Lesbian Fiction Books to Read!

A small selection from stock which includes a huge range of lesbian fiction of all types.

The Others – Siba Al-Harez
A best-seller in Arabic. The Others is a literary tour de force, offering a glimpse into one of the most repressive societies in the world. Siba al-Harez tells the story of a nameless teenager at a girls’ school in the heavily Shi’ite Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Like her classmates, she has no contact with men outside her family. When the glamorous Dai tries to seduce her, her feelings of guilt are overcome by an overwhelming desire for sexual and emotional intimacy. Dai introduces her to a secret world of lesbian parties, online flirtations and hotel liaisons – a world in which the thrill of infatuation and the shame of obsession are deeply interwined. Al-Harez’s erotic, dreamlike story of looming personal crisis is a remarkable portrait of hidden lives.

“A rare window into young, lesbian Saudi culture…The protagonist’s journey of self-discovery [has] universal appeal.” Kirkus Reviews

The True Deceiver – Tove Jansson
In the deep winter snows of a Swedish hamlet, a strange young woman fakes a break-in at the house of an elderly artist in order to persuade her that she needs companionship. But what does she hope to gain by doing this? And who ultimately is deceiving whom? In this portrayal of two women grappling with truth and lies, nothing can be taken for granted. By the time the snow thaws, both their lives will have changed irrevocably.

‘The True Deceiver glitters with the kind of sharpness that might just cut you…It is one of Jansson’s most deceptively quiet, most astonishing compositions.’ Ali Smith.

Girl Meets Boy – Ali Smith
Girl meets boy. It’s a story as old as time. But what happens when an old story meets a brand new set of circumstances? Ali Smith’s re-mix of Ovid’s most joyful myth is a story about the kind of fluidity that can’t be bottled and sold. It’s about girls and boys, girls and girls, love and transformation, a story of puns and doubles, reversals and revelations. Funny and fresh, poetic and political, here is a tale of change for the modern world.

“Girl meets boy pulls you in and doesn’t let you go. Never afraid of big ideas, morality or politics, Smith’s retelling is bold and brilliant – containg the best sexI’ve read in years.” Jackie Kay

The Teahouse Fire – Ellis Avery
A spellbinding tale of love and turmoil in nineteenth century Japan. When Aurelia flees the fire that kills her missionary uncle and leaves her an orphan, she knows but a few words of Japanese. She hides in a teahouse and is adopted by the family who own it: gradually falling in love with both the tea ceremony and with her young mistress, Yukako. As she grows up, Aurelia remains devoted to the family through its failing fortunes and to Yukako, although her love will never be reciprocated. As civil war and western intervention change Japan and tensions in the house gradually mount, Aurelia begins to realise that, to the world around her, she will never be anything but an outsider.

Disobedience – Naomi Alderman
Ronit has left London and transformed her life. She has become a cigarette-smoking, wisecracking, New York career woman, who is in love with a maried man. But when Ronit’s father dies she is called back into the very difficult world of her childhood, a world she thought she had left far behind. The orthodox Jewish suburb of Hendon, north London is outraged by Ronit and her provocative ways. But Ronit is shocked too by the confrontation with her past. And when she meets up with her childhood girlfriend Esti, she is forced to think again about what she has left behind. As read on Radio 4. Winner of the Orange Award for New Writers 2006.

‘Rich, fresh, fascinating. A wonderful novel.’ Sunday Times

Wish I was Here – Jackie Kay
This fierce, funny and compassionate collection of stories explores every facet of that most overwhelming and complicated of human emotions: love. With winning directness, Jackie Kay captures her characters’ greatest joy and greatest vulnerability, exposing the moments of tenderness, of shock, of bravery and of stupidity that accompany the search for love, the discovery of love and, most of all, love’s loss.

“So immediately engaging that it reads as though she is speaking to you at a bus stop.” Irish Times

Behind the Pine Curtain – Gerri Hill
Ostracized from her hometown and banished from her family at the age of seventeen because she is gay, Jaqueline Keys hitch-hikes to Los Angeles and work nights to put herself through college. Now fifteen years later – long after she’s written her first best-selling book No Place For Family- Jackie is persuaded to return to the tiny town of Pine Springs after her father’s death. The quick trip she’d envisioned turns into weeks as she learns that her father’s business is suddenly hers to manage. And soon she is face-to-face with Kay, the woman who had been Jackie’s very first crush all those years ago. It doesn’t take long for them to fall back into their old habits, and soon Jackie is fighting off the same feelings she had struggled with as a teen. Gerri Hill is the best-selling author of Artist’s Dream, Dawn of Change, Gulf Breeze, Hunter’s Way, The Killing Room and Sierra City.

Wild Dogs – Helen Humphreys
Every evening, Alice and five others gather at the forest’s edge, trying to call back their dogs, abandoned by others in their lives. Becoming more involved in the group, Alice moves to a cabin owned by Malcolm, whose motives in having her there are suspicious. As she falls for the wildlife biologist whose wolf has gained lead of the pack, she feels the tug between love’s wild power and her desire to domesticate it. After a tragic accident, all must rethink thier lives and find their places in an untamed world. Wild Dogs is the co-winner of the 2005 Lambda Literary Award for Fiction.

“A sensual, romantic, and brutally wise novel that will leave readers gasping. Every senstence Humphreys writes is a blow to the heart.” Emma Donoghue, author of Life Mask.

Sleep With Me – Joanna Briscoe
Richard and Lelia’s child is conceived in a moment of giggling chaos as they dress for a Christmas party. They arrive rudely late and still glowing, and barely register a slight, drab woman in the hall. Sylvie. As their baby grows, so does the presence of Sylvie – she seems to be nowhere, yet everywhere, harmless yet sinister. Richard is seduced by her subtle, inexplicable charm, while Lelia, struggling with Richard’s sudden ambivalence towards their baby, finds that she is haunted by painful memories. And Sylvie remains as invisible as she wants to be – that is the source of her power.

“Elegiac, beautiful, evocative…Sleep With Me works in much the same way as an obsession…you may wish to escape, but have already become addicted.” Anita Sethi, Daily Telegraph.

The Iron Girl – Ellen Hart
After years spent mourning the death of her partner, Christine Kane, Minneapolis restaurateur Jane Lawless thinks she’s ready to move on. That is, until she finds a gun amoung Christine’s belongings. The night before Christine died of cancer, three members of the Simoneau family, Christine’s real estate clients, were murdered. The timing of their deaths appeared coincidental and Jane always assumed Christine knew nothing about the family’s secrets. But as she searches for clues to understand what really happened, the gun and a few other discoveries begin to convince Jane otherwise. Where past and present collide, Ellen Hart’s latest mystery in this Lambda and Minnesota Book Award winning series proves that she remains one of the genre’s greatest.

Idaho Code – Joan Opyr
Burned by love gone wrong, Bil leaves college in Seattle and returns to Cowslip, Idaho, population 23,000. It ought to be the perfect place to lick her wounds but unfortunately Bil’s terminally ill brother has embarked on a petty crime spree, Cowslip has become ground zero in the battle over an anti-gay initiative and it looks as if Bil’s mother might have been involved in a long ago murder. This is where family therapy comes with a shovel and an alibi.

Alchemy – Maureen Duffy
A compelling mystery combining the witch trials of the past with a contemporary case of academic intrigue. Solicitor Jade Green’s life takes a turn for the bizarre when she accepts an unusual case – that of a university professor accused of Satanism. As Jade delves into the strange circumstances of his dismissal, she finds herself drawn into a seventeenth-century manuscript, the original of which has been stolen from the Professor’s briefcase at the university. It is the diary of Amyntas Boston, a young woman awaiting trial for dabbling in the black arts. The two stories intertwine as Jade fells mysterious echoes of the trial in her own life, and resonances of Amyntas’ experience four hundred years before. Well written and a popular favourite.

‘A novel that bristles with ideas.’Sunday Times

Deftly handeld the movement between two worlds, four centuries apart. Her range of cultural reference is dazzling.’Literary Review.

Night Call – Radclyffe
All medevac helicopter pilot Jett McNally wants to do is fly and forget about the horror and heartbreak she left behind in the Middle East, but anesthesiologist Tristan Holmes has other plans. When Jett comes home from the war in the Middle East, flying and the adrenaline rush of crisis are the only things that make her happy, and she volunteers to fly night call where all the action is whenever she can. So maybe once in a while she takes a few chances. Hey, that’s life, right? Dr. Tristan Holmes is an expert at two things – high-risk anesthesia and pleasing women. Tristan gave up expecting anything other than a good time from the women in her life a long time ago, and casual relationships are the perfect prescription for stress release. She doesn’t do relationships, so she can’t quite understand why it bothers her when Jett makes it clear she doesn’t want one. High-stakes medical drama, life on the edge, and love in the fast lane.

Radclyffe’s excellent and gripping novels can prove very hard to get hold of, so that’s why Gay’s the Word import and stocks her whole back catalogue.

Radclyffe, author of over thirty novels, is the recipient of the 2004 Alice B. Award for a career “distinguished by consistently well-written, realistic, and inspirational novels.”

Babyji – Abha Dawesar
Sexy, surprising, and subversively wise, Babyji is the story of Anamika Sharma, a spirited student growing up in Delhi. At school she is an ace at quantum physiscs. At home she sneaks off to her parent’s scooter garage to read the Kamasutra. Before long she has seduced an elegant older divorcee and the family servant and has caught the eye of a classmate coveted by all the boys. With the world of adulthood dancing before her, Anamika confronts questions that would test someone twice her age. Ebullient, unfettered, and introducing one of the most charming heroines in contemporary fiction, Babyji is irresistible.

“I loved Babyji. It’s a cunning lithe defiant sexy tiger’s roar of a book.” Ali Smith, author of Hotel World.

EverAfter – Sandra Freeman
Ever After is a historical lesbian novel about love’s ferocity, secrets and joys. A sequel to the intelligent and gratifying The Other Side, set in Paris following W.W.I, we re-encounter Charlie (aka Charlotte) and Anna as they deal with fidelity, desire and sex between women; a subject not ripe for discussion in ‘polite society’. The war may be over but life for these women proves far from peaceful.

Lost Daughters – J.M. Redmann
The eagerly awaitied fourth Micky Knight mystery. Micky is the fearless, fast-moving New Orleans private dick with a difference. She’s on two cases: a widowed mother is searching for her estranged daughter, and an adopted young drag queen, who was thrown out of his home for being queer, searches for his mother. This all leads Micky to the question of her own mother, who split when she was five. In this latest adventure Micky is still a deliciously complicated and contradictory character. An absorbing and gratifying read.

The Dawn of Change – Gerri Hill
Susan Sterling wanted nothing more than to escape her life…and her marriage. The family’s secluded cabin in King’s Canyon National Park seemed the only place for her to find peace. But it took Shawn Weber coming into her life for her to find the courage to make changes. The budding friendship between the two women strenghtens into an intense emotional bond, a bond that soon eclipses friendship. Despite pressure from her family to reconcile with her husband, Susan can’t deny the feelings that Shawn stirs within her. But will Susan forsake her entire family for a chance of love with Shawn? Intensely engrossing and deliciously readable.

Fun Home, A Family Tragicomic – Alison Bechdel
A fresh and brilliantly told comic-book memoir from a cult favourite, marked by gothic twists, a family funeral home, sexual angst, and great books. Meet Alison’s father, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with his male students and a family babysitter. Through narrative that is heartbreaking and fiercely funny, we are drawn into a daughter’s complex yearning for her father. When Alison comes out as gay herself in late adolescence, the denouement is swift, graphic – and redemptive. Bechdel is the hugely insightful and talented author of the ever-popular Dykes to Watch Out For series.

The list was compiled from Gay’s The Word Lesbian & Gay Bookshop.
Gay’s The Word is the UK’s pioneering first lesbian and gay bookshop. Established in 1979 and had located in the historic Bloomsbury district of London.