Book picks similar to
In Development by Rachel Spangler
romance
lgbt
fake-relationship
favorites
Dear Taylor
Eija Jimenez - 2016
Seeing her city in shambles, coated in ash, and American lives lost, she enlisted to fight the War on Terror. Daniella Melo, a Rhode Island American History teacher, challenges her class to write letters to soldiers fighting overseas. With one name left and a student short, Daniella takes it upon herself to write letters to Private Taylor Phillips stationed in Afghanistan. Over the next two years, the women exchange letters, sharing stories of their daily lives: Daniella trailing after her rambunctious daughter, Jackie, and dealing with overeager seniors planning prom while Taylor trudges through sand and dirt, driving her humvee in cold deserts. Their friendship continues to grow until it becomes something so much more than either woman expect.
The Curvy Side of Life
Suzie Carr - 2018
I, being a pessimistic, am deeply grateful for these words." - Lesbian Fiction Review With her divorce finally behind her, Faith Miller is ready to move forward. And then, life tosses her a few unavoidable curveballs. Before long, she finds herself traveling down to her sister’s house on the coast of Rhode Island with her seven-year old daughter. What she hoped might be a reflective time for her turns into a whirlwind adventure, thanks to her sister's live in in-laws and the gorgeous pet and house-sitting neighbor, Candace. Candace is sexy and fun, and pulls on Faith's heart. Faith, trying to stay focused and get her life back on track, attempts to ignore her growing feelings for Candace to no avail. What starts out as a casual and steamy interlude evolves into something more serious. Will Faith decide her heart is better closed off from potential heartbreak or will she open it back up again to see what this new love has to offer?
Some Part of Me is You
Adrienne Marsh - 2018
Right as she's about to graduate college and will have to start making real decisions about her future, there comes an offer for them to go on a small tour with pop-country sensation Kristen Nichols, who is looking to make serious changes to her sound and image and believes touring with indie darlings Right Turn will give the new 'her' credibility. Kristen Nichols is the embodiment of everything about the music industry that Ali scoffs at, but she's offering them an affordable, real tour, and that's very hard to say no to. Putting up with a pop princess for a summer is a price worth paying--or so Ali thinks before she actually meets Kristen. 'K-Nic' does absolutely nothing for her, but Kristen Nichols in person? Yeah, that's a different story...
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!
Hairpin Curves
Elia Winters - 2020
Now a wedding invitation lures her to Quebec…in February. When her ex-friend Scarlett offers to be her plus-one (yeah, that’s a whole story) and suggests they turn the journey into an epic road trip, Megan reluctantly agrees to the biggest adventure of her life.A week together in a car is a surefire way to kill a crush, and Scarlett Andrews has had a big one on Megan for years. The important thing is fixing their friendship.As the miles roll away, what starts as harmless road-trip games and rest-stop dares escalates into something like intimacy. And when a surprise snowstorm forces Megan and Scarlett to hunker down without the open road as distraction, they’ve got a bigger challenge than making it to the church on time: facing the true nature of their feelings for each other.Carina Adores is home to highly romantic contemporary love stories where LGBTQ+ characters find their happily-ever-afters.
Proper English
K.J. Charles - 2019
She’s visiting her old friend, the Earl’s heir Jimmy Yoxall—but she wants to spend a lot more time with Jimmy’s fiancée. The irrepressible Miss Fenella Carruth, with her laughing eyes and lush curves, is the most glorious woman Pat’s ever met, and it quickly becomes impossible to remember why she needs to stay at arm’s length.But while the women’s attraction grows, the tensions at Rodington Court get worse. Affairs, secrets, betrayals, and blackmail come to light. And when a body is discovered with a knife between the shoulderblades, it’s going to take Pat and Fen’s combined talents to prevent the murderer destroying all their lives.
Witch Wolf
Winter Pennington - 2010
Whenever there's a murder or a mystery to solve that involves the preternatural; she's the witch they call. When she's called in to help the local cops work on a mysterious murder case, she finds herself needing all the help she can get. A bloodthirsty werewolf is loose in the city and on a killing spree. As if her plate weren't full enough, a strange she-wolf seeks Kassandra's aid, asking her to help find her missing brother. Kassandra soon learns that the strange she-wolf serves two masters, and one of those masters has taken quite an interest in her. In a world where vampires have charmed their way into modern society, where werewolves walk the streets with their beasts disguised by human skin, Kassandra Lyall has a secret of her own to protect. She's one of them.
The Loudest Silence
Olivia Janae - 2015
During her first rehearsal, she is surprised and intrigued to meet Vivian Kensington, the formidable by reputation board president who also happens to be…deaf.As Kate treads the waters of a rocky relationship with the young and foolhardy Ash, she develops a tentative friendship with her cold-hearted boss. As she does, she finds a kindness and a warmth that she never expected.As their friendship grows into something more, Kate wonders, is Ash really who she wants? Or is Vivian who she desires? Is it possible for two women, one from a world of sound and one a world of silence, to truly understand one another?
Trigger
Jessica L. Webb - 2016
Kate Morrison doesn’t know how or why someone would create human bombs that are triggered by touch. But when Sergeant Andy Wyles blocks Kate from touching the patient who collapses in her Vancouver ER, Kate joins the investigation to demand answers, regardless of the danger. As the two women work together to find those responsible for creating an army of human weapons, Kate finds it increasingly difficult to ignore her feelings for the fiercely protective and unrelentingly perceptive cop. The investigation escalates, and Kate gradually begins to trust Andy, not only with her safety but also with the difficult details of her past. With lives at risk and her heart on the line, Kate must search for a way to defuse the bombs and save her patients, even as she questions the intensifying connection between herself and Andy.
Desert of the Heart
Jane Rule - 1964
This classic of lesbian eroticism is Jane Rule's first novel.Set in the late 1950s, this is the story of Evelyn Hall, an English professor, who goes to Reno to obtain a divorce and put an end to her disastrous 16-year marriage. While staying at a boarding house to establish her six-week residency requirement she meets Ann Childs, a casino worker and fifteen years her junior. Physically, they are remarkably alike and eventually have an affair and begin the struggle to figure out just how a relationship between two women can last. Desert of the Heart examines the conflict between convention and freedom and the ways in which the characters try to resolve the conflict.
A Knight to Remember
Bridget Essex - 2014
Holly tells herself that the reason she hasn’t asked her girlfriend to move in (after four years of dating) is that she’s too busy–but it isn’t true. A very book-obsessed librarian, Holly has buried herself in so many romantic and magical stories, that at night, she dreams of a woman who will sweep her off her feet–something her indifferent girlfriend has never done. But one night, during an unusually vicious storm, magic and romance appear in Holly’s backyard in the form of a mysterious, gorgeous woman…wielding a sword. The dashing stranger’s name is Virago. She claims that she’s a warrior on the hunt for a great and terrible beast; that she, and the beast, slipped through a portal from their world into ours. Holly isn’t sure what to believe, but she is now responsible for a (possibly crazy) swordswoman who is bewildered by modern-day conveniences like escalators, but not by the chivalry of sweeping a woman off her feet. Can Holly help Virago find her own world again, or will that falling-in-love thing get in the way? And, of course, there’s the tiny problem of the beast Virago wounded that is now seeking revenge…
Noah
Cara Dee - 2016
I came home to find my girlfriend of four years with another man. The next day a plane crash ripped my family away from me, shattering me in the process. In many ways, I died that day, too. The fun-loving man who'd lived in the fast lane and loved his career in the film industry was gone. Left was a forty-year-old shell that dwelled at the bottom of a bottle.Only one person knew what I was going through. My sister's stepson, who hadn't been on the plane. Julian knew what it was like to lose everyone he loved, too. He'd stopped showing up at reunions when he was a teenager, so I didn’t know him very well. But I told him at the memorial service he could come out and visit me in LA whenever. One day he did, and I guessed it was as good a day as any to start picking up the pieces and see what was left of us.
Goldenseal
Gill McKnight - 2009
Now, years later, Amy returns to Little Dip, the Garoul home valley to help her aunt finish a botanical project. Except Little Dip is no longer the happy place of Amy’s childhood memories. There’s something sinister in the woods. And why hasn’t Leone moved on? Why does she still dog Amy’s every move? As more and more of the Garoul family arrive for a special hunting weekend, parts of the puzzle come together and Amy’s fears escalate as she moves closer to the truth—and the secret that has eluded her since childhood.
Must Love Silence
Lucy Bexley - 2020
What she likes is silence and being left alone. The thing she loves most about recording audiobooks is that she doesn’t have to leave her Chicago apartment to do it. And she hasn’t for nearly a year. But with an unavoidable bill going to collections that puts her sister’s treatment at risk, she has no choice but to take a job that pushes her out of her comfort zone.After a disastrous blow to her career, Arden Abbott needs a comeback. Step one: a successful book launch, including an audiobook. She doesn’t trust anyone else to oversee every aspect of the project. It has to be flawless. Arden knows she’s ready to resume the life she had before her dreams fell apart, all she has to do is prove it to everyone around her.When Reese and Arden meet, sparks fly and then they combust. Will Reese crack under the constant pressure from Arden? Can she possibly read a sex scene with the woman who wrote it interrupting to correct her pronunciation of words she is saying 100% correctly? Or can they step outside their comfort zones long enough to meet in the middle...Must Love Silence is an enemies-to-lovers slow burn workplace lesbian romance featuring a lovable misanthrope and a heroine in recovery. It’s funny and a little dark, and it firmly believes that everyone deserves a chance to change.
Fake It
Lily Seabrooke - 2021
She’s staying optimistic, though: she’s confident she can fake it till she makes it, roll with the punches, and find a way to save her luxury restaurant, Paramour.But it gets harder when she gets restaurant mogul and star chef Mike Wallace angry, and finds herself on the other end of a campaign to shut down Paramour.Celebrity chef Holly Mason’s show is in trouble: people are bored with her routine of helping struggling restaurants. Worse, her ex-boyfriend Mike Wallace is making backdoor deals trying to steal the starring role.Luckily, Holly’s agent Tay has a solution: ditch her show plans for the season, throw their lot in with luxury restaurant Paramour against Mike Wallace’s racketeering operation of a restaurant partnership. The cherry on top? A fake relationship between Holly and Avery to stir up drama.It would already be a mess if Holly and Avery weren’t already struggling to hold back their attraction for one another. Despite their promise not to date, the lines between acting and reality get awfully blurry sometimes.Fake It is an 80,000-word fake-dating celebrity romance between a disillusioned TV cooking star and a bright-eyed restaurant owner who’s sure she can manifest a solution to her hard times if she believes hard enough. Features an agent named Tay who calls their brilliant ideas “inspir-Tay-tion,” plenty of descriptions of food that made me hungry while I wrote the book, and a cute bisexual trans girl who gets to fall in love. Content warnings for open-door sex scenes that get a little bit kinky, a gross man who won’t stop calling his ex-girlfriend babe, and sapphics getting in the way of their own feelings, like they always do.