Every once in a while, TB has a fantastic idea. When she and Miranda started to plan the fifth anniversary of I Heart SapphFic, TB said, “We should sponsor a Pride Collection for June of 2022.” (Okay, TB probably got the year wrong, because she always does.)

Emails started going out in July of 2021. During this time, the world continued to fall apart, hate is on the rise, a war broke out in Europe, and every author in the collection had their own personal battles to overcome to make it to the finish line.

It took a lot of planning, lots of emails and Discord messages, and probably a few tears (TB’s a crier when happy, stressed, and every emotion in between).

But the dedication of each author to pen a Pride story shows the resiliency and strength of our community. TB and Miranda are damn proud of the collection and honored to have their book among some of the most gifted writers in sapphic fiction today.

We’re excited to say these words: the I Heart SapphFic Pride Collection is here!

Without further ado, here are all the books!

Down to a Science 

by Haley Cass

Available in Kindle Unlimited

Ellie Beckett’s life is simple and uncomplicated: she’s on track to become a leading expert on biomedical engineering, she has a pub where she feels comfortable enough to hang out multiple times a week, and – so what if she doesn’t have the time or inclination for, well, people? She doesn’t need or want them.

Until she meets Mia Sharpe.

As it turns out, maybe Ellie does want at least one person.

The Glow Up

by Cara Malone

Available in Kindle Unlimited

A coveted summer internship takes a small-town girl to the Windy City, where she’s totally out of her element – and learning who she is for the first time.

Jo’s dreams have always been too big for her small-town Montana life. When she lands a competitive internship in Chicago, her conservative parents worry about letting her go. But it’s the opportunity of a lifetime, sure to change her world.

Hazel is a city girl to the core, absorbing all the culture Chicago has to offer in her quest to make beautiful queer art. When a gorgeous girl in a prairie dress stumbles in front of her scooter during the city’s Pride Parade, it’s almost vehicular manslaughter at first sight – but Hazel acts in the nick of time and winds up with a clueless baby gay in her lap.

Meeting Hazel and her friends unveils a world Jo never imagined, as well as parts of herself she’s long kept hidden. But first loves are doomed to end, and the summer won’t last forever. Jo’s parents expect her to return to her life in Montana, sacrificing the new family she’s found with Hazel. Can she go home again?

What begins as a traffic accident evolves into a smoldering attraction in this romance full of pride, found family and the glow-up of a lifetime.

Take Two

by Miranda MacLeod & TB Markinson

Available in Kindle Unlimited

They were the perfect couple until pride got in the way…

Gina Mitchells has a problem. The assistant professor is in charge of her college’s Pride festival committee, and the celebrity grand marshal they’d painstakingly recruited has just blown up the internet with a major scandal. Messing up the festival could ruin her chance to be approved for tenure. There’s exactly one famous person Gina knows who could save the day as a last-minute replacement.

The problem? The woman is Gina’s ex-girlfriend, and to say the relationship did not end well is an understatement.

Sophia Rossi has starred in so many squeaky-clean holiday romances since moving to Hollywood that everyone calls her the Queen of Christmas. An important new contract has her filming in a quaint New England town, but there’s a catch. It’s Sophia’s hometown, and surviving a month with her meddling, relationship-obsessed mother and sisters might be too much for Sophia’s sanity to bear.

When Gina reappears in Sophia’s life with a proposition, Sophia has one of her own. It’s a match made in heaven, if only they can get over their past heartbreak long enough to convince everyone they’ve rekindled their old spark. But can this fake relationship lead them to a second chance at love?

Faux Pas

by Lily Seabrooke

Available in Kindle Unlimited

Paige just inherited a restaurant. Problem is, she can’t cook.

Willow Arches is a queer-destination small town, but Paige doesn’t know that—she’s never even heard of it before a granduncle she never knew about passes and leaves his restaurant, Faux Pas, in her name. A real estate developer by day, for Paige, renovating the restaurant to sell it for a tidy profit is a no-brainer.

But things get harder when the restaurant is in shambles, the town’s bustling queer population is in full force when she arrives right at the start of Pride, and all of them want her gone. With no practical or people skills, and no cooking skills to run the restaurant, she’s in a world of trouble—until Willow Arches’ most eligible bachelorette, brooding soft-butch lumberjane Madison Hartley, sweeps her off her feet and kisses her in the public square.

It’s a tenuous deal: Madison’s help with the restaurant, in exchange for a fake relationship, to keep the suitors off her back for Pride month. Sure, Paige has a massive crush on her, but it’ll all work out somehow, right?

Right?

Pride Festival

by Nicole Pyland

Available in Kindle Unlimited

When Ruby Simon wanted something, she usually got it and didn’t mind working hard for it. Her small town had never done anything for Pride month, and she was determined to change that. Starting with a parade would be a little much, so Ruby started planning a festival.

Chance Curtis was used to always being pulled into her best friend’s orbit. She was an ally to the community, believing that love was love and that she’d find her person one day, but she never had anyone in her life like that, so it didn’t matter anyway.

Jo Hemsworth never fit in. When Jo’s single mother decided to move to a small town toward the end of Jo’s junior year, Jo planned not to talk to anyone and just hoped to go to college one day. Never feeling like fitting in, and only in part because of being gay, Jo had no idea Chance was helping to plan a festival and would change Jo’s life.

Jaden Hugo had been the girl with two gay dads ever since they adopted her, and she’d been questioning things about herself for a while. When her dads volunteer themselves and her to work at a Pride festival in another town, Jaden is completely taken aback because there was Ruby Simon, the girl who had made it all happen.

On the cusp of their high school graduation, Ruby and Chance were about to leave this place they’d called home and wanted to leave it better than they found it. In planning this first Pride event for their community, their lives also end up changing for the better.

The Perfect Fit

by Erica Lee

Available in Kindle Unlimited

Ashton Levengood has never felt like she fit in anywhere. After coming out, her overbearing, but loving, family suggests a Pride tour – a different Pride event every weekend of June. Ashton reluctantly agrees but worries she won’t even be able to find her place at Pride.

When she meets Dakota Douglass, it seems too good to be true. There’s no way a hot, cool artist could possibly be interested in Ashton, but the flirting and kissing say otherwise.

Is this just a Pride month fling or has Ashton finally found the perfect fit?

Howl 

by Lucy Bexley

Lou McCallister owns Howl, the only surviving queer bar in Boston. When an investment opportunity to save the floundering bar is inadvertently sabotaged by Clementine Darby, Howl’s newest employee, Lou is ready to give up. Now Clem will do anything she can to make it right and keep Howl alive, but will she be able to save the bar in time? This sapphic Coyote Ugly retelling brings the funny and the feels.

Every Version

by Bryce Oakley

Available in Kindle Unlimited

Lizzie Goldstein needs a prom date.

Queer Prom-A-Rama is Denver Pride’s biggest event and as one of the head organizers, Lizzie can’t stand the thought of going alone—especially not when she finds out her ex is bringing a literal local celebrity.

She’s willing to try on every version of herself to find the perfect date—she could be the quirky dream girl for an Ice Queen or the snarky and ambitious competitor for a workplace rival. As Lizzie and her best friends continue their search, she begins to realize that maybe what she’s really been looking for is someone who doesn’t want to change her. Someone who loves her just the way she is. And maybe that someone has been right beside her all along…

Thanks to all the fantastic authors for taking part in the collection!

Miranda, Em, Faith, & TB

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