Book picks similar to
The Fifth Stage by Margaret A. Helms


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lesbian
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The Road to Wings


Julie Tizard - 2017
    She has to face thunderstorms, the death of friends, and male instructors who want to wash her out. Captain Kathryn Hardesty is the toughest and best instructor pilot on the base and the chief of flight safety. She’s demanding because she knows the price of failure is tragedy and a smoking hole. She looks out for all the students, especially the female ones. Casey has to learn to fly a supersonic jet, not get killed in the process, and face a growing forbidden attraction. Can she muster the intelligence, courage, and unbreakable determination to become an air force pilot? Does she have what it takes to earn wings, find love, and not crash and burn?

Always Faithful


Isabella - 2010
    She is left alone to wonder why she and she alone. Survivor's guilt has nothing on the young Major as she is forced to deal with the scars, both physical and mental, left from her ordeal overseas. Before the accident, she couldn't think of doing anything else in her life. In fact, she even had sacrificed love for service, but now she questions the very ideals she once believed in. Was it worth it? Sent Stateside to recover, she finds herself at the Marine Corps base in California where her new job is to inform families of a loved one's death. One of the "informs" will change her life forever. Claire Monroe is your average military wife, with a loving husband and a little girl. She is used to the time apart from her husband. In fact, it was one of the reasons she married him. Then, one day, her life is turned upside down when she gets a visit from the Marine Corps. She finds herself losing a husband but awakening a long-gone side of herself she never thought she would see again. Is she being disrespectful to the memory of her recently dead husband or is she finally being true to who she really is? Can these two women come to terms with the past and finally find happiness, or will their shared sense of honor keep them apart?

Reluctant Hope


Erin Dutton - 2011
    Brooke is attracted to Addison, but that’s as far as she is willing to let it go. She doesn’t want to get involved, especially not with someone whose future is uncertain. But spending time together while working on a project to raise money and awareness for cancer research has them both questioning their convictions.Can Brooke and Addison find hope for love, even against their will?

Not Single Enough


Grace Lennox - 2007
    A funny, sexy modern romance about two lonely women who bond over the unexpected and fall in love despite their determination to do the opposite.Giselle was having a ero week, in fact, she was having a ero life. Her ex had finally copped to the affair she’d been having for months and they’d broken up, Giselle had just watched an idiot get the promotion she wanted at work, and her mother had showed up for lunch with a gigolo she is set to marry.Life gets even more complicated when, after drowning her sorrows at her local bar, Giselle finds a newborn baby in a dumpster a block from her house and decides to keep it. Two days later, after she’s being calling in sick to work, her best friend Sandy visits, only to discover a fridge full of baby formula and Giselle reading a book on motherhood.Sandy has to act but she doesn't want to get Giselle in trouble, so she gets in touch with a friend who can deal with the situation, Detective Dale Porter. Dale has heard it all before. Nothing surprises her and she has no problem with the idea of picking up a dumpster baby, no questions asked, from a rescuer who got “carried away.” Only, Giselle seems so distressed when the baby is taken, avowedly single Dale finds herself wanting to make it up to her.

Brilliant


Ann Roberts - 2007
    What happens when two strong willed women meet and are forced to find common ground?Respected sociology professor Diane Cole has written the book on love. Every matter of the heart is neatly explained, and Diane’s life spins in a smooth circle. At her fortieth birthday party a beautiful young stranger named Ronnie Frost surprises her with a kiss, and the predictable story that is Diane’s life is complicated further when Ronnie appears in one of her classes.Diane finds her views on love challenged by her own heart, as she fights the attraction she feels for a woman half her age, a woman who is brilliant in every way.

Hotel Liaison


J. Lee Meyer - 2008
    Laurel Hoffman, an associate professor of women's studies in Berkeley, struggles to stay on track for tenure while caught up in the last throes of a crumbling relationship with a senior colleague. When she hears of a hotel being renovated and a secret room full of papers about women who once stayed there, she knows she has a potential career-saving article. Stefanie Beresford, the hotel owner, is not exactly receptive when Laurel approaches her about researching the hotel’s history, but that doesn't stop her from flirting with the alluring academic. She doesn't need the distraction, but for the first time in her life she wants to take a chance on more than a fleeting encounter. While Laurel can't deny her powerful feelings for Stefanie, she fears she's risking her heart as well as her future if she acts on her desires. But can a simple encounter between two rational adults really be all that dangerous?

Outsiders


Lynn Ames - 2009
    Meagher and Susan Smith, all together under the same cover with the aim to satisfy your every literary taste. This incredible combination offers something for everyone — a smorgasbord of fiction unlike anything you’ll find anywhere else.A Native American raised on the Reservation ventures outside the comfort and familiarity of her own world to help a lost soul embrace the gifts that set her apart.A reluctantly wealthy woman uses all of her resources anonymously to help those who cannot help themselves.Three individuals, three aspects of the self, combine to create balance and harmony at last for a popular trio of characters.Two nomadic women from very different walks of life discover common ground — and a lot more — during a blackout in New York City.A traditional, old school butch must confront her community and her own belief system when she falls for a much younger transman.Five authors — five novellas. Outsiders — one remarkable book.

Beneath the Willow


Kenna White - 2006
    Paris DeMont lost her beloved Gabriella to the mindless tragedy of Nine Eleven, she lost more than her partner of eight years. She lost her will to love. A successful cardiologist to New York City's elite, Paris now lives a sterile emotionless existence on Manhattan's Upper East Side. But Paris finds out that even when one tries to give up on life, life has a way of interfering and forcing you to live it. When Paris returns to Banyon, Missouri to oversee the repairs to the aging Victorian farmhouse she inherited from her grandmother, the protective barrier she has wrapped around her heart is tested to the limit. Childhood friend Sloan McKinley still carries a torch for Paris… A torch that even after twenty-five years still burns brightly and threatens to consume them both if only Paris will let it.

Rescue Me


Julie Cannon - 2011
    Stupid idea, but simple. She'd done it a dozen times before.Kristin Walker, doesn't want to go on this trip, be the perfect hostess, or be the boss's wife anymore, but finds herself trapped in all three.When an unexpected turn of events transforms their three days in paradise into a fight for survival, both women struggle against the odds and their own fears. However, the biggest challenge is their growing attraction toward each other and the question of who will rescue whom?

The Killing Ground


Syd Parker - 2012
    His victims have nothing in common except being pregnant. Detective Rebecca Foxx of the Chicago Detective Division has her hands full trying to catch the murderer before he kills again. She has enough pressure without the overbearing FBI butting in.FBI Special Agent Jordan Gray isn’t sure what she is in for when a midnight call brings her to her boss’s office. She asks her to take an assignment off the records. Investigate the attack of her partner, but don’t let anyone outside her office know.It soon becomes obvious that Rebecca resents the FBI’s intrusion and it seems Jordan’s personal attention. With no breaks in the case, she is forced to accept the FBI’s help, but she’ll be damned if she is taking anything else from Jordan.What follows is a series of missteps and twists and turns that leaves both women wondering if they will ever catch the killer and trying to figure out how to keep their feelings for each other from becoming a distraction.

First


Kim Pritekel - 2006
    She lives well and is happy with her partner, Rebecca. All of that changes with a simple phone call from her brother. Beth Sayers was Emily's best friend from the time they were children until the day Beth left Emily stunned, confused, and alone in a college dorm room ten years later. Emily must delve back into her past and into a friendship that had fallen apart, taking her love and trust with it.

October's Promise


Marianne Garver - 2009
    But she does just that. The urban comforts of New York quickly seem light years away when her journey is hampered by cars that won’t start, locks that won’t turn and a strange dog that has decided that Libby would be the perfect owner.Quinn Barnett is in no mood for damsels in distress. Her reasons for partaking of New England’s fall colors are deeply personal and painful. She’s promised to do one thing on this trip, and falling in love isn’t it. Once her mission is accomplished she’s moving on—if only she can start some cars, unlock some doors and get that bothersome stray to leave her alone. The golden shores of a beautiful New England lake and the glory of October’s sunsets should create the perfect stage for falling in love, unless two stubborn women decide to keep the wrong promises.Bella Books proudly presents this refreshing, new voice in lesbian romance! Marianne Garver’s charming first novel features an unforgettable Cupid in a setting readers will wish they could find on a map. Editor: Katherine V. ForrestCover Designer: Linda CallaghanGenre: RomanceWinner, Golden Crown Literary Award.

Private Dancer


T.J. Vertigo - 2006
    Reece Corbett grew up on the mean streets of New York City; abused, used, and in trouble with the law. A mysterious man named Frank stepped in, pulled Reece from despair and saved her life. The obstinant, angry street thug eventually earned respect and makes a name for herself, not to mention a "reputation" despite the demons that still haunt her. When Frank dies suddenly, he leaves her his business, a Gentleman's Club called "The Lounge," which may be the only thing she takes pride in. That, and protecting her "girls," especially one freaky little dancer with a heart of gold named Cori the unspoken friend, ally and confidante of one Reece Corbett. Faith Ashford grew up wealthy with all the creature comforts that wealth provides. Country Clubs, a house in the Hampton's, and debutante balls with white gloves, taffeta and gardenias. There was one difference though, Faith wasn't like the other spoiled rich girls, she had no desire to follow those rather shallow footsteps, instead, she wished to follow her own dreams wherever they may lead her and those dreams lead the aspiring actress into a tenement in New York's Alphabet City, working the night shift in a rather seedy Lower East Side bar whose denizens, a sea of oddities, freaks, and frat boys that call themselves customers. Then one night an exotic dancer with electric blue hair wonders into Faith's bar. Cori of the myriad piercings and tattoos has no idea, but she would become the blonde's ultimate salvation in her moment of desperation, just as Frank was for Reece. Faith needed a break, she needed a change, and bartending at The Lounge would at least afford her something new, more new than she could possibly imagine in fact, a tall drink of water by the name of Reece Corbett who in turn had been looking for "this woman" all her life.

A Call Away


K.C. Richardson - 2018
    She has questions about her grandparents that she hopes to find the answers to while preparing the farm to sell. Abigail Price, a neighbor of Syd’s grandmother, has lived on her grandmother’s farm in Iowa for most of her life, leaving only to promote her latest novel. In helping Syd find the answers she’s looking for, they develop a mutual attraction and deeper feelings for each other.Syd has to return to her life in Chicago, but will Abby stay in Iowa, or will she give the big city, and love, a chance?Cover Artist: Sheri HalalGenres: Contemporary / Romance

Dream Lover


Lyn Denison - 1997
    Moaning softly, she was drawn into a wonderful warmth. A strong arm came around her, firm fingers splayed over her back, and she begged for the softness to cover her, to meld with her, to make her whole... Jo couldn't remember when the dreams began, but they always ended the same way - with her desperately reaching out for something just beyond her grasp. The dreams could easily be a metaphor for her own unfulfilled existence. Having given up all hope of love and happiness long ago, Jo now seeks only escape from the scattered remnants of failed marriage and the dreadful apathy that seems to engulf her more and more each day. On an extended vacation, she hopes that a change of scenery will help her get on with her life. But never in her wildest dreams did she imagine that a chance meeting with an attractive stranger would lead to her first taste of real passion - on the lips of a woman with the strength and the desire to make all her dreams come true.