of both women beyond anything they could have imagined.

Happy reading!

Miranda & TB