Before we get to today’s new releases, including gems by Clare Lydon, Rachel Spangler, Claire Highton-Stevenson, Carsen Taite, and many others, we have some announcements.
IHS SAPPHIC READING CHALLENGE
It’s week 24 of IHS’s Sapphic Reading Challenge. You can click here for reading suggestions for sweet romances. 16 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 MEDICAL CHARACTER
We asked readers to nominate their all-time favorite sapphic Medical Character romances. Find out who made the cut and cast your vote. Voting ends on July 9 and the top three winners will be announced on July 13.
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 BOOKS
Falling Through Shooting Stars
by Nancy Ann Healy
Available in Kindle Unlimited
Julia Riley thinks she’s happy. The executive director of Boston’s Fledger Foundation, she and her wife, Carrie, are raising three children, one from Julia’s first marriage…but being content is not the same as being happy.
Katie Brennan is the popular host of a network television morning show. She has two children and a husband who plays major-league baseball. Rumors of her husband’s infidelity are troubling, but she knows how often the media reports innuendo and half-truths instead of facts.
Before either woman can move on, they need to find and accept themselves. Love might feel like falling through shooting stars, but sometimes it takes time for the stars to fall.
Deal ends June 21.
Milestones
by Serena J. Bishop
Available in Kindle Unlimited
This romantic short story bundle contains three humorous and heart-felt relationship tales that occur after the events of the novel Dreams, and before the events of the novel Miracles.
Deal ends June 24.
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
Stranger on the Shore
by Claire Highton-Stevenson
Available in Kindle Unlimited
Quinn Harper is living the life she always wanted. She’s well-liked and respected by everyone and has been a success in life with awards to prove it. She spends her free time running along the shore, returning to her quiet home on the beach.
It was almost the perfect life, but there was one thing missing: Love.
And when she notices the stranger sitting on the shore, she has no idea just how much that moment will impact the rest of her life.
Natasha is a mystery. A woman broken and on the verge of doing something drastic, Quinn is moved to help. Befriending and earning her trust, they begin to build a relationship and a story that could have been written for the TV show Quinn works on.
Stranger on the Shore is a love story from start to end, but with a rollercoaster of a middle as Quinn navigates life with and without Natasha.
Because love, is never simple, is it?
Trigger Warning: This book tackles domestic violence and the impact of it.
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Friends to Lovers; Second Chance; Slow Burn
It Started With A Kiss
by Clare Lydon
Available in Kindle Unlimited
Can one kiss change your life forever?
When two strangers meet in a bar and share a scorching, once-in-a-lifetime kiss, they never expect to see each other again. Until days later when Skye walks into Gemma’s Surrey vineyard. For once, Gemma is lost for words.
When they start working together, they agree nothing can happen. Business comes first.
But such simmering sexual tension can only be contained for so long before the lid finally blows off…
Join Gemma and Skye as they fight their growing attraction in this glorious, slow-burn romantic comedy set in a sun-drenched UK vineyard. Queen of British sapphic romance Clare Lydon does it again with this gorgeous summer page-turner!
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Slow Burn; One Night to Forever; Girl Next Door
How Sweet the Sound
by Ann Tonnell
How Sweet the Sound merges an energetic love story with one of fulfilled dreams and a rural community’s hope. Val Scott, a retired RN, envisions a way to improve the lives of an economically depressed area of Georgia through an initially hush-hush project. Because the state’s conservative and fundamentalist history serves as a deterrent to planning, revealing, and executing such an innovative project, Val remains cautious in the early stages.
She finds support from a fierce flirt, popular laundromat owner, Nicki Williams. Although Nicki has suffered incredible loss, she has worked through her grief to obtain a social work degree and is pursuing an MBA. She is drawn, not only to Val’s project, but also to Val herself. Nicki’s best friend, John Henry Evans, becomes an ardent supporter.
Val and Nicki navigate their relationship and business partnership amid an intense project timeline. Throughout the story, music’s poetry communicates romance, love, and understanding. As the project nears completion, a karaoke talent event demonstrates the community’s acceptance of the project’s mission. Val prepares to leave for several months on a bicycle trip, and Nicki questions the strength of their bond.
2022 Reading Challenge Category: Medical Character
Heartstrings
by Rachel Spangler
Mira Collins has her life together. She’s built a solid career as a financial planner, a comfortable home, and an uncomplicated and regimented routine…until her wayward sister, Vannah, shows up unexpectedly and drops a bomb on her orderly world. Ever dependable Mira reluctantly accepts temporary custody of her ten-year-old nephew, Ben, then quickly learns that not all responsibilities can be handled with a color-coded calendar system, and that being a substitute parent is terrifying. There are new skills, stressors, and emotions to contend with, many of which are simultaneously simplified and complicated by Ben’s beautiful young violin teacher.
Shelby Tanner is fresh out of grad school and eager to start her first job as an orchestra teacher, and although she believes the power of music will enrich her students’ lives, she still feels like she’s waiting for her own to start. Working harder than ever to make ends meet while struggling to find her feet, she quickly learns that not everything can be handled with a well-tuned instrument or a creative mindset, and that being an adult is terrifying. She’s desperate to feel confident and competent, but the world keeps tripping her up. Case in point, her growing attraction to the guardian of her most gifted young musician.
Drawn together by their changing circumstances and their mutual affection for Ben, Shelby and Mira learn to lean on each other despite their differences in age, personality, and lifestyle, until Vannah’s reappearance threatens to upend everyone’s lives all over again. Is attraction enough to sustain opposites without the commonality of Ben between them, or will the beautiful music they’ve created together fade into silence?
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Age Gap; Slow Burn; Sweet Romance; Musician; Girl Next Door
Missed Conception
by Joy Argento
Hannah Kennedy gave birth to her daughter Cassidy after a successful in vitro procedure, and her life couldn’t get any better. She never planned on losing her wife just two years later and raising Cassidy on her own. When she turns eighteen, Cassidy wants to discover which traits she inherited from the anonymous sperm donor and which came from her mother. To her shock, she learns Hannah is not her biological mother.
When Maggie Walsh shows up wanting a relationship with the daughter she never knew she had, the heat kindled between Hannah and Maggie is not entirely romantic. The love they have for Cassidy will tear all three women apart and bring them together in ways no one could have conceived.
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Animals; Loss / Grieving
Sol Cycle
by Kimberly Cooper Griffin
Ang Kennedy used to love riding a bike, but now spends all her time chasing paychecks and lofty titles. When her latest ambition to move into the big corner office unexpectedly falls through, she realizes she was chasing someone else’s dream and quits her job. Unsure what she really wants in life, Ang returns to the one thing that used to make her happy: her bike.
Krista Ólafsdóttir dreamed of owning her own bicycle shop since she first started to shadow her uncle at his store. There’s nothing like the freedom of riding. Her uncle retires and the bike shop became hers, but she finds that running a business is a lot more complicated than she expects.
An encounter in a park brings Ang and Krista together, but when Ang’s attempts to help Krista go spectacularly wrong, their passion for each other might not be enough to see them to the finish line.
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Animals; POC Character; Rich Girl / Poor Girl; Sports
ROMANTIC COMEDY
All the Right Words
by Natasha West
Available in Kindle Unlimited
Gina Nash is a great assistant. Maybe a little too good. Because when her socially awkward boss Olivia Noble meets the woman of her dreams, she turns to Gina to assist her in bedding the target of her affections. Gina isn’t exactly thrilled to find herself sending flowers and coaching her boss through dates with Harper Blake. Gorgeous, confident, charming, Harper’s a little too perfect in the eyes of cynical, snarky Gina. But when Gina finds herself getting pulled deeper into Olivia’s and Harper’s fledgling romance, she gets a peek underneath Harper’s flawless exterior. And it doesn’t take very long for Gina to develop a rather inconvenient connection to the woman she’s trying to push into her boss’s arms…
2022 Reading Challenge Category: Grumpy / Sunshine
THRILLER
Trial and Error
A Courting Danger Romance
by Carsen Taite
When gunshots ring out in Judge Nina Aguilar’s courtroom, every one of her regrets flashes before her eyes. One of those regrets—her first love—reappears in her life in the most surprising way, and everything about their reunion signals that falling for Franco again would be a dangerous move. Even though she’s still as stunning and brilliant as Nina remembers.
Attorney Franco Rossi vowed she’d never return to Dallas, but when an old friend’s son is accused of murder, she books the next flight. Her homecoming triggers bitter memories, but learning the only woman she’s ever truly loved is the judge assigned to the case really throws her. Franco is convinced she and Nina have no future, yet chemistry and circumstance keep bringing them together. Will history, good and bad, repeat itself?
They’ll have a chance to find out if they survive the danger headed their way.
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Thriller; Forced Proximity
PARANORMAL ROMANCE
Fanged Defiance
Dhampir Dylan: Book 5
by Aria Storm
Available in Kindle Unlimited
After her battle to the bitter end against Bealox, who’d begun to transform into a hungering devourer. Dylan returns to earth, and as she enters New Tren Na Nogg, she is shocked to see the city has fallen, and the icy dome once protecting the city is shattered. One of her greatest protectors is dead on a cross, and she cannot find her near-fatally injured twin sister, Jaxie.
All that remains are rovers ravaging the lands, sweeping over all that was once her kingdom. She’s failed her mother, her aunts, and her city. She could give up in the face of overwhelming odds, hide, and try to disappear into obscurity, or she could protect the University township from suffering the fate of New Tren Na Nogg.
With her fangs barred defiantly, Dylan Devlin will command all that remains of her forces, and she and her shadow cat will hold the lines against all that threatens to sweep over the lands!
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Paranormal Romance; Mystery; Young Adult
PARANORMAL
Racing the Dawn
The Jade Murphy Diaries: Book 1
by Sandra Barret
Jade Murphy is bored. A century and a half of hopping from night job to night job will do that to a vampire. After narrowly escaping a house fire, she’s unexpectedly intrigued by gorgeous firefighter Beth Jenssen, and her undead existence might just be perking up a bit.
When her neighbor’s illegal side business triggers Jade’s serious anger management issues, things start to get complicated. Running around the streets of Boston trying to extricate herself from the mess she’s made, while keeping Beth’s attention on anything other than her vampire foibles, isn’t exactly a recipe for romance.
Undead existence still too boring, Jade?
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Vampire; POC Character
NEW AUDIOBOOKS
Riding the Storm
Daredevils Rescue Service: Book 1
by Erin Wade
narrated by Melody Alice
Daredevil Kensley Storm and her partner TJ Cummings own Daredevils Rescue Service, an organization that specializes in extracting undercover government agents from deadly situations.
Kensley lives for the adrenaline high she gets every time she pulls off an impossible assignment. Her latest task is to save Regina Rider from the roof of a skyscraper before armed assassins can reach the gorgeous woman.
Regina is a legend in her own right, having solved more cases than any agent in her division. Like Kensley, she lives for the rush of almost dying. Fires ignite when the two find themselves on the same assignment, but which one is the savior?
2022 Reading Challenge Category: Suspense
Submissive MILF
Box Set: Books 1-3
by Riley Rose
narrated by Nikki Monroe
Alex Masters is the hottest MILF in town! And her daughter’s best friend Melody knows it. After crushing on Alex for years, Melody finally makes her move on Alex’s sultry body.
Will Alex submit to the 20-year-old Melody in super-kinky ways? Will they be able to keep their illicit love affair a secret? And exactly how naughty is this hot mom willing to get?
Find out how much super-submissive fun Alex has with Melody in the bedroom, the library, and on the slopes in this humorous lesbian age gap erotica!
2022 Reading Challenge Categories: Hot & Steamy; Age Gap; BDSM; Erotic Romance
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
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