Book picks similar to
Nora and Liz by Nancy Garden
lgbt
queer
fiction
romance
Legacy of Love
Marianne K. Martin - 1997
"What do you want from me?" she whispered.Suzanne pressed up into Sage's embrace, her body making demands on the skillful hands, commanding pleasure from the exciting mouth. "I need you to love me...as long as you possibly can".What was it about Sage Bristo that drew women to her? Maybe it was the tall, toned body and androgynous good looks. Perhaps they liked her confidence -- her movements and manner so sure and decisive. Or was it the air of mystery, the temptation of a challenge to unravel?Sage couldn't explain the attraction, but she had certainly benefited from it, at least physically. As her reputation as a Don Juana grew, so did her black book of admiring women. Women who wanted to spoil her, to own her, to please her. Women who would do anything for her. But never the woman she needed the most -- the one woman who could lead her through the realm of desire, to the thing she desires most...
The Kiss That Counted
Karin Kallmaker - 2008
Contact with the good-hearted Karita Hanssen leaves CJ wishing for impossible things—friends, roots, a lover who knows her real name.With a life cheerfully balanced between all the things that she loves, Karita gives freely of her time and affection. She isn't looking for more until something in CJ's eyes suggests that there could be feelings deeper, stronger—and more dangerous—than any she has ever felt.CJ is committed to only tonight with her body and certainly no tomorrows when it comes to her heart. Karita has always lived for today while she waits for tomorrow to happen. One kiss couldn't change all that—unless it's the kiss that counted.Golden Crown and Lambda Literary award-winning author Karin Kallmaker's tale of two women, two outlooks and two futures trying to become one adds to her long list of best-selling and critically acclaimed lesbian romance novels.
Rage: A Love Story
Julie Anne Peters - 2009
But always being there for others can’t give Johanna everything she needs—it can’t give her Reeve Hartt.Reeve is fierce, beautiful, wounded, elusive; a flame that draws Johanna’s fluttering moth. Johanna is determined to get her, against all advice, and to help her, against all reason. But love isn’t always reasonable, right?In the precarious place where attraction and need collide, a teenager experiences the dark side of a first love, and struggles to find her way into a new light.
Beneath the Willow
Kenna White - 2006
Paris DeMont lost her beloved Gabriella to the mindless tragedy of Nine Eleven, she lost more than her partner of eight years. She lost her will to love. A successful cardiologist to New York City's elite, Paris now lives a sterile emotionless existence on Manhattan's Upper East Side. But Paris finds out that even when one tries to give up on life, life has a way of interfering and forcing you to live it. When Paris returns to Banyon, Missouri to oversee the repairs to the aging Victorian farmhouse she inherited from her grandmother, the protective barrier she has wrapped around her heart is tested to the limit. Childhood friend Sloan McKinley still carries a torch for Paris
A torch that even after twenty-five years still burns brightly and threatens to consume them both if only Paris will let it.
Willa & Hesper
Amy Feltman - 2019
When they fall apart, they unwittingly take the same path to heal from their breakup, seeking answers in the lands of their ancestors. From Tbilisi, Georgia to the war sites of Germany, they discover what can break and what can mend when you look to the past to understand your present.Willa's darkness enters Hesper's light late one night in Brooklyn. Theirs is a whirlwind romance until Willa starts to know Hesper too well, to crawl into her hidden spaces, and Hesper shuts her out. She runs, following her fractured family back to her grandfather's hometown of Tbilisi, Georgia, looking for the origin story that he is no longer able to tell. But once in Tbilisi, cracks appear in her grandfather's history-and a massive flood is heading toward Georgia, threatening any hope for repair.Meanwhile, heartbroken Willa is desperate to leave New York that she joins a group trip for Jewish twentysomethings to visit Holocaust sites in Germany and Poland, hoping to override her emotional state. When it proves to be more fraught than home, she must come to terms with her past-the ancestral past, her romantic past, and the past that can lead her forward.Told from alternating perspectives, and ending in the shadow of Trump's presidency, WILLA & HESPER is a deeply moving, cerebral, and timely debut.
Rhapsody
K.G. MacGregor - 2012
That’s how she likes her love—distant and impersonal. Outwardly sociable with her coworkers and viewers, she can’t wait to get back to her gated home and garden.When her longtime stylist goes out of business, she follows a colleague’s recommendation to Rhapsody, a small salon that serves as a hub for an eclectic group of lesbian friends. Despite Ashley’s efforts to remain aloof, she soon trades her solitude for roller skates, swing dancing and the emotional ups and downs of new friends.Never before has she felt so contented in the company of other women. Even so, there’s always the whisper from the past. Would any of them, especially Julia Whitethorn, the charismatic, appealing owner of Rhapsody, care about her if they knew the terrible secret she’s kept for twenty years?Lambda Literary Award winner KG MacGregor spins a story about the power of secrets and the risks of love with her trademark wit and insight.
Pages for You
Sylvia Brownrigg - 2001
The seventeen-year-old, new to everything around her—college, the East Coast, bodies of literature, and the sexual flurries of student life—is shocked by her desire to follow this wherever it will take her. When Flannery finds herself enrolled in a class with the remote, brilliant older woman, she is intimidated at first, but gradually becomes Anne Arden's student—Baudelaire, lipstick colors, or how to travel with a lover—Flannery proves an eager pupil, until one day learns more about Anne than she ever wanted to know.
Forgive Me If I've Told You This Before
Karelia Stetz-Waters - 2014
She does her best to hide behind her dyed hair and black wardrobe, but it's hard to ignore the bullying of Pip Weston and Principal Pinn. It's even harder to ignore the allure of other girls. As Triinu tumbles headlong into first love and teenage independence, she realizes that the differences that make her a target are also the differences that can set her free. With everyone in town taking sides in the battle for equal rights in Oregon, Triinu must stand up for herself, learn what it is to love and have her heart broken, and become her own woman.
Sea Glass Inn
Karis Walsh - 2013
Still reeling after an unexpected divorce, Mel believes she has missed her chance to find love. All she wants is to make her business a success and regain her independence. She locates the artist who inspired her move so she can commission more paintings for her new inn.Pamela Whitford runs a gallery in a small seaside town, planning events and supporting other artists while neglecting her own talent. Since being deserted by the love she thought was forever, she refuses to let anyone close enough to hurt her again. But Pam can’t resist the struggling new innkeeper, and she agrees to paint for her even though it means opening herself up to creativity and the vulnerability that goes with it.Can they learn to trust again and discover a second chance at love?
Romancing the Girl
Camryn Eyde - 2016
Life is easy and full of hard, dusty work, but when her brother Joseph decides to become a contestant in a reality TV dating show, Romancing the Farmer, everything goes to hell.The station gets overrun by city women and stuck-up producers right in the middle of shearing season. Justine Cason, the ringleader of the circus Aimee instantly detests is an irritating, arrogant presence that she is forced to chaperone around the massive property.The two women find more in common than trading insults the more time they spend together, sparking an unexpected connection neither was looking for. As Joseph navigates the dating scene, and Aimee's sister Sally navigates a crumbling marriage, Aimee's life turns on its head in more ways than one when her blooming connection with Justine is the catalyst to leaving the land she loves.When the worst fire season in decades strikes their patch of the world, the Turner family must find a way to save themselves and the ones they dearly cherish. Can they put aside their differences to protect each other?*minor edits updated 1st May 2016*
Punk Like Me
J.D. Glass - 2006
Twenty-one year old Nina writes lyrics and plays guitar in the rock band, Adam's Rib, and she doesn't always play by the rules. And, oh yeah—she has a way with the girls. Even her brother Nicky's girlfriends think she's hot. But the road to CBGBs in the East Village where Blondie and Joan Jett and the Indigo Girls stomped, sweated, and dreamed hasn't always been easy. In fact, it was damn hard. There were plenty of roadblocks in her way—her own fears about being different, and the nuns, and the parents who didn't get it, just to name a few. But then there was Kerry. Her more than best friend Kerry—who made it impossible for Nina not to be tough, not to be honest, not to stand by what she knew was right—not to be Punk.
The Last Train Home
Blayne Cooper - 2003
In this tumultuous time, factory worker Virginia Chisholm hopes for more, but her dreams go up in smoke when a tenement blaze rips her family apart. Aided by Lindsay Killian, the street-wise, rail-riding drifter she meets in a charity hospital, Ginny follows the orphan train that has taken her siblings west. The desperate quest to reunite her family takes the young women from the slums of New York City to the farms of West Virginia and the bustling frontier beyond. This harrowing journey moves Ginny and Lindsay from one mishap and adventure to another. It also leads them from friendship to a tender and unexpected romance.
For Me and My Gal
Robbi McCoy - 2011
Just fired from her job and besieged by hysterical phone calls from her mother, Shelby Pratt has locked her keys in the car, capping off the lousy week that began with her grandmother breaking her hip. Collapsing in tears on the curb, she’s infuriated when Gwen Lawford, one of the women who just got her fired, stops to offer help.Gwen, director of a small museum on an abandoned military base on San Francisco Bay, has troubles of her own. She’s working desperately against time and the City Council to save the museum from redevelopment. To her surprise, Shelby holds the keys to a mysterious WWII-era love affair between a Rosie-the-Riveter shipyard worker and a Navy WAVES recruit.Their investigations quickly move beyond mere academic curiosity. Secrets, old and new, threaten their future happiness—and it may already be too late.Golden Crown Literary Award winner Robbi McCoy offers a fascinating look at the history of the San Francisco Bay in this story of impossible love, female courage and the resilience of the human heart.
Kissing Kate
Lauren Myracle - 2003
They've shared everything for four years. Then one night at a drunken party, Kate leaned in to kiss Lissa, and Lissa kissed her back. And now Kate is pretending Lissa doesn't exist. Confused and alone, Lissa's left questioning everything she thought she knew about herself, and about life. But with the help of a free-spirit new friend, Lissa's beginning to find the strength to realize that sometimes falling in love with the wrong person is the only way to find your footing.
The Locket and the Flintlock
Rebecca S. Buck - 2012
Her brave quest to retrieve her stolen locket brings her into close contact with the thieves and their dashing and fearless masked leader, Len Hawkins. But there is more to Len than meets the eye. Beneath the robber’s mask lies a woman who, in her heart, is not really so very different from Lucia.As their unlikely love grows against the backdrop of the poverty and violent protest of Regency England, Lucia learns how much more there is to the world than her upbringing has taught her. Len flirts with death every day, and eventually, an attempt at exacting revenge on her cruel father threatens to snatch her from Lucia’s arms.Will Len survive her encounter with death and avoid the retribution of the agents of justice? And can respectable gentlewoman Lucia love Len enough to sacrifice everything she knows?