General Fiction Books

Maxine Terrell lurches into adulthood madly in love with a woman and her child. Unfortunately, Daphne Polk is someone else’s wife, and her daughter Lena is someone else’s child. But Daphne’s been there for her ever since Max and her father weathered a terrible tragedy, one that’s still whispered about in their small Texas town. After years of hope and heartbreak, and too many lies to count, Max seems poised to settle for the various "friends with benefits" she encounters.

Unexpectedly wealthy after her father’s death and emotionally adrift with no idea what she really wants from life, Max decides to take to the road and signs up to become a truck driver. During her training in Lubbock, she meets Trillian—“Thrill”—and manages to screw things up from the start. After another chance encounter and a sweet kiss she can’t forget, Max begins to rethink not only what, but who she really wants.

As Max traverses the open road, her journey of impossible love, loss, and courage mirrors her voyage of self-discovery. But before she can look to the future, she must come to terms with the history she’d rather forget.

Thomas Simmons nearly died when a rocket-propelled grenade threw him ass over teakettle while flanking insurgents in Mosul, ending his military career. Recovery’s rough and gives him all the time in the world to face the question he’s avoided all his life: Why does he feel jealous of women?

The more Thomas searches, the closer he comes to an answer: gender dysphoria.

Seeking therapy as a road through his confusion, Thomas embarks on an unexpected journey as Emily is born. Emily’s route to self-acceptance, love with another woman, and community are only some of the challenges that began the day her world exploded.

Reader Advisory: Transphobic violence.

Cassie Burke never believed in second chances. If something didn’t work out, then it was never really meant for her. In the years following two heart-wrenching breakups, she kept her life simple. She’d dated when the opportunity arose but focused her energy on her career and best friends of over thirty years, Jenn and Maggie. Tight since their high school days in the 80s, they’ve weathered many storms. The most tempestuous being Deana, who had briefly joined their “pantheon” and stirred things up as only a beautiful lost soul can, testing their friendship and the strength of Cassie’s heart.

Now as Cassie, Jenn, and Maggie plan a celebration for their fiftieth birthdays, none of them are prepared for the whiplash changes their half-century mark year has in store. Least of all Cassie, who discovers a second chance with Deana might be just what her heart needs.

Reader advisory: References to homophobic violence/sexual assault.

Two divides perfectly into four, not five.

Zara Keller is a survivor turned piano phenomenon living for a big dream. When she’s invited to spend the weekend with four long-time friends outside of London, she has little use for luxurious Fullerhill Manor—but Lady Jillian Stansfield might be a different story.

The obligations thrust on Jillian Stansfield as Lady of the Manor center on home and family. Even her best friends expect her to put aside the desire for a meaningful life and carry on her legacy through marriage and children. Will the arrival of a fifth person be enough to tip the balance of their “gang of four” in her favor?

Zara challenges Jillian to pursue grander plans and stirs something new and profound, compelling Jillian to be true to herself and make the hardest decisions of her life. But when tragedy strikes, saving Jillian may cost Zara the goal of a position at the Royal College of Music, and the chance at love. 

Content advisory: This book contains instances of trauma and homophobia.

Gathered for the first time in one collection, these short stories from Lee Lynch represent a quarter century of passionate portrayals of lesbian women. Lynch chronicles the lives of old women who fall in love, a Black firefighter seeking her place in the feminist community, bar dykes unwilling to back down, the denizens of lesbian-owned Café Femmes, and Henny—who runs an urban fruit stand while regaling her baby butch assistants with tales from her life. Iconic characters from Lynch's novels also make an appearance: Frenchy Tonneau from The Swashbuckler and Annie Heaphy from Toothpick House.

Lee Lynch’s work is considered among the classics and a cornerstone in the large and permanent foundation of lesbian literature.

What do you do when the whole world breaks?

Like when you make it through a plague with the woman you’ve loved for way more than half your septuagenarian life—only to watch her die, leaving you alone. And then, just weeks later, the world around you descends into relentless dark and cold.

Besieged, desolate Hester is too numb to know what to do. And even though she’s lucky to have the means to endure for quite a while, she’s tempted—really tempted—to just give it up. What, after all, is she enduring for?

But giving up will have to wait when she stumbles upon people who introduce her to the first rule of survival: Don’t try to go it alone if you don’t have to.

Janesse Crawford spends her teenage and young adult years trying to balance her tomboy, girl-loving side with being the picture-perfect daughter her mother wants. It’s difficult, and Janesse is full of self-doubt, but she manages to find a way to make it work. Then Janesse meets sexy, confident Maya Lawson, who is everything she didn’t realize she wanted, and her world is turned upside down. But Janesse makes a choice and doesn’t look back.

Thirty years later, Janesse is married to a man who loves her, has raised two wonderful children, and has a successful career doing what she loves. But when a chance meeting with Maya brings her past rushing back, the lie Janesse has been living comes crashing in on her. She let Maya get away once, but her second chance at true love could cost her the picture-perfect world she’s spent a lifetime building. It’s not too late for Janesse to blossom into the woman she’s always wished to be. But on her path to self-acceptance, she will risk everything—and possibly everyone—she loves.

Starred review from Publishers Weekly: "Shade imbues this optimistic story of lifelong self-discovery with a refreshing amount of emotional complexity, delivering a queer romance that leans into affection as much as drama, and values friendship and familial love as deeply as romantic connection...Shade’s well-drawn Black cast and sophistication in presenting a variety of relationship styles—including open relationships and connections that shift between romance and friendship—creates a rich, affirming, and love-filled setting..."

MJ Beaudry, an angry, brilliant, abused runaway, is dumped in Rainbow Gap, Florida, and almost immediately discovers an aptitude for crime. The lesbian cop who catches her expects good-hearted lovers Jaudon Vicker and Berry Garland to save the kid. Although Jaudon’s business has suffered a killing blow and she’s frantic to make it right, she was once a besieged gay kid herself and reaches out, only to find herself in cahoots with MJ. 

Berry is left in the dark, her own big dream on hold, and fears losing her love as Jaudon is swallowed by work and guilt. Berry, salt-of-the-earth Gran, besotted-with-MJ Vonnie Lowe, Allison the social justice warrior, and scofflaws Shady and Tad all stand behind Jaudon, but are they enough?

Or will it take this next generation of lesbians—MJ and Vonnie—to lead the way?

Lieutenant-Colonel Greyson Walsden returns to her hometown of Gloucester after a fulfilling career as an Army doctor. She takes a position as a general practitioner while pursuing ordination as an Anglican priest. Overworked and naturally reserved, she doesn’t have time or patience for socializing, let alone for falling in love.

For Angela Arlingham, life as she knows it is over. God played a cruel trick on her by robbing her of her daughter, Sybil, and Angela refuses to believe in Him any longer. When she meets Greyson Walsden, she’s impressed by the handsome doctor, but struggling with her loss makes falling in love with a priest all but impossible.

As circumstances throw them together again and again, the choice to follow their hearts may be the most difficult one of all.

Cash Braddock thought everything was great. Her drug business sold for a nice chunk. She’s opening an art gallery. And she’s finally free of the Sacramento Police Department.

But then the mother she hasn’t seen in twenty-three years knocks on her door, and Laurel Kallen, the ex-girlfriend who broke her heart, rolls into town. Oh, and Laurel has a message: Cash’s former business partner is back and wants to kill them both. Which is a real bummer.

Cash is no stranger to the consequences of her poor decisions, but this time everyone and everything she loves might pay the price.

Dr. Samantha Brooks is having a midlife crisis. Her twin sons are about to go off to college, leaving her struggling to find direction. On top of that, she’s being deposed for a lawsuit. And just when it can’t get any worse, she finds out her lawyer is Kirby Fielding, the woman she had a brief but dazzling affair with just before starting medical school. Sam didn’t have the courage to follow her heart back then, or to reach out to Kirby since, but now she’s ready for a change. She only hopes Kirby will give her another chance to prove that love changes everything.

Andre met his best friend Amy on a night like tonight. The way Amy tells it she had to stop him from climbing over the bar at Aunty Bob’s to punch the bartender, though if you ask Andre he’ll say, “What? That never happened. I don’t even know what you’re saying to me right now.” 

Now Amy is worryingly missing in action, and Andre goes to Aunty Bob’s on a quest to find her. No sooner does he walk in with his depressingly heterosexual date than his best hat is spirited away by a lesbian in the throes of breaking up with her girlfriend. She in turn has it stolen from her when she starts a fight with two twinks at the bar. The hat makes its way around Aunty Bob’s from one head to another, giving glimpses into the dozens of stories playing out at the same time, unaware of each other but colliding in catastrophic ways. Can Andre find Amy before this party devolves into a nightmare of broken hearts, malevolent drag queens, and spontaneous human combustion? Or has it always happened this way, every night, at Aunty Bob’s Quake City Club?

London Craft has exactly the life she wants. She’s a successful artist with a hot line of edgy clothing and merchandise she sells from her boutique, Hell in a Handbasket. Along with her incredible chosen family, she’s in a loving relationship with Reggie, her girlfriend of six years.

When Reggie blindsides London with a public marriage proposal, London freezes. She’s never wanted anything traditional, let alone marriage. When Reggie leaves her, she thinks things can’t possibly get worse, until she receives the call that her estranged mother has died. Suddenly, she’s catapulted into contact with the family she hasn’t seen in nearly twenty years.

After her mother’s funeral, London discovers a letter she wrote to her future self as part of a school project when she was ten years old. Face-to-face with her childhood ideals and the drastically different life she’s built, London must find her way to the future—and love—she truly wants.

When Rainn went rogue from the life her mother wanted for her, she thought she’d have her brother by her side. Instead, his sudden death sent Rainn into a tailspin that has her living in an alley behind a bar. Her life might look like a train wreck, but nothing can distract her from making her rock band the Suicidal Angels a success. Then she meets Jaselle.

A painter with an intrinsic understanding of art, Jaselle’s effortless connection to Rainn’s deepest thoughts and fears is intoxicating, and soon they’re falling into a love more powerful than anything Rainn has ever known. She’s never been happier, until Jaselle’s addiction to meth rages out of control, taking over both their lives.

Rainn’s all-consuming need to salvage their relationship might cost her her friends, her band, her dream, and ultimately, herself.

Previously published as Dissonance in A Minor (2013) 

In the summer of 1981, Maxine Cooper moves from the Midwest to San Francisco with her gay best friend, Chris, where she hopes to find love and community. But gay life in a big city is much more complicated than either of them ever expected. Life becomes a constant party, and Max slides deep into alcohol and drugs. She and Chris become estranged, and when he contracts AIDS, Max doesn’t know how to bridge the gap between them. 

Shattered by Chris’s death, Max must decide how she is going to live her life. Can she forgive herself for abandoning him, or will her guilt lead her down a path that guarantees destruction?

Cash Braddock is doing…okay. She sort of has a girlfriend, her business sucks less, and the cops are only picking her up for interrogations every other weekend. Mediocrity has underrated appeal. It’s fine.

The universities are back in session, which means drugs are in high demand. Cash is becoming more reluctant to sell, while Detective Laurel Kallen is on the trail of someone who’s been drugging and assaulting women at college parties. Cash’s and Laurel’s goals should be aligned, but neither is convinced of the ethics of her job anymore. 

When Laurel’s younger sister is assaulted, okay stops being okay. If Cash wants to help the Kallen sisters, she must decide her own moral bounds.

Third in the Cash Braddock series.