Book picks similar to
Charity by Paulette Callen


historical-fiction
historical
mystery
lgbt

Innocent Hearts


Radclyffe - 2005
    She doesn't know what she wants, or who, until she moves with her family to the wild Montana Territory of the 1860's. Just eighteen and quietly struggling against the social constraints of the era, Kate meets a woman who fires first her imagination, and then her dreams. Jessie Forbes, a fiercely independent but touchingly tender rancher, finds in Kate the passion she had unknowingly sought all her life.This is the story of their struggle to love in a land and time as cruel as it was beautiful.

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.

Firefly


Whitney Hamilton - 2004
    After losing everyone but her sister and surviving the Great Fire of 1861. Grace found herself in the uniform of her dead Confederate brother, Henry, her sister donning the gray of their little brother, Will. Both fought at Antietam but only one survived.After the war Grace, still living her life as Henry, tries to find work during spring planting near Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Henry finds himself on a farm owned by a blind widow, Virginia Klaising. As Henry's secret becomes harder to conceal the two realize they have something precious - an unspoken candor that reveals the soul.

The Lavender List


Meg Harrington - 2016
    The one bright spot is her friendship with the charming Laura Wright, a well-heeled woman with a mysterious war-related past.When Laura shows up outside the diner barely conscious and spitting lousy lies, Amelia takes it upon herself to figure out the truth. From mobsters to spies, Amelia quickly finds herself forced back into a world of shadows she thought she’d escaped long ago and thrust into partnership with the one person she’s sure can ruin her—the enigmatic Laura Wright.

Juliana


Vanda - 2016
    Alice “Al” Huffman and her childhood friends are fresh off the potato farms of Long Island and bound for Broadway. Al’s plans for stage success are abruptly put on hold when she’s told she has no talent. As she gets a job to pay for acting classes, Al settles into a normal life with her friends and a boyfriend. It all changes when she meets Juliana.A singer on the brink of stardom, Juliana is everything Al isn’t: glamorous, talented, and queer. The farm girl is quickly enthralled, experiencing thoughts and feelings she never realized were possible. Al finds herself slipping between two worlds: the gay underground and the “normal” world of her childhood friends. It’s a balancing act she can handle until the two worlds begin to collideIn a city bursting with change, can Alice find what she was looking for all along?Juliana: Volume 1: 1941-1944 is a captivating work of LGBT historical romance. If you like extensively researched settings, spell-binding storytelling, and characters you can’t help but fall for, then you’ll love the first book in award-winning playwright Vanda’s new Juliana series.Buy Juliana to discover a sexy, funny, and deadly serious world today!

Mask of the Highwaywoman


Niamh Murphy - 2012
    In spite of Evelyn’s terror, she is intrigued by the leader of the gang, a beautiful Highwaywoman called Bess. Increasingly entranced by Bess and the prospect of adventure, Evelyn puts up little resistance when she is kidnapped. However, she begins to suspect there is a lot more to her captor than she initially thought and what started as a light-hearted escapade rapidly turns into a desperate escape and a frantic struggle for survival.Niamh Murphy’s debut novel is not just a swashbuckling lesbian romance, but also a gripping tale of love and betrayal.

Beguiled


Paisley Smith - 2010
    Now she has little help to manage her vast Georgia plantation. And when the Union Army leaves a brash Yankee Zouave behind, Isabelle is inexplicably moved to nurse this gravely wounded, startlingly beguiling soldier. Alice O’Malley wants nothing more than to recover from her injuries, don her male attire, and rejoin the Federal Army. After the alluring Southern Belle discovers her true identity, their clash of wills soon transforms into passion-filled nights in each other’s arms. But Alice has been in love with a woman before, and fears risking everything for her enemy lover. As war returns to Isabelle’s doorstep, both women discover the wounds of the heart are far more vital to heal than the wounds of the flesh.

In the Company of Women


Kate Christie - 2015
    Caroline “CJ” Jamieson gave up studying history and joined the Women’s Army Corps to live it instead. Along with her new WAC friends, she is ready to do her part to help boys like her brothers, fighting in the European and Pacific theaters, make it home sooner.The Army, however, has derailed her plans. Instead of the California post she anticipated, west Texas cacti and an artillery training base are the unexpected sights on her new horizons. Not one to question orders, she’s not sure how her skills in airplane engine maintenance will be of use in this desolate region.But when CJ meets fellow WAC enlistee Brady Buchanan, Fort Bliss might live up to its name.

Violet


Lily Hammond - 2017
    If there is anything she feels is lacking - well there is always time for that later. She's content, even if she hasn't found the right woman yet. That's what she thinks, until she's knocked unconscious. Fran wakes up in a life straight out of the past; it's early in the 20th century - a completely different world for her to navigate. With no bearings set, she's whisked off to the coast as companion to a troubled cousin Violet, not knowing if she can trust this artistic and passionate woman, whose love for life is breaking. Stranded in this old world, Fran must come to terms with being the same person in a different time, and build a life she can accept. But it's 1916, there's Violet, and there's one big question - could love be what life's all about?

Her Elysium


Emmy Engberts - 2018
    Online, she’s the great AlexTheDestroyer, leader of one of the biggest raiding guilds in Destruction of Elysium, a max level tank who kicks monster ass and she knows her way around every dungeon. In real life, she’s just Alex, a clumsy girl who’s hyper and too impulsive.Until she meets a healer who seems to be able to heal more than just her online character. Only, Alex can’t fall for her. The guild desperately needs a new healer, or they’ll lose their top rank.Can she risk the fate of the guild just to confess to the one girl who really seems to get her?Fleur is a girly-girl who loves flowers, dresses and being a healer in her favourite MMORPG.But in this online world, like in real life, she feels like she’s only playing a role, never truly herself.That is until she meets a tank who seems to match her play style perfectly. She’s curious but also a little wary.Can she really trust someone she met in a videogame?When Alex and Fleur meet offline at the yearly guild meeting, everything they ever knew starts to shift...

Silver Wings


H.P. Munro - 2013
    Her love of flying leads her to join the Womens Airforce Service Pilots, determined to regain her passion and spread her wings, not suspecting that she would experience more than just flying.Helen Richmond, a Hollywood stunt pilot, has never experienced a love that lifted her as high as the aircraft she flew…until she meets Lily.Both women join the W.A.S.P. program to serve their country and instead find that they are on a collision course towards each other, but can it last?

Backwards to Oregon


Jae - 2007
    She accepted that she would spend her life alone when she chose to live her life disguised as a man. After working in a brothel for three years, Nora Macauley has lost all illusions about love. She no longer hopes for a man who will sweep her off her feet and take her away to begin a new, respectable life. But now they find themselves married and on the way to Oregon in a covered wagon, with two thousand miles ahead of them.

Ghosts of Winter


Rebecca S. Buck - 2011
    But Winter Manor is not entirely at rest. The echoes of its past reach forward into the present, and Ros’s life is perceptibly shaped by the lives—and loves—of the people who inhabited those rooms and corridors in the centuries before her.Then Anna arrives. The architect—with her designer clothes, hot car, and air of supreme professionalism—is at first an unwelcome, if necessary, intrusion. But as Ros learns Anna’s truths, she finds solace from her past losses in their developing intimacy. And when their love is threatened, Ros must decide whether her own ghosts will forever define her, or if she can embrace her life for what it is—past, present, and future.

Finding Home


Jamey Moody - 2020
    She’s out of shape and tired of being alone. When she takes a tour of a fitness center, she had no idea how much she would gain while trying to lose.Frankie Dean and her two best friends own Your Way, a place where fitness means more than improving your body. Can Frankie lead Olivia through this journey to repair her self-image and discover her self-worth? And will Olivia give Frankie something she didn’t know she’d lost. This is the first novel in the Your Way series. Each are standalone but, you may see familiar faces and old friends.

Neither Present Time


Caren J. Werlinger - 2013
    She has a long-term relationship and a job she likes as a university librarian. Her life seems settled, content – except nothing is as it seems. Aggie Bishop's last girlfriend left her three years ago and she hasn't had a date since. Her life now revolves around work and taking care of her great-aunt Cory who doesn't want to be taken care of. Aunt Cory still lives in the run-down mansion that the rest of the family wants to sell if they can only get the old lady into a nursing home. Aggie is all that stands between them and her great-aunt. When Beryl finds a book with a romantic inscription dated 1945, the events that follow will change the lives of all three women forever. Spanning decades, this enchanting tale reminds us that some loves never fade and that sometimes, home truly is where the heart lies.80,500 words