Welcome to week 37 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 for this week’s category: Sci-Fi Romance. 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 Sci-Fi Romance week: September 19 through September 23
Safe Passage
by Rachel Ford
FREE (Also in Kindle Unlimited)
For privateer Captain Magdalene Landon, it’s all about going big. For Kay Ellis, it’s about getting home. Together, they’re about to architect the most daring heist in the galaxy.
Kay knows too much. She knows it’s a matter of time before a Conglomerate hitman finds her. She’s desperate for safe passage back to Union space. Then Magdalene shows up, promising a way home in exchange for that information. It’s a risky bet, but Kay is out of options.
So she strikes a deal: the heist of the century for her freedom. Kay is playing a dangerous game, and she knows it. She’s made herself Enemy Number One of the Conglomerate. She’s relying on privateers for her safety.
It’s a fool’s game. But the worst part is, her fool’s heart is starting to warm to the enigmatic captain. And that’s a risk for which she hadn’t planned.
Jawbreaker
by Max Ellendale
$0.99 $4.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)
It isn’t everyday that the citizens of Seattle witness shadows passing out of the corner of their eye or hear the whoosh of something taking flight from the pavement beside them, but when a Shadow Protector descends on their city, they find themselves thrust into comic-book endings on the regular. History Professor, Veyda Halpern, takes on the mission of protecting her city and the people she loves by channeling the gifts bestowed to her by Andromeda. For the most part, she manages to keep her identity a secret, until her private world collides with a local museum curator who catches her sneaking into the exhibits at night. Entranced by the brazen, and sometimes cold, Harlow Misner, Veyda’s visits increase until the two finally face each other, cracking the fragile foundations of the lives they’ve both worked to build in hope of cultivating something more meaningful.
Nero
by Valden Bush
$0.99 $6.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)
Stele Hosun has been banished. On Nero, gem shards match people’s eyes and give them their special powers and purpose. But Stele has completely black eyes, and although legend recorded that she could be the chosen one to touch the legendary black shard, fear of her potential power makes her an outcast.
Exiled to Alton, she’s torn from Ariane, her one and only love, who has always accepted Stele for who she is. She drowns her sorrows and wallows in her loneliness until Colonel Kian Ray of the Alton Defense Force offers her the chance to join the ADF and make something of herself. Begrudgingly, Stele accepts, and with the help of new friends, Questa and Domino, she finds new purpose and perhaps even a home.
But Ariane remains the woman Stele wants, the one she needs. When pirates invade Nero to find the fabled and all-powerful black shard, putting Ariane in danger, Stele must lead a rescue that will either destroy them all or fulfil her ultimate destiny.
Disobedience Means Death
by Sarah Ettritch
$0.99 $6.99
On the planet Rymel, falling in love can be deadly.
Lesley and Mo live in a society that selects mates for its citizens and kills those who don’t accept its choices. Deeply in love, the two women can’t imagine being with anyone else, but their time together is running out. If they don’t let each other go, they’ll be executed.
Meet Lesley and Mo when they’re young adults in love, and follow their joys and struggles until it’s time for them to say good-bye. Will they do what their society expects of them, or will they sacrifice their lives for their love?
The Rymellan Series is a social science fiction series about two lesbians who live in a totalitarian state.
My Little Green Girlfriend
by Kimberly Hart
$0.99 $4.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)
When Marsha’s broken teleporter sends her to Earth, her only priority is to get back to civilization. Unfortunately, she has no way to get off this primitive planet or even contact home. Since she’s stuck here indefinitely, she’ll have to make the best of it.
Sophie is surprisingly calm when the beautiful woman wandering the streets says she’s from outer space. Having often felt like an alien herself, she’s determined to help Marsha however possible – even if that means letting the complete stranger move in with her.
As Marsha tries to settle in on Earth, Sophie realizes she’s unique in the universe. It’s not just Marsha’s unearthly good looks; Sophie is drawn to her kind and curious nature. Meanwhile, Marsha realizes that even a backwards planet can be home to intelligent life – and that the life form called Sophie is also downright sexy.
Will Marsha find her way home? Or will her heart convince her to change her plans?
Sexy Time Cop: Cowgirl and Pirate Sluts
by Riley Rose
$0.99 $2.99
Riley Shu is a Time Cop, traveling to amazing periods in the past to stop criminals from altering the timeline. And having sex with some of the hottest men and women in history!
The sexy Time Cop has to save Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday from a future felon and gets in some kinky cowgirl fun along the way. Then it’s off to the Caribbean and the Golden Age of Piracy for some submissive shenanigans with the most famous female pirate of all time: Anne Bonny!
Will Riley let Doc unload his sexy six shooter in her? Will she let Anne practice her amazing rope tying skills on her naked body? And how much will all this kinky sex change the timeline?
Laws of Attraction
by L. J. Hachmeister
$0.99 $3.99 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)
An uptight nurse. An outlaw telepath. When war erupts, will their accidental psychic bond tear them apart – or unleash true desires?
Nikkia “Niks” Rison thinks she has it all: A great career as a nurse, a steady boyfriend, and a life traveling the stars. That is until a medical experiment goes wrong and she’s tethered to the mind of Rex, a gorgeous – and dangerous – telepath who uses her unusual talents to unleash her clients’ desires. Caught in the middle of the intergalactic war against the telepaths, Niks faces her greatest fears as Rex is captured by the military and sentenced to a fate worse than death. Will Niks abandon everything she knows to save the one she loves?
A Shadow In Love
by Karen D. Badger
$2.99 $8.49 (Also in Kindle Unlimited)
Mackenzie Caldwell was given a choice…be true to who she was and be shunned for the rest of her life by her entire family, or suppress her attraction to women and live the rest of her life knowing ‘her place’ in the misogynistic cult-like religion she was raised in. Kenzie chose herself, and relocated to Sedona, Arizona, a beautiful desert town surrounded by red-rock buttes, steep canyon walls, and famous for metaphysical enhancement while hiking and spending time among the many vortices in the area.
Zangendar Tafadon is on a mission to help her community find a new home world, as her planet, Vakillia is slowly dying and would soon be unable to support the proliferation of their species. For generations, Vakillians had travelled to other planets in order to use the resources of those worlds in the procreation process between Vakillian females, after which, they would return to Vakillia to raise their offspring . Only this time, the planet of Vakillia was approaching toxic levels. Zan was on one of many investigatory missions to several different worlds, and her destination was Earth.
Life will never be the same for Kenzie or Zan when their paths literally cross on the hiking trails of Sedona, Arizona.
Keep scrolling for more reading suggestions!
Hunting Astrid
by Thea Landen
Available in Kindle Unlimited
Astrid Carlisle enjoys her job at Satera Industries, the massive interplanetary organization whose enigmatic leader is concerned with profits first and legalities second. Stationed at company headquarters, she can stay out of harm’s way while making good use of her programming skills and keen eye for talent acquisition. Unfortunately, both the busy nature of her work and her office’s remote location leave her feeling dissatisfied with her personal life.
Fresh out of the Central United Space Marines, Tabitha Knox is ready for change, hoping the next stage in her career can take place in the private sector. Employment with Satera Industries would offer her the exciting, fast-paced work she craves, with generous financial compensation to match. All she has to do is get through the rigorous screening process and prove her worth.
The two women meet during the early stages of Tabitha’s application, and their mutual attraction is instant. However, Astrid has been hurt in the past and is cautious about moving too quickly, leading her to devise a plan. She suggests the pair enter the simulations used to test applicants and fight their way through the various environments. If Tabitha can successfully track her down in each phase, she’ll win the ultimate prize: a lucrative job, plus Astrid’s trust and submission. Everything she wants is within reach, but will she be able to achieve her dreams while hunting Astrid?
Forever Love
by Abigail Taylor
Available in Kindle Unlimited
Opposites attract as sensitive Leia craves her missing piece and discovers her strong, feisty soul mate, Blake.
Blake should probably be too much for Leia, but they bring out the best in each other and blend like a dream, despite a rocky first encounter.
Forever Love is the first in The Looking for Love Series and introduces a close group of friends as they begin life experiences centered around self-awareness, self-discovery, and new love.
Glorious Day
by Skye Kilaen
Available in Kindle Unlimited
The bodyguard is a traitor. The princess is her one true love. And the revolution is almost here.
Elsenna Hazen left spaceport security and ended up a royal bodyguard. She should have known better than to fall in love with a princess.
It’s been two years since one ill-advised kiss in the garden pulled them apart. With uprisings in the streets, the nervous princess transfers Elsenna back into her service. Her Highness has no idea Elsenna is leaking data to the revolutionaries bent on overthrowing the princess’s oppressive father.
Now Elsenna wakes up each day wondering what will happen first: her own execution, or that of the woman she could never stop loving. When rebel attacks escalate and the king plans retaliation, Elsenna discovers that the fights for her love and her life are one and the same.
The Blood We Spill
by Jo Havens
Available in Kindle Unlimited
Bound to the Kingdom for life, Cie serves a cruel King, her knives pledged to his word, her life at his mercy. She is also one of the Kingdom’s most privileged slaves – one of the Praetoria: five of the best, sworn to protect the Prince and, one day, to rule at his side. It’s not a bad life – luxurious parties in any of the eighteen worlds, beautiful women falling over themselves to land in her bed, her orders to be obeyed by over forty-eight billion citizens.
But when a routine job goes spectacularly wrong, Cie discovers there is a witness to her failure – a witness to a political assassination the King would never want revealed. It’s Cie’s intense misfortune that the witness is a beauty – a woman with sweet, warm skin that Cie longs to sink into, with deep, brown eyes that hold promises that Cie has only ever dreamt of, a woman whose embrace offers a gentleness and a kindness Cie craves above all else.
Jemma thought she’d been in love before, but when she falls for the King’s assassin, she falls hard. Cie burns her up – the assassin plays fast and loves harder, and Jemma’s head is whirling even as her body is thrilled. Jemma watches as a growing terrorist threat pushes the King to madness and Cie’s orders become more and more violent. The woman she thinks she loves is steeped in red. Is it even possible for a girl from the suburbs to love a person so drenched in blood?
Deep Merge
by Linda North
Available in Kindle Unlimited
Kaesah, a geneticist from an all-female species living on the other side of the galaxy, is stranded on Earth when her mate, who was vital in piloting their starship, dies. Kaesah must report the disturbing events on Earth that could impact the survival of her species. Kaesah has no choice but to find a human woman capable of Deep Merge, a process required to guide her ship through the galaxy and to her planet. Can Kaesah overcome her aversion to humans to form a bond with one?
Antonia Lorne, Toni, is mourning the death of her wife. Retiring to bed one night on the promise to herself to start living again, Toni will awaken in a starship with a new course for her life charted. Reluctantly, she enters an agreement with Kaesah to Deep Merge, not knowing all of the ramifications.
Two women, from different worlds, must learn to trust the other, not only for the future of their planets but also for their own future.
Happy reading!
Faith, Em, Miranda, & TB
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