Book picks similar to
What Memories are Made of by Diana Jayne


lesbian-romance
romance
setting-new-zealand
f-f

The Burden of Happiness


L. Dreamer - 2021
    She would rather go through life with minimal interaction than learn to open up and trust others; keeping her emotional scars in the front of her mind so she won’t get hurt. When a visit back to her hometown doesn’t bring the answers or closure she’s yearned for, she wonders if she’ll ever be made whole again.While in town Sarah meets Kate, a professor at the local community college. The instant connection she feels with Kate confuses and scares her, but it also gives her a glimpse of a life she wished she could have. Will Sarah finally find it within herself to conquer her fears and pursue the life she’s always wanted but thought she could never have?Content warning: This novel deals with alcoholism and references a suicide, an abortion and a rape. They all occur off-page and are only mentioned as backstory with no graphic detail.

Twist of Fate


Raven Cavaleu - 2021
    

Close to Home


Rachel Spangler - 2017
    Everything is precisely as it should be. Well, it is until her father suffers a debilitating stroke during the busiest time of her year—tax season. Suddenly, Kelly finds herself overworked, exhausted, behind schedule, and forced to hire an intern to meet her deadlines.Elliot Garza is young and brash, but she's also a talented accounting student who is charismatic, driven, and solely focused on completing her internship so she can escape from the bleak Midwestern town to Washington, DC and her dream job. She knows she has the professional skills necessary to do the job well, but she is less certain about her ability to handle her beautiful, prickly, demanding, and compelling new boss.In this fresh new romance from one of the genre's top young authors, will Kelly's past and Elliot's future add up to something greater than the sum of their escalating attraction, or will the answer to their equation end up hitting too close to home?Rachel Spangler is the author of ten lesbian romance novels and novellas and the winner of two Golden Crown Literary Society Awards. She pens the popular blog, Wonder Boi Writes, and lives with her wife and son in Western New York.

A Trick of Light


Michele L. Rivera - 2019
    Madison is a talented but struggling artist who can never seem to live up to anyone’s expectations. On the evening of an exceptionally bad heartbreak, she does something reckless, and now she is haunted by the events of that fateful night. Unable to forgive herself for fleeing the scene of an accident, Madison is convinced that she’s unworthy of love.Spencer’s epilepsy makes her a prisoner in her own body. After surviving a seizure-induced car crash, she’s determined to make the most of her new lease on life. With some encouragement, she enters the dating scene, but rules out finding love, believing that no one will be able to see beyond her limitations. Madison has a dark secret. Spencer carries a burden. When they happen to meet, their connection is instant but oddly familiar. As these two women begin to discover that their demons tie them together, will the truth bring them closer, or stop a romance before it even starts?

Accidental Honeymoon


Miranda MacLeod - 2020
    Could things get any worse?All Ray wants is to finish her job and say adios to the world’s most high-maintenance client. But after being mistaken for Monica’s girlfriend, how can Ray walk away when going along with the charade would grant an old lady her dying wish? It’s not like Ray intended to be so charming that Monica’s grandmother would rewrite her will.Now the unlikely couple stands to inherit a vineyard in rural New England and a heap of cash large enough to change both their lives. The only hitch? They have to get hitched. And since Monica is a professional wedding blogger, they’ll have to make it the wedding of the century while convincing two million followers they’re madly in love.No problem, aside from the simple fact that they can’t stand each other. There’s a good chance the whole thing could end in disaster, but is it possible these enemies might find true love along the way?

Good Composition


Lily Seabrooke - 2020
    An unsatisfying job, a relationship gone south, she’s heading nowhere fast—until she sends one little text to an old best friend, estranged with time.But bringing Aubrey back into her life changes everything for Erin, as the last things holding her relationship together fall apart. With nothing left to lose, what’s stopping her from leaving home, crossing the country and staying with Aubrey instead?In the middle of struggles with her self-image, with health and with work trying to start a new life starting from scratch, she finds herself falling into something unfamiliar—she never thought she might be a lesbian, but before long, her best friend starts to feel like maybe more than a friend.Good Composition is a 50k-word low-angst friends-to-lovers romance. Content warning for an emotionally abusive relationship, hospitalization, an eating disorder, open-door sex scenes and Britney—just Britney. Pick it up for a lighthearted, fluffy and easy read that feels like a shippy fanfiction or a teenage romantic daydream!

The Fake Game


Kim Hartfield - 2020
    But the best thing about her job is Marie. The publicist is kind and supportive, not to mention drop-dead gorgeous, and Tabby is flattered to be able to call her a friend. When the two run into Tabby's asshole ex, they pretend to be dating as revenge. It's just a silly game - until he gets hired at their publishing company. Now the friends have to decide if they should quit their game. If they continue, they'll be playing to win. But what if the prize is more than either of them could imagine?

Detour to Love


Amanda Radley - 2021
    She’ll make the trip, but she doesn’t have to like it, and she certainly doesn’t have to make nice with a stranger on a plane.Artist Lily Andersen is excited to finally meet her online crush, the only person in the world who truly gets her. She just needs to survive the eleven-hour flight from London to Japan with a testy seatmate who by turns annoys and fascinates her.Fate, upgrades, and a troupe of travelling clowns bring them together for a journey memorable for all the wrong reasons. Not only do they have nothing in common, they really can’t stand each other. But people are not always as they seem, and Celia and Lily are about to realise, there’s more than one path to love.Cover Artist: Tammy SeidickGenresContemporary / Romance

Touch


Kris Bryant - 2018
    Hayley Sims is the best in her field. It’s exactly why she’s just been assigned her most challenging patient yet, hockey player Elizabeth Stone. Not because Stone’s injury is complicated, but because she is intense to work with and needs someone to keep her in check. When Hayley’s personal life starts unraveling and she realizes she might be developing feelings for her patient, she’s torn between finishing her assignment and walking away to protect herself. Can Hayley get Stone back on the ice in one piece while keeping her heart from breaking?Cover Artist: Sheri HalalGenres: Contemporary / Romance

Good Spin


Monica McCallan - 2019
    Not because she needs a girlfriend, but because she needs an easier way to come out to college friends that she hasn’t seen in five years. Her job is about controlling the narrative, and as she sees it, there's no reason why that can't extend to her personal life. When her next door neighbor ends up single a few weeks before the wedding, problem solver Emery realizes inviting Jordan along and faking romance for a week in Hawaii could be perfect for both of them. Jordan Davis doesn’t worry about much, especially what will happen tomorrow. Life’s too short to plan every second, and it usually doesn’t work out anyway. When Emery invites her on an all-expenses paid trip to Hawaii, it’s not a hard sell. She’ll get to enjoy a tropical vacation with one of her closest friends, and she’ll get to spend more time with Emery, away from Emery’s hectic work schedule back in Austin. But, there’s more to the request than Emery’s letting on, and there’s more to Jordan’s willingness to help than she wants to admit. It’s only eight days, but time passes differently when there’s nowhere to be and nowhere to hide. Faking it is all about the spin, but when lines begin to blur, both women have to decide if falling in love for real is worth the jump.

The Woman in 3B


Eliza Lentzski - 2020
    Spill a drink on an airline passenger and be one square closer to winning the company’s secret bingo card game. Twenty-five different challenges, at various levels of difficulty, had to be accomplished within a month’s time. After nearly eight years of being a flight attendant, Alice Kaminski had spilled drinks on plenty of passengers, mostly on accident and during rough air. She didn’t particularly like the idea of the bingo card, but she had massive student debt; the financial incentives were enough to make her momentarily forget the questionable ethics of it all. The challenge was supposed to be simple—that is, until Alice saw her intended target—the beautiful woman seated in 3B. And after that, nothing was simple ever again.

The Club Revisited


A.L. Brooks - 2021
    The rules are the same but the players have changed. Mandy still runs her unique nightclub. These days she’s ready to bring love and passion back into her own life, but finding it? Well, maybe the universe has a sense of humour. Lindsey has come out late in life and is looking for a confidence boost, and a club regular is only too happy to help her out. Caitlin would love to test her limits after being shamed by an ex for her desires. Jody thinks no one will want to be intimate with her again after a tragic accident left her body forever changed. Her best friend Kris has other ideas. Joanna and Suzanne have been together for years. They’re still in love but something’s missing. Maybe The Club can help add some zest to the bedroom? Laura has overcome most of her grief from losing her wife, but wonders if she still has it in her to be intimate with someone.Whatever they need, they can find. Anonymity, sweetness, sexiness, and unexpected opportunities abound at The Club, as Mandy watches over them all.

Just Friends


Mia Archer - 2016
    Spend a couple years running her hometown library, get job experience, then get the hell out of Small Town, USA. The last thing she expected was to meet someone like Savannah. Savannah loved life in the small town slow lane, even if it meant hiding who she really was. She was content until she met Kirsten and remembered what was missing in her life. Girl meets girl and everything is perfect. Almost. Sort of. Except for the part where they have to keep their budding relationship secret because Kirsten is worried about getting fired and Savannah never told her mother that she was into girls. Oops. To the world they might be just friends, but they'll have to stand up to prejudice and their own fears if they want their girl meets girl story to have a happy ending!

Elodie


Emma Nichols - 2021
    Money, power, women. As the owner of a prestigious winery in France, she enjoys freedom on levels most people only dream about. She’s built a perfect life and is happy sharing it with no one. But when a travelling stranger drops into her world, Elodie is forced to reassess everything she thinks she knows about the way she lives.On the back of a bitter divorce, Kaye Sykes is wandering the world, trying to find somewhere new to put down roots. After a controlling, abusive marriage, she’s taking the time to concentrate on herself and the last thing she’s looking for is a relationship. When she volunteers to pick grapes at a vineyard, Kaye meets the charming, beautiful, and enigmatic Elodie: surely the perfect choice for a little holiday, no-strings fun.What begins as an instant and powerful sexual attraction soon becomes so much more, and both women try to fight it for very different reasons.Will Elodie be strong enough to face the demons of her past so that she can embrace the true love of her future?Dive into this sensual lesbian romance from international bestselling lesbian fiction author Emma Nichols.

Atramentum


M.J. Duncan - 2016
    Burned out on public accounting after too many sixteen-hour days, the allure of operating a small, independent bookstore is too tempting to resist, and Joss decides to walk away from the career she spent the last decade building to move back to the resort town high in the Rockies. Cupid strikes as she’s moving into her new place outside Sky and, contrary to popular belief, Cupid has four legs and a tail, hits like a linebacker, and answers to the name George. Before Joss can recover from being tackled by the Great Dane, she finds herself face to face with George's mom, Maeve Dylan. Joss is immediately smitten with her beautiful neighbor, but their conversations walk the line between friendliness and flirtation like it’s a tightrope, and Joss is reluctant to do anything that will risk their budding friendship. Thankfully for her, however, George doesn't give up so easily.