Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead


Emily R. Austin - 2021
    Desperate for relief from her panicky mind and alienated from her repressive family, she responds to a flyer for free therapy at a local Catholic church, and finds herself being greeted by Father Jeff, who assumes she’s there for a job interview. Too embarrassed to correct him, Gilda is abruptly hired to replace the recently deceased receptionist Grace.In between trying to memorize the lines to Catholic mass, hiding the fact that she has a new girlfriend, and erecting a dirty dish tower in her crumbling apartment, Gilda strikes up an email correspondence with Grace’s old friend. She can’t bear to ignore the kindly old woman, who has been trying to reach her friend through the church inbox, but she also can’t bring herself to break the bad news. Desperate, she begins impersonating Grace via email. But when the police discover suspicious circumstances surrounding Grace’s death, Gilda may have to finally reveal the truth of her mortifying existence.

Blurred Lines


K.D. Williamson - 2016
    Only a select few know her as a loyal, loving friend. To a fault, she is committed to her family, friends and her job.As a surgeon, Nora Whitmore is used to being in control. The hospital is her life. There is little else. Respected by her colleagues but ridiculed by the residents, Nora takes what she needs and keeps everyone else at arm’s length, creating unexpected enemies.Tragedy brings them together in a clash of personalities. As the chaos around them continues, they find the lines between them blurring. A friendship forms, understanding grows, and attraction soon follows. Together, they may conquer their own misgivings, but will the outside forces keep them apart?Themes: lesbian · medical · police

Disobedience


Naomi Alderman - 2006
    The story begins with the death of the community's esteemed rabbi, which sets in motion plans for a memorial service and the search for a replacement. The rabbi's nephew and likely successor, Dovid, calls his cousin Ronit in New York to tell her that her father has died. Ronit, who left the community long ago to build a life for herself as a career woman, returns home when she hears the news, and her reappearance exposes tears in the fabric of the community.Steeped in Jewish philosophy and teachings, Disobedience is a perceptive and thoughtful exploration of the laws and practices that have governed Judaism for centuries, and continue to hold sway today. Throughout the novel, Alderman retells stories from the Torah -- Judaism's fundamental source -- and the interplay between these tales and the struggles of the novel's unique characters wields enormous power and wisdom, and will surely move readers to tears.

Pages for You


Sylvia Brownrigg - 2001
    The seventeen-year-old, new to everything around her—college, the East Coast, bodies of literature, and the sexual flurries of student life—is shocked by her desire to follow this wherever it will take her. When Flannery finds herself enrolled in a class with the remote, brilliant older woman, she is intimidated at first, but gradually becomes Anne Arden's student—Baudelaire, lipstick colors, or how to travel with a lover—Flannery proves an eager pupil, until one day learns more about Anne than she ever wanted to know.

Four Steps


Wendy Hudson - 2016
    She has her farm in the Scottish countryside, and the self-imposed seclusion suits her until a crime that has haunted her for years tears through the calm and shatters the fragile peace she'd finally managed to find.Lori Hunter's greatest love is the mountains. They're her escape from the constant hustle and bustle of everyday life. Growing up was neither traditional nor easy for Lori, but now she's beginning to realise she's settled for both. A dead-end relationship and little to look forward to. Her solution when the suffocation sets in? Run for the hills.A chance encounter in the mountains of the Scottish Highlands leads Alex and Lori into a whirlwind of heartache and a fight for survival as they build a formidable bond that will be tested to its ultimate limits.

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.

We Play Ourselves


Jen Silverman - 2021
    There she meets her next-door neighbor Caroline, a magnetic filmmaker on the rise, as well as the pack of teenage girls who hang around her house. They are the subjects of Caroline's next semidocumentary movie, which follows the girls' clandestine after-school activity: a Fight Club inspired by the violent classic.As Cass is drawn into the film's orbit, she is awed by Caroline's drive and confidence. But over time, she becomes troubled by how deeply Caroline is manipulating the teens in the name of art--especially as the consequences become increasingly disturbing. With her past proving hard to shake and her future one she's no longer sure she wants, Cass is forced to reckon with her own ambitions and confront what she has come to believe about the steep price of success.

The Language of Hoofbeats


Catherine Ryan Hyde - 2014
    New to a small town, Jackie and Paula envision a quiet life for their kids: a young adopted son and two teenage foster children, including the troubled Star. However, they quickly butt heads with their neighbor, Clementine, who disapproves of their lifestyle and is incensed when Star befriends her spirited horse, Comet. Haunted by past tragedy and unable to properly care for Comet, Clem nevertheless resents the bond Star soon shares with the horse. When Star disappears with Comet, the neighbors are thrown together—far too close together. But as the search for the pair wears on, both families must learn to put aside their animosity and confront the choices they’ve made and the scars they carry. Plumbing the depths of regret and forgiveness, The Language of Hoofbeats explores the strange alchemy that transforms a group of people into a family.

Small Pleasures


Clare Chambers - 2021
    But the more Jean investigates, the more her life becomes strangely (and not unpleasantly) intertwined with that of the Tilburys: Gretchen is now a friend, and her quirky and charming daughter Margaret a sort of surrogate child. And Jean doesn't mean to fall in love with Gretchen's husband, Howard, but Howard surprises her with his dry wit, his intelligence and his kindness — and when she does fall, she falls hard.But he is married, and to her friend — who is also the subject of the story she is researching for the newspaper, a story that increasingly seems to be causing dark ripples across all their lives. And yet Jean cannot bring herself to discard the chance of finally having a taste of happiness...But there will be a price to pay, and it will be unbearable.

Jam on the Vine


LaShonda Katrice Barnett - 2015
    Living in the poor, segregated quarter of Little Tunis, Ivoe immerses herself in printed matter as an escape from her dour surroundings. She earns a scholarship to the prestigious Willetson College in Austin, only to return over-qualified to the menial labor offered by her hometown’s racially-biased employers.Ivoe eventually flees the Jim Crow South with her family and settles in Kansas City, where she and her former teacher and lover, Ona, found the first female-run African American newspaper, Jam! On the Vine. In the throes of the Red Summer—the 1919 outbreak of lynchings and race riots across the Midwest—Ivoe risks her freedom, and her life, to call attention to the atrocities of segregation in the American prison system.Skillfully interweaving Ivoe’s story with those of her family members, LaShonda Katrice Barnett’s Jam! On the Vine is both an epic vision of the hardships and injustices that defined an era and a moving and compelling story of a complicated history we only thought we knew.

Just Girls


Rachel Gold - 2014
    So Tucker says it’s her, even though it’s not, to stop the finger pointing. She was an out lesbian in high school, and she figures she can stare down whatever gets thrown her way in college. It can’t be that bad.Ella Ramsey is making new friends at Freytag University, playing with on-campus gamers and enjoying her first year, but she’s rocked by the sight of a slur painted on someone else’s door. A slur clearly meant for her, if they’d only known.New rules, old prejudices, personal courage, private fear. In this stunning follow-up to the groundbreaking Being Emily, Rachel Gold explores the brave, changing landscape where young women try to be Just Girls.

A Clueless Woman


T.B. Markinson - 2015
    Although an expert in the Hitler Youth, she’s a novice in love. Her former lesbian lover is blackmailing her, and not even those closest to Lizzie know the full story of their abusive relationship. When visiting high school English teacher Sarah crosses Lizzie’s path at the campus, their attraction is instant, but not without complications. As they start to spend more time together, suspicions arise from both women in this sexy piece of LGBT fiction. Plenty of good-natured teasing takes place between lovers as well as between PhD students in this lesbian contemporary romance. No relationship path ever runs smoothly, and oftentimes, those who can’t keep their mouth shut hasten necessary confrontation. Lizzie finds herself buried in a mess of lies in this romantic comedy. The harder she tries to keep Sarah and the rest of her friends from finding out the truth about her first girlfriend, the more endearingly clueless she becomes.

Eastside / Westside / Love


Eliza Andrews - 2019
     From the outside, Kasey James had the perfect life. She had a rich husband, two perfect kids, and a big house in Eastside with a pool in the backyard. None of her friends understand why she left her husband and went back to a stressful job teaching high school. She knows they’ll understand even less when she tells them she’s started dating a woman from Westside. *If* she tells them, that is. After all, Kasey has her kids to think of, not to mention the upcoming school board election. What if her neighbors withdraw their support when they find out she’s seeing a woman? Drea Robbins has a good life, too. She owns her own home and operates her own business, making enough money doing what she loves that she can support her mom, sister, and niece. She wishes she had a “special someone” in her life, but in the grand scheme of things, being single isn’t that big of a deal. Kasey James, a white woman living in Eastside, is the absolute last person Drea expects to fall for. Kasey’s recently divorced from a man, she’s got two kids, she lives in the middle of rich suburbia — to say her lifestyle is different from Drea's would be the understatement of the year. But it’s like Drea’s mom says — we can’t control whom we fall for, and whether Drea likes it or not, she’s falling for Kasey. Hard. Opposites attract… right? But when a real estate development controversy puts Drea and Kasey on opposite sides of a battle line, will their new love prove strong enough to survive? Or is it just unrealistic for two women with so many differences to find a common ground they can hold against all the world’s pressures? Eastside / Westside / Love is a story about race, class, gentrification, and inequality. But more than that, it’s a story about hope, and about finding out that what brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart.

Black Girl in Paris


Shay Youngblood - 2000
    In her critically acclaimed new novel, Shay Youngblood, the Pushcart Prize-winning author of Soul Kiss, chronicles the Parisian odyssey of a young African-American woman retracing the footsteps of the literary legends who inspired her.

The Headmistress


Milena McKay - 2021
    An unforgettable night. And back home, trouble is brewing on the remote island of Three Dragons, where nothing feels like it used to. Alone and lonely, Sam Threadneedle wishes upon a star, hoping for change. But when said change comes, it’s with a roar and not a whimper.Torn between loyalty and lust, Sam is forced to re-evaluate everything.Can she and the Home of Dragons withstand the storm that is Magdalene Nox, or will any and all crumble? Not everything is as it seems, and as she slowly unravels the mysteries behind the centuries-old walls, Sam realizes that home is much more than oak and stone.