Welcome to week 15 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 Second Chance with Take a Chance Day, which is this Saturday, April 23rd.

Below you’ll find reading suggestions. Better yet, 10 of them are on sale, so scoop up some fantastic reads at bargain prices. 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 Second Chance week: April 18 through April 22

Someday, Maybe

by Addison Clarke

FREE $5.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)

Walker Forsyth is two years sober and back in her hometown of Moonflower Cove after two years away. She’s made her amends with her sisters and friends and is ready to start a new chapter in her life. More than anything though, she’s hoping to have a second chance with the love of her life.

Maddie Carlson has spent two years wondering what it would be like when Walker came back to the Cove. The last thing she expected was for things to fall into place so perfectly and naturally. Of course, her depression takes the opportunity to make Maddie question everything.

Will Maddie be able to overcome the darkness surrounding her and let Walker into her world again?

Content Warning: This novel references the character’s experiences with depression and suicide without graphic detail.

Once in Sweden

by Emma Radley

$0.99 $5.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)

American Aubrey DeValle is currently working as a nurse in London. Once a vibrant and confident world traveller, she is now lonely and both physically and mentally in recovery. Her whole life has been turned upside down and she’s not sure if the controversial decisions she made were the right ones.

Swedish Elina Lindvall is brooding in her small town and about to be whisked away by her best friends to a summer cabin in the south of Sweden, where she knows they will pump her for information about her breakup and why she refuses to talk about what happened.

When we go back in time and find out what paths led each woman to their present, will we find solutions to their problems or merely more issues to overcome? Moreover, does the past hold the key to how they can both dare to love again? And if so, can love beat the greatest obstacle of all?

Year of the Monsoon

by Caren J. Werlinger

$0.99 $5.99 

Leisa Yeats has always defined herself by the things that are important to her – a good family, a loving relationship and a meaningful job working with kids. Life is good. But within a span of a few weeks, all of that changes. She’s always known she was adopted, but newly revealed lies and secrets kept by her parents make her question everything she thought she knew about her beginnings. Her ten-year relationship with her partner, Nan, is unexpectedly on shaky ground when she discovers that Nan, too, has kept a secret from her all these years.

Suddenly, everything Leisa believed – about her life, about the people around her, about herself – everything is turned upside down, and nothing is as she thought it was. Pulling away to try and sort things out, Leisa reaches out to the wrong people and, in the process, nearly loses herself. Buffeted at every turn by storms that shake the very foundation of her world, Leisa must figure out whom and what she can hold fast to as the winds of change blow.

A Road Through Mountains

by Miranda MacLeod

$0.99 $3.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)

When star-crossed lovers reunite, the road to happiness is anything but straight.

When Cecily Parker volunteers backstage at the Oakwood Theater, the only thing she wants is a few hours of relief from the doldrums of her upper class suburban existence. The last thing she expects is to be reunited with the only person she ever truly loved, a woman she left behind almost twenty years ago.

Rorie Mulloy has built a career as an award winning production designer in Hollywood, but her personal life is anything but a success. When she agrees to design the sets for a community theater production of A Streetcar Named Desire in Connecticut, she has no idea that the woman who broke her heart and ruined her for love will be assigned to her crew.

As the sparks are rekindled between them, these star-crossed lovers just might have a second chance at a life together. But only if they can overcome the ghosts of their past, and survive the evil suburban soccer moms and reality television divas determined to keep them from their happily ever after.

Get It Right

by Skye Kilaen

$0.99 $2.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)

A butch lesbian parolee. The pretty pansexual nurse who got away. Is this their second chance at a happily ever after?

Finn is finally out of prison, which is great. Having no job, no car, and no place to sleep except her cousin’s couch? Not so great.

Plus, her felony theft conviction isn’t doing wonders for her employment prospects, so she can’t afford her migraine meds without the public clinic. The last thing she ever expected was for the gal who stole her heart to come walking down that clinic’s hallway: Vivi, the manicure-loving nurse who spent two years fighting the prison system to get proper medical care for her patients, including Finn.

Finn could never believe she imagined the attraction and affection between them. But acting on that in prison, especially as nurse and patient, had been a serious No Way. She’s had eight months to get over Vivi, who abruptly left her job without saying goodbye. Finn is over it. Honest! It’s totally and completely fine.

Except Vivi, here and now, doesn’t seem fine. And Finn couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t try to help.

Is fate offering Finn a second chance? Or is finding love as likely as finding a job with health insurance?

Tinted Chapstick

by Alexi Venice

$0.99 $4.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)

Now living with Detective Tommy Vietti, Dr. Jen Dawson is frustrated with her love life. She’s interested in someone at the CrossFit box but wonders why she keeps thinking about her ex-lover, District Attorney Amanda Hawthorne.

As Jen works through her conflicted feelings, she also must manage the expectations of her irritated boss, Dr. Melissa Cohen, and the daily drama served up by angry patients, wild animals, and confidential information made public at the Cohen Clinic.

Even worse, Jen is asked by Amanda’s campaign manager to defend Amanda after her HEA—hellish ending to an affair—with Roxy. Jen will be damned before she’ll turn into the abused political wife, standing by “her woman” after Amanda fooled around on her. Yet, with just a short TV interview, Jen could clear up a mischaracterization of Amanda.

Back to the Start

by Monica McCallan

$2.99 $5.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)

When Remy’s grandmother dies, it means leaving her life in San Francisco and returning to a town she swore she’d never revisit, forced to confront a world she’d worked hard to put behind her over the last twelve years.

She’s not expecting that the first girl to ever steal her heart, the pretty, popular Fallon Lewis is still around, and in a town this small, their paths continue to cross much to Remy’s dismay. It’s hard enough seeing her first love, but it’s exponentially more difficult when she can barely stand to look at the woman.

Remy’s trip back has the possibility to open up doors she believed were shut long ago, but she’s never planned on staying, and she definitely never planned on letting Fallon back into her life.

If she thought being a teenager in a small town was hard, she’s about to find out how much harder life is when there’s no one but herself to blame for her problems.

Always Allie

by Melissa Tereze

$2.99 $7.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)

When leaving feels like it’s forever, but home is always right there waiting for you to come back…

Cassidy Lewis had always dreamed of following in her mother’s footsteps, opening an award-winning florist. But Cassidy wanted bigger and better. She wanted to be thriving amongst the hustle and bustle of London; something her sleepy town of Plumstoke lacked. Finding the perfect store for her dream to flourish was easy, what was hard was moving to a whole new city and leaving behind the one person she thought she’d never be without. Allie. When her mother passes away suddenly; she’s forced to head back home alone to deal with the hardest goodbye a person ever has to say.

Allie Campbell, resident sweetheart, has been pushing through loss after loss. When she watched Cassidy—the woman who should have been her wife—drive away three years ago, Allie never thought she’d see her again. Sadly, the most dreadful of circumstances has brought her back. Can Allie be the friend that’s needed, the shoulder to cry on, the hand to hold? Will Cassidy realise that she doesn’t want to let go this time?

Femme Like Her

by Fiona Zedde

$2.99 $4.99 

Nailah Grant only dates studs, races her Camaro for therapy, and believes in leaving her exes in the past where they belong.

But, with a layoff looming and her retired parents about to take a life-changing step Nailah isn’t ready for, her world becomes far from stable. Enter Scottie, the only femme she’s ever allowed close enough to touch her heart. They say trouble comes in threes, and this femme is one with a capital T.

Scottie is an ex though, and somebody Nailah never should have been with in the first place. Yet, when the foundations of her life collapse, Scottie is the one Nailah finds herself clinging to. Just as things settle into a semblance of something Nailah could only dream about, a shattering secret from Scottie’s past threatens to destroy everything the two women have built together.

Will Nailah stay the course with Scottie, or allow her fears to ruin her chance at a real and passionate love?

Love Set in Granite

by Amy DeMeritt

$2.99 $5.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)

Sidney – Sid – Taranto had planned on never returning to the small town of her youth – Granite, Pennsylvania, a never-heard-of town with a heart just as hard as its name. But after her mother passes away, and after licking her wounds from a bitter divorce, it’s time for Sid to deal with the family home.

After years of deferred maintenance, the once beautiful country home looks more like a giant pile of kindling to the angst Sid bears for the past it represents. But after running into her first love – Chloe Macintyre and her teenage kid, who’s looking for a summer job, Sid decides to keep the flame in her chest, and hires Brook to help her get the house ready to go on the market.

It’s been twenty-two years since they’ve seen each other, but that torch Sid and Chloe held for one another in high school never fully extinguished, and they are just as attracted to each other as ever before. But Sid’s contracting business and home are two-plus-hours away in Philadelphia. And Chloe has her own dental practice in Granite.

If they start dating, how long can they make a long-distance relationship last before they have to make a serious decision?

And Chloe has never come out of the closet as bisexual, even after Brook told her the year prior that they’re non-binary. The fear of what happened to Sid in high school has always stuck with her. Can she get over that fear, accept herself, and build the life with Sid that she had always wanted?

Keep scrolling for more suggestions!

Always a Love Song

by Charley Clarke

When golden girl pop star Bridget Callahan’s broken engagement comes out, she heads back to her hometown for the first time in five years to write songs for her next album. And maybe while she’s there, she’ll finally be able to face the woman she left behind who she never let go.

Bar owner Alex Marlow has spent the past five years mending her broken heart by pretending she doesn’t have one. But Bridget’s return disrupts her ordered life and brings all those chaotic, buried feelings back to the surface. Can they forgive each other and themselves for mistakes made when they were younger?

How Sweet It Is

by Melissa Brayden

Some things are better than chocolate…

Molly O’Brien is a sweetheart. Her friends and neighbors all think so. While she enjoys her quiet life running the town bakeshop in Applewood, Illinois, she wonders if there could be more. After losing the love of her life four years prior in a plane crash, Molly thinks she’s ready to navigate the dicey dating waters once again. However, you can’t always pick who your heart latches on to. When Jordan Tuscana, the beautiful younger sister of her lost love, returns to town, Molly finds her interest piqued in a manner she wasn’t prepared for.

As secrets are uncovered, Molly and Jordan must figure out how to navigate the difficult terrain of their multi-faceted relationship. Especially when something much deeper seems to be bubbling between them.

Twice In A Lifetime

by Clare Lydon

Once bitten, twice shy?

When her first love walks back into her life, Harriet Locke is thrown – because Sally McCall still looks as gorgeous as ever. The trouble is, Sally doesn’t trust Harriet, and with good reason: she hasn’t forgotten the past.

Sally loved her once, but 17 years later, is that still the case? And if it is, there’s just the small matter of living in different states, as well as convincing Sally she’s worth taking a chance on again.

Will Harriet and Sally be lucky enough to find love twice in a lifetime?

All the Worlds Between Us

by Morgan Lee Miller

Seventeen-year-old Quinn Hughes needs to be in top shape if she wants to medal at the swimming World Championships in ten months. This means no easy distractions, no matter how pretty they are.

She’s still piecing her confidence back together after not qualifying for the Olympics, her relationship with her twin brother is getting worse the more he hangs out with the popular kids, and then Kennedy Reed suddenly squeezes herself back into Quinn’s life. The girl who was her best friend. The girl who gave Quinn her first kiss. The girl who hasn’t spoken to her since.

Soon, Quinn finds herself juggling her new girlfriend, training for the biggest competition of her life, and discovering she’s not the only Hughes twin with a crush on Kennedy Reed. All these distractions are getting to her, and if she wants that medal she needs to find a way to stop drowning on dry land.

Leveling Up

by Jazzy Mitchell

Six years after completing her internship, Clarke Parson, a videogame graphic designer and animator, finds herself back in the orbit of Haboob Software’s CEO, Fran Silvetti. Clarke contacts Fran to warn her that the game her company is developing was stolen from Clarke’s computer by an ex-girlfriend after an acrimonious breakup. As Clarke is swept into a torrid affair with the fascinating woman, she covets their time together, hoping Fran may someday return the love Clarke harbors for her.

The Feel of Forever

by Lyn Denison

Fliss Devon’s life seems ideal. She runs her family’s successful art gallery on an island across the bay from tropical Queensland’s capital city. To all outward appearances Fliss has it all. Well, almost all. She was finally getting over her broken heart and she was in no hurry to allow herself to be so vulnerable again.

Then she learns that, after eight long years, Bailey Macrae is returning to the island. Beautiful, wonderful and now very famous Bailey Macrae, the same Bailey Macrae who was responsible for Fliss’ broken heart. And that sensitive heart began to ache.

A hundred questions swirled in her head. How could Bailey come back here after what she’d done? Why was she coming back? She must know she would have to face Fliss again. Or didn’t she care?

BUY US A COFFEE

Running IHL takes the three of us many hours every single week. Also, the costs add up. Last year we setup a Buy Us a Coffee page, which allows people to help cover the expenses. When we first announced the page, we were blown away by the response. Not only were people willing to pitch in, but all of the kind notes and encouragement brought more than a few tears to TB’s eyes. If you’d like to support us, click here. Every cup helps immensely! If you’d like to learn more about TB’s initial response to the outpouring of support, click here.

Have a wonderful day!

Miranda, Em, & TB

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