Book picks similar to
The Raid by Lee Lynch


glbt-fiction
historical
lesbian
lgbtqia-fiction

Inner Secrets


Suzie Carr - 2011
    She's a lesbian. In a moment of weakness, she gets caught in a love affair. Now, she must start all over as a divorced woman with little clue how to navigate the complex world of being single. Along this new path, she gets tangled up in a web of euphoric highs and lows that test her character, friendships, and future. As Hope struggles to preserve what's left of her integrity, what ensues is a dance between right and wrong and truth and forgiveness. This book beats a tantric rhythm as it explores romance, sexuality, women in love, bisexuality, and infidelity.

Game of Hearts


Jea Hawkins - 2017
     The last thing Tori wants is to live her life by anyone else’s rules but her own. Ever since she left the world of country clubs and debutante balls behind, she has lived free of the standards imposed by others. But something is missing… …and that something is Madeleine, a carefree grad student from the same upper class social circles. The attraction is unexpected and, to Tori’s surprise, more liberating than the life she has cultivated for herself. Piece by piece, Madeleine takes down the wall that conflict and heartbreak have built around Tori’s emotions. Is loving Madeleine the key to Tori’s healing and happiness? And is Tori willing to step back into that world, even just a little, to take a chance on a love that could last?

Love, Lust, and Other Mistakes


Eliza Lentzski - 2012
    Meet ten women and their sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, but always erotic, journey through love, lust, and other mistakes.

The One: A Short Story


K.C. Luck - 2018
     Someone with the same habits, the same hobbies, the same interests. She wants The One. And she will do anything to find her. If you like a quick, little read with a touch of romance, a touch of spooky, then you will love KC Luck’s page-turning short story. Note: This is a short story and includes strong female characters in a lesbian relationship.

The Art of Growing


Jacqueline Ramsden - 2021
    She owns a landscaping business, she tends her plants, lives alone, and secretly crushes on her favorite nonbinary garden center employee, Polly. Between anxiety and modesty, Sloane's never planning on telling Polly she likes them. She'll just be admiring from afar while she deals with her demanding family and fulfills her sister’s order.Polly Stanwick loves people. She has the best time working at Blooms, talking to customers, hanging out with the kids, and generally being a ray of sunshine. When they hear their regular, Sloane Abbott, is having a rough day, they naturally sweep in to help.What neither of them is expecting is for Polly's colleague to suggest her as a fake date for Sloane's weekend with her family. For Sloane, it’s the only way to avoid the heteronormative life her parents will push on her, so despite her misgivings, she agrees. It’s only one weekend, right?Fooling the Abbotts into thinking she and Polly are a couple is easy, but for Sloane, handling her own feelings is harder. Holding hands and sharing a bed doesn’t make things any easier—nor does Polly being there for her in all the ways she ever wished somebody would.Sometimes the hardest thing to face is our own potential to grow.The Art of Growing is a 75k-word slow-burn, friends-to-lovers, fake-dating romance over a weekend full of mutual pining and blurred lines. Content warnings for on-page sex scenes, abusive family dynamics, off-screen references to past abusive relationships, anxiety attacks, and useless sapphics.

Broken Hero


AnneMarie Brear - 2010
    Her life is no longer lavish with entertainment, beautiful clothes and surrounded by a loving family. Soldiers, physically and mentally wounded now fill her home. The smell of disinfectant replaces her mother's perfume and gone are the friends and acquaintances - instead nurses roam the hallways. Captain Jake Harding, a doctor training in psychiatry arrives at Twelve Pines. Audrey immediately finds herself attracted to the Captain, but he is remote towards her. Puzzled by his cold behaviour, Audrey tries to learn more about the handsome Captain. He reveals that he's lost a wife and baby in childbirth and refuses to ever remarry. However, despite this, Audrey believes she can change his mind and make him aware he doesn't have to spend his life alone.The ice around Jake's heart begins to melt. For years he has rejected the possibility of finding love again because of the pain it caused him before, but the beautiful Audrey shows him her love and she needs someone to love her in return. Could he honestly walk away from her, from the love that could be his?

Dirty Little War


C.K. Martin - 2016
    Born into a life of organised crime in the gritty East End of London, she has endured nothing but hardship and disappointment. Then one night, in a sleazy bar, fate sends a dangerous opportunity her way. Carmen Trogan, daughter and heir apparent to a rival business, has no idea who Evie is when their eyes meet across the dance floor. But Evie knows all about her. The chance to bring the rich and beautiful woman to her knees - both figuratively and literally - is too good to pass up. Sparks fly from their first kiss, but Evie is playing a dangerous game. There are consequences that come with spending the night with a woman like Carmen. Will she be able to walk away from the best night of her life, or will she risk it all to see Carmen one more time?

Pennsylvania Station


Patrick E. Horrigan - 2018
    Frederick Bailey is a quiet, cultured, closeted architect reluctantly drawn into the effort to save Pennsylvania Station from being demolished. But when he meets Curt, a vibrant, immature gay activist more than half his age, he is overtaken by passions he hasn't felt in years, putting everything he cares about--his friends, his family, his career and reputation--at risk. As the elegant old train station is dismantled piece by piece to make way for the crass new Madison Square Garden sports arena, Frederick must undergo a reckoning he has dreaded all his life. Award-winning author Patrick E. Horrigan delves into the fractured psyches of mid-twentieth-century gay men, conjuring a picture of New York City and the nation on the brink of explosive cultural change.

Once Upon a Twilight


Winter Pennington - 2012
    Though the two sisters have always been close, Millicent is often frustrated by her sister's inability to be what she perceives as mature and realistic. Too often, Malinda surrenders to her impulses, throwing herself thoughtlessly and headlong into flights of reckless fantasy.On the day before Malinda's wedding, Millicent finds herself dragged yet again on another of her sister's wild and imaginative quests. Convinced that she will beseech the Fey Ones to help her escape the dull world around her and her betrothed, Malinda persuades Millicent into riding out in the forest near their home. When things do not go as planned, Millicent realizes she's lost not only her sister in the deep heart of the forest, but her own way as well.Just when she thinks she can go on no longer, a strange woman from the forest offers Millicent shelter from the storm. As Millicent comes to better know the generous and beautiful stranger, she begins to wonder if perhaps her sister's far-fetched beliefs might have some merit to them after all, and that maybe, just maybe, fairytales and romance actually do exist beyond a page.

Hope & a Canoe


Michele M. Reynolds - 2014
    She’s just waiting until she turns eighteen and has enough money saved to run away from her unbearable life with her grandparents. Gracie has everything Tember never knew she was missing—a good education and a loving father, who is supportive of her sexual orientation and even tries to set her up with girls. When he introduces the two girls, Gracie’s blue eyes and strong character immediately catch Tember’s attention. But a summer romance is not Tember’s style, especially since she’s about to run away.

Making Waves


Erik Schubach - 2016
     She learned how to be strong again and break the shackles her old life had hobbled her with. While Paya is out making waves in London, Lenore is assigned as the driver for the contractor, McGrath, who is renovating a building for the Flotilla, which will allow people who had fallen upon hard times to have a place to call their own. The problem? Lenore finds McGrath to be the most infuriating, cocky, and egotistical woman on the planet. They mix like oil and water and Lenore wants nothing more than to throw a match on the mixture and be done with the woman. She just can’t figure out what it is that boils her blood around McGrath, though apparently all of her smug and smiling friends have an inkling… The Flotilla series is a spinoff of the bestselling London Harmony series.

Some Go Hungry


J. Patrick Redmond - 2016
    While visiting, Grey must confront a painful past riddled in homophobia, secrets, religious hypocrisy and fear."-- Queerty "Anyone who has come out in small-town America will understand how difficult it is to be who you are when the majority of customers at your family restaurant are the same ones you just saw in church....Some Go Hungry is at its best when confronting religious prejudice, and is even pulse-quickening when the narrator sits through one of his friend's sermons aimed directly at him....Only someone who has grown up in rural America could write so convincingly of the pressures there. It's also refreshing to find a book that relates the experience of being gay somewhere other than in a large city."-- Gay & Lesbian Review "A gay murder mystery that takes readers from Miami Beach, Florida to Fort Sackville, Indiana, as Grey Daniels 'struggles to live his authentic, openly gay life' amidst the fundamentalist Christians in his hometown."-- Bay Area Reporter "Captivating debut...[Protagonist] Grey's tale is a lesson for us all that only when we consider our own feelings first will we find happiness--and acceptance."--Edge Media Network"Redmond's fiction isn’t an attempt to recap historical events. The fictional news reports of character Robbie Palmer's alleged murder interspersed between chapters, and the 'homophobia' that engulfs the fictional town of Fort Sackville, is a platform from which the author can express his sincere concern regarding real-life situations that occur in our modern world."-- Boomer Magazine "I was totally engrossed in what I read...An important tale that in some ways is timeless...We read of bigotry, religion, murder, and personal redemption in small-town America as told by a new writer who is a master storyteller and whom I expect to be hearing about in the near future."--Reviews by Amos Lassen"Patrick Redmond has filled his first novel with passion--the passion to tell a story that resonates far beyond the confines of the small Indiana town where it is set. Some Go Hungry tells an important tale that in some ways is timeless, and in other ways could have been ripped from today's headlines."--Mark Childress, author of Crazy in AlabamaPart of Akashic's Kaylie Jones Books imprint.Some Go Hungry is a fictional account drawn from the author's own experiences working in his family's provincial Indiana restaurant--and wrestling with his sexual orientation--in a town that was rocked by the scandalous murder of his gay high school classmate in the 1980s.Now a young man who has embraced his sexuality, Grey Daniels returns from Miami Beach, Florida, to Fort Sackville, Indiana, to run Daniels' Family Buffet for his ailing father. Understanding that knowledge of his sexuality may reap disastrous results on his family's half-century-old restaurant legacy--a popular Sunday dinner spot for the after-church crowd--Grey struggles to live his authentic, openly gay life. He is put to the test when his former high school lover--and fellow classmate of the murdered student--returns to town as the youth pastor and choir director of the local fundamentalist Christian church.Some Go Hungry is the story of a man forced to choose between the happiness of others and his own joy, all the while realizing that compromising oneself--sacrificing your soul for the sake of others--is not living, but death.

In Her Hands


Rebekah Blackmore - 2020
    She works as a pediatric nurse at a local hospital, and she is engaged to a wonderful man. When Ronnie meets Amy Vascar, the mother of one of her patients, she realizes just how quickly someone's life can change in an instant of meeting just the right person, and how quickly friendship can morph into something more.

Love's Encore: The Complete Trilogy


Miranda MacLeod - 2018
     Read the complete Love's Encore Trilogy in this special omnibus edition, which contains all three unabridged books in one convenient bundle. A Road Through Mountains While working back stage at a suburban Connecticut community theater, star-crossed lovers Rorie and Cecily are reunited almost twenty years after their relationship came to an abrupt end. Can they overcome the ghosts of the past to find their happily ever after together? Your Name in Lights The second book of the series finds Rorie and Cecily embarking on a new life in sunny California, but will the pressures of time, distance, and some very persistent paparazzi be too much for them? Fifty Percent Illusion In the final book of the series, Rorie and Cecily are looking forward to a quiet, predictable life when unexpected news changes the course of their future forever. Can the twists and turns of fate lead to a happy ending?

Please Mistress


Grace Parkes - 2020
    Can she make her dreams become reality? Fiona can’t wait to leave her dysfunctional family life, her safe boyfriend and the small town she grew up in far behind her when she goes to Music School in the city.She needs to figure out what she wants in life and love, but there seem to be more questions than answers. Then there is her growing obsession with her aloof singing teacher, Joss Red. Will Fiona find a way to tell Joss about her fantasies?A sizzling Age Gap, Dominant/submissive romance from Grace Parkes