You Exist Too Much


Zaina Arafat - 2020
    She has exposed her legs in a biblical city, an act they deem forbidden, and their judgement will echo on through her adolescence. When our narrator finally admits to her mother that she is queer, her mother's response only intensifies a sense of shame: "You exist too much," she tells her daughter.Told in vignettes that flash between the U.S. and the Middle East--from New York to Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine--Zaina Arafat's debut novel traces her protagonist's progress from blushing teen to sought-after DJ and aspiring writer. In Brooklyn, she moves into an apartment with her first serious girlfriend and tries to content herself with their comfortable relationship. But soon her longings, so closely hidden during her teenage years, explode out into reckless romantic encounters and obsessions with other people. Her desire to thwart her own destructive impulses will eventually lead her to The Ledge, an unconventional treatment center that identifies her affliction as "love addiction." In this strange, enclosed society she will start to consider the unnerving similarities between her own internal traumas and divisions and those of the places that have formed her.Opening up the fantasies and desires of one young woman caught between cultural, religious, and sexual identities, You Exist Too Much is a captivating story charting two of our most intense longings--for love, and a place to call home.

Lie With Me


Philippe Besson - 2017
    We drive at high speed along back roads, through woods, vineyards, and oat fields. The bike smells like gasoline and makes a lot of noise, and sometimes I’m frightened when the wheels slip on the gravel on the dirt road, but the only thing that matters is that I’m holding on to him, that I’m holding on to him outside.Just outside a hotel in Bordeaux, Philippe chances upon a young man who bears a striking resemblance to his first love. What follows is a look back at the relationship he’s never forgotten, a hidden affair with a gorgeous boy named Thomas during their last year of high school. Without ever acknowledging they know each other in the halls, they steal time to meet in secret, carrying on a passionate, world-altering affair.Dazzlingly rendered in English by Ringwald in her first-ever translation, Besson’s powerfully moving coming-of-age story captures the eroticism and tenderness of first love—and the heartbreaking passage of time.

Starstruck


Harper Logan - 2016
    All her sacrifice is about to pay off when she’s offered her first leading role, but there’s one catch: it’s the lead in the lesbian romance movie Real Love. Amelia’s never so much as looked at another woman, and she can’t help but feel intimidated at the prospect of faking intimacy with a girl. Especially when she finds out who the other star is… Heartthrob Jessica Black is known for her luscious curves, cheesy movies, and flings with actors—not for her acting talent. But the dates are all fake and sometimes she feels her entire life is just a publicity stunt. The only real relationship in her life is the one she has with Cleo—her rescued puppy. Jessica wants to create a film that will make the world a better place. But when she signs up to star in a lesbian romance movie to raise awareness for equality, she faces resistance from her publicist, her agent, and even her own family. And to top it off she seems destined to clash with her feisty, short haired, vintage suit wearing co-star Amelia. When the two decide to work out their scenes with some private rehearsals, their relationship only grows more complicated. “The kiss was supposed to be practice, but it felt real.” As friendship grows between them, it starts to seem like it could be something more. But with pressure from the public, and their own insecurities to work past, their relationship encounters one challenge after the next. Can Amelia and Jessica work through it all to create their own happily ever after?

Some Kind of River


Andi Marquette - 2007
    The updated edition can be found here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17...Rafting guide Dez figures her best friend Mel just isn't into her. She knows Mel is a lesbian, just like she is, but she's never seen a glimmer of interest from her friend, and would never screw up their relationship by making a pass. Luckily for Dez, Mel is a little more determined than she is, and will keep trying to get Dez's attention, even when Dez is truly clueless. When a chance game of truth or dare with their friends leads to a revelation, can Dez admit that she might just be Mel's type?

Alaskan Bride


D. Jordan Redhawk - 2016
    Soon she's on the adventure of her life, leaving the comfort and stability of a well-to-do family for a man she's never met and a life of uncertainty.Callie Glass isn't happy with her brother Jasper's proposal to a mail-order bride, though she knows it's not her call. And when a tragic accident takes Jasper Glass's life, Callie doesn't hesitate to call off the wedding in a letter to Clara. Callie is soon surprised to find a strange woman settling into her cabin, a stranger who had never received news of Jasper's demise.While Callie insists that the other woman should return home, Clara digs in her heels. If Callie can live without a man in this isolated land, why can't she? Both headstrong women struggle in the ashes of their dashed hopes and dreams, slowly coming together to forge an alliance for which neither is prepared.

All Men Want to Know


Nina Bouraoui - 2018
    I cross the Seine, I walk with men and women who are anonymous and yet who are my reflection. We make up a single heart, a single cell. We are alive...'In All Men Naturally Want to Know the author traces her blissful childhood in Algeria, a sun-soaked paradise, recalling long trips across the desert with her mother and sister and hazy summer afternoons spent on the beach with her friend Ali. But Nina's mother is French - moving to Algeria for love at a time when most Europeans were desperate to leave - and as civil war approaches, their sunny idyll gives way to increasingly hostile and violent outbreaks. When something unspeakable happens to her mother, the family flee to Paris.In Paris, Nina lives alone. She is eighteen years old. It's the 1980s. Four nights a week she walks across Paris to a legendary women-only nightclub, the Katmandou. She sits alone at the bar, afraid of her own desires, of her sudden and intoxicating freedom. There she meets the glamorous, deeply troubled Ely, her volatile friends Lizz and Laurence, and the beautiful Julia, with whom she falls desperately in love. And, most importantly, she starts to write.

Eat Your Heart Out


Dayna Ingram - 2011
    Then the strip-mall calm of Nowhere, Ohio, is shattered by the sudden, simultaneous appearance of Renni Ramirez—hyper-competent star of the beloved Rising Evil B-movie franchise—and actual ZOMBIES, leaving Ashbee’s hapless staff and Renni trapped behind an automatic door they can’t lock.Can failed creative-writing student/apprentice store manager/eagle-eyed markswoman Devin escape the besieged furniture store to rescue her girlfriend? Will Renni’s experience slaughtering motion-captured CGI monsters save the day before the army bombs the town? Once bitten, how many zombies can a person expect to take out before succumbing to infection? Who is the mysterious Deus Ex Machina, and what is he doing with that bone saw?All of these questions and more whisper behind the scream of the single most important thing Devin needs to know in order to survive: is Renni a top or a bottom?

Dash and Dingo: In Search of the Tasmanian Tiger


Catt Ford - 2009
    It has been hunted to the edge of extinction, and Henry would love nothing more than to help the rare creature survive.Then a human whirlwind spins through his door. Jack "Dingo" Chambers is also on the hunt for the so-called "Tasmanian Tiger," although his reasons are far more altruistic. Banding together, Dingo and the newly nicknamed Dash travel halfway around the globe in their quest to save the thylacine from becoming a footnote in the pages of biological history.While they search high and low, traverse the wilds, and fight the deadliest of all creatures—man—Dash and Dingo will face danger and discover another fierce passion within themselves: a desire for each other.

Heart of a Wolf


Natalie Brunwick - 2019
    Instead, she experiences almost no pain, has a heightened sense of smell, and more energy than she knows what to do with. Of course, getting back to a normal life would be a lot easier without the ears and tail. Thrown into a world she knows nothing about, Jo will have to prove herself to the other wolves as well as Fallen, the woman who makes her heart race the most. For Fallen, teaching the newly-turned wolf how to hunt and control her shifts is bad enough without their feelings getting involved. Loyal to the Alpha, there isn’t anything Fallen wouldn’t do for her or the pack she leads. She’d even give up her own life if it ever came down to it, but what about her heart? Would she give that up as well? With Jo struggling to find her place within the pack and Fallen doing whatever she can not to give in to her wolf’s lust, can these two women find common ground, or is their bond doomed from the start? Heart of a Wolf is a sweet lesbian romance with werewolves, lust, and a happily ever after.

The Stone of Laughter


Hoda Barakat - 1990
    It is a bold and radical novel, full of black humor and cynical observations about life in war-torn Beirut. In 1990, when it first appeared in Arabic, it was hailed by critics throughout the Arab world as the best novel set against the background of the Lebanese civil war.The fractured narrative is woven around Khalil, a gay man who tried to avoid ideological or military affiliations as he finds himself confronted with the collapse of his civil society. His only contact with the world at large is through his friends at a newspaper, for whom falling bombs meant great stories rather than tragedy and destruction. Khalil struggles to keep himself away from the war but is inevitably drawn in as he realizes that in a city of war, no one can remain neutral.Written sensitively, and without a trace of sentimentality or political propaganda, The Stone of Laughter shook the Arab readers' preconceptions about women's writing and questioned the necessity of political affiliation for Arab authors.

The Price of Temptation


M.J. Pearson - 2005
    Joseph, has a lover he can't afford, a social calendar that's out of control and a libido that rules his life. If he can't gain control of his finances, his social calendar and rid himself of his lover, he will fall into financial ruin. Could the youthful, handsome and dependable Jamie Riley be the solution to his problems?Jamie Riley has a secret that keeps him from accepting the sexual advances of his employer, Stephen Clair, and a past he would like to leave behind. But Stephen Clair is a handsome man who knows how to awaken a passion that Jamie has been trying to suppress, and carries a price that Jamie would rather not pay. But it isn't easy to ignore passion, especially when it's so temptingly close.Julian Jeffries, lover to Stephen Clair, has found a way of living the high life without lifting a finger. It isn't until Julian notices that Stephen has been spending time with his latest employee, Jamie Riley, that he begins to worry about losing everything he'd schemed to have. Now Julian needs to find a way of getting rid of Jamie Riley without raising suspicion. And, as Julian knows, the best way to do that is to dig into Jamie's past and find something to use against him.

Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister


Anne Choma - 2019
    This is her remarkable, true story.Anne Lister was extraordinary. Fearless, charismatic and determined to explore her lesbian sexuality, she forged her own path in a society that had no language to define her. She was a landowner, an industrialist and a prolific diarist, whose output has secured her legacy as one of the most fascinating figures of the 19th century. Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister follows Anne from her crumbling ancestral home in Yorkshire to the glittering courts of Denmark as she resolves to put past heartbreak behind her and find herself a wife. This biographical portrait introduces the real Gentleman Jack, featuring unpublished journal extracts decrypted for the first time by series creator Sally Wainwright and historian Anne Choma.

Nightwood


Djuna Barnes - 1936
    That time is the period between the two World Wars, and Barnes' novel unfolds in the decadent shadows of Europe's great cities, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna—a world in which the boundaries of class, religion, and sexuality are bold but surprisingly porous. The outsized characters who inhabit this world are some of the most memorable in all of fiction—there is Guido Volkbein, the Wandering Jew and son of a self-proclaimed baron; Robin Vote, the American expatriate who marries him and then engages in a series of affairs, first with Nora Flood and then with Jenny Petherbridge, driving all of her lovers to distraction with her passion for wandering alone in the night; and there is Dr. Matthew-Mighty-Grain-of-Salt-Dante-O'Connor, a transvestite and ostensible gynecologist, whose digressive speeches brim with fury, keen insights, and surprising allusions. Barnes' depiction of these characters and their relationships (Nora says, "A man is another person—a woman is yourself, caught as you turn in panic; on her mouth you kiss your own") has made the novel a landmark of feminist and lesbian literature. Most striking of all is Barnes' unparalleled stylistic innovation, which led T. S. Eliot to proclaim the book "so good a novel that only sensibilities trained on poetry can wholly appreciate it." Now with a new preface by Jeanette Winterson, Nightwood still crackles with the same electric charge it had on its first publication in 1936.

Presidential


Lola Keeley - 2020
    Her disastrous first day in her new job puts her on a collision course with the most powerful woman in America, President Calvin. Constance “Connie” Calvin’s first term is proving turbulent thanks to trying to juggle work and life as a widowed single mother to a 12-year-old boy. Running for re-election is imminent, and the critics are gunning for her. Worse, her famed icy cool is in danger of melting in the face of Emily’s passion, commitment, and charm. Admitting the rising sexual tension between the women is just the start. How can they act on it while in the public glare? Giving into temptation comes with such risk. In a world that lives and dies on opinion polls, what will the country make of them? A charged, age-gap, lesbian romance that puts the power in power couple.84,000 words

New Girl on the Street


Donna Jay - 2020
    It’s not just that the curvaceous beauty is up all hours, hauling suitcases in and out of her car. It’s that the mysterious, maddening, probably married woman was her schoolgirl fling from years ago—a girl who blew up her life, then blew out of town without a word.What’s she doing back in town? And what on earth is she up to?Bella McBride can’t believe her life. A job transfer has landed her back home and she’s wound up living next door to the woman who stole her heart as a teenager. Worse, Lisa won’t even give her the time of day—and she can’t really blame her.Life would be so much easier if they just stayed on their own side of the fence. But how can they with the pull of attraction constantly teasing them, and so much left unsaid?A heated, enemies-to-lovers lesbian romance about daring to take a second chance.