Book picks similar to
In the Shadow of the Past (Shadow Series Book 1) by J.E. Leak
historical-fiction
thriller
sapphic
lesbian
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.
The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics
Olivia Waite - 2019
It isn’t until she finds a letter from the Countess of Moth, looking for someone to translate a groundbreaking French astronomy text, that she knows where to go. Showing up at the Countess’ London home, she hoped to find a challenge, not a woman who takes her breath away.Catherine St Day looks forward to a quiet widowhood once her late husband’s scientific legacy is fulfilled. She expected to hand off the translation and wash her hands of the project—instead, she is intrigued by the young woman who turns up at her door, begging to be allowed to do the work, and she agrees to let Lucy stay. But as Catherine finds herself longing for Lucy, everything she believes about herself and her life is tested.While Lucy spends her days interpreting the complicated French text, she spends her nights falling in love with the alluring Catherine. But sabotage and old wounds threaten to sever the threads that bind them. Can Lucy and Catherine find the strength to stay together or are they doomed to be star-crossed lovers?
A Little Light Mischief
Cat Sebastian - 2019
She’s determined to keep her hands to herself, so she really shouldn’t be tempted to seduce her employer’s prim and proper companion, Alice. But how can she resist when Alice can’t seem to keep her eyes off Molly?Finds her own heartFor the first time in her life, Alice Stapleton has absolutely nothing to do. The only thing that seems to occupy her thoughts is a lady’s maid with a sharp tongue and a beautiful mouth. Her determination to know Molly’s secrets has her behaving in ways she never imagined as she begins to fall for the impertinent woman.Has been stolenWhen an unwelcome specter from Alice’s past shows up unexpectedly at a house party, Molly volunteers to help the only way she knows how: with a little bit of mischief.
Behind Closed Doors
Anna Stone - 2018
When a mix-up lands her a job at a high-profile law firm, Emma is determined to meet this new challenge head-on. What she didn’t count on was working for a woman like Lillian White, and it doesn’t take long for Emma to realize that she might be in over her head in more ways than one. As beautiful as she is ruthless, Lillian has worked hard to build a reputation for herself that commands respect from everyone she meets. She’s sacrificed everything for her career, and she doesn’t have room in her life for romance. But there’s something about her sweet yet feisty new assistant that Lillian can’t resist, and Emma finds herself caught up in a whirlwind of new desires that she never thought possible. Soon, the two women are embroiled in a scorching-hot forbidden affair that threatens to consume them both. While both women grapple with their unexpected feelings toward each other, things at the office start to unravel. The future of Lillian’s firm is in turmoil, and something sinister lurks behind the scenes that forces both women to reexamine their lives and decide whether their relationship is worth fighting for.
Nottingham: The True Story of Robyn Hood
Anna Burke - 2020
All she really wants to do is provide for her family and stay out of trouble, but when the Sheriff of Nottingham levies the largest tax in the history of England, she’s forced to take matters into her own hands. Relying on the help of her band of merry women and the Sheriff’s intriguing—and off limits—daughter, Marian, Robyn must find a way to pull off the biggest heist Sherwood has ever seen.With both heart and freedom at stake, just how much will she risk to ensure the safety of the ones she loves?
How to Talk to Nice English Girls
Gretchen Evans - 2019
But Marian’s world is turned upside down when she meets brash, confident Katherine Fuller.Katherine arrives at the Fieldings’ family estate for the wedding of Marian’s sister and immediately shakes things up. Instead of keeping the ill-mannered American girl out of trouble, Marian finds herself magnetically drawn to Katherine’s vivacious nature, and they are swept into a whirlwind romance that will change both of their lives.Katherine's unconventional behavior and the pull of Marian's old life threaten their chance at happiness together. But these two women from different worlds will find a way to be together against all odds and expectations.
How to Talk to Nice English Girls is a steamy historical romance and is a standalone novel with plenty of heat and a definite HEA!
Invisible, as Music
Caren J. Werlinger - 2019
Her braces and crutches restrict her, define her, but they also give her independence. Almost. She hates that she has become increasingly reliant on a series of live-in companions to help her. For some reason, the companions never seem to want to stay very long. So Henrietta retreats further and further into her art, where her physical limitations don’t matter.Into her life sails Meryn Fleming: out, outspoken, and fiercely political. She’s young, enthusiastically diving into her first job as a history professor at the local college. When she falls, almost literally, into Henrietta’s path, she seems like a godsend.Little does Henrietta know that this young woman is about to upend her carefully structured existence. Ryn challenges everything, barging right through the walls Henrietta has built to keep others at a distance.To Ryn, Henrietta is an enigma: prickly and easily insulted at the slightest suggestion that she can’t do things for herself; a brilliant artist capable of producing the most beautiful paintings; and sometimes, when Henrietta doesn’t realize she’s letting her guard down, a tender and sensitive woman.With Meryn’s youthful optimism pitted against Henrietta’s jaded acceptance of the world as it is, life will never be the same for either of them.Words: 114,100
Uncharted
Alli Temple - 2021
But when the wicked prince proposes marriage, Georgina must accept. Refusing would expose the secrets she has delivered to a hidden resistance and forfeit her life. With her wedding day looming ever closer, salvation comes from an unlikely source. Pirate Captain Cinder is a terror on the open sea, striking fear into hearts wherever she sails. Now she has a new target. The vulnerable Princess Georgina should be an easy mark in Cinder’s kidnapping plot. But the legend of Captain Cinder is more intertwined with Georgina’s own history than either of them expect.Treacherous storms. A mysterious pirate king. The prince’s unrelenting pursuit. Georgina and Cinder can only escape by following the uncharted course of their hearts. But just as a future together is within their grasp, Cinder’s past threatens to drag them both to the deep.
The Sublime and Spirited Voyage of Original Sin
Colette Moody - 2009
Together with Gayle Malvern, daughter of wounded pirate captain Madman Malvern, Celia becomes a reluctant participant in an unexpectedly thrilling journey through the Caribbean. For Gayle, Celia's presence is at first a welcome and shapely distraction, but as her attraction to the seamstress deepens, she realizes that Celia comes to mean more to her than is almost certainly prudent. As Celia and Gayle navigate the perilous territories of gypsies, prostitutes, mercenaries, and slave-traders, they forge a partnership born of necessity that Gayle soon hopes will veer away from insurmountable danger and instead detour directly to her bed.
Desperate Times
Hildred Billings - 2018
When the two tough butches meet at a small town bar, they think they're getting the femmes of their dreams. So begins the awkward - yet sordid - acquaintance of the only two lesbians in town. Local rancher Tess doesn't have time for women who aren't her type, and new-girl-in-town Sidney isn't interested in someone who only sees her as a piece of fresh meat.
Yet they keep bumping into each other... is it fate, or just small town karma?
A bad date turns into a one-night stand. A one-night stand turns into a casual relationship. A casual relationship becomes Sidney's greatest amusement, and Tess's biggest nightmare as she's slowly forced out of the closet in conservative River Rock. Desperate times are afoot in the sleepy, gossipy hamlet of rural America. It's going to take more than nerves of steel to survive the isolationism and people with nothing better to do than ruin their neighbors' lives. It's going to take a whole lotta introspection - and love. (And no-holds-barred carnality. Let's be real.)
Shaken to the Core
Jae - 2016
She’s expected to marry well and produce a successor to the Winthrop empire. But Kate has a very different path in mind. Her true passion lies with photography—and with women.Alone in the city after losing her brother, Sicilian immigrant Giuliana Russo starts working for the Winthrops as a maid. Despite their different social status, Kate and Giuliana become friends, much to the dismay of Kate’s parents.As the connection between the two women grows, a devastating earthquake hits San Francisco and ignites fires that sweep through the city for three days and nights.Will the disaster shatter their tentative feelings for each other, or will they find the courage to save each other’s lives—and their hearts?Join Kate and Giuliana on a journey of danger and discovery in the action-packed historical romance Shaken to the Core, set against the backdrop of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.Length: 126,000 wordsThemes: 1900 · adventure · class differences · disaster · earthquake · lesbian · San Francisco
Patience & Sarah
Isabel Miller - 1969
Ultimately, they are forced to make life-changing decisions that depend on their courage and their commitment to one another.First self-published in 1969 (titled A Place for Us) in an edition of 1,000 copies, the author hand-sold the book on New York street corners; it garnered increasing attention to the point of receiving the American Library Association's first Gay Book Award in 1971. McGraw-Hill's version of the book a year later brought it to mainstream bookstores across the country.Patience & Sarah is a historical romance whose drama was a touchstone for the burgeoning gay and women's activism of the 1960s and early 1970s. It celebrates the joys of an uninhibited love between two strong women with a confident defiance that remains relevant today.Features an appendix of supplementary materials about Patience & Sarah and the author, as well as an introduction by acclaimed novelist Emma Donoghue.
The Proposal
T.B. Markinson - 2022
The centuries-old shop is owned by Cleo Braithwaite, a woman with a fierce and frightening reputation. Cleo turns out to be nothing like the rumors but refuses to sit still long enough to be dazzled by the meticulous spreadsheets and slides Marley has prepared to seal the deal. Instead of making her proposal, Marley soon finds herself on an impromptu walking tour of London with the charming Cleo.Even though Marley has a dinner date that night with the woman she’s been chatting with online and was convinced was her soulmate, she can’t ignore the feelings her bewitching guide stirs up inside as they explore the historic city on foot. What’s more, the longer she’s with Cleo, the more Marley begins to question the business deal she’s been sent to make.Should Marley stick with the plan, or is a single life-changing day with Cleo worth blowing up the future Marley was so certain she wanted?
Her Lady to Love
Jane Walsh - 2020
A perpetual wallflower, she’s going to do whatever it takes to win a proposal from London’s most eligible bachelor, including teaming up with the most popular (and least proper) woman in London.Miss Jacqueline Lockhart is having too much fun in her sixth season to ever consider settling down, even though she’s been unsuccessful at mingling with the upper echelons of London society.When Lady Honora agrees to exchange invitations to the most exclusive events in return for Jacqueline’s introductions to eligible gentlemen, neither expects their friendship to ignite passion. Nora and Jacquie begin an affair with the strict understanding that it will end once Nora is married, but as a proposal becomes more imminent, choosing between a conventional life without love, or certain ruination if they stay together, isn’t as simple as it seems.
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.