#The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw

[sapphicides]

in honor of black history month 2025, i’ve put together a list of books written by black sapphic authors for you to read in the month of february

non-fiction essays/memoirs:

all about love: new visions by bell hooks

black lesbian in white america by anita cornwell

sister outsider: essays and speeches by audre lorde

mouths of rain: an anthology of black lesbian thought by briona simone jones

blues legacies and black feminism by angela davis

does your mama know?: an anthology of black lesbian coming out stories by lisa c. moore

fiction:

the color purple by alice walker

loving her by ann allen shockley

the gilda stories by jewelle gomez

in another place, not here by dionne brand

pomegranate by helen elaine lee

the summer we got free by mia mckenzie

these letters end in tears by musih tedji xaviere

dead in long beach, california by venita blackburn

young adult:

honey girl by morgan rogers

escaping mr. rochester by l.l. mckinney

this ravenous fate by hayley dennings

faebound by saraa el-arifa

so let them burn by kamilah cole

where sleeping girls lie by faridah àbíké-íyímídé

adult:

the deep by rivers solomon

sweet vengeance by viano oniomoh

come back (love concealed) by terri ronald

house of hunger by alexis henderson

short stories:

girl, woman, other by bernadine evaristo

the secret lives of church ladies by deesha philyaw

additional info:

-> “why wasn’t this book listed?” probably because it wasn’t black sapphic-centric, the author isn’t a black sapphic themself, or i just simply haven’t heard of it! so feel free to add on if it meets those two criteria

many of these books require trigger warnings, especially some of the older ones that are more likely to feature racial struggles of the time. please do your due diligence and search for tws if you want to read them!

please feel free to add onto this list in the rbs or comments! happy black history month

[meltotheany]

Goodreads | Amazon US | B&N | Blackwell’s | Bookshop ♡ this audiobook is free with my amazon membership this is maybe the best short story collection i have ever read to date. i was blown away by how many back to back five stars i was giving, and how each story felt so real and each story was so deeply felt by me. to me, this really is a collection about identity and connection and how we embrace, enhance, and find those things in so many life experiences. from church and sex, to motherhood and sisterhood, to our queerness and our connections, to how we were raised and our relationship to our families currently, to just every facet of life. i just loved this wholeheartedly and completely and i recommend so very much. (also, i really loved the short story fuckboy museum in the peach pit anthology by this author! and it made me want to read everything by them!) ━━♡ Eula ★★★★ “But maybe you should question the people who taught you this version of God. Because it’s not doing you any favors.” oh i really loved this, and such a great and strong start to this anthology. this short story follows two women in their 40s celebrating the y2k new year. they are both teachers, and both have shared a lot of their lives with each other, and this focuses on glimpses of the past ten years, where they have also been lovers, with very different thoughts on what a happy life should look like. tw/cw: mentions of infidelity ━━♡ Not-Daniel ★★★ this is a very short story that is showing a hook up between two people who are taking care of their mothers in a hospice center. this felt very real and very harrowing and there is really no words for a situation as cruel as this, but i also didn’t love reading it. tw/cw: hospice setting, cancer mentions, grief, anxiety, depression, mention of maybe infidelity ━━♡ Dear Sister ★★★★★ i really loved this. this is a letter being written by a sister to a sister she has never met before. it is in the midst of planning their fathers funeral, and she is detailing the events to this sister that she never knew. this was just the perfect balance of sad and heartwarming, and it just felt so very real to me. tw/cw: loss of a parent (stroke), mention of loss of a grandparent (heart attack), alzheimer mention, mention of abortion, grief, abandonment, brief mention of infidelity, unwanted touch, funeral setting ━━♡ Peach Cobbler ★★★★★ “…maybe I could make a cobbler that pleased God. And maybe that would please my mother.” a very powerful short story about a young girl growing up watching her mother have an affair with their pastor. and her learning to recreate the perfect peach cobbler, that her mother makes every monday, in the hopes that maybe her mother would see her and love her. i know i sound like a broken record, but truly all of these stories just feel so real and the sadness and hurt and loneliness are just so easily felt in so few pages. i also feel like i could truly taste the tartness, the sweetness, and the softness of this story on every page. tw/cw: infidelity, child abuse, abandonment, neglect, mention of sick aunt/sister, loss of a aunt/sister. ━━♡ Snowfall ★★★★★ two women, shoveling the snow from their northern home, being nostalgic for their southern upbringing. this has big themes surrounding the feelings of giving away the past you loved for a healthy future that allows you to live the life you deserve to live. i just like really loved this one wholeheartedly and so very completely. tw/cw: brief mention of infidelity in past, implied homophobia, homophobia in past from parent, abandonment ━━♡ How to Make Love to a Physicist ★★★★★ this story starts out at a conference, where we follow two people who meet for the first time and stay up talking late into the night. and then we get to see their journey after the conference is over. this is a really beautiful depiction of a relationship growing, and how other relationships in life can impact that (very ...

[daricommons]

She didn’t know whether Mama remembered her. But it was enough to know that Mama wanted her to believe she did.

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw

[libraryleopard]

new deesha philyaw!!!

[ifyourebored]

Buy from the publisher HERE

or Buy from my favorite place to buy books: Better World Books

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

By Deesha Philyaw.

[mumblingsage]

In these darkest and laziest days of the year, I've been reading some really great books -- Deesha Philyaw's The Secret Lives of Church Ladies was so good it went on my Reread list as soon as I checked it off my Read list -- but I don't quite have the wherewithal to write more detailed reviews/recommendations, at least not yet.

[elliizzzabeth]

One (or two) sentence reviews of all of the books i read in 2024.

1. A Power Unbound by Freya Marske (4/5 stars)

End to gay magical edwardian england trilogy. Wrapped everything up nicely but still slightly meh on whole series.

2-8. Secrets and Scrabble series by Josh Lanyon (4.5/5 average)

Cute, sweet murder mystery series set in New England. I want to move to pirates cove :)

9. The Dawnhounds by Sascha Stronach (4/5 stars)

Maori eco-futurism pirates. Interesting concept, too much going on.

10. The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune (3.75/5)

Saccharine sweet found family in a magical foster home. Too sweet in fact, should have been a kids book.

11. Dinner Lady Detectives by Hannah Hendy (4/5)

Sweet old lady lesbians solve a murder mystery. Funny and silly but didn't blow me away.

12. This is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar (5/5)

Star-crossed time-travelling killing machines on opposite sides of an intergalactic war. So short and yet packed such a punch!

13. Nine Liars (Truly Devious book 5) by Maureen Johnson (3/5)

Teenage detective prodigy comes to england to solve a murder. Also happens to be most annoying character of all time!

14. Heartstopper vol. 5 by Alice Oseman (5/5)

Nick and charlie so sweet and lovely forever

15. The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw (5/5)

Short stories about southern black women and their relationships (and sometimes the church). Felt like i could step right through the page every single time.

16. Hidden in Snow by Vivica Sten (3.5/5)

Translated swedish murder mystery. Suffered from fatal combo of slow pacing and predictable plot :/

17. Babel by R.F. Kuang (4.75/5)

What if language magic was used for colonialism? Unfortunately the tiktok girlies are right about this one it slays

18. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (3.5/5)

The Tiktok girlies were NOT right about this one. Not unless you like listening to two people hate each other for 13 hours

19-22. The Singing Hills Cycle by Nigh Vo (4.75/5 average)

Nonbinary monk travels around asia collecting stories and folklore. Again, how can such a short books pack such a fucking suckerpunch!!!

23. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab (4.75/5)

What if you made a deal with the devil and then he fell in love with you? How can you live 300 years and only manage to meet white people 😭

24. Thieves by Lucie Bryon (5/5)

Dumbass Lesbians hatch a plan to un-steal people's belongings. Silly and cute as hell

25. Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (5/5)

Nona I love you!!!!!!!

26. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Oseman (4.5/5)

Pensioners solve a murder at their retirement home. Pleasantly suprised for such a popular book, looking forward to the rest of the series

27-29. The Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisin (4.5/5 average)

Earth magic + racism + the world is ending + colonial power is the root of all evil = everybody having a bad time forever (but in a good way). The Fifth Season slapped so severely that I was let down a little by its two follow ups.

30. The Spirit Bares its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White (4.5/5)

Violent and unflinching look at how they treated women, queer people and the mentally ill in the victorian era. I am so so so brave for sitting though all the medical descriptions are you proud of me

31. Everything is Under Control: a Memoir with Recipies by Phyllis Grant (4/5)

Memoir of a recipie blogger but tbh i don't really think she had anything that groundbreaking to say.

32. Ring of Solomon by Aden Polydoros (4.25/5)

Percy Jackson but he's gay and jewish. Fun and funny but middle grade and I could feel it

33. Cultish: The Language of Fanatacism by Amanda Montell (4.5/5)

How cults will use language to trap you and keep you in their greasy little hands. Also why you should never ever join an MLM

34. Saltblood by Francesca De Tores (4.25/5)

Was famous pirate Mary Read a Non-binary icon? We literally have no way of knowing but its a nice thought I guess

35. On Earth We're Breifly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (3.75/5)

A long and emotional letter from a traumatised son to his traumatised mother. Unfortunately i am nauuuurt a literary fiction girlie and I could feel it

36. Fun Home by Alison Bechdel (4.75/5)

Musings of a lesbian daughter on the suicide of her closeted gay father. More academic than I expected but still real good

BONUS - my 3 books I am currently reading

37. House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski

Sooo confusing and yet sooo compelling. Whoever is holding this hostage at my local library please give it back please please please pl-

38. Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

What if the local gay conversion camp/cult was a little bit tooo into demons. Chuck Tingle really said I know I've made a career of writing gimicky gay porn books but what if I wrote this slam dunk of a mystery/queer horror/sensitive look into the relationship between faith and queerness Chuck you can't do this to me why is it so good

39. Half Arse Human by Leena Norms

Been a big fan of Leena's youtube channel so I am very excited to read! Its been getting a lot of promo so I hope it does well for her :)

[lucyfrostblade]

🪢 A headcanon about their family, 📓 A headcanon about their hobbies, 👗 A headcanon about their clothes, 🔪 A headcanon relating to fighting/violence (for both ivy and lucy please i love your takes)

headcanon ask game !!

Lucy:

🪢 A headcanon about their family

one of lucy's parents (i say she has two moms but that's unrelated to the current headcanon) was born in the mountains of chaos and moved to elmville with her own parents when she was an older teen, around 16 or 17. the official reasoning was that it was safer to raise a family in elmville and a desire to live a life less rooted in survival and more in living, but the real reason but that lucy's grandparents had gotten some vague communications from ruvina that some time in the coming decades that a frostblade would be needed in elmville.

📓 A headcanon about their hobbies

credit to @vortahoney for starting this conversation with the other day !! lucy reads sad girl books, be it weird sad girl or hot sad girl. an absolutely remarkable thing by hank green, severence by ling ma, our wives under the sea by julia armfield, my heart is a chainsaw by stephen graham jones, olga dies dreaming by xochitl gonzalez, gods of want by k-ming chang, bad cree by jessica johns, the secret lives of church ladies by deesha philyaw.

i think i said to spence that i don't think she would read horror or the weirder books yesterday but i have changed my mind. she doesn't read the goreriest stuff or even truly weird stuff, but she doesn't shy away from it either.

👗 A headcanon about their clothes

lucy dresses like it's winter every single day. every since she became a frost gensasi, it's been hard for her to stay warm. it doesn't exactly bother her, it's comfortable, but she misses it, you know? so she's always wearing sweaters even on the hottest summer day, trying to chase the warmth she remembers from early childhood.

🔪 A headcanon relating to fighting/violence (for both ivy and lucy please i love your takes)

she's depicted in the official art as having a morning star and i am a little bit obsessed with that. it implies either a strength that isn't necessarily evident in her character design, or that she's just carrying around a weapon that she can't really use. i lean more towards the former, and that she has a tendency to be more involved in combat than any of the other rat grinders are completely comfortable with. she'll always try and keep combat from breaking out but once it does she can wack people with her morning star and then cast healing word as a bonus action. it's fine guys, she promises. of course if someone gets badly hurt she'll focus on that but let my girl hit people in between. especially post-resurrection it's one of the only ways she feels comfortable expressing anger.

Ivy:

🪢 A headcanon about their family

ivy moved to elmville shortly before freshman year with her mom. her parents divorced during the last year of middle school. it was messy, and they absolutely had the worst fights right in front of ivy for most of her childhood. in the end, ivy was made to chose between staying in fallinel with her dad or moving to elmville with her mom, and she chose the latter. she sees her dad a couple times a year now, but her mom isn't much more present despite the fact that they live under the same roof.

📓 A headcanon about their hobbies & 👗 A headcanon about their clothes

archery itself could be considered a hobby, i don't know if you have any experience with it. personally i am pretty shit at it but i am getting back into it anyway. back to ivy though, i imagine it started out as a hobby before it became who she was. summers spent shooting at targets instead of playing with the other kids, and after school time was spent more on practice than her homework.

i imagine that once she starts aguefort she's similarly intense about it but picks up an actual hobby or two now that she has time in school to be intense about it. something tactile, maybe knitting or crochet? i lean knitting for ivy bc it's simpler and more practical but she could still use it to make crop tops and tank tops. i think she'd have fun with it. and she makes oisin count her rounds for her. it's hard, okay?

🔪 A headcanon relating to fighting/violence

ivy's an archer which creates a certain distance from the violence she enacts. the first thing she kills is a deer while on a hunting trip with her parents. for a while it's just game, then when she starts aguefort it's rats and monsters. even in battle against other people (against lucy) it's easy enough for her to keep her distance from the reality of violence against another person. she didn't touch lucy when they killed her, just stood by the treeline and aimed. the distance doesn't help with the guilt, doesn't stop the nightmares.

[picklejarred]

My Top Books of 2024

hello! i read 191 books last year and here are my top 20 (in no particular order)

- The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke by Jeffrey C. Stewart

- Africa Is Not A Country by Dipo Faloyin

- Bodyminds (Re)imagined by Sami Schalk

- Letters To My Weird Sisters by Joanne Limburg

- The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw

- The X-Files: The Truth Is Still Out There by Dr Bethan Jones

- Infect Your Friends And Loved Ones by Torrey Peters

- Constructing A Nervous System by Margo Jefferson

- Last Seen Online by Wren James

- Before We Were Trans by Dr Kit Heyam

- Burn This by Lanford Wilson

- Late Bloomer by Clem Bastow

- One Hundred Days by Alice Pung

- Vanya and Sonya and Masha and Spike by Christopher Durang

- Feminist Queer Crip by Alison Kafer

- When The Body Says No by Gabor Maté

- Reel to Real: Race, Class and Sex at the Movies by bell hooks

- The Future is Disabled by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

- Daddy Boy by Emerson Whitney

- Trauma Stewardship by Laura Van Dernoot Lipsky

Please share your faves from this year to help me inform my tbr for 2025!!!

[have-you-read-this-short-fiction]

[bookloure]

Books finished in May| May has been a good month, but I'm also ripe for another social media break! When I took a month break last March, I decided I will do it periodically—quarterly, in fact. So I'll be gone again for a bit in June, from the third week (because I still have a book to review) up to the second week of July. Sana afford ko mag sabbatical chz.

Now let's talk about books—the highlight is I discovered that I loooove body horror because of a random eARC I got. The cheka part is that I gave my first 1star of the year. Anyway, here are the 10 books I finished this month, ranked:

4.5⭐

📱 Kindred by Octavia E. Butler - It has been forever since I stayed up late because I can't put a book down. This totally did it. Of course I felt shit the next day, but damn it's so worth it!

4⭐

📖 It's A Mens World by Bebang Siy - It's a collection of the author's personal stories chronicling her girlhood in Manila. Funny, relatable and quite charming, but also dark in places.

📱 Welcome To Your Body: Lessons in Evisceration, edited by Ryan Marie Ketterer - Before this book I already had an inkling that I like body horror—Grease by Junji Ito and Earthlings by Sayaka Murata are two of my favorites, but this book gave me different flavors of body horror and I enjoyed sampling every story. Of course, I like some stories more than the others, but as a collection I honestly will give this 5 stars. It reminded me of Deesha Philyaw's "The Secret Lives of Church Ladies" in the sense that it feels very much like a cohesive collection. Top tier!

📖 Tao Sa Prowa: Mga Tala, Mga Taon by Allan Popa - Another stunning collection. It's a series of seemingly random vignettes on different aspects and phases of life, that is, until I came to the titular piece—then it morphed into a rounded collection. And the theme is revealed. I would say it's similar to Saglit: Mga Ala-ala't Muni by Rofel Brion, but (10x) better.

📱 Frieren: Beyond the Journey's End Volumes 7&8 by Kanehito Yamada and Tsukasa Abe - I adore this series so much!!! It's starts in the end and shows the reader how we carry the people we meet to the future even though our time together is over. I tear up a lot reading this manga lol.

�� Asintada: Mga Tula by Lilia Quindoza Santiago - Simple. Pero pag tinamaan ka bubukol for sure.

3⭐

📱 Giraffe and a Half by Shel Silverstein - Minsan trip ko lang bumasa ng children's book. Solid naman ito hehe.

📱 Sheets by Brenna Thummler - Loved the art style, the story, not so much.

1.5⭐

📱 🎧 Bel Canto by Ann Patchett - So disappointed with this because it's a highly anticipated read. I guess I'll just put my Goodreads review here: The writing is gorgeous because it's Ann Patchett, but I did not connect with this for some reason, so I was already planning to give it 3 stars... but then I found out what Peruvian historical event this book takes inspiration from and it just left a bad taste in my mouth the erasure and co-opting of POC stories and histories. I wouldn't have learned about the Lima Hostage Crisis if not for other Goodreads reviews. You'd hope that the telling of these stories would help shed light, but the author swept the Peruvians under the rug instead. In their own story. Very British Museum behavior.

And that's a wrap! 🌯 I already cried to LOTR: The Return of the King, so June is already going so well lol.

[daricommons]

I’m not going to raise mine to go through life expecting it to be sweet, when for her, it ain’t going to be. The sooner she learns to accept what is and what ain’t, the better. She get a taste of that sweetness, she’s going to want it so bad, she’ll grow up and settle for crumbs of it.”

[litcomp3]

Secret Lives of Church Ladies getting a TV adaptation!

~ S. Lundy

[africanamericanlit22]

When I first read Deesha Philyaw’s “The Secret Lives of Church Ladies”, I figured that the text would unpack the secretion and stereotypes of Black church women. However, after reading “The Instructions for Married Christian Husbands”, I genuinely received a sense of empowerment and liberation as she thoroughly explained her requirements for lust. The narrator isn’t ashamed to admit that she’s turned on by the “forbidden” access to married men. We also mentioned in class that the narrator witnessed her mother committing similar acts as she states, “I grew up watching my mother eating the crumbs and leftovers from another woman’s table” (148-149). She seems very confident in her sexuality and of who she is as a woman, which reminded me of Jazmine Sullivan’s “BPW.” Similar to Sullivan, the narrator feels liberated through sex, but it could be related to the possible lack of self-love. Both women feel as though they can thoroughly express themselves through their power of sex and they don’t feel the need to establish a long-lasting relationship with a man who isn’t worthy of anything but personal satisfaction.

“And how you never ever had it like this (oh)

And it’s a privilege to you hit (oh)

So act accordingly

Even though we ain’t official

You know I ain’t no regular girl”

-Velvet Tapp

[astronautical-operatics]

the secret lives of church ladies - deesha philyaw

4.5/5 i really enjoyed this!!! easy read, such a cool collection of black women’s stories. there’s a lot of variety but common themes and voices throughout. discussions of lesbians, christianity/god, love, food, family, etc. i haven’t seen anyone post this excerpt yet. its how the first story “Eula” ends

[andersonpress]

THE BOOKS I'M RUNNING THROUGH LIKE I'M TOMB RAIDER

Jul 14, 2022

Dolly - Dolly Parton

(Who else lied about reading this book in school?). I have always liked Dolly Parton but I never knew why. Closeted lesbian problems. Do I like her or do I want her boobs? BOTH. I picked it up specifically to read on my annual lake trip with my besties. I love reading autobiographies and I often read them pretty quick because I know how they end - LOL. Dolly also wrote this book before so many of her other eras soooooo I’m excited to hop into her life as she still is able to talk about it from her perspective.

Secret Lives of Church Ladies - Deesha Philyaw

I was recommended this book by a sea of well meaning White folks who love to ask my Black ass, “so do you like Pittsburgh?” I was working at a pretty left (seeming) bookstore and these yts had a kink for hearing me explain over and over how historically and statistically that PGH is a dangerous space for Black women. Deesha actually wrote several pieces about her love/hate relationship to PGH, how often Black women leave, and her own impending departure after her daughter graduates high school. They would hand it to me and say something, “oh Deesha is a Black woman who has a complicated relationship to Pittsburgh - you’ll love this.” Yts really think we all cousins. But alas I do love supporting a Black woman (from infiinity to infinity) so I bought the book. First of all - it’s amazing - but it is NOT about Pittsburgh yt PGH people. Just because she lives here doesn’t mean she’s talking about PGH. She’s talking about Black church…you know the things y’all are afraid to walk by or donate to? It’s about SEX and it’s queer so it’s now in my Canon. Get the damn book!

Siren’s Desire - Samirah the Sapphic Siren

This is a book from one of my dear survivor friends Samirah the Sapphic Siren. Samirah has offered the reader so many delightful, real, and classic poems to chew on. I find myself reading them several times; taking portions and putting them around my house; and opening them to random pages for quick and empowering reading when my mind starts to race. I also really love the cover. I am not a huge poetry person just because I'm not familiar with lots of poets. I am usually recommended something by a trusted friend and as a fellow writer I want to start understanding their works more intimately. While also finding joy in poems and poetry. I found myself cruising while reading this book. I'd take what I needed. Read the same poem 100 times. Move on. Come back. I have the kindle version but you can pre order a physical copy straight from the source.

One Last Stop - Casey McQuiston

NYC and sex on the train. You need to read it for yourself. Come to your own conclusions. I can only explain so much.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid

I am about ¼ through this immensely fantastical Devil Wears Prada-esque ass book. I plan on speeding through the rest of it at the lake this weekend. So far the elusive Hollywood actress with seven exes is getting to know our protagonist better. Real exposition ass shit. More on the subject on tonight’s 9 o clock forecast.

Find Me When You Come Back - Charlie Lefever

This is another poetry book from a fellow writer friend that I wanted to dip my toes into. It is a pretty short read but leaves a lasting impression. I'd read it on a porch or in a beach chair