#wlw historical romance

[trulylostgirl]

Don't Want You Like a Best Friend

Emma R. Alban

[forsapphics]

Deux jeunes femmes s'embrassant (Two Young Women) (1790 - 1794)

Louis-Léopold Boilly (1761 - 1845)

[marieyoungwrites]

Proud to say that my sapphic romance novel is finally out!

Description: Set in the late 1950s, a college sophomore falls for her best friend’s older sister.

Thank you for all the love and support!🩵

Special thanks to the cover designer who created the cover of my dreams and was able to see my vision. 🩵

(Currently only available in ebook form)

[escapismthroughfilm]

⋆˚｡Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) dir. Céline Sciamma⋆˚｡

[calchexxis]

New Book Release!

I've finally released my latest book! Art by @lovewritteninthestrands

If anyone here is interested in some December-May lesbian romance between an ex-exorcist nun and her sugar-baby demon girl, give Sacred a try!

Synopsis:

Once a powerful and influential exorcist of the Church of Celestial Hosts, Rena Cervantes has been given an honorable early retirement as Mother Superior of a convent. Listless without a foe, Rena's obnoxiously peaceful life takes a turn for the strange when the latest batch of novitiates arrive containing a demon set on corrupting her soul, with one caveat. She's quite bad at it.

Ebooks are available at Rakuten Kobo and Barnes & Noble, and will also soon be available on Amazon! Links below!

Kobo - Ebook

B&N - Ebook

[nothwell]

What if the monstrous was the feminine and the feminine was the monstrous but also the monstrous and the feminine made out. What then.

[pridepages]

Dear Gentle Reader, can't get enough Bridgerton? Think it would be better if we'd just admit Eloise is sapphic? Fear not! These ladies loving ladies have just the thing... A Bluestocking's Guide to Decadence by Jess Everlee ⭐⭐⭐⭐ A decadent butch lesbian in a lavender marriage seeks out the aid of a straight-laced, bluestocking doctor for a friend. It's just business...until it isn't!

A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Lord Marleigh died at Waterloo and like a phoenix, Viola Carroll rose from the ashes to spread her wings. Now she's home, but does she dare trust her old friend, the Duke of Gracewood, with her heart and her true self?

Don't Want You Like a Best Friend by Emma R. Alban ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Marriage is a lady's only preservative from want. Imagine the scandal if one fell for her best friend! There is no future there...unless the two of you can make a match between your newly-single parents.

Infamous by Lex Croucher ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Edith "Eddie" and Rose have been best friends since childhood. But after their debutante ball, Rose is talking about marriage while Eddie can't imagine anything but being a famous writer. When a curious invitation from scandalous poet Nash Nicholson brings Eddie and Rose to an eccentric, hedonistic house party...will it be the end of their friendship or the start of something more?

[whosnero]

Empire Bay: Dragon's Blood.||

Credits: Original story written by whosnero.

Synopsis: “Set in the late 50s, Empire Bay becomes a rapidly growing metropolis in the United States. The Japanese Mafia takes over the city under the name of numerous clans, but the most important one is labeled as Shinryu (the real dragon). The story focuses on three characters (love triangle and drama): Karina (Jimin), with her high social status and dark nature, aspires to become the new Oyabun (leader) of the clan; Winter (Minjeong), the faithful right hand of the current Oyabun, has the support of her Kobun (clan mates). Despite the mutual contempt between the two, the arrival of Aria (Original OC), a young girl of Italian descent who only wants to help her family by working as a taxi driver, will intensify the rivalries between Karina and Winter."

Pairing: Karina(Yu Jimin),Winter(Kim Minjeong) x Aria(Fem/OC)

Genre:“Mafia,Mature,Explicit content,Violence,Drama,Romance,Love triangle,Power struggle, Organized Crime,Historical Fiction,Difference in social status.”

Warning:“Graphic violence,sexual content,dark themes, explicit language,grammar mistakes (eng not my first language),drug abuse,weapons,physical abuse,emotional abuse,gore, supernatural powers..may add more”

Status:“On going.”

Updates: “When i'm free and have time or whenever i can.”

Chapters: (may change names)||

1. The dance of the wolves.

2. Macabre feast.

3. Eden's Gate.

4. The devil's trill.

5. Chain reaction.

6. Poison.

7. House of the rising sun.

(More to add..)

[marzipanandminutiae]

I wanted so badly to like Don't Want You Like A Best Friend to spite the puritanical pearl-clutchers online who are mad about [checks notes] the sapphic lovers, who are not related and who met as adults, Parent Trap-ing their way into becoming stepsisters because it's 1857 and there's no other way to legally codify their relationship AND reduce the pressure on the poor one to marry a rich man

but tragically I noped out at like...5% completion because the anachronistic dialogue (with no clear stylistic choice behind it) and spotty understanding of 1850s culture were just too much

[golden-heretic]

September is such a magical month-- it's bisexual visibility month, Latinx Heritage month, my birthday month AND Sapphic September? I just keep winning ♥️✨️

So in giddiness to participate in #SapphicSeptember 🌸 I've prepared a list of not only TBRs but recommendations but remember 🍷 READ SAPPHIC ALL YEAR AROUND💋

TBR 📚

🌙 The Cradle of Eternal Night by Ladz

🐍 Scales of Seduction by Rien Gray

🦪 Mother of Pearl by AA Fairview

🩸 Unholy with Eyes like Wolves by Morgan Dante

☀️ As the Sun Comes Up by Olive J. Kelley

Recommendations 📚

🐟 Providence Girls by Morgan Dante

🪽 The Fall that Saved Us by Tamara Jerée

🥀 Where Willows Weep by Luna Fiore

❄️ Ice Upon a Pier by Ladz

🍷 A Dowry of Blood by ST Gibson

[forsapphics]

Sapphic vintage paintings + Taylor Swift's lyrics

[russiansappho]

“I still pick flowers with you in my dreams. And you smile. You laugh. You dance with me in the emerald fields. I wonder if you keep my letters under your pillow. I wonder if you still sit by the lake and remember the sunsets we spent in each other’s arms.”

Painting: Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May by John William Waterhouse.

[pixiemoonmagic]

An Irish inspired romance.

(9/12/2023)

[nothwell]

I know I'm not the first reader to say "lesbian A Knight's Tale" and I doubt I will be the last.

But I'll be damned if Lesbian A Knight's Tale doesn't hit good.

There's more to it, of course, than the already very strong premise of hidden identity at a tournament. Even more than the even stronger premise of a sapphic cross-dresser fighting for her lady's hand. Every medieval history tidbit gave me a delightful sense of vindication. Every plot twist was both earned and satisfying. To say nothing of the beer brewing, the refreshingly non-villified embroidery, the literal bodice-ripping, and my favorite medieval English nickname. There's a lot here to reward the reader for diving in to this queer adventure.

All the Painted Stars by Emma Denny (@a-kind-of-merry-war ) is already out in the UK (you lucky bastards) but if you're stateside you can preorder it wherever fine books are found!

[byleahgracie]

New story alert! I've started writing a sapphic romance fantasy/historical webnovel for Tapas' "True Love on Tapas" contest!

I'd LOVE if you could check it out and, if you have a tapas account, subscribe and give it a like and comment if you enjoy reading it!!

It's full of time travel, sapphic love, and a quest to save a world, mostly set in Regency England :D

[checkoutmybookshelf]

I'm Sorry, You Packed HOW MANY Tropes into that Hoopskirt???

So...I'd be lying if I tried to tell you that I picked up this book for any reason other than the big poofy 1850s ball gowns on the cover. I'd also be lying if I said I had any expectations beyond cute, fluffy, wlw romance.

Then we got stuck into the book and suddenly I was like...I'm sorry, this cover did not prepare me for the ANGST and GROUNDING and WEIGHT and POLITICAL DIMENSIONS of this book. Not to mention that it manages to pack a metric ton of tropes into not that long a book, including but not limited to second-chance romance, parent trapping, friends-to-lovers, and the power of friendship. AND it's LGBTQIA+. I was not expecting to cry over this book, but here we are. Let's talk Don't Want You Like a Best Friend.

This is your SPOILER WARNING because I'm running on three hours of sleep and don't believe for a second that I'm not going to be randomly tossing SPOILERS all over the place. Be warned.

Oh, and this is a CONTENT WARNING for marital and domestic abuse. For both this book and this review.

Gwen is a debutante in her fourth season with no interest in marriage and the biggest rake of a father in London.

Beth is a first-season debutante on a mission to marry well, because her cousin is repossessing her and her mother's house at the end of the season and they will be homeless and penniless.

So naturally they plot to get Gwen's dad and Beth's mom together.

This is not as wild as it seems, because before Lady Demeroven's father forced her to marry Beth's dad (who is both an abusive asshole and thankfully super dead), she was deeply in love with Dashiell Havenfort. When she broke his heart. Lord Havenfort went off, got drunk, partied, and then there was Gwen--who he raised as a single dad because Gwen's mother died in childbirth.

So we have that little powder keg to begin the story, and it's set against the increasingly critical backdrop of Havenfort and the father of the aggressively vanilla boy who decides to marry Beth (yeah, they have names, I don't care. It's vanilla boy and his dickhead dad from here on in) going toe-to-toe in parliament trying to pass and prevent, respectively, a piece of legislation that would allow women to divorce their husbands for reasons other than being beaten bloody. This really underscores the situation that Beth and her mother had been in, and the one that they might be in again if Beth goes through with the marriage to vanilla boy. Thankfully she doesn't, but honestly, the number of men just waltzing around in this world going "women are property and I should be able to beat the snot out of them if I want to" was really depressing. And that depression just intensified when Beth and Gwen finally realized they wanted a sapphic relationship with each other.

The patriarchy sucks, guys. So hard.

Watching Beth and Gwen try to parent trap their respective parents was a lot of fun, and once they realized what they wanted, their relationship was also fun. That's not to say that the book was perfectly executed, though. The first half of the book is slooooooooooooow. Like slow enough that I considered DNFing the book. I'm glad I didn't, because once the "Oh, I'm sapphic" realization hits, the angst of being sapphic in a patriarchal world where marriage was women's only real hope of financial stability hit true and hard. Trying to find another way to live in a world that didn't want you to exist was really interesting.

The other thing that I wasn't a fan of--and your mileage may vary--was that while the setting and politics and fashion were extremely well-grounded in the 1850s, the character dialogue and language is jarringly modern. At one point, someone said to "put that energy out to the world" and I just had to put the book down for a minute and take a few deep breaths. So depending on how real-feeling you want the history part of this historical romance to feel, your mileage may vary with the language.

Now, the thing that I truly loved about this book is that is faces abuse and its effects full in the face, and refuses to continue a cycle of abuse. The MCA passes, and then women help each other recover and get out of abusive situations. Lady Demeroven's first marriage was abusive and violent, although she hid the extent of it from Beth. She tries to ensure that Beth ends up with a man who will be kind to her, and vanilla boy might have been...but his dickhead dad wouldn't have been, and dickhead dad might have influenced vanilla boy to become abusive. Lady Demeroven ultimately refuses to allow either the cycle of accepting abuse or the cycle of abusive men teaching their sons that abuse is acceptable or *shudder* somehow their marital duty. Lady Demeroven goes on a whole journey to heal her own trauma enough to stop the cycle and protect Beth, and she does. She shuts that shit down, and they walk.

Like the door slam in the Tenant of Wildfell Hall, the door slamming behind Lady and Beth Demeroven heralds freedom and happiness. It is the end of a cycle that devalues women and that tells other women that they can make a different choice. And this book does it gently, acknowledging that doing so is HARD, and it takes courage and help and support. Honestly, I was SO HERE for Lady Demeroven's journey and her finding happiness with Dashiell at the end of the book.

Overall, this was not a perfect book. There were pacing and execution issues, and Lady Demeroven and Lord Havenfort kind of steal the show from their daughters' romance. But this book had THINGS TO SAY, and those things are important to say, and perhaps say even more loudly now in 2024 than they were back in the Victorian era. So this book was fun, it had clear things to say, and honestly it was a fun read.