Before we get to today’s new releases, including gems by Adrian J. Smith, Kris Bryant, J.E. Leak, Amanda Radley, and many others, we have some announcements.
IHS SAPPHIC READING CHALLENGE
It’s week 23 of IHS’s Sapphic Reading Challenge. You can click here for reading suggestions for stories with a neurodiverse character. 9 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 FANTASY
We asked readers to nominate their all-time favorite sapphic fantasy novel. Find out who made the cut and cast your vote. Voting ends on July 2 and the top three winners will be announced on July 6.
WIN A $50 AMAZON GIFT CARD
Recently we celebrated our five-year anniversary. When TB launched IHS on May 20, 2017, she had no idea what would happen. As it turned out, the site became quite popular. The book links have been clicked over 500,000 times in over 140 countries! Click here to read the celebratory post and to enter the giveaway.
FREE BOOK
Goode Girls Steal
by J.J. Arias
Also Available in Kindle Unlimited
College softball rivals are forced to play together during their last season. Can their intense rivalry be transformed into something else – something even more passionate?
Deal ends June 14.
A Woman Trapped
by TB Markinson
Also available in Kindle Unlimited
Lizzie Petrie doesn’t know how to handle life in the best of times.
When COVID-19 strikes, flipping her entire world upside down, she deals with it in true disastrous Lizzie fashion.
Will being trapped with her family and thoughts break her, or is this the start of a new adventure?
Deal ends June 17.
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
Embracing the Moon
by Jeannie Levig
Gwen Jamison has been attracted to her best friend Taylor for years but has kept her feelings masked as friendship. Left behind by her mother at age nine, then by her first love eight years later, she’s vowed never to trust her heart to anyone. It’s easier to have casual relationships than risk falling in love.
Taylor Matthews has no interest in a relationship. The one and only time she lost herself in love it cost her four years of her life. Never again. In the three decades since, she’s turned her life around, built a successful career, established solid friendships, and had plenty of women, sex, and fun. No complications, no entanglements, no regrets—until Gwen.
Just as Gwen and Taylor are exploring the new love they’ve found, the present and past collide, threatening the future they long to share.
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Age Gap; Love after 50; Cute Animal/Pet/Wild Animal; Hot & Steamy; Friends to Lovers; Coming Out
Indigo: Nights
Indigo B&B: Book 2
by Adrian J. Smith
Available in Kindle Unlimited
A messy break up can only be healed by the best of friends.
Coming out in a rural Kansas town was never something Jewel thought she’d do, especially as the newly-minuted music teacher. She finds adversity everywhere she looks, except one. Her best friend, Lea, has always been the supportive backbone she’s needed. When her boyfriend breaks up with her, Jewel needs Lea more than ever.
When Jewel dives deep into finding love and tries to drag Lea with her, she can’t help but wonder if the perfect person is right in front of her. Breaking down the walls Lea has put up for decades is not easy, but Jewel is determined to be the one person Lea can always trust. What she doesn’t expect is for music to strike a chord with the science teacher.
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Age Gap; Slow Burn; Hot & Steamy; Forced Proximity; Friends to Lovers; Musician; Coming Out
Reclaiming Love
by Amanda Radley
Sarah Campbell told one tiny white lie.
When her tech-giant employer moves her to a cottage on a small Scottish island to work on a classified, controversial, and potentially world-saving project, Sarah must keep her eco-terrorist mother in the dark to prevent her from disrupting everything. Sarah’s cover story—she’s fallen in love, she and her girlfriend are escaping the bustle of the city, she couldn’t be happier… But Sarah’s better at firewalls than real walls, and when she arrives at the run-down cottage, she quickly discovers she needs help.
Pippa Kent is a widowed, semi-retired structural engineer who’s done with love. She fills all her free time running a handywoman service on the island. When Sarah calls Pippa out for the most basic repairs, Pippa can’t help but wonder—often out loud—how anyone could be so inept at home maintenance.
Then Sarah’s mother suddenly decides to visit and meet her daughter’s wonderful new partner. With little option, Sarah begs Pippa to be her fake girlfriend. Only the more time they spend faking it, the less pretend it feels.
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Enemies to Lovers; Fake Relationship
Forever Comes in Threes
by D. Jackson Leigh
Efficiency expert Perry Chandler lives what she preaches on her internationally popular podcast. She wakes at exactly the same time to begin her precisely scheduled day with no wasted minutes. Perry’s entire life is planned in advance, which is exactly how she likes it. How else do you get anything done?
Holistic, naturopathic physician Ming Lee greets every sunrise with arms outstretched as she opens herself to the earth’s slow, steady rhythm. Millions follow her podcast on how to live a healthier life by refusing to get caught up in the idea you must hustle to be successful. After all, what’s the point of life if you don’t enjoy it?
Perry and Ming are both sure they hold the key to success until the attraction sizzling between them, and the three rambunctious mutts they’re unexpectedly responsible for, teach them lessons in life and love that they never imagined.
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Medical Character; Celebrity; Animals
Osprey Calling
by Ellen Hoil
Nicole, a socially awkward loner, hasn’t seen her family of origin or her hometown for decades. Blocking out the pain and memories of her earlier life, she’s spent this time honing her skills as a talented wildlife photographer. When she’s offered a dream contract for a book, she hesitates, realizing that she would have to return to her hometown to do it. She takes it, hoping she can enjoy it without seeing her family, the woman she had adored from afar, or dredging up the past.
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Slow Burn; Girl Next Door; Medical Character; Forced Proximity; Grumpy/Sunshine, Return to Hometown
No One Compares to Her
Friends and Lovers Series: Book 1
by Abigail Taylor
Available in Kindle Unlimited
When Hazel’s girlfriend, Rory, broke her heart, she never thought she’d be anyone’s first choice again. But after meeting Jay and his persistence, Hazel picked herself up and found contentment with him and their marriage.
But was she actually happy?
Concentrating on work and trying to start a family, Hazel shifted her attention away from Rory, but those powerful feelings remained unresolved.
As events within her marriage began to escalate, a chance meeting with Rory sparks an emotional journey of truth, exploration, and happiness.
This gripping story of self-discovery has all the plot twists, intimacy, and feels to warm your heart and offer a thrilling ride of escapism!
2022 Reading Challenge Category: Second Chance
EROTICA
After the Open House
by Sam Kestrel
Available in Kindle Unlimited
While Serena and her wife, Pam have an active sex life, they’re always looking to spice it up. When they decide to have sex after open houses hosted by Serena, a realtor, it adds another level of heat to their relationship. Not getting caught is a different issue.
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Hot & Steamy; Erotic Romance
MYSTERY
Suite Secrets
by R.D. DeLisle
Available in Kindle Unlimited
After his death, Helen Drake found herself at the helm of her father’s passion project, a warehouse in lower Manhattan that served as a hub for the fashion industry’s elite photographers and top models. But Helen Drake had passions of her own. Already resentful of being forced to leave her home in Italy and unable to maintain the high octane atmosphere of the warehouse, she moved Drake’s Photography to a more subdued location in midtown. Following her were a handful of employees willing to stay on the payroll, including coordinator Priscilla Bryant and her associate and best friend, Chloe Shepard. Between Helen’s tortured past and her ongoing obsession with lifelong friend and part-time lover, club owner Valeska Zacarra, she finds herself preoccupied with everything but her responsibilities to Drake’s.
Meanwhile, maturing model, Maeve Corwyn, has spent the past year grieving the loss of her younger partner, actress and model Lydia Parker, after Lydia met her untimely demise on the foyer stairs at the newer Drake’s Photography location. She’s hoping to find within herself the strength to move forward professionally and personally, but also to understand why Lydia was at Drake’s that fateful day. As the seasons change, Maeve meets Emma Lawson, the insurance investigator handling Lydia’s estate. She soon learns more than she could have imagined about Lydia—and herself.
Wanting to take her shot in the fashion world, bright, ambitious, and hormonal teenager Rowan Ryerson takes a summer job at Drake’s, where she teams up with onsite makeup technician, Jett Emerson, to find that Helen Drake has been busy with more than just running Drake’s Photography.
Change can be difficult. For some, it’s a burden they carry, and for others, it’s an exciting opportunity to expand their horizons. For Helen Drake, one unexpected change will prove to be the final straw.
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Ice Queen; Mystery; Hot & Steamy; Friends to Lovers; Coming Out
FANTASY ROMANCE
An Ally in Summer
Winter’s Consort: Book 2
by Brigid Collins
In the Faerie Realm, chance meetings can carry tempestuous consequences.
Bound to the Winter Court for a year, Chelsea Hewitt takes her responsibilities seriously. When she’s on watch, no bloodthirsty springlings can touch her winterling Folk.
But springtime is fading into summer. And Chelsea is running out of excuses to avoid the Winter Queen.
An invitation to a ball in the Summer Court is timely. What better way for Chelsea to secure Winter’s protection than to gain them a powerful ally? But Winter isn’t the only Court invited, and not all the attendees will be happy to see Winter represented.
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Fantasy; Fantasy Romance; Enemies to Lovers
A Pinky Promise
by Eule Grey
Environmental science student Creena Arbre likes warm baths and fluffy slippers. Oh, and she also wants to save the planet. When a once-in-a-lifetime job on a tropical island comes up, she eagerly packs her parrot flip-flops and sets off.
Expecting cocktails with tiny umbrellas and singing at dawn, Creena isn’t at all prepared to be stranded in the middle of the ocean on an island supposedly haunted by tree spirits!
During her time on the island, Creena finds hidden strengths she didn’t know she possessed, and unusual ways of making friends. She even makes a scientific discovery about trees the world would love to know.
If she feels a little chilly at night, that’s only to be expected—everyone wants someone to snuggle with at the end of the day. And if she starts talking to the turtles, it’s no different than any pet owner—right?
Despite Creena’s strength and resilience, the cracks start to show.
Right on cue, redhead Gelly Grint zooms in on a rescue boat, bringing the promise of home, food, and everything Creena has missed. They soon get acquainted, and the island starts to look like a lover’s paradise.
What of Creena’s research? Can she do what she came for?
Some promises can never be broken.
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Fantasy; Fantasy Romance; Cute Animal; Sweet
A Fox in Shadow
by Jane Fletcher
Politics in the Kavillian Senate is a dangerous, high-stakes game, and the odds aren’t on Cassie’s side.
As imperial envoy, she’s tasked with adding a new region to the empire. Normally, this is a simple matter for the legions, but rivals want Cassie to fail. Without military support, success will require all her guile and cunning, plus a good dose of luck.
Persuading the local inhabitants won’t be easy, especially in the case of Arian, the king’s sister. Arian is ardent about her people’s independence and traditions. The land is theirs, given by the gods and paid for in blood. She despises both the empire and its envoy, and doesn’t hesitate to say so.
Despite her hostility, Arian is troublingly attractive. Yet Cassie is determined to stay on track and ignore any thoughts of seduction. Things are difficult enough without extra complications—and that’s before the murders start.
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Fantasy; Fantasy Romance; Enemies to Lovers
FICTION
The Golden People
by J. A. Yates
Bored, discontent, and broken, wealthy Lillian is at a crossroads: she doesn’t fit in anywhere, her self-esteem is lacking, and she is losing her only friend. An accidental encounter leads her to Ivy, an intriguing girl possessing what Lillian has been seeking, including enthralling, sensual encounters. Beguiled, Lillian vows to do anything to keep Ivy. Ivy leads Lillian into a group calling itself The Golden People. The Golden People offers a place to belong, love, and acceptance. But is their meeting fate or Ivy’s careful plan? As a devout member of The Golden People and a follower of its charismatic yet dangerous leader, Lillian’s idyllic destiny turns into deadly horror and chaos.
Trigger warnings: abuse including rape, child abuse, cult activity, and domestic violence.
2022 Reading Challenge Category: Suspense
NEW AUDIOBOOKS
In the Shadow of the Past
Shadow Series: Book 1
by J.E. Leak
narrated by Abby Craden
She fell for the wrong woman…now it’s going to cost her.
New York City, 1943. Reporter Jenny Ryan is plagued with guilt. Plunging into a world of danger after her father’s murder, her burning need for justice drives her to take on a ruthless tycoon. But her plan goes awry when she falls for the criminal’s alluring mistress.
OSS agent Kathryn Hammond seethes with frustration. Trapped stateside in a dead-end assignment, the undercover spy fears she’ll never pay her wartime debts. But when a feisty journalist enters the picture, her resentment blooms into undeniable desire.
When she discovers her revenge could destroy the woman she loves, Jenny is faced with an impossible decision. But as Kathryn falls deeper for Jenny, giving up their forbidden relationship could be her only chance at redemption.
Will their passion cost them their lives, or can the star-crossed lovers still create a happy ending?
Trigger Warnings: This novel contains mentions of suicide and instances of PTSD from war experiences. Neither is the central theme of the story. It is woven into the tapestry of the characters’ lives.
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Historical Fiction; Historical Romance
Forever
by Kris Bryant
narrated by Melissa Sternenberg
Who doesn’t want to believe in true love?
Ten years ago, Savannah Edwards agreed to be a contestant on the lesbian dating show When Sparks Fly. The last thing she expected was to fall in love and get dumped on national television. When she’s invited to be the next bachelorette for the 10-year anniversary show, she makes up her mind that this time, she’ll show the world that finding true love on television can really happen.
Lauren Lucas breathed life into a show that was on the brink of cancellation. Her charm as the host of When Sparks Fly catapulted it to a nationwide hit. Her own love life is in shambles, but she puts on a dazzling smile and pretends that love isn’t heartbreak waiting to happen.
Every week, Lauren watches Savannah date other women and tries to ignore the spark. When the cameras stop rolling and their attraction becomes impossible to deny, will they take a chance on real-life love and abandon the reality TV fairy tale?
2022 Reading Challenge Category: Celebrity
What the Heart Remembers Most
by M. Ullrich
narrated by Keira Grace
Fate will find a way to intervene when it’s least expected.
Jax Levine and Gretchen Mills fell madly in love in college and never looked back. They built a great life together, but careers, a baby, and years of mounting tension later, they are living separate lives, and their once grand love is forgotten.
After an accident, Gretchen suffers a brain injury that erases years of her memories. She wakes in the hospital with Jax at her side and everything seems normal… except Jax won’t look her in the eye and their baby boy is now a rambunctious toddler. Every line drawn between Jax and Gretchen starts to blur while Gretchen fights to figure out which of her most haunting recollections are real and which are fake.
Is it possible for this accident to be the second chance neither Jax nor Gretchen knew they wanted?
2022 Reading Challenge Category: Loss / Grieving
Sapphic Audiobook Giveaway
June is not only Pride Month; it’s also Audiobook Appreciation Month, so 23 authors of sapphic fiction put together an audiobook giveaway for you!
You can win one of 65 sapphic audiobooks. Important: To enter, fill out this very short form!
Jae put this giveaway together.
SAPPHFIC BOOK CLUB
JAE’S SAPPHIC BOOK BINGO
LEXA LUTHOR’S QUEER SPECFIC FEATURE
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
Want to stay up to date on all the happenings on IHS? Sign up here for the newsletter and never miss a thing.
