Book picks similar to
The Spanish Pearl by Catherine Friend
historical-fiction
lgbt
historical
romance
Blurred Lines
K.D. Williamson - 2016
Only a select few know her as a loyal, loving friend. To a fault, she is committed to her family, friends and her job.As a surgeon, Nora Whitmore is used to being in control. The hospital is her life. There is little else. Respected by her colleagues but ridiculed by the residents, Nora takes what she needs and keeps everyone else at arm’s length, creating unexpected enemies.Tragedy brings them together in a clash of personalities. As the chaos around them continues, they find the lines between them blurring. A friendship forms, understanding grows, and attraction soon follows. Together, they may conquer their own misgivings, but will the outside forces keep them apart?Themes: lesbian · medical · police
Freshman Year
Annameekee Hesik - 2010
But when she orders French fries from the flirtatious Hot Dog on a Stick Chick, she gets more than deep-fried potatoes. Abbey tries to ignore the weird, happy feeling in her gut, but that proves to be as impossible as avoiding the very insistent (and—rumor has it—very lesbian) players on Gila High’s girls’ basketball team. They want freakishly long-legged Abbey to try out, and Abbey doesn’t hate the idea. But Kate made Abbey pinky swear to avoid basketball and to keep away from the you-know-who girls on the team.Sometimes promises can’t be kept. And sometimes girls in uniform are impossible to resist.
The Dark Victorian: Risen Volume One
Elizabeth Watasin - 2012
Agents of Prince Albert’s Secret Commission, their criminal pasts wiped from their memories, are resurrected to fight the eldritch evils that threaten England. Amidst this turmoil, Jim Dastard and his new partner Artifice must stop a re-animationist raising murderous dead children. As Art and Jim pursue their quarry, Art discovers clues about her past self, and through meeting various intriguing women—a journalist, a medium, a prostitute, and a mysterious woman in black—where her heart lies. Yet the question remains: What sort of criminal was she? A new beginning, a new identity, and new dangers await Art as she fights for the Secret Commission and for her second life.The paperback version contains an 'Extra', which is an illustration gallery.
Atramentum
M.J. Duncan - 2016
Burned out on public accounting after too many sixteen-hour days, the allure of operating a small, independent bookstore is too tempting to resist, and Joss decides to walk away from the career she spent the last decade building to move back to the resort town high in the Rockies. Cupid strikes as she’s moving into her new place outside Sky and, contrary to popular belief, Cupid has four legs and a tail, hits like a linebacker, and answers to the name George. Before Joss can recover from being tackled by the Great Dane, she finds herself face to face with George's mom, Maeve Dylan. Joss is immediately smitten with her beautiful neighbor, but their conversations walk the line between friendliness and flirtation like it’s a tightrope, and Joss is reluctant to do anything that will risk their budding friendship. Thankfully for her, however, George doesn't give up so easily.
Making a Tinderbox
Emma Sterner-Radley - 2017
However societal rules regarding gender, race, and sexuality are very different. These differences shape the lives of our protagonists, the would-be-princess Lady Elisandrine 'Elise' Falk and Nessa Clay, a farmer's daughter who’s chasing her dreams. Having to leave their old lives behind, they decide to travel together. They find things that make them different and should keep them apart. They also find themselves magnetically drawn to each other, no matter how hard they resist their increasing longing for each other. In the modern and dangerous city of Nightport, brimming with exciting innovations in clockwork and steam power, strange events start to surround them. Unknown men ask questions regarding their whereabouts and small packages wrapped neatly in midnight blue paper with white ribbon start to arrive. With the help of some new friends they meet along the way, Elise and Nessa start to unravel the mysteries — and their feelings for one another.
The Space Between Worlds
Micaiah Johnson - 2020
Enter Cara, whose parallel selves happen to be exceptionally good at dying—from disease, turf wars, or vendettas they couldn’t outrun. Cara’s life has been cut short on 372 worlds in total.On this Earth, however, Cara has survived. Identified as an outlier and therefore a perfect candidate for multiverse travel, Cara is plucked from the dirt of the wastelands. Now she has a nice apartment on the lower levels of the wealthy and walled-off Wiley City. She works—and shamelessly flirts—with her enticing yet aloof handler, Dell, as the two women collect off-world data for the Eldridge Institute. She even occasionally leaves the city to visit her family in the wastes, though she struggles to feel at home in either place. So long as she can keep her head down and avoid trouble, Cara is on a sure path to citizenship and security.But trouble finds Cara when one of her eight remaining doppelgängers dies under mysterious circumstances, plunging her into a new world with an old secret. What she discovers will connect her past and her future in ways she could have never imagined—and reveal her own role in a plot that endangers not just her world, but the entire multiverse.
Ice
Lyn Gardner - 2012
This time...it's worse.Ice begins when a boy is kidnapped from a London park and Detective Inspectors Alex Blake and Maggie Campbell are brought together to work on the case. While their goal is the same, their work ethics are not. Intelligent, perceptive and at times disobedient, Alex Blake does what she believes it takes to do her job. Maggie Campbell has a slightly different approach. She believes that rule books were written for a reason. Unexpectedly, their dynamics mesh, but when her feelings for Alex become stronger than she wants to admit, Maggie provokes the worst in Alex to ensure that they will never be partners again. Three years later, fate brings them together again. Their assignment is simple, but a plane crash gets in their way. Now, in the middle of a blizzard, they have to try to survive...and fight the feelings that refuse to die.
Remembrance of Things I Forgot
Bob Smith - 2010
John travels back to 1986, where he encounters “Junior,” his younger, more innocent self. When Junior starts to flirt, John wonders how to reveal his identity: “I’m you, only with less hair and problems you can’t imagine.” He also meets up with the younger Taylor, and this unlikely trio teams up to plot a course around their future relationship troubles, prevent John’s sister from making a tragic decision, and stop George W. Bush from becoming president. In this wickedly comic, cross-country, time-bending journey, John confronts his own—and the nation’s—blunders, learning that a second chance at changing things for the better also brings new opportunities to screw them up. Through edgy humor, time travel, and droll one-liners, Bob Smith examines family dysfunction, suicide, New York City, and recent American history while effortlessly blending domestic comedy with science fiction. Part acidic political satire, part wild comedy, and part poignant social scrutiny, Remembrance of Things I Forgot is an uproarious adventure filled with sharp observations about our recent past. InSight Out Book Club, featured selectionBob Smith named one of Instinct magazine’s Leading Men 2011Winner, Barbara Gittings Literature Award/Stonewall Book Awards, American Library AssociationFinalist, Over the Rainbow Selection, American Library AssociationFinalist, Green Carnation Prize, international prize for LGBT LiteratureAmazon Top Ten Gay & Lesbian Books of 2011Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the American Association of School Librarians Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the Public Library Reviewers
The Only Way
Jamie Sullivan - 2014
When Hart decides that’s not good enough for her, she takes on the high stakes world of no-holds-barred fighting. There's just one problem: women aren’t allowed in the ring. Hair cut short and dressed in her father’s old clothes, Hart ventures into the Alley and the world of arena fighting. There she meets Ruby, the daughter of the Arena owner and a brilliant fighter in her own right. When she offers Hart the chance for friendship, Hart cannot resist.But Ruby thinks Hart is a man, and as she and Ruby grow closer, it gets harder and harder to maintain the façade …
Big Love
Saxon Bennett - 2016
The guardian angel, Zing, comes to earth in human form to make it up to her charge, Nell Parker. What doesn’t add up is the internet romance Nell is having. Something (cat)fishy is happening, and now Zing feels obligated to protect Nell’s heart. What Zing doesn’t count on is falling in love with Nell. Can Zing give up everything to follow her heart? Is her love big enough to overcome all obstacles? Find out in this newest romantic comedy from Layce Gardner and Saxon Bennett!
The Lavender List
Meg Harrington - 2016
The one bright spot is her friendship with the charming Laura Wright, a well-heeled woman with a mysterious war-related past.When Laura shows up outside the diner barely conscious and spitting lousy lies, Amelia takes it upon herself to figure out the truth. From mobsters to spies, Amelia quickly finds herself forced back into a world of shadows she thought she’d escaped long ago and thrust into partnership with the one person she’s sure can ruin her—the enigmatic Laura Wright.
Tiopa Ki Lakota
D. Jordan Redhawk - 2000
But the tribal shaman has a vision that Anpo is wicakte - a two-souled person embodying both male and female spirits. She will become a great warrior and a great asset to her people. During a vision quest, Anpo finds that her life will be intertwined with the lives of a sacred white buffalo and a pale skinned woman with yellow hair, yet both will be wounded by her actions. Kathleen McGlashan Stevens has been captured by renegade Indians, and thrust into a terrifying and foreign culture where she must learn to survive. The sacred white buffalo brings Anpo and Kathleen together. As their relationship develops, Anpo wonders: Can she change her destiny, or is she fated to wound the woman she loves?
Lilies of the Bowery
Lily R. Mason - 2015
Finding neither the milk or honey America had promised, Joan is quickly disenchanted with the city; the heat and noise and poverty are oppressive, and her father, who journeyed ahead to find work and accommodations, is nowhere to be found. Tucked into a disorganized laundry, Joan meets an unlikely companion named Paloma Morello, who is as secretive as she is beautiful. As Joan develops an intense attraction to her, she discovers that though things aren't always as they seem, all love is sanctuary.
The Flaw in Our Design
Monica McCallan - 2020
That’s how she likes it, even if she can’t stop the town she loves from being overrun by wealthy tourists each summer. When she’s not working at her family’s paddleboard shop or spending time with her lovable but infuriating brothers, she puts her energy into writing professionally, a dream that has yet to materialize.Valerie Maycomb used to summer in Lake Cabot with her family when she was younger, until school and planning for her future became the driving forces in her existence. For the first time in years, following her college graduation, she’s spending a few months in the small, lakeside town she loved as a child. All she wants is a little time to decompress before law school in the fall and maybe even strike up the courage to talk to a woman.A chance meeting at the lake opens up the possibility of a summer romance, with the explicit understanding that it can’t become something more. Olivia’s not built for falling in love, and Val needs to keep her eye on the prize of a successful career. But neither of them can deny the attraction, and summer quickly takes on a life of its own.
Better Off Red
Rebekah Weatherspoon - 2011
She has more important things on her mind, like maintaining her perfect GPA. No matter how much she can't stand the idea of the cliques and the matching colors, there's something about the girls of Alpha Beta Omega—their beauty, confidence, and unapologetic sexuality—that draws Ginger in. But once initiation begins, Ginger finds that her pledge is more than a bond of sisterhood, it’s a lifelong pact to serve six bloodthirsty demons with a lot more than nutritional needs.Despite her fears, Ginger falls hard for the immortal queen of this nest, and as the semester draws to a close, she sees that protecting her family from the secret of her forbidden love is much harder than studying for finals.