Before we get to today’s new releases, including gems by JA Armstrong, E.J. Noyes, MJ Duncan, Erica Lee, and many others, we have some announcements.
LAST DAY TO PREORDER PRIDE NOVELS
To celebrate our fifth anniversary in style, we spearheaded the I Heart SapphFic Pride Collection, featuring 8 books by some of the most popular authors in sapphic fiction today.
Each author in the collection will be donating a portion of their preorder royalties to a charity of their choice. Preorder them all today and help the world become a better place.
The entire collection goes life tomorrow in time to celebrate love.
IHS SAPPHIC READING CHALLENGE
It’s week 21 of IHS’s Sapphic Reading Challenge. You can click here for reading suggestions for loss / grieving stories. 7 of the books featured on the page are on sale.
Remember, you can join the I Heart SapphFic 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.
VOTE FOR FAVORITE GIRL NEXT DOOR
We asked readers to nominate their all-time favorite sapphic Girl Next Door romances. Find out who made the cut and cast your vote. Voting ends on June 18 and the top three winners will be announced on June 22 newsletter.
FREE BOOK
Finding Susan
by Katie Mettner
Also Available in Kindle Unlimited
Olga and Renay find themselves falling in love; one woman comfortable with her sexuality, the other uncomfortable in her own skin. A bottle of wine and a sweet, languid kiss told Olga the time had come to decide if Renay was worth fighting for, and if true love could conquer all.
Deal ends May 31.
NEW RELEASES
Here are this week’s new ebook and audio releases and announcements.
Please click on this link for how to submit books (ebook and audio) for the newsletter. IHS will not include books unless they receive an email from either the author or publisher.
Happy reading and listening,
TB, Em, Faith, & Miranda
ROMANCE
Beyond Any Experience
by Anne E. Terpstra
Olivia’s deceased wife defines her past. Their autistic son fills her present. Does she have anything left to give her future?
Olivia Northman’s world shattered the day she lost her wife to a drunk driver. Three years later, she still struggles with grief and the demands of being a single parent to their autistic son, Ben. After her first attempt at a new relationship crumbles, she retreats to the simple, the predictable. It’s what’s best for her son, and her heart.
Ellie Vasquez isn’t simple or predictable. In fact, she’s charmingly impulsive, as well as gregarious, confident, and attracted to Olivia, which she reveals in an unguarded moment. Olivia doesn’t know what’s more surprising—Ellie’s interest, or her own—but a quiet conversation over drinks soon spins into something more. As Olivia’s caution gives way to hope, she sees another chance at love, both for her, and for Ben, who takes to Ellie with a tender openness. Ellie is fearless about love in a way that makes Olivia want to be brave, but the deeper their passion, the closer she gets to drowning—in grief, in fear, in guilt. To have a future with Ellie, Olivia must come to terms with her past. If she can’t, she risks losing the second love of her life.
Trigger Warnings for references to an auto accident/collision; PTSD/past trauma; loss of and grieving for a loved one; loss of a family member; discussion of suicidal ideation; fatphobia; ableism.
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Age Gap; POC Character; Medical Character; Single Parent; Loss/Grieving; Neurodiverse Character; Hot & Steamy
If I Don’t Ask
by E. J. Noyes
Rebecca Keane has it all figured out. With a successful career as an Army surgeon and a fresh promotion to Lieutenant Colonel, she loves her life leading a surgical team. Even if that life means she’s spent years hiding her sexuality and ignoring her desires under the Army’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. Then Captain Sabine Fleischer’s arrival sets off an attraction that cracks Rebecca’s carefully cultivated armor and brings about fresh complications.
As Sabine’s direct commanding officer, Rebecca knows she cannot act on her attraction, but that knowledge does nothing to squash her desires. Unable to keep her thoughts about the alluring other woman under control, Rebecca resigns herself to years of censoring her thoughts and feelings until Sabine’s time in the Army is done. She’s spent decades suppressing parts of herself for her job, so what’s a few more years?
But as Rebecca and Sabine work closely together on Army bases in Afghanistan and the States, the undeniable sparks between them begin to ignite. And despite Rebecca’s constant self-censure, her denials and her knowledge of every obstacle standing between them, her resolve crumbles with each passing day. But when the consequences of your love run deeper than just breaking one of the unbreakable rules of the military, you risk losing more than just your heart.
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Ladies in Uniform; Medical Character
Can’t Fight Love
by KC Luck
Available in Kindle Unlimited
Alexa Knight has one more battle before she retires as an undefeated mixed martial arts champion. When ESPN wants to film her preparation for the final match, she reluctantly agrees. All she cares about is remaining the best.
Kara Roberts is a documentary filmmaker who needs a few more dollars to finish the most important project of her life. Desperate, she agrees to work on the crew filming the final weeks before Alexa Knight’s last fight. All she cares about is making her movie.
When their two worlds collide, sparks fly as neither is willing to yield to the other’s desires. All they agree on is nothing can be allowed to distract them from what they want to accomplish, especially each other. But the women have forgotten one important thing when it comes to plans… you can’t fight love.
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Celebrity; Enemies to Lovers; Sports
Halcyon Nights
by MJ Duncan
Available in Kindle Unlimited
Emerson Riis has a job she loves, friends she considers family, and her goofy malamute Sasha for company. As far as she’s concerned, life in the small town of Mystic is pretty much perfect. Enter Mari Davenport, a Hollywood screenwriter with a dozen blockbusters to her name, who arrives in a car that is completely unfit for the north woods of Minnesota. Their paths cross in a way that could have been plucked straight from one of Mari’s romcoms, and though their attraction is instant and their chemistry off-the-charts, the fact that Mari must return to LA at the end of her six-month writing sabbatical looms ominously on the horizon. As Emerson and Mari’s feelings grow, will they find a way to rewrite the ending to their story, or are they meant only for this sweet but short-lived season of halcyon nights?
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Medical Character; Cute Pet; Celebrity; Hot and Steamy; Friends to Lovers; One Night to Forever; Ladies in Uniform
Magnetic North
by Marie Bassette
Tech-talk is something Aria Finch is fluent in. Romance and run-of-the-mill human interaction? Not so much. She’s intent on keeping her life simple and to the point. Good career? Check. Boyfriend? Check. Spoiled cat? Double check.
When it comes to her boss, however, everything she’s struggling to build seems to go out the window. North Acquati is determined, successful, and gorgeous. Which wouldn’t be a problem if Finch hadn’t gotten herself wined, dined, and gifted a mysterious box that could get her killed.
Her confusing feelings for North and the sudden danger she finds herself in only intensify as she’s tangled deeper into the web of North’s latest secret project. But is their chemistry genuine? Or is it nothing more than an elaborate manipulation with potentially devastating consequences?
2022 Reading Challenge Category: Forced Proximity
Bringing Brooklyn Home
by JA Armstrong
Available in Kindle Unlimited
It’s been two years since writer Carter Riordan hired Brooklyn Brady to organize the chaos on her desk. Life has never been better for Carter. But her time with Brooklyn hasn’t been without its share of sadness. Tragedy rocked Brooklyn’s world when her father, Will, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Instead of celebrating her first year with Carter on a romantic getaway, Brooklyn mourned the passing of her father.
As the holidays approach, Carter gets an unexpected visit for her nephew Jeremy. Jeremy shares news that sheds light on things left unsaid between Carter and Brooklyn. Carter has always let Brooklyn take lead the direction of their relationship, leaving Brooklyn to wonder if Carter wants the same things. Before Brooklyn’s father died, he told Carter that the only regrets in life were things left undone and unsaid. Carter promised to never let things go unsaid with Brooklyn. She hasn’t lived up to her promise.
Grief is a strange mistress. Letting go of the past, of fear, insecurity, and speaking the truth aren’t as easy as self-help books and talk shows suggest. The only way Carter can fulfill her promise is to tell Brooklyn her truth. When Carter takes the lead, she opens the next chapter in an epic adventure, more exciting that any she’s written with elves and wizards.
2022 Reading Challenge Category: Loss / Grieving
Capturing Happiness
The Six Pack: Book 5
by Erica Lee
Available in Kindle Unlimited
It didn’t matter how much she tried to convince everyone else otherwise – Maggie McBride wasn’t happy. Her job wasn’t fulfilling, she had no time to herself, and her passions were seriously lacking.
At a wedding, she meets the woman who will change all of that. Stacey Cahill is a free spirit. She believes a life without passion isn’t a life worth living. That’s why she lives every day to the fullest with her two boys.
Can Stacey convince Maggie to follow her dreams (and her heart) or will Maggie’s need to succeed tear them apart?
2022 Reading Challenge Category: Single Parent
Standom
by Maryn Scott
Singer-turned-actress Sara Silver is thrilled when producer Mika Williams offers her the role of a lesbian detective in a hot new series. And with in-demand actresses Christina Landis and Abby Farina onboard, the show is a sure to be a hit. But when Christina’s personal life gets in the way of her performance, and she exits the show in a wave of bury-your-gays backlash, Abby moves into the role as Sara’s love interest.
Totally fine. Except for that secret post-fundraiser kiss they haven’t talked about, and the fact Abby is supposedly straight.
2022 Reading Challenge Category: Celebrity
Queerly Beloved
by Susie Dumond
Amy, a semicloseted queer baker and bartender in mid-2010s Oklahoma, has spent a lifetime putting other people’s needs before her own. Until, that is, she’s fired from her job at a Christian bakery and turns her one-off gig subbing in for a bridesmaid into a full-time business, thanks to her baking talents, crafting skills, and years watching rom-coms and Say Yes to the Dress. Between her new gig and meeting Charley, the attractive engineer who’s just moved to Tulsa, suddenly Amy’s found something—and someone—she actually wants.
Her tight-knit group of chosen family is thrilled that Amy is becoming her authentic self. But when her deep desire to please kicks into overdrive, Amy’s precarious balancing act strains her relationships to the breaking point, and she must decide what it looks like to be true to herself—and if she has the courage to try.
2022 Reading Challenge Category: Coming Out
EROTICA
Working From Home 3
by Sam Kestrel
Available in Kindle Unlimited
Jo Clark was tired of her day job and knew her skills and passions lied elsewhere. So she started a business. If people asked, her goal was to inspire women to be fully themselves. What she did was give curious and straight women an hour of sex, or whatever else they fancied. But mostly sex. Jo didn’t care what their reason was for responding to her ad. She loved to fuck and this gave her plenty of opportunities.
In this compilation Jo encounters a woman who wants to get back at her unfaithful husband, a virgin, a woman still grieving the loss of her partner five years later and one who has newly realized she’s bisexual and whose boyfriend thinks it hot that she sleep with a woman.
When one of these women throws Jo off her game, can she recover?
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Age Gap; Celebrity; Loss/Grieving; Hot & Steamy
MYSTERY
The Past Should Stay Dead
Beechwood Estate Series: Book 2
by Kim Harry
Available in Kindle Unlimited
Two dead fathers. Siblings as close as folded paper. Keeping secrets and confessing lies.
DI Heather is back solving crimes on the Beechwood Estate. The selective community spirit is still alive and kicking, with a lot of rotten apples festering amongst the good. Born gangster Frankie Thompson’s counterfeit operation is about to tumble, but who will do the time?
Homophobia is still rife. But is DI Heather’s marriage to Gareth one of inconvenience now that she’s considering a second time around relationship with her old boss Martha Moss?
From the writer of Jamie’s Story. Gripping and emotional coming of age page-turner.
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Mystery; Ladies in Uniform
FANTASY
The Flying Mermaid
by Eule Grey
All Luce wants is to go home, but how can she? Since the war, her beloved city has been under an enchantment. Rivers run dry and the streets are haunted, or so they say.
When she hears a rumor that the curse has been lifted, Luce writes a heartfelt letter to the leaders. It begins ten years ago, when she’s thirteen-years-old and dying of a broken heart. Dying, I tell you!
Luce’s account takes the leaders into the cold heart of a mermaid. To when she, and her bestie, Adu, live in a spidery, clifftop house with a tiny dog.
Not even Sea Mother’s magic or mermaids can hold back the war. When the world goes dark, it takes a wind magician and the strongest love of all to save her family and friends.
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Magical Realism; Fantasy; Cute Animal; YA; Speculative Fiction
Queens of Ruin
Chronicles of Mahon: Book Two
by Brenda Murphy
Available in Kindle Unlimited
Secrets. Lust. Betrayal. The city of Justia has fallen, and Lilith, goddess of fire, is missing. All that remains of her once-powerful empire is an abandoned castle haunted by spirits.
Newly freed from her crystalline prison, Mara and her warrior consort, Reika, are on a quest to find Lilith and restore the empire of Mahon.
After their mission is betrayed, a time-traveling sorcerer kidnaps Reika leaving Mara trapped in the tunnels beneath Lilith’s ruined castle. Unwilling to surrender her love or her life, Mara risks all to save her mate.
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Fantasy; POC Character; Paranormal Romance; Hot and Steamy
YOUNG ADULT
Take Your Shot
by Riley Scott
Sometimes, the girl who has it all—really doesn’t.
At first glance, high-school basketball superstar Logan Watts is living the American dream—perfect grades, perfect appearance, perfect boyfriend, and a college athletic scholarship already lined up. But if people looked deeper, they’d see Logan is plagued by the loss of her older brother and unending internal questions about what’s missing from her life. Logan’s world is turned upside down when she catches Carter Shaw—the witty and stylish head of the school newspaper, and the only out lesbian in school—staring at her in class.
A high-school romance is not on Carter’s radar. She just wants to survive the year so she can move on and enjoy the freedoms of college. But when a chance encounter puts her alone with Logan for hours, Carter discovers just how much they have in common.
And Logan realizes Carter could be that thing she’s felt was missing all along…
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Young Adult; Sports
NEW AUDIOBOOKS
Jamie’s Story
Beechwood Estates Series: Book 1
by Kim Harry
narrated by Hannah Lloyd
Growing up on a homophobic council estate in South Wales with an abusive veteran father made Jamie Taylor’s life intolerable. Her only release was feeding her obsession for rich kid Heather Gardner.
When the two girls collide, it creates a web of violence and deceit that leads to the tragic death of a friend. The women reunite years later through the eyes of social media and Jamie, now a successful nightclub owner and professional heartbreaker, is forced to revisit the past that she spent so long trying to forget. Secrets unfold as rekindled lust leads the way through a damaged trail of family values and misled loyalty.
Trigger warning: Domestic violence and attempted rape.
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Rich Girl / Poor Girl; Musician
JAE’S SAPPHIC BOOK BINGO
BUY US A COFFEE
Running IHS takes the four 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!
TB, Em, Faith, & Miranda
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