Book picks similar to
The Labrys Reunion by Terry Wolverton
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crime-mystery
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Cinderella Is Dead
Kalynn Bayron - 2020
Teen girls are now required to appear at the Annual Ball, where the men of the kingdom select wives based on a girl’s display of finery. If a suitable match is not found, the girls not chosen are never heard from again.Sixteen-year-old Sophia would much rather marry Erin, her childhood best friend, than parade in front of suitors. At the ball, Sophia makes the desperate decision to flee, and finds herself hiding in Cinderella’s mausoleum. There, she meets Constance, the last known descendant of Cinderella and her step sisters. Together they vow to bring down the king once and for all–and in the process, they learn that there’s more to Cinderella’s story than they ever knew . . .This fresh take on a classic story will make readers question the tales they’ve been told, and root for girls to break down the constructs of the world around them.
Juliet Takes a Breath
Gabby Rivera - 2016
She just came out to her family and isn’t sure if her mom will ever speak to her again. But Juliet has a plan, sort of, one that’s going to help her figure out this whole “Puerto Rican lesbian” thing. She’s interning with the author of her favorite book: Harlowe Brisbane, the ultimate authority on feminism, women’s bodies, and other gay-sounding stuff. Will Juliet be able to figure out her life over the course of one magical summer? Is that even possible? Or is she running away from all the problems that seem too big to handle? With more questions than answers, Juliet takes on Portland, Harlowe, and most importantly, herself.
The Complete Package
Ann Roberts - 2014
Her friends despair of cheering her up. Even making her mayor of their idyllic Colorado mountain town doesn’t awaken the joyous, passionate Lenny they once knew.But the arrival of the corporate planners from the Wilderness Campaign brings back some of Lenny’s fire. They already act like they own the place, including the arrogant Sloane McHenry. Pinedale—and her fractured family—does not need a Fortune 500 fix.Sloane is always hunting for the complete package and she’s got it in Pinedale. The mayor is a spineless pushover, the site only holds a dilapidated shop owned by the aforementioned mayor and Sloane has a secret weapon that will prove useful should she meet resistance. This project’s not just about profit, either, for reasons she can’t explain—not even to herself.
Bestiary
K-Ming Chang - 2020
She was called Hu Gu Po, and she hungered to eat children, especially their toes. Soon afterwards, Daughter awakes with a tiger tail. And more mysterious events follow: Holes in the backyard spit up letters penned by her grandmother; a visiting aunt arrives with snakes in her belly; a brother tests the possibility of flight. All the while, Daughter is falling for Ben, a neighborhood girl with strange powers of her own. As the two young lovers translate the grandmother’s letters, Daughter begins to understand that each woman in her family embodies a myth–and that she will have to bring her family’s secrets to light in order to change their destiny.With a poetic voice of crackling electricity, K-Ming Chang is an explosive young writer who combines the wit and fabulism of Helen Oyeyemi with the subversive storytelling of Maxine Hong Kingston. Tracing one family’s history from Taiwan to America, from Arkansas to California, Bestiary is a novel of migration, queer lineages, and girlhood.
The Best Bad Things
Katrina Carrasco - 2018
I was riveted. Painstakingly researched and pulsing with adrenaline, Carrasco’s debut will leave you thirsty for more.” —Lyndsay Faye, author of The Gods of GothamA vivid, sexy barn burner of a historical crime novel, The Best Bad Things introduces readers to the fiery Alma Rosales—detective, smuggler, spyIt is 1887, and Alma Rosales is on the hunt for stolen opium. Trained in espionage by the Pinkerton Detective Agency—but dismissed for bad behavior and a penchant for going undercover as a man—Alma now works for Delphine Beaumond, the seductive mastermind of a West Coast smuggling ring.When product goes missing at their Washington Territory outpost, Alma is tasked with tracking the thief and recovering the drugs. In disguise as the scrappy dockworker Jack Camp, this should be easy—once she muscles her way into the local organization, wins the trust of the magnetic local boss and his boys, discovers the turncoat, and keeps them all from uncovering her secrets. All this, while sending coded dispatches to the circling Pinkerton agents to keep them from closing in.Alma’s enjoying her dangerous game of shifting identities and double crosses as she fights for a promotion and an invitation back into Delphine’s bed. But it’s getting harder and harder to keep her cover stories straight and to know whom to trust. One wrong move and she could be unmasked: as a woman, as a traitor, or as a spy.A propulsive, sensual tour de force, The Best Bad Things introduces Katrina Carrasco, a bold new voice in crime fiction.
The Heiress: The Revelations of Anne de Bourgh
Molly Greeley - 2021
Growing up sheltered and confined, removed from sunshine and fresh air, the pale and overly slender Anne grew up with few companions except her cousins, including Fitzwilliam Darcy. Throughout their childhoods, it was understood that Darcy and Anne would marry and combine their vast estates of Pemberley and Rosings. But Darcy does not love Anne or want her.After her father dies unexpectedly, leaving her his vast fortune, Anne has a moment of clarity: what if her life of fragility and illness isn’t truly real? What if she could free herself from the medicine that clouds her sharp mind and leaves her body weak and lethargic? Might there be a better life without the medicine she has been told she cannot live without?In a frenzy of desperation, Anne discards her laudanum and flees to the London home of her cousin, Colonel John Fitzwilliam, who helps her through her painful recovery. Yet once she returns to health, new challenges await. Shy and utterly inexperienced, the wealthy heiress must forge a new identity for herself, learning to navigate a “season” in society and the complexities of love and passion. The once wan, passive Anne gives way to a braver woman with a keen edge—leading to a powerful reckoning with the domineering mother determined to control Anne’s fortune . . . and her life.An extraordinary tale of one woman’s liberation, The Heiress reveals both the darkness and light in Austen’s world, with wit, sensuality, and a deeply compassionate understanding of the human heart.
Trusting Tomorrow
P.J. Trebelhorn - 2013
She’s seen how the death of a loved one affects the people left behind and has promised herself she’ll never experience that kind of pain. But being alone isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.Brooke Collier believes she’s responsible for her relationship failures. After a particularly bad breakup, she moves in with her aged grandparents in order to care for them. The last thing she expects—or wants—is the attraction she has to her new next-door neighbor, Logan Swift.As Logan and Brooke find themselves growing closer with each passing day, Logan realizes that trusting in tomorrow isn’t always easy when you deal with death for a living…
Making Waves
Erik Schubach - 2016
She learned how to be strong again and break the shackles her old life had hobbled her with. While Paya is out making waves in London, Lenore is assigned as the driver for the contractor, McGrath, who is renovating a building for the Flotilla, which will allow people who had fallen upon hard times to have a place to call their own. The problem? Lenore finds McGrath to be the most infuriating, cocky, and egotistical woman on the planet. They mix like oil and water and Lenore wants nothing more than to throw a match on the mixture and be done with the woman. She just can’t figure out what it is that boils her blood around McGrath, though apparently all of her smug and smiling friends have an inkling… The Flotilla series is a spinoff of the bestselling London Harmony series.
Beneath the Streets
Adam Macqueen - 2020
What if they had succeeded? It is February 1976, and the naked corpse of a shockingly underage rent boy is fished out of a pond on Hampstead Heath. Since the police don’t seem to care, 20-year-old Tommy Wildeblood—himself a former ‘Dilly boy’ prostitute—finds himself investigating. Dodging murderous Soho hoodlums and the agents of a more sinister power, Tommy uncovers another, even more shocking crime: the Liberal leader and likely next Home Secretary, Jeremy Thorpe, has had his former male lover executed on Exmoor and got clean away with it. Now the trail of guilt seems to lead higher still, and a ruthless Establishment will stop at nothing to cover its tracks. In a gripping thriller whose cast of real-life characters includes Prime Minister Harold Wilson, his senior adviser Lady Falkender, gay Labour peer Tom Driberg and the investigative journalist Paul Foot, Adam Macqueen plays "what if" with Seventies UK political history—with a sting in the tail that reminds us that the truth can be just as chilling as fiction.
Less Happier Lands
Annette De Burgh - 2013
A war of words soon spirals into a forbidden and passionate love that covers many years.But as the years move on, troubled waters lie ahead.
Lesbian Firsts: 10 Lesbians Share Their First Time With a Woman
Alexandra del Torre - 2014
Asked by author Alexandra del Torre to provide as much detail as possible, they held nothing back in their retelling of these intensely intimate encounters. In “Lesbian Firsts,” you will hear from real lesbians and read about their real first times, including:HEATHER, a 24-year-old high school English teacher who discovered her lesbianism with a volleyball teammate at the age of 19.MEGHAN, a 32-year-old attorney who lost her lesbian virginity to her first-year dormmate in college.KRISTEN, a 26-year-old accountant who discovered her preference for women at 18 during a sleepover with her more advanced 22-year-old friend, Michelle.MARIA, a 36-year-old basketball coach who found sapphic love in a locker room shower with a teammate.KORI, a 28-year-old makeup artist who, at 18, was stimulated in a movie theatre by her cousin’s suave, butch neighbor.DEBBIE, a 41-year-old psychologist whose first lesbian experience came at age 30, following her divorce from her husband of two years. Trapped overnight during a rainstorm at her book club friend’s house, Debbie discovers pleasures she never knew with a man.JENNIFER, a 34-year-old police officer who lost her lesbian virginity on the same night she gained the legal right to drink – her 21st birthday. A mysterious stranger in a lesbian bar introduces Jennifer to strap-on sex in the bathroom, much to her delight.DIANE, a 25-year-old assistant book editor who engaged in her first lesbian sexual encounter with her current boss when she was a 20-year-old intern at a publishing company.TAYLOR, a 37-year-old personal chef who, as a student at a women’s Catholic college, shared an intimate encounter with a classmate in her car during half-time of a school basketball game.SARAH, a 22-year-old flight attendant who found lesbian love in the skies with a flirtatious flight attendant who was serving as her mentor when she was a 20-year-old trainee.***
Lovers and Dancers (Ireland at War Book 1)
Heather Ingman - 2020
Sheltered from the outside terrors, Louisa lives at High Park, as upper-class estate in the Irish countryside where she feels she never quite belonged. Caught between a cold, unhappy marriage and mundane wifely duties, Louisa’s dream of being a painter never felt so distant. With her only son enlisted in the army, and her husband’s niece Muriel unsettling her with bizarre behaviour and pro-war values, she finds herself powerless in a war-torn world where being a woman finds no freedom. But then she meets wild, strong-minded Viola Luttrell and Louisa’s world is turned upside down. Struck by Viola’s charm, the two become friends – but before long their friendship in danger. Not only does Louisa’s husband hold a grudge against the Luttrell family, but Viola has a secret that could put both their lives at risk: she knows James Connolly, the nationalist rebel leader, and she plans to join the imminent uprising against the British. As Viola and Louisa grow closer and their friendship blossoms into something more, the fight for freedom becomes more than a fight for a nation, but a fight for themselves. As the terrors of the war infiltrate High Park and loyalties are tested, the women are forced to make painful decisions that could change the course of their lives forever… Lovers and Dancers is a heart-wrenching tale of love lost and love found in unexpected places. Praise for Heather Ingman 'A moving story of choices and regrets.' - Holly Kinsella Heather Ingman is the best-selling author of seven novels. Two, including STEALING HEAVEN, have been translated into German. She has lived in Scotland, France and Ireland and is currently Adjunct Professor in the School of English, Trinity College, Dublin. Her teaching and academic interests focus on women's fiction. Her academic publications include WOMEN'S INTER-WAR FICTION (Edinburgh University Press, 1998), A HISTORY OF THE IRISH SHORT STORY (Cambridge University Press) and IRISH WOMEN'S FICTION: FROM EDGEWORTH TO ENRIGHT (Irish Academic Press, 2013).
Plain Bad Heroines
Emily M. Danforth - 2020
Flo and Clara, two impressionable students, are obsessed with each other and with a daring young writer named Mary MacLane, the author of a scandalous bestselling memoir. To show their devotion to Mary, the girls establish their own private club and call it The Plain Bad Heroine Society. They meet in secret in a nearby apple orchard, the setting of their wildest happiness and, ultimately, of their macabre deaths. This is where their bodies are later discovered with a copy of Mary’s book splayed beside them, the victims of a swarm of stinging, angry yellow jackets. Less than five years later, The Brookhants School for Girls closes its doors forever—but not before three more people mysteriously die on the property, each in a most troubling way. Over a century later, the now abandoned and crumbling Brookhants is back in the news when wunderkind writer, Merritt Emmons, publishes a breakout book celebrating the queer, feminist history surrounding the “haunted and cursed” Gilded-Age institution. Her bestselling book inspires a controversial horror film adaptation starring celebrity actor and lesbian it girl Harper Harper playing the ill-fated heroine Flo, opposite B-list actress and former child star Audrey Wells as Clara. But as Brookhants opens its gates once again, and our three modern heroines arrive on set to begin filming, past and present become grimly entangled—or perhaps just grimly exploited—and soon it’s impossible to tell where the curse leaves off and Hollywood begins. A story within a story within a story and featuring black-and-white period illustrations.
Louis & Louise
Julie Cohen - 2019
The day they were born is when their story began.In one, Louis David Alder is born a male.In the other, Louise Dawn Alder is born a female.Louis and Louise are the same in many ways - they have the same best friends, the same parents, the same dream of being a writer and leaving their hometown in Maine as soon as they can. But because of their gender, everything looks different. Certain things will happen in their lives to shape them, hurt them, build them back up again. But what will bring them back home?
Sandcastles
Suzie Carr - 2015
Life is smooth and flowing, unmarked by much more than a little family jealousy here and there, until she runs into Willow, an exciting enigma from her past. Willow, a psychic, receives a sense that something is off kilter surrounding Lia. Should she tell her, even though Lia, the person she’s never been able to stop thinking about since childhood, might run the other way? It’s a risk she decides to take, and Lia’s curiosity surprises her. As truths about life, love and uncertainties are unearthed, Lia and Willow, along with Dean, learn to seek strength from unexpected places and people. Along their journeys, the three learn what a struggle it is to maintain their sandcastles as they embrace the parts of their lives that really matter.