The Sublime and Spirited Voyage of Original Sin


Colette Moody - 2009
    Together with Gayle Malvern, daughter of wounded pirate captain Madman Malvern, Celia becomes a reluctant participant in an unexpectedly thrilling journey through the Caribbean. For Gayle, Celia's presence is at first a welcome and shapely distraction, but as her attraction to the seamstress deepens, she realizes that Celia comes to mean more to her than is almost certainly prudent. As Celia and Gayle navigate the perilous territories of gypsies, prostitutes, mercenaries, and slave-traders, they forge a partnership born of necessity that Gayle soon hopes will veer away from insurmountable danger and instead detour directly to her bed.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post


Emily M. Danforth - 2012
    Relief they'll never know that, hours earlier, she had been kissing a girl.But that relief doesn't last, and Cam is soon forced to move in with her conservative aunt Ruth and her well-intentioned but hopelessly old-fashioned grandmother. She knows that from this point on, her life will forever be different. Survival in Miles City, Montana, means blending in and leaving well enough alone (as her grandmother might say), and Cam becomes an expert at both.Then Coley Taylor moves to town. Beautiful, pickup-driving Coley is a perfect cowgirl with the perfect boyfriend to match. She and Cam forge an unexpected and intense friendship--one that seems to leave room for something more to emerge. But just as that starts to seem like a real possibility, ultrareligious Aunt Ruth takes drastic action to "fix" her niece, bringing Cam face-to-face with the cost of denying her true self--even if she's not exactly sure who that is.The Miseducation of Cameron Post is a stunning and unforgettable literary debut about discovering who you are and finding the courage to live life according to your own rules.

Desperate Measures


P.J. Trebelhorn - 2014
    After assaulting him, she’s suspended from her job. She uses her unexpected time off to make some home improvements, but Kay has no idea Rayne is stalking her, and he’s hell-bent on revenge. Brenda Jansen owns Jansen Construction with her father. A routine job brings her to Kay’s doorstep, and Brenda is blissfully unaware of the twists and turns her life is about to take. The instant attraction she feels toward her newest client is something Brenda’s doing her best to ignore. Since her two previous girlfriends cheated on her, she’s having a hard time putting her trust in anyone. Brenda’s indifference toward her intrigues Kay, who does everything she can to get Brenda to admit their attraction is mutual. As they grow closer, so does Tommy Rayne, until he finally threatens everything Kay holds dear.

Valencia


Michelle Tea - 2000
    Through a string of narrative moments, Tea records a year lived in a world of girls: there's knife-wielding Marta, who introduces Michelle to a new world of radical sex; Willa, Michelle's tormented poet-girlfriend; Iris, the beautiful boy-dyke who ran away from the South in a dust cloud of drama; and Iris's ex, Magdalena Squalor, to whom Michelle turns when Iris breaks her heart. Valencia conveys a blend of youthful urgency and apocalyptic apathy.

Delayed Rays of a Star


Amanda Lee Koe - 2019
    From Weimar Berlin to LA's Chinatown, from a seaside resort in East Germany to a luxury apartment on the Champs-Élysées, the different settings they inhabit are as richly textured as the roles they play: siren, muse, predator, or lover, each one a carefully calibrated performance. And in the orbit of each star live secondary players--a Chinese immigrant housemaid, a German soldier on leave from North Africa, a pompous Hollywood director--whose voices and viewpoints reveal the legacy each woman left in her own time, as well as in ours. Amanda Lee Koe's playful, wry prose guides the reader dexterously around murky questions of ego, persona, complicity, desire, and difference. Intimate and raw, Delayed Rays of a Star is a visceral depiction of womanhood--its particular hungers, its calculations, and its eventual betrayals--and announces a bold new literary voice.

Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady: A Memoir


Florence King - 1985
    Florence may have been a disappointment to her Granny, whose dream of rearing a Perfect Southern Lady would never be quite fulfilled. But after all, as Florence reminds us, no matter which sex I went to bed with, I never smoked on the street.

Stilettos and Steel


Jeri Estes - 2010
    The counter culture revolution front lines have overrun the city. Golden Gate Park littered with nude, flower crowned hippies burning draft cards in a psychedelic haze. North Beach rocks with the San Francisco sound of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix while Otis Redding bemoans Sitting on the Dock of the Bay. Free love seduces tourists and soldiers, as topless club barkers pack ‘em in under Carol Doda’s flashing neon tits. Jessica Rawlson, an attractive middle class young lady joins the migration to the city on an adventure of sexual self-discovery and personal independence.Fate leads Jessica to the infamous red light district where a gangster/lesbian subculture thrives. The Tenderloin District is alive with sultry femme fatales, corrupt cops, hustlers and homos. Love, lust and murder share the sidewalks with queens in high heels and high hair as suburban perverts cruise on a safari of lust. Jessica embarks on a riveting journey from street prostitute to mastermind of her own empire. Her walk on the wild side offers intoxicating freedom and power. Straddling moral boundaries, shuffling lovers, appeasing mob bosses and the heat, while keeping vicious territorial predators at bay, is the price to survive at the top.

Dearest Anne


Judith Katzir - 2006
    The love between Michaela and Rivi is depicted precisely and delicately. . . . It’s beautiful.” —Amos Oz“More than anything else, the book is a temple of love to the imaginary, and to literature as an option for deep and vigorous living.” — Time Out Written by best-selling Israeli author Judith Katzir, Dearest Anne is a stirring record of an artist’s coming-of-age during the 1970s and the story of a hidden, erotic love affair between a teenaged girl and her married teacher, Michaela.After reading Anne Frank’s diary, young Rivi starts a series of writing notebooks that document the angst of growing up in rural Israel. The entries reveal how her crush on her literature teacher develops into a poignant and turbulent love affair that lasts for years before its scandalous end. Decades later, the grown Rivi, now a mother, wife, and established author, comes to terms with the forbidden love that shaped her life.

Seeking Sara Summers


Susan Gabriel - 2008
    How would your life be different if you were truly yourself? Sara Summers Stanton has raised three children and works as a high school teacher at the same school she attended growing up. Her 25 year marriage is showing cracks in the facade and now she's dealing with breast cancer. In a rare moment of taking care of herself instead of everyone else, Sara takes a sabbatical and goes on the trip to Italy she has always dreamed of taking. This search for a more authentic life leads to Julia, a friend she hasn't seen since they were inseparable as girls, nearly 30 years earlier. They reunite in Florence and their friendship continues where they left off, resulting in an unexpected attraction to one another that threatens to turn Sara's already shaky world upside down. Sara's inner conflict and subsequent choices reveal an unpredictable yet dynamic future for all the characters. Seeking Sara Summers is an emotional and lyrical novel, a timeless story about love, commitment and transformation. What Readers Are Saying About Seeking Sara Summers: "Gabriel renders Sara's growing attraction and conflict with insight. There is a real sense of what is at stake for all three of these characters: Sara, Julia and Grady. A beautiful and powerful story." -- Heather O'Neill, Book Reviewer, afterellen.com "I started reading Seeking Sara Summers with my breakfast tea and couldn't put it down until I had finished it--even missed my trip to the gym. I laughed and cried and felt warmed by the Tuscan sun." -- Ann B., Asheville, NC "I've read plenty of fiction in my life, everything from junky beach books to classic literature. I loved this book. Gabriel is a clever, funny, profound writer who quickly takes you into the inner world of her characters, while taking you on an external journey that keep you glued to the page. Sara's character jumps from the pages and her transformation has impacted and inspired me." -- Jackie W., Loveland, Colorado

Stone Walls


Kate Sweeney - 2012
    She had everything—fame, endorsements, and any woman she wanted. All was good until a tragic accident put everything in perspective. Tyler was forced to do some serious soul searching, and she was never forced to do anything.RN Rachel Whitaker was no stranger to disastrous circumstances. She left England because of them, hoping to hide in obscurity behind the stone wall she had quietly constructed brick by brick, but taking care of the convalescing arrogant skier was not helping.They annoy each other, help each other, and fight each other on a daily basis and hopefully, find love—before they kill each other.

Beyond the Pale


Elana Dykewomon - 1997
    The richly textured novel details Gutke Gurvich’s odyssey from her apprenticeship as a midwife in a Russian shtetl to her work in the suffrage movement in New York. Interwoven with her tale is that Chava Meyer, who was attended by Gurvich at her birth and grew up to survive the pogrom that took the lives of her parents. Throughout the book, historical background plays a large part: Jewish faith and traditions, the practice of midwifery, the horrific conditions in prerevolutionary Russia and New York sweatshops, and the determined work of labor unionists and suffragists.

A Boy Named Phyllis: A Suburban Memoir


Frank DeCaro - 1996
    By age six already a regular in the Sears Husky Boys Department. Young Frankie is also gay, and he's trapped in the aluminum-sidinged, lawn-sprinklered, what-exit? wilds of New Jersey suburbia. Imagine Elton John born to an Italian-American Edith and Archie Bunker and you've got the picture. A Boy Named Phyllis is Frank DeCaro's witty gem of a memoir about growing up among working-class Italian folk in Little Falls, New Jersey. There are the usual trials and tribulations between little Frankie and his parents, Marian and Frank Sr., but this is no angst-ridden, coming-of-age gay memoir. Frank is funny, and A Boy Names Phyllis is the antidote to such books. It is the mid-1960s and the DeCaros have it all: a living room that no one is allowed to live in; a complete collection of cardboard cutout decorations for every holiday; an Entenmann's factory around the corner; and a killer lineup of Friday-night TV - The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, Room 222, The Odd Couple, and, if you can stay awake long enough, Love, American Style. There's only one problem: instead of developing a crush on Laurie Partridge, Frankie gets a boner for Keith. He perfects a drop-dead Paul Lynde imitation, and ultimately finds liberation through Elton John and Disco.

Straight People: A Spotter's Guide to the Fascinating World of Heterosexuals


Jeffery Self - 2013
    Modeled after popular bird spotters’ guides, Straight People is an affectionate and humorous guide to the varied species and subspecies of the sexual majority: the heterosexual. In this hilarious and easy-to-use field guide, actor and author Jeffery Self compiles everything you’ve ever wanted to know about heteros including their nesting behavior, feeding and mating habits, migration patterns, key identification features, and more. Complemented with fun two-color illustrations, interactive charts, graphs, and quizzes throughout, Straight People is sure entertain readers for all walks of life.

A Pirate's Heart


Catherine Friend - 2008
    She’s aided in her search by investigator Randi Marx, who proves to be as frustrating as she is beautiful. The treasure map Emma and Randi seek belonged to Thomasina Farris, a pirate who disappeared from the Caribbean in 1715. Did Captain Tommy steal an entire treasure from a Spanish galleon and escape? Was she convicted of piracy and hanged by her neck? Did she die of a broken heart when she lost the woman she loved?In her race to find the map, Emma learns that pirates not only steal treasure, but they also steal hearts. When Emma discovers Captain Tommy’s fate, she must decide her own as well, choosing between romance...or revenge.

Tremontaine: The Complete Season One


Ellen Kushner - 2016
    Mind your manners and enjoy the chocolate in a dance of sparkling wit and political intrigue.Tremontaine is an episodic serial presented by Serial Box Publishing. This collected omnibus edition gathers all 16 episodes from Season 1.