Welcome to week 25 of the 2022 IHS 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 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.

Now, to get to the task at hand. We paired Ice Queen week with the anniversary of Devil Wears Prada, which was released on June 30, 2006.

Below you’ll find reading suggestions. Better yet, 8 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 for Ice Queen week: June 27 through July 1

The Perfect Match

by Milena McKay

$0.99 $2.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)

A cupid’s life is hard.

There are so many rules.
Rule Number 1: Graduate from the Cupids’ Academy.
Rule Number 2: Attend the Annual Cupids’ Convention in Las Vegas.
Rule Number 3: When shooting your arrows and bringing love to people, strive for the Perfect Match.

When junior cupid Abby Angellini, fresh from Cupid Academy, heads to Sin City, she runs smack into her idol. Sabine Goddard is the one cupid who has a faultless record when it comes to slinging arrows and bringing people together. The stats for her own love life, however, aren’t nearly as great.

Sparks fly as Cinnamon Roll meets the Queen of the Perfect Match and the word quiver takes on an entirely new meaning.

Heart of Ice

by TB Markinson & Miranda MacLeod

$0.99 $5.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)

What happens when the one person who makes your heart sing is also the one person who could destroy everything you’ve worked for?

Laurie “the Hatchet” Emerson is a ruthless leader in Boston finance who’s rumoured to have a block of ice where her heart should be. If only. Recently widowed, Laurie fears she’s broken beyond repair, until a once-in-a-lifetime business deal reignites her passion for work and gives her a shot at proving to the world she still has some life left in her.

Jack Kennedy is a young portfolio manager who aspires to greatness. Unfortunately, she’s so many rungs down the corporate ladder she can’t even scrape up enough money to move out of her mother’s apartment. Her luck changes when her work ethic is finally rewarded with the job opportunity of her dreams.

A blizzard forces their worlds to collide, but what was meant to be a no-strings night of passion becomes more complicated when they both arrive at the office the next morning to discover they each spent the night with the one person in the city who could crush their futures.

Together, they just might hold the keys to everything they’ve ever wanted, but the difference in their ages and positions could spell the end of their careers. Will the ice queen and the protégé find happiness together or lose everything?

Mercy

by Max Ellendale

$0.99 $4.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)

Ex-rock star, Dusty Song, abandons her music career to become a U.S. Marshal tasked with safeguarding vulnerable people from the criminals set on silencing them. When Dusty first encounters the illustrious Honorable Judge Bidwell, she sees a woman marked by the cases she’s tried.

Years later, Dusty remembers the strong-willed, audacious woman as the unlikeable star of the courtroom. When she’s called in to revisit the case following a series of disturbing reports, she comes upon a Mercedes Bidwell much different than her memory recalls. The two women walk together on a path seeded by those who came before them, carrying a silent wish in hope that someday someone will see them for who they truly are.

The Road Ahead

by Amanda Radley

$0.99 $7.99 

Two women from very different backgrounds. Forced to share a long journey home. Will they work together or pull each other apart?

Rebecca is stuck in Portugal. All planes to England are grounded and it’s only two days until Christmas.

Desperate to get home but without money to hire a car; she’s stuck. She sees an opportunity when she meets a snobby businesswoman with a broken leg, a platinum credit card, and a desire to get home. A tentative agreement is struck in order to reach their destination before the festive deadline. Will they make it, or will they kill each other along the way?

A heartwarming enemies to lovers romance with a twist. Discover The Road Ahead and make your own journey home today.

From Wind to Water

by Laura Novack

$1.99 $4.99 

The Seventh Kingdom is surrounded by the Lands of Earth, Fire, Water and Wind. All but Earth have rulers. When a new enemy threatens all of the Lands, it is imperative to find the last ruler of Earth. Without this ruler, all factions could lose their lives and land to the dark evil that is threatening them.

Morgayne, ruler in Land of Water and Ventus, ruler of Land of Wind, form a tentative yet skeptical relationship. Each must rid themselves of their preconceived notions to make a working relationship—everything depends on them.

Their connection is deeper than either realizes and the uncertain link transforms into a close bond as they search for the last Land of Earth ruler. Will that tie survive the battles ahead? Will they allow or deny their feelings in this fantasy adventure that will have you urging them on to victory on all fronts.

Don’t Cry for Me

by Rachel Lacey

$2.99 $4.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)

A frosty television host, a bubbly bar owner, and a litter of abandoned kittens. The recipe for ratings gold…or heartbreak?

Eve Marlow has her eyes on the prize: a third season of her popular business makeover show, Do Over. But when her ratings take an unexpected dive, Eve needs a blockbuster new client, or she can kiss season three goodbye. She has her work cut out for her, and that’s before she discovers a litter of newborn kittens in a trash can. Now she’s desperate to find someone to take them so she can concentrate on reviving her career.

Josie Swanson had to put her kitten rescue on the back burner when she inherited her father’s bar two years ago. Since then, she’s invested all her time and energy into keeping it afloat, but despite her best efforts, Swanson’s is going under. When she gets a phone call from Eve Marlow, host of the television show Josie applied to earlier that year, the woman she’s convinced can save her bar, Josie hopes her luck has finally turned.

Eve knows what she needs to succeed, and it isn’t Josie—or her bar. There’s no denying the chemistry sizzling between them, though. Josie’s personality is as vibrant as her turquoise-tipped hair. She stirs things in Eve that haven’t been stirred in a long time, but there’s a reason she keeps her heart under lock and key. Eve stands to lose a lot more than her TV show if she lets her guard down, no matter how tempted she is to see if Josie’s love would be worth the risk.

Heart of a Wolf

by C. A. Hall

$2.99 $4.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)

After living with a faulty heart her entire life and finally getting the surgery she needs, Jo expects a long recovery. Instead, she experiences almost no pain, has a heightened sense of smell, and more energy than she knows what to do with.

Of course, getting back to a normal life would be a lot easier without the ears and tail.

Thrown into a world she knows nothing about, Jo will have to prove herself to the other wolves as well as Fallen, the woman who makes her heart race the most.

For Fallen, teaching the newly-turned wolf how to hunt and control her shifts is bad enough without their feelings getting involved. Loyal to the Alpha, there isn’t anything Fallen wouldn’t do for her or the pack she leads. She’d even give up her own life if it ever came down to it, but what about her heart?

Would she give that up as well?

With Jo struggling to find her place within the pack and Fallen doing whatever she can not to give in to her wolf’s lust, can these two women find common ground, or is their bond doomed from the start?

The Gunrunner and Her Hound

by Maria Ying

$2.99 $4.99 

Viveca Hua, arms-dealer

…is driven by three things: the certainty of steel, the need to win, and the compulsion to possess.

Yves, bodyguard

…hunts for the place she belongs, and she might just have found it in the captivating Viveca, who offers her a new organization, an answer—and a collar.

But their world is violent. It is unpredictable. Luck alone will not shield them. Together they must survive assassins, rival gunrunners, and their own lethal attraction.

Keep scrolling for more reading suggestions!

Under a Falling Star

by Jae

A new job and a hot but grouchy boss for Christmas

Falling stars are supposed to be a lucky sign, but not for Austen. Her new job as a secretary in an international games company isn’t off to a good start. Her first assignment—decorating the Christmas tree in the lobby—results in a trip to the ER after Dee, the company’s second-in-command, gets hit by the star-shaped tree topper.

Dee blames her instant attraction to Austen on her head wound, not the magic of the falling star. She’s determined not to act on it, especially since Austen has no idea that Dee is practically her boss.

Tangled Vows

by Anna Stone

Available in Kindle Unlimited

One year. Five million dollars. A proposal she can’t refuse.

Escort Ruby Scott is used to waking up in the bed of a wealthy woman. What she isn’t expecting is to wake up with a ring on her finger and married to Yvonne Maxwell, one of the executives behind the Mistress Media empire, a woman as alluring as she is cold.

For ten years, Yvonne has been sitting on an inheritance she can’t touch until she’s married. An encounter with an escort in a red dress presents the perfect solution—a marriage of convenience. In exchange for a year playing the role of her wife, Yvonne offers Ruby a life of glamour, decadence, and more money than Ruby ever dreamed of.

Yvonne is adamant that they keep their arrangement strictly business. But as Ruby’s submissive side awakens, Yvonne can’t resist the temptation to make Ruby hers, and Ruby is intoxicated by the commanding woman and the release Yvonne grants her.

As Ruby falls deeper into Yvonne’s seductive world of luxury and power games, both women struggle to keep their hearts from getting caught up in the passion between them. As threats to their fake marriage plot loom, Ruby and Yvonne find they have far more to lose than just the inheritance.

The Awkward Truth

by Lee Winter

Ambitious ice queen and corporate lawyer Felicity Simmons has spent her life focused on one thing: scuttling up the career ladder. She’s achingly close to taking charge of a media empire for her boss when she’s sent to investigate a South Bronx charity that helps homeless people’s pets.l

Has the charity made off with her boss’s generous donation? And who on earth is that gorgeous soft-butch veterinarian who looks as if she could toss a Shetland pony over one shoulder? Not that Felicity has any interest in some opinionated Amazon or her adorable fleabag of a dog.

Felicity is quite sure she will not be distracted, thank you very much. She has a minor mystery to solve, a mentor to impress, and her life’s dream to fulfil. Even if a distraction might be exactly what she needs.

Beyond Instinct

by Lynn Ames

Vaughn Elliott is a member of the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Force. Someone high up in the United States government has pulled rank, hand-selecting her to oversee security for a visit by congressional VIPs to the West African nation of Mali. The question is, who picked her for the job and why?

Sage McNally, a career diplomat, is the political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Mali. As control officer for the congressional visit, she is tasked to brief Vaughn regarding the political climate in the region.

The two women are instantly attracted to each other and share a wild night of passion. The next morning, Sage disappears while running, leaving behind signs of a scuffle. Why was Sage taken and by whom? Where is she being held?

Vaughn’s attempts to get answers are thwarted at every turn. Even Sage does not know why she’s been targeted.

Independently, Sage and Vaughn struggle to make sense of the seemingly senseless. By the time each of them figures it out, it could be too late for Sage.

As the clock ticks inexorably toward the congressional visit, the stakes get even higher, and Vaughn is faced with unspeakable choices. Her decisions will make the difference between life and death. Will she choose duty or her own code of honor?

A Roll in the Hay

by Lola Keeley

The whole “big city, successful career, loyal, hot girlfriend” experiment has been a miserable failure for veterinarian Tess Robinson, so she’s moved back home to a small town in the Scottish countryside. She doesn’t count on a run-in with the stuck-up, maddening, local landowner Lady Susannah Karlson, who tries to boss Tess around as if she owns the whole town…which she sort of does.

Closeted, wealthy, ice queen Lady Karlson is having the worst yearꟷbecoming widowed, being embroiled in a public feud over her vast estate, and now finding herself at odds with the sharp-tongued new vet who has just blown in from London. The annoying woman is so unsuitable to tend her horses, so impertinent, and so frustratingly cute.

As their clashes build and they’re thrust together against a back-drop of eccentric village busybodies, class warfare, and deadly dangers, the circling women start to wonder if there might be something more to the rising tensions between them. It can’t all be hate, can it?

Blood Eternal

by Idella Breen

Available in Kindle Unlimited

Mercer is a hunter of wyverns, a race of beings that feast on all that lives and thrives. Lena is an heiress in a time where vampires are dying out. The bond forged between them may be the needed beacon of light in a world that is quickly losing hope for a better tomorrow.

Ashlin & Olivia

by Aster Glenn Gray

Available in Kindle Unlimited

Ice queen Ashlin has one passion: art. That shared interest drew Olivia to her for an intense childhood friendship, but after that friendship’s disastrous end, Olivia never wanted to see Ashlin again.

Years later, when the two women run into each other in Florence, Olivia is shocked to discover that she’s just as drawn to Ashlin as ever. They reconnect as they wander the city, discussing art and eating gelato, and Olivia begins to see their past in a new light – and to harbor fragile hopes for a romantic future with Ashlin.

Olivia loves Ashlin. But has cool, reserved Ashlin thawed enough to trust Olivia with her heart?

Lost Treasures

by Jazzy Mitchell

After working at a Manhattan clothing boutique for a little over a year, Torry Hansen requests permission to design the window displays. This is a big step for Torry since she associates fashion with her mother, who died in a tragic accident. The decorations cause quite a stir, even catching the attention of Evelyn Allbright, who decides to have her magazine, Trending, feature the shop, its designs, and the window display designer. Recognizing Torry’s talents, Evelyn becomes fascinated and decides to convince Torry to leave the boutique for bigger and better things. As Evelyn’s interest in Torry transforms from professional to personal, so do her actions during her quest to keep Torry in her life.

Happy reading!

Faith, Em, Miranda, & TB

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