Proper English


K.J. Charles - 2019
    She’s visiting her old friend, the Earl’s heir Jimmy Yoxall—but she wants to spend a lot more time with Jimmy’s fiancée. The irrepressible Miss Fenella Carruth, with her laughing eyes and lush curves, is the most glorious woman Pat’s ever met, and it quickly becomes impossible to remember why she needs to stay at arm’s length.But while the women’s attraction grows, the tensions at Rodington Court get worse. Affairs, secrets, betrayals, and blackmail come to light. And when a body is discovered with a knife between the shoulderblades, it’s going to take Pat and Fen’s combined talents to prevent the murderer destroying all their lives.

Lois Lenz, Lesbian Secretary


Monica Nolan - 2007
    Lois Lenz was like any other wholesome former cheerleader with a knack for office skills--until she took a job at Sather & Sterling in bustling Bay City. Spending her days in the cut-throat typing pool and her nights at the all-women's residence of Magdalena Arms, Lois had no idea she was entering a world of working girls whose passionate desires--and fabulous fashion sense--could lead any innocent lamb astray. . .Netta--serious and smart, she's unlike any woman Lois has known. . .Maxie--The height of society fashion, and girls are so very in style. . .Pamela--Lois's old high school Pep Squad pal certainly has changed. . .Miss Gill--the office manager has secrets and plenty of file cabinets to keep them in. . .Dolly--an actress whose martini shaker is as busy as her love life. . .Mrs. Pierson--"The hyena," Lois's boss, her office is a place of hard work and private dictation. . .And many more!Lois Lenz--she was a good girl a long way from home about to discover that not everything is what it seems, navy is a bad suit choice, and love can bloom in the strangest of places. . .

Death by the Riverside


J.M. Redmann - 1990
    The trail leads to the Hundred Oaks Plantation, a transvestite named Eddie, a beautiful doctor named Cordelia, and memories Micky thought she had buried twenty years ago.Hard-hitting prose in the style of Sam Spade and Mike Hammer with a lesbian twist.The First Micky Knight Mystery

Hallowed Murder


Ellen Hart - 1989
    That's when alumnae advisor, Jane Lawless, steps in to find out the truth. Assisted by her irrepressible sidekick Cordelia, Jane searches for clues, and what she finds is as chilling as the Minnesota winter. At a lonely vacation lodge, amidst the icy snow drifts, she risks her life to ensnare a cunning killer.Nominated: 1990 Minnesota Book Award for Best Crime FictionNominated: 1989 Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian MysteryNominated: 1996 Golden Earphones Award (Audio World), Best Unabridged BookWinner: 1996 Golden Earphones Award (Audio World), Best Reader of an unabridged work, Carol Jordan Stewart for her reading of Hallowed Murder

The Seduction of Moxie


Colette Moody - 2009
    New York City, 1931: When wry Broadway actress Violet London and her hard-drinking cohorts venture into a speakeasy the night before she is to board a train for Hollywood, she is floored by sassy blond singer Moxie Valette. As Violet introduces Moxie to an assortment of bootleg liquor, cross-dressers, and sex shows, she vows to find a way to see her again. Moxie is fascinated by Violet in a thrilling and unfamiliar way, and the ensuing evening of bon mots, shameless flirtation, and illicit revelry is unlike anything she has ever experienced. From Manhattan to Los Angeles, both women’s lives are turned upside-down by separation, unscrupulous motion picture studio executives, self-serving agents, eccentric celebrities, and the collection of hedonistic reprobates that are their closest friends.

Easy Nevada and the Pyramid’s Curse


Georgette Kaplan - 2018
    She’ll do anything to get her hands on its untold riches, if she can just get past the deadly traps that protect them.Candice Cushing is an archaeologist born in Sudan and raised in Britain, who is drawn toward the mysterious pyramid that she sees as a piece of her heritage.Farouq Al-Jabbar doesn’t see it as either history or treasure. The zealot has come to destroy anything that smells of blasphemy, and anyone who gets in his way.In this wild adventure, as the stakes ratchet up amid the burning, shifting sands, the women fighting for their lives start to wonder if they’re really so different after all…and if that cursed pyramid has been buried for a reason.Themes: archaeologist · cursed pyramid · fortune hunter · mercenary · mysterious pyramid · wild adventure72,000 words

The Little Death


Michael Nava - 1986
    A burnt-out public defender battling alcoholism, Rios has reached a crossroads in his life. While interviewing Paris in jail, Rios goes through the motions, but notices that Paris is far more polished and well-off than the usual drug suspects. Paris is mysteriously bailed out—but a few weeks later, he turns up on Rios’s doorstep. Skittish and paranoid, he admits to using heroin and says he’s afraid that his wealthy grandfather wants to murder him.Rios tries to help Paris get clean, but when Paris is found dead of an apparent heroin overdose, Rios is the only one who considers foul play. Determined to find Paris’s killer, Rios knocks on San Francisco’s most gilded doors, where he discovers a family tainted by jealousy, greed, and hate. They’ve been warped by a fortune someone’s willing to kill—and kill again—to possess.At once an atmospheric noir mystery and a scathing indictment of a legal system caught in the maws of escalating corruption, The Little Death chronicles one man’s struggle to achieve true justice for all.

Murder at Pirate's Cove


Josh Lanyon - 2020
    So when he learns he's inherited both a failing bookstore and a falling-down mansion in the quaint seaside village of Pirate's Cove on Buck Island, Rhode Island, it's full steam ahead!Sure enough, the village is charming, its residents amusingly eccentric, and widowed police chief Jack Carson is decidedly yummy (though probably as straight as he is stern). However, the bookstore is failing, the mansion is falling down, and there's that little drawback of finding rival bookseller--and head of the unwelcoming-committee--Trevor Maples dead during the annual Buccaneer Days celebration.Still, it could be worse. And once Police Chief Carson learns Trevor was killed with the cutlass hanging over the door of Ellery's bookstore, it is.**This story contains NO on-screen sex or violence.

Conflict of Interest


Jae - 2008
    But their first lecturer is not at all what she expected. Psychologist Dawn Kinsley has just found her place in life. After a failed relationship with a police officer, she has sworn to herself never to get involved with another cop again, but she feels a connection to Aiden from the very first moment. Can Aiden keep from crossing the line when a brutal crime threatens to keep them apart - before they've even gotten together?

Hunter's Way


Gerri Hill - 2005
    But even after having six different partners in seven years, Tori isn't prepared when she's forced to team up with the hot-tempered Samantha Kennedy.Samantha, on the other hand, is trying to juggle a new job, a demanding boyfriend, and now finds herself with an even greater challenge -- being partnered with the most difficult detective in the entire squad.After a brief terrorist scare disrupts their serial killer investigation, the two women find themselves growing closer. Samantha begins to question the relationship with her longtime boyfriend, and Tori, never one to allow anyone to get close, begins to feel her defenses slipping in Sam’s presence.A serial killer and drug deals gone bad; the two detectives struggle with their feelings, trying to maintain their professional relationship while keeping their nearly flammable physical relationship in check.With Hunter’s Way, Gerri Hill masterfully blends suspense and intrigue with her unique style of romance.

After Delores


Sarah Schulman - 1988
    And Sarah Schulman, writing in sharp, immediate, insightful prose, has created a wonderfully modern, totally original heroine.

The Middle of Somewhere


Clifford Henderson - 2009
    Pratt sets out on a road trip in search of a new life and ends up in the middle of somewhere she never expected.Start with one independent, urban lesbian who cashes out her life in San Francisco for a secondhand travel trailer and sets off to the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival in search of a new life. Add to this a broken-down '66 T-bird, a bunch of small-town Texas Baptists, a ton of fried food, and a church scandal. Pepper with a hot love interest and a dash of greed, and what you get is Eadie T. Pratt's road trip gone awry.

The Spanish Pearl


Catherine Friend - 2007
    When Kate Vincent and her partner travel to Spain, Kate is accidentally transported back in time... way back in time... to 1085. What does a woman like Kate do in a world of no antibiotics, no feminism, no Diet Coke? She denies it as long as possible, then sets her mind to getting home. Tricky with her now useless twenty-first century skills. Things don't go well. Kate is captured by a band of mercenary soldiers and becomes an unwitting pawn in the violent conflict between the Catholic kings and the Islamic Moors. In her struggle to stay alive and return to the future, Kate must flee exotic harems, filthy dungeons, and treacherous Moorish courts. But when a sword-brandishing woman with an astonishing secret sweeps into Kate's life, Kate is suddenly torn between two women, and between two centuries. The Spanish Pearl is an epic adventure spiced with humor, lust, and danger—a story with surprising twists that will capture your imagination just as Kate's dilemma captures your heart.

Stoner McTavish


Sarah Dreher - 1985
    From Boston s Beacon Hill to Grand Teton National Park, follow the adventures of Stoner McTavish--lesbian, travel agent, reluctant detective--as she battles villainy, terror, and the elements to save the woman of her dreams.

Fortune Favors the Dead


Stephen Spotswood - 2020
     It's 1942 and Willowjean "Will" Parker is a scrappy circus runaway whose knife-throwing skills have just saved the life of New York's best, and most unorthodox, private investigator, Lillian Pentecost. When the dapper detective summons Will a few days later, she doesn't expect to be offered a life-changing proposition: Lillian's multiple sclerosis means she can't keep up with her old case load alone, so she wants to hire Will to be her right-hand woman. In return, Will will receive a salary, room and board, and training in Lillian's very particular art of investigation.Three years later, Will and Lillian are on the Collins case: Abigail Collins was found bludgeoned to death with a crystal ball following a big, boozy Halloween party at her home--her body slumped in the same chair where her steel magnate husband shot himself the year before. With rumors flying that Abigail was bumped off by the vengeful spirit of her husband (who else could have gotten inside the locked room?), the family has tasked the detectives with finding answers where the police have failed. But that's easier said than done in a case that involves messages from the dead, a seductive spiritualist, and Becca Collins--the beautiful daughter of the deceased, who Will quickly starts falling for. When Will and Becca's relationship dances beyond the professional, Will finds herself in dangerous territory, and discovers she may have become the murderer's next target.A wildly charming and fast-paced mystery written with all the panache of 1940s New York, Fortune Favors the Dead is a fresh homage to Holmes and Watson reads like the best of Dashiell Hammett and introduces an audacious detective duo for the ages.