Book picks similar to
The Beginning of Everything by Cara Malone


lgbt
historical-fiction
lesbian
historical-romance

Odd Girl Out


Ann Bannon - 1957
    With Odd Girl Out, Bannon introduces Laura Landon, whose love affair with her college roommate Beth launched the lesbian pulp fiction genre.

Whirlwind Romance


Kris Bryant - 2016
    Teaching during the winters and hitting the road during the spring, Tristan has little time for herself, let alone time to have a solid relationship. Rival storm chaser Kate Brighten is just starting out and winds up riding along with Tristan for two weeks. It doesn’t take long for the two to begin a tumultuous love affair on the road. But the road can’t last forever and Kate isn’t everything she seems. Once trust is broken, it’s difficult to rebuild. Can Tristan accept Kate’s secrets? Or will their love be washed away in the spring storms?

The Pirate's Booty


Alex Westmore - 2015
     Quinn soon finds there is much to enjoy living as a man, in particular the company of other women. When she finds herself falling hard for Lady Fiona, a woman far above her own station, she is torn between revealing her true identity and continuing the façade of being a male pirate. Love is never easy, especially in the sixteenth century and especially under false pretenses. Can Quinn live with one foot in two different worlds, or must she consign herself to either the lusty life of a pirate or the loveless life of a noble woman? Come sail the high seas in this exciting and erotic adventure with the fierce pirate Gallagher as your guide. You’re in for a wild ride and may even score some booty along the way.

Renegade


Cheyne Curry - 2009
    The year is 1879, when cattle barons, crooked lawmen, saloons, painted ladies, cowboys and Indians ruled the Wild West, and laws were only as strong as the gunman who upheld them. In Sagebrush, the town and the sheriff belong to the Cranes, who take what they want or bad things happen. Trace finds this out firsthand when she ends up on the land of Rachel Young, a struggling ranch woman who won't give in to the merciless cattle baron and his obsessed son. For some unexplainable reason, Rachel trusts the enigmatic Trace who uses 21st century sensibilities to battle 19th century turmoil, while Trace is forced to keep the secret of her origin from the attractive and vulnerable Rachel. Renegade is a story of redemption in its purest form as Trace discovers what truly matters in life and how past really is prologue.

The Long Way Home


Rachel Spangler - 2010
    James doesn’t know why anyone would want to.Rory St. James was disowned after she came out at seventeen. She rebounded by moving to Chicago, changing her name to Raine and putting down her hometown to audiences around the country. Now, ten years later, too old to be considered a gay youth, broke, evicted, and fresh off a much needed break-up, Raine St. James is forced to accept a job teaching at Bramble University in Darlington, the town she’s been publicly bashing for the last decade.Beth Devoroux was born and raised in Darlington. Despite losing her parents at a young age, she has been nurtured by the people of the town and is well loved by everyone who knows her. She leads a comfortable life with good job at Bramble University, a long-term but closeted relationship, friends that she can count on, and everything she thinks she wants, so why is she so drawn to a rabble-rouser like Raine St. James?Can Raine and Beth face their pasts and come to terms with their differences in order to have any hope for a future together?

Accidental Love


Lydia Rose - 2016
    She decides to take a long vacation and gets in her expensive car and heads south to her friend in Miami. Fate has a different plan for Marnie. She is involved in an accident in Georgia and finds herself roped into representing Tom a seventeen year old accused of murder. Marnie's first instinct is to say no, but then she meets the lovely Leslie Reynolds. Leslie is Tom's stepsister who asks Marnie to represent him. Before Marnie realizes what is happening, she falls for the petite beauty. Unfortunately, she has to go back to NYC and to her life. Trying to keep a long distant relationship afloat especially when Leslie's old girlfriend comes back into the picture. Falling in love is the easy part, but finding a way to be together is the hard part.

Sealed with a Kiss: A Lesbian Love Story (Lesvos Island Collection)


Sam Skyborne - 2020
    

Memoir in the Making


Adrian J. Smith - 2015
    But when Ainsley Jacobs sat in her memoir class with a professor she’d never had before, her life took an unexpected turn. She couldn’t get her well-dressed professor, Meredith Frenz, out of her head.Meredith had lived a lonely yet comfortable life for the past fifteen years, and despite flings here and there, she had no desire to jump head first into a relationship, especially one with her student. Despite all her thwarted efforts, Meredith was determined to keep to herself and push Ainsley away.Forbidden love is often the most attractive.

Wildthorn


Jane Eagland - 2009
    But her dreams become a nightmare when Louisa is sent to Wildthorn Hall: labeled a lunatic, deprived of her liberty and even her real name. As she unravels the betrayals that led to her incarceration, she realizes there are many kinds of prison. She must be honest with herself - and others - in order to be set free. And love may be the key...

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.

Conscious Bias


Alexi Venice - 2019
    Monica is shocked when her bosses at her all-male law firm warn her not to cross the powerful McKnight family.Facing death threats and career-ending consequences, Monica must decide whether to expose the truth in a bigoted environment. In her personal life, Monica joins a CrossFit box to work off stress. During class, she meets Shelby St. Claire, a high school art teacher. For the first time in her career, Monica considers coming out of the closet for Shelby.

Mrs. Martin’s Incomparable Adventure


Courtney Milan - 2019
    Bertrice Martin—a widow, some seventy-three years young—has kept her youthful-ish appearance with the most powerful of home remedies: daily doses of spite, regular baths in man-tears, and refusing to give so much as a single damn about her Terrible Nephew. Then proper, correct Miss Violetta Beauchamps, a sprightly young thing of nine and sixty, crashes into her life. The Terrible Nephew is living in her rooming house, and Violetta wants him gone. Mrs. Martin isn’t about to start giving damns, not even for someone as intriguing as Miss Violetta. But she hatches another plan—to make her nephew sorry, to make Miss Violetta smile, and to have the finest adventure of all time. If she makes Terrible Men angry and wins the hand of a lovely lady in the process? Those are just added bonuses. Author’s Note: Sometimes I write villains who are subtle and nuanced. This is not one of those times. The Terrible Nephew is terrible, and terrible things happen to him. Sometime villains really are bad and wrong, and sometimes, we want them to suffer a lot of consequences.

Traitors of the Black Crown


Cate Pearce - 2021
    A Knight. A Duchess. A Queen.Raena Schinen narrowly escaped when the Queen’s guard murdered her entire family. If Raena’s survival is exposed, she’ll be next. For fifteen years Raena has hidden as a male Knight, “Sir Rowan”, consumed by her vengeful desire to assassinate the Queen. The moment Raena is close enough to exact her revenge, she is unexpectedly exiled to a foreign land. There she serves the common-born Duchess Aven Colby, whose suspicious kinship with the Queen further threatens Raena’s delicate secrets.Just as they become united in a common goal to curb a looming invasion, unexpected heat and romance blossoms between “Sir Rowan” and Aven. The peril demands they set out on a journey to form clandestine political alliances, risking the Queen’s wrath, and drawing Raena and Aven closer together.But no one in the kingdom could have imagined the sinister foe rising from below the surface. In order to save themselves and those they love, Raena, Aven, and the Queen must recognize who are the oppressors and who will unite against the Black Crown.

Galveston 1900: Swept Away


Linda Crist - 2005
    This story is a fictional account of Mattie and Rachel, two women who lived there, and their lives in the months leading up to and during the time of the "great storm."Forced to flee from her family at a young age, Rachel Travis finds a home and livelihood on the island of Galveston. Independent, friendly, and yet often lonely, only one other person knows the dark secret that haunts her. That is until she meets Madeline Crockett.Madeline "Mattie" Crockett is trapped in a loveless marriage, convinced that her fate is sealed. She never dares to dream of true happiness, until Rachel Travis comes walking into her life. As emotions come to light, the storm of Mattie's marriage converges with the very real hurricane. Can they survive, and build the life they both dream of?