Welcome to week 12 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.

Now, to get to the task at hand. We paired Medical Character with Doctor’s Day, which is March 30th.

Below you’ll find reading suggestions. Better yet, 6 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 Medical Character week: March 28 through April 1

A Cut Above

by Cara Malone

$0.99 $5.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)

Ivy Chan has always known her destiny.

She would be the best neurosurgeon in the state, or maybe the country. Better even than her father, whose shadow she’s eager to escape.

Ivy has always been a student above all. Friendships, hobbies and romance come second… or more often, not at all. She’s in the home stretch now, the final year of medical school, and her surgical residency is within reach.

All Ivy needs to do is stay the course.

Which would be a hell of a lot easier if she hadn’t had the misfortune of falling in love with her study partner.

Chloe Barnes is the kind of girl who can command Ivy’s attention even across a crowded Emergency Room. She’s smart and witty, she makes friends with everyone she meets… she’s the polar opposite of Ivy’s reserved, cynical nature. And one unexpected kiss in the hospital locker room changes everything.

It shoves Ivy off her chosen path…
Leaves her questioning everything…
And wanting more.

This is the second book in the Lakeside Hospital series. Each book can be enjoyed as a stand-alone novel and the series can be read in any order.

Reservations of the Heart

by TB Markinson

$0.99 $4.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)

Can two wounded souls find solace together?

41-year-old doctor Stella Gilbert used to have it all. Her career was on fire, and she had a picture-perfect family–until she was blindsided by her wife doing the unthinkable. Three years after her divorce, Stella’s loved ones worry about her non-existent personal life and her stubborn belief that focusing on her career and raising her daughter are all she needs to be fulfilled.

Reeling from the revelation of a long-held family secret, 29-year-old Aurora Shirley is just over it all. If her parents could lie to Aurora all her life, won’t everyone else? Women are the last thing on her mind as she starts a temporary job at a local medical school. Unfortunately for Aurora, she needs to find a date for her best friend’s wedding or be deemed the worst maid of honor in history.

When Stella and Aurora unexpectedly come together, sparks fly. Neither is looking for a relationship, but what they discover in one another is so much more than a physical connection. Can two wounded women who believe love is the last thing they want overcome their fears to find healing?

Best-selling lesbian romance author T.B. Markinson brings lesfic readers a heartwarming age-gap story about facing one’s demons to live a fuller and loving life. 

Switchback

by S.W. Andersen

$0.99 $4.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)

Sierra Cody is on fire. A rising star in women’s professional downhill mountain bike racing, she has all the tools to become a world champion. All she needs to do is fully commit herself. Something far easier said than done. As stubborn as she is independent, Sierra has always carved her own path, refusing to fall in line with the controlling, commercialized aspects of the sport. Her trademark no-holds-barred, reckless style of riding has earned her as many cheers as it has jeers.

Dr. Kara Davies, a highly regarded and accomplished physician, is well on her way to achieving her dreams in chiropractic research. Commitment to her goals has never been an issue, but her personal life is a different story. Preferring the comfort and safety of her lab over personal relationships, Kara’s one-track mind allows no deviation.

But life is full of twists and turns.

After an accident on the track lands Sierra in Kara’s on-site medical center, the doctor suddenly finds she has more on her mind that work. Blindsided by mutual attraction, Sierra and Kara struggle to accept their feelings for each other and to deal with the change it brings.

Will love be enough? Or will life’s little switchbacks send them both careening off course?

Amanda’s Dragonfly

by Alexi Venice

$0.99 $4.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)

Amanda Hawthorne is a powerful District Attorney in San Francisco, defined by her beauty, intellect and an unwavering sense of justice. While she is renowned for prosecuting murder cases, when a war erupts between the DA’s Office and the Italian mafia–with a Russian billionaire lurking in the background–Amanda must decide how far she is willing to go to protect her lover, Dr. Jen Dawson.

Jen Dawson is facing monumental personal changes and dangerous threats from mobsters. She struggles for independence and survival, as Amanda’s war hijacks her life. Meanwhile, Jen thought she had put Detective Tommy Vietti-her ex-lover-behind her, but discovers she and Amanda need to track him down for unfinished business that binds the three of them.

Tommy Vietti intentionally dropped off the matrix after Jen left him for Amanda, his longtime colleague. Feeling viciously betrayed by both of them, the last thing he wants is for them to find him in paradise because they each need him for two quite different reasons. As a seasoned detective, Tommy is no stranger to drama and danger, but Amanda’s mobster case generates more than even he could imagine.

Keep Tahoe Blue

by Nicole Pyland

$2.99 $7.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)

Kellan Cobb had to get out of San Francisco. She’d just watched her ex-girlfriend meet the woman of her dreams. Her broken heart needed a break from it all, and Lake Tahoe was calling her name.

Reese Lee has a secret. Only her twin sister knows the one thing Reese hasn’t even told the closest people around her. When she meets Kellan at a fun weekend game of beach football, she knows there’s something interesting about the tourist. She’s never had a problem wining, dining, and sometimes bedding the tourists that strolled into the lake town. But with Kellan, she might just see the possibility of more.

Kellan is determined to address the loneliness in her heart. Reese is determined to keep her secret for fear it would change the way people see her. As the two women try to navigate their attraction, they each have to give up something their holding onto that could prevent them from finding what they’ve both been looking for all along.

Healing of the Heart

by Ruby Scott

$2.99 $5.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)

Meredith Asquith is a talented Neurosurgeon at the top of her field. That is as much as anyone knows… but who really is the woman behind the scalpel? Is there nothing to tell, or too much to reveal?

When her professional path is crossed by Emily Porter, a beautiful young psychologist, whose job it is to assess the top surgeon’s mental fitness to operate, Meredith’s contained life begins to unravel forcing devastating choices to be made

Sometimes the strongest forces of nature belie a very fragile truth… the only certainty is change.

Prepare for loss, angst but most of all hope in this slow burn medical romance with a sexy little age gap. Just when you think you know where life is taking you… think again.

Keep scrolling for more suggestions!

Heart Trouble

by Jae

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?

Irregular Heartbeat

by Chris Zett

After nearly a decade as a professional drummer, Diana Petrell leaves her rock-star life behind to continue her residency in emergency medicine. She’s determined not to let anything stop her—not even falling in love with her aloof mentor, Dr. Emily Barnes.

Emily has only ever focused on her career as a senior attending in the emergency department, and she isn’t happy about having to babysit a resident with a ten-year gap in her résumé, no matter how intriguing she is.

But every time they work together, it’s not just their patients’ heartbeat that gets a little irregular. Soon, the once-clear lines between work and personal life begin to blur.

When Diana’s unorthodox secret past is revealed, putting her job in jeopardy, Emily has to choose between her career and her relationship. A lesbian romance that asks how much we’d risk for love.

Gallows Humor

by Carolyn Elizabeth

Corey Curtis is coasting. At thirty-three, she’s in the best shape of her life and has a satisfying position at Jackson City Memorial Hospital. With a good paycheck, great friends, and occasional relationships with smart, beautiful women, she couldn’t be happier. She thinks.

Dr. Thayer Reynolds, whiling away some time before the start of her Emergency Department fellowship at JCMH and intrigued by the stories she’s heard, crashes the morgue to get a look at Corey—the woman her young colleagues are whispering about.

Totally spinning from her first interactions with Thayer, Corey throws herself into the post mortem exam of a construction worker who fell to his death, which isn’t at all suspicious—until it is. With no support from her boss or the police, Corey investigates the death on her own. Making bad decisions with good intentions, she recklessly endangers her own life and Thayer’s. Even worse—she potentially dooms any chance of a real relationship with Thayer before it even gets started.

Courageous Love

by KC Richardson

Alex Taylor is an ER nurse who prides herself on the care she gives to those in need. Through a chance encounter, Alex meets police sergeant Francesca Greco and finds the handsome officer too hard to resist. When Alex is diagnosed with a devastating disease, her role is changed from caregiver to patient and she prepares for the fight of her life.

Frank Greco has developed intense feelings for Alex, but wonders if she has it in her to take care of another woman she loves who has become sick. However, she sees this as an opportunity to do things differently this time around.

Will Alex and Frank be able to overcome Alex’s illness, and their own demons, to embrace love?

All of Me

by Emily Smith

Dr. Galen Burgess has a reputation for keeping it casual. She likes women close—but not too close. Nothing is more important to her than her budding surgical career as chief surgical resident at Boston City Hospital. After spending years trying, and failing, to please her father, Galen knows getting close enough to care is a recipe for heartbreak.

Everything in her carefully structured life begins to change when she meets her newest intern, the disconcertingly beautiful Dr. Rowan Duncan. Sheltered doesn’t even begin to describe Rowan’s comfortable, quiet life before moving to Boston. When Rowan starts to fall for Galen, everything Rowan’s ever known comes into question, including her relationship with high school sweetheart Brian.

With her own heart on the line, will Rowan have the courage to make the cut, or risk losing Galen forever?

While My Heart Beats

by Erin McKenzie

Johanna Lennox, a working-class Scottish nurse, and Ellie Winthrop, a Voluntary Aid Detachment recruit from a wealthy British family, are thrown together in a general hospital in France during World War I.

When Johanna’s mother dies unexpectedly, Ellie is there to offer the comfort she desperately needs, and their feelings for each other grow into an attraction neither can deny. Johanna is convinced they can’t have a future together and throws herself into her work to escape her pain. She volunteers to serve closer to the front and almost loses her life before being sent home.

When Ellie refuses to give up hope and goes to find her, will Johanna be able to trust that a love born amidst the horrors of the Great War can survive in a post-war world?

Paris Rules

by Jaime Maddox

Dr. Paige Waterford is struggling with a strained marriage and trying to find her stride after finishing her residency and beginning her career in the ER. When she meets Carly Becker, the fog begins to lift, and she feels a connection like none she’s ever known.

Carly Becker has been searching for the perfect woman all her life, but no one ever seems to be just right. She must be fun and adventurous, love travel and theater, and most importantly, golf. Paige checks all the boxes, except the most important one—she’s married.

Through their mutual passion for golf, a friendship grows, and Paige finds the courage to separate from her husband. Then, on a group trip to Paris, they rewrite the rules. Under Paris Rules, they explore their feelings. But is Paige brave enough to fall in love when they return home?

L.A. Metro

by RJ Nolan

Dr. Kimberly Donovan’s life is in shambles. After her medical ethics are questioned, first her family, then her closeted lover, the Chief of the ER, betray her. Determined to make a fresh start, she flees to California and L.A. Metropolitan Hospital.

Dr. Jess McKenna, L.A. Metro’s Chief of the ER, gives new meaning to the phrase emotionally guarded, but she has her reasons.

When Kim and Jess meet, the attraction is immediate. Emotions Jess has tried to repress for years surface. But her interest in Kim also stirs dark memories. They settle for friendship, determined not to repeat past mistakes, but secretly they both wish things could be different.

Will the demons from Jess’s past destroy their future before it can even get started? Or will L.A. Metro be a place to not only heal the sick, but to mend wounded hearts?

Thursday Afternoons

by Tracey Richardson

Thursdays aren’t simply another day of the week for Amy Spencer and Ellis Hall. Thursday afternoons sizzle with no-strings sex for the two women, who meet each week in a hotel room to forget their past—and their present.

The arrangement works perfectly for Amy, a busy surgeon who’s still smarting from a failed relationship. For Ellis, Thursday afternoons act as a pressure valve from her cutthroat job and the mistakes in her personal life she’s trying to rectify.

But soon the pair discover that their outside worlds are on a collision course with the carefully constructed world they’ve created on Thursday afternoons. What will happen when they discover the truth about each other? Will their weekly assignations come to a screeching halt, or will they turn into something much, much more…

The Imperative of Desire

by Elena Graf

Available in Kindle Unlimited

In the waning years of Queen Victoria’s reign, a brilliant daughter is born to an aristocratic, military family in Prussia. A quirk of inheritance law allows Margarethe von Stahle to inherit her family’s titles. Her elders collaborate to educate her to take on her future duties, which include administering her family estates and supporting an order of nuns.

Margarethe’s curiosity and precocity delight and perplex her teachers as they try to mold her. Her father trains her with his military cadets. A retired opera singer teaches her how to sing. Her grandaunt, headmistress of the convent school, educates her in philosophy and classics. At an early age, Margarethe heads to Oxford to follow in her father’s footsteps. Gifted with both musical and intellectual talents, she must choose between singing and service. Raised to take her duty and noblesse oblige seriously, she decides to study medicine and becomes one of the few female surgeons in 1920s Germany.

Because she needs heirs to her titles, Margarethe reluctantly marries, but that doesn’t prevent her from finding solace in the arms of women. She trains under the best surgeons in Germany and England and rises to prominence as London’s infamous “Lady Doctor.” Finally, duty requires her to return to her homeland and take the reins of the family fortunes.

The Imperative of Desire, the first volume in The Passing Rites Series, is a coming-of-age story that takes a young woman from La Belle Époque, through a world war, a revolution that outlawed the German nobility, the roaring twenties, to the decadent demimonde of Weimar Berlin.

Happy reading, peeps!

Miranda & TB