#lesbrary

[lenialenient]

LESBIAN GIRLGROUP PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR NOVEL INCOMING FEB 21 BABY

After much forewarning, my sophomore novel AMBROSIA is officially gonna hit us on the 21st of February 2025.

AMBROSIA follows a superstar and second-most-lucrative-member-of-her-girl-group from the point where she's Katya, a grossly ambitious teenager clawing her way through a pseudo-dystopian celebrity training program, to the peak of her career, where she's lost herself in the big diva persona of Ambrosia, bleeding from her nose more than is usual, and hiding a breakdown-induced shaved head from the world.

AMBROSIA is a seven-year-long story of management-dictated shower times, performance-enhancing drugs, and ill-advised affairs with beloved and behated group-mates, told in increments by a semi-reliable narrator over the span of only the one fateful day where a life in service of being looked at finally translates into clawing out eyes.

That is all to say it is now PREORDERABLE - both in ebook and paperback - wherever you get your books from! (If you want to cop a paperback from evil overlord Amazon and it's listed as unavailable on your regional evil overlord storefront, try the US one.)

And ALSO you can read ahead on the first couple chapters for free right HERE.

Thank you for your support and thank you, once again, @shalida for this incredible cover.

[biandlesbianliterature]

The Lesbrary Is Looking for More Reviewers!

Do you love reading sapphic books? Feel like talking about them at least once a month? Want to be buried in an insurmountable pile of free sapphic ebooks? Join the Lesbrary!

Find more information at the Lesbrary.

[meagankimberly]

7 Young Adult Sapphic Books With Latin Representation

Disclaimer: Some of the links in my list of young adult sapphic books are affiliate links. If you click them to make a purchase I will earn a commission. The decision of whether or not to buy something is completely up to you. A version of this book review first appeared in The Lesbrary. The sapphic spectrum runs far and wide, which is why it’s important to remember to add a little diversity to…

[mermaidsirennikita]

Hi!! I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of wlw romance books? Do you know of similar blogs like yours who post about them or of any authors? You reviewed the one with the pilot and the nurse, and I was really excited to see that and have been itching for more ladies lol

Yes!! We really need more sapphic books in romance; wlw is probably the least-represented type of pairing (besides... any involving trans/nb charactes in general). That's why I try to request any that I think will potentially appeal to me (I have a FFM triad fantasy romance ARC to read and review this month that apparently puts a heavy emphasis on the women, and a f/f selkie ARC for next year!).

For more reviews, you can check out the Lesbrary, though that's not ONLY romance. But yeah, that's all ladies all the time!

I would also recommend checking out romance.io. It's a great romance-exclusive reading resource, and you can filter by trope and gender pairings.

For more sapphic books, I'd recommend checking out:

The Fae Queen's Captive by Sierra Simone. This archeologist girl gets kidnapped by faeries, and she basically has to become the mysterious and cool fae queen's temporary consort. It's VERY hot, and a great one to read around Halloween. Good bit of gore, as a heads up.

The Thornchapel series by Sierra Simone. Gothic erotic romance dark academia type book about six friends who accidentally wake a dark supernatural force when they start doing these ancient sex rituals together. WHO WOULDA THUNK IT. There are orgies where everyone fucks everyone and everyone is bi, but the two main relationships are an MMF triad and a FF romance. Everyone gets POVs, and the f/f relationship is sooooo beautiful. It is BDSM, one of them is a domme and the other is her sub; it's very grumpy/sunshine, stern/sweet. Great plus size rep from one of the women. Honestly just a gorgeous love story that's super complex and compelling. TW for past sexual assault (this involves one of the women in the f/f relationship; it's not super graphic, but it is something that she needs to seek therapy for, her arc does involve recovery, and she does suffer from PTSD) and possible incest (not the f/f relationship) and general kinda dark vibes. But everyone gets an HEA in the end, especially the Rebecca and Delphine (the ladies).

An Island Princess Starts a Scandal by Adriana Herrera. Sapphic historical, Manuela ends up in Paris (the lesbian hub of the 1800s) and she wants to live her life as a gay woman before settling into a marriage with a man. So she asks Cora, this icy seductive rich widow/businesswoman, to give her an intro to gay Paris, in exchange for Manuela giving her this business thing she wants. What Cora doesn't realize initially is that Manuela is actually super committed to getting deflowered by Cora as well. It's very uptight meets wild, very swoony, very sexy.

A Long Time Dead by Samara Breger. A gothic vampire romance, it's about a sex worker who wakes up having been turned into a vampire in 1800s England, with this very worried vampire lady hovering over her. Because oops, the lady's ex turned her into a vampire as a revenge thing? So it's like, decades of these two falling in love, and tension, and a coven of queer vampires, and the ex attempting to murder people. Very romantic and hot and great.

Mortal Follies by Alexis Hall. This one is like, a Midsummer Night's Dream meets Jane Austen. It takes place in a fantastical Regency era, and one of the heroines leaves this ball because a hex has been put on her and her dress is disintegrating? Only for her to be intercepted by this dark and dangerous woman who's rumored to have killed her father? Magical, whimsical, somehow still very poignant at points?

The Fiancee Farce by Alexandria Bellefleur. A contemporary romcom wherein this bookshop owner(? employee?) pretends a romance cover model is her girlfriend to get her family off her back... Only for the model to turn out to be the heiress to a publishing empire, and in order to gain her full inheritance, OF COURSE she must marry!!! Funny, sparkly, a good time.

Generally, for authors:

Olivia Waite writes tons of f/f historical romance, Katee Robert writes some f/f erotic romance and some FFM, Sierra Simone tends to dabble in f/f and FFM more than most, Alexandria Bellefleur often writes f/f, Meryl Wilsner writes f/f contemporary, (I liked their recent Cleat Cute) Adriana Herrera writes f/f and m/f and m/m (I think) and has an erotic f/f holiday novella with a lady Santa out (Her Night with Santa). Check out the Pride not Prejudice anthology for tons of queer novellas, including an f/f alien romance by Ruby Dixon and a f/f historical by Amalie Howard!

[lesbrarycollection]

1960: Journey to a Woman by Ann Bannon

Though there is one more book after this one in the "Beebo Brinker Chronicles", it departs from Beebo's story and instead looks at Laura and Jack's adult children who find out they are in an incestuous relationship they didn't know about prior. Cleis Press nor Naiad Press republished that one. As a result, I don't own it nor see myself wanting to read it either even though it was apparently "done well for the time", according to Goodreads reviewers. So, my dear readers, this is where I finish off my Beebo Brinker collection in the Lesbrary and move onto the next book I have in chronological order.

But for now? The quick facts and stats I have about my copy of "Journey to a Woman"!

- Title: "Journey to a Woman"

- Author(s) / Editor(s): Ann Bannon

-Year 1st Published: 1960

- Year of Reprint My Copy Is (if applicable): Y, 1986

- Publisher: Naiad Press

- Page Numbers: 223

- # in series: 4

- Genre(s): Fiction, Pulp, Classic, Romance, Tragedy, Drama

- Is It An Ex-library Copy (and from where?): N

- Author's signature (if applicable): Y

- Have I Read It?: N

- Is It On Loan (and to which friend?): N

- Is it on the Internet Archive: Y

- Average Goodreads Rating, out of 5 Stars (as of 9/10/2023): 3.73

- Amount of Goodreads Ratings (as of 9/10/2023): 359 ratings

- Amount of Goodreads Reviews (as of 9/10/2023): 33 reviews

- Summary: "What happens to three strong, beautiful women when one of them — Beth — rediscovers her passion for another — Laura — only to run headlong into the arms of the third — Beebo Brinker herself."

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

hi! a friend of mine has asked for lesbian romance novel recommendations. unfortunately I don't really read romance, but perhaps you have a few recommendations? or can point me towards someone else who does

so far I have read one (1) lesbian romance novel in my romance novel journey and it was Pretty Bad. there was also a bi4bi wlw romance novel that was bad in different and way more exciting ways but it was still Bad. has your friend tried checking out the Lesbrary?

[carabiner-axe]

today's bookmail for my vintage lesbrary book collection: book #166, Nothing But the Girl: Blatant Lesbian Image - A Portfolio and Exploration of Lesbian Erotic Photography (Women on Women)

[thelivebookproject]

July - September 2023 | Reading Wrap Up

[Jan-March] [April-June]

Autumn is here, and with it, my summery wrap up! And speaking of summer... Here is my recap of Forgotten YA Gems' V Summer Bingo Reading Challenge, complete with fancy card. As usual, I loved it. I love a good literary bingo ;)

Note: Our beloved Forgotten YA Gems group, after several years of joyful activity, has closed its door on the Goodreads group, but is still active in Discord, for those of you who might be interested!

And now, onto the wrap up!

Code: books read in English are in black, books read in Spanish are in red and the book I read in French is in blue.

JULY (8)

Los hombres no son islas. Los clásicos nos ayudan a vivir - Nuccio Ordine, translation into Spanish by Jordi Bayod

A Lady by Midnight (Spindle Cove #3) - Tessa Dare -> 3/5

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen -> 5/5

Historias d’antis más de Biscarrues - Ed. Sandra Araguás [Only available in Spanish] -> 3/5

The Magpie Lord (A Charm of Magpies #1) - KJ Charles -> 3.5/5

Whose Body? (Lord Peter Wimsey #1) - Dorothy L. Sayers -> 3/5

A Witch's Guide to Fake Dating a Demon - Sarah Hawley -> 3/5

Tintin in America (Tintin #3) - Hergé, translation into English by Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper & Michael Turner -> 2.5/5

July was fun. Nuccio Ordine's philosophical analysis of the importance of classical books for the humanisation of our society was perhaps not fun, but it was surprisingly less dry than I expected it to be. Some good romances came along afterwards, as well as a collection of local myths and stories from Spain, a murder mystery, and my first Tintin! I'd had it aroung for years, it was part of a present from many years ago when my English wasn't yet good enough to read it and then I just never got around to it until this summer... Overall, nothing exceedingly remarkable (except for my dearly beloved P&P), but good vibes in the melting heat.

AUGUST (7)

Flight 714 to Sydney (Tintin #22) - Hergé, translation into English by Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper & Michael Turner -> 2/5

Cigars of the Pharaoh (Tintin #4) - Hergé, translation into English by Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper & Michael Turner -> 3/5

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism - Amanda Montell -> 4.5/5

The Blue Lotus (Tintin #5) - Hergé, translation into English by Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper & Michael Turner -> 3/5

Broderies - Marjane Satrapi -> 3/5

The Near Witch - Victoria Schwab -> 3.5/5

Murder in the Orient Express (Hercule Poirot #9) - Agatha Christie -> 4.5/5

August was good! More Tintin (I have now finished all of the comics I had lying around in my parents' house), an amazing non-fiction book on linguistics by Amanda Montell (she also wrote Wordslut, which I loved, so clearly her writing is quite up my alley and I can't wait for her to publish her third book), a very good spooky story by Victoria Schwab, another autobiographical graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi that I hadn't read yet, and my first time reading Murder in the Orient Express in English (although the book itself I've read like six times). Can't complain.

SEPTEMBER (3)

The Secret Service of Tea and Treason (Dangerous Damsels #3) - India Holton -> 4/5

Prosa completa - Alejandra Pizarnik -> 1/5

Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold (Stephen Fry’s Great Mythology #1) - Stephen Fry -> 4/5

Welllllll apparently what I need to sit down and read is horrifying heatwaves because my September reading went down a notch. Alejandra Pizarnik's complete prose was absolute horrific, derailed my entire month, and I'll never get close to her writings ever again, but the other two were very good at least! And I was definitely entertained.

And thus another three months have gone by... I am not particularly close to reaching all of my reading goals, but I am also doing better than I was this time last year so I shall count it as a win. We'll see what the last quarter of the year holds!

A couple of last-minute links:

The Lesbrary is looking for reviewers!

I am asking for Portuguese-written book recs!

How was your summer reading?

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

Gonna throw these questions back at you; 10. What novel caused you the worst book hangover? 15. What were the last three books you read? Bonus: Would you recommend said last three books?

[ Ask me a bookish question and I’ll ask you one in return! ]

What novel caused you the worst book hangover?

I've already answered this one: There are a few, but the first that comes to mind is Harrow the Ninth. Like…ugh. Don’t get me started.

What were the last three books you read? Bonus: Would you recommend said last three books?

I'm reading mostly ARCs this year, along with sapphic books for Lesbrary (I write reviews there, check it out!). The last three were: Cleat Cute by Meryl Wilsner, Brynn and Sebastian Hate Each Other by Bethany Turner, and Love at First Set by Jennifer Dugan. Honestly, no; I wouldn't recommend any of them.

If you're interested in keeping up with my reading antics, you can find me on:

Goodreads | Instagram | Literal | Uncover | Storygraph

Thanks for asking!

[mfred]

i joined TikTok.

So far I am following the lesbrary, ghosthoney, b dylan hollis, and autostraddle. Who else is worth following? I like: cats, books, noodles, fat women, queers, witchcraft, etc.

[libraryleopard]

I posted 1,598 times in 2022

310 posts created (19%)

1,288 posts reblogged (81%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@kazz-brekker

@wizardysseus

@displayheartcode

@karmamirages

@libraryleopard

I tagged 1,592 of my posts in 2022

#q - 717 posts

#books - 328 posts

#lulu speaks - 304 posts

#fanart - 294 posts

#comics - 218 posts

#interview with the vampire - 171 posts

#marvel comics - 157 posts

#marvel - 155 posts

#xmen - 133 posts

#lulu reads - 127 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#literally alternating between notorious sorcerer by davinia evans and stars in my pocket like grains of sand by samuel r delaney right now

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

i think this year’s meta gala theme should be goncharov (1973) dir. martin scorsese

654 notes - Posted November 20, 2022

#4

as someone who is watching interview with the vampire having never read the book or watched the movie it is my god-given right to come up with really silly theories that i will wholeheartedly believed until the show proves me wrong. anyway my most recent one is that lestat can turn into a bat but he hasn’t mentioned this to louis because he thinks it’s embarrassing 

674 notes - Posted October 4, 2022

#3

Louis: I'm never gonna have kids :(

Lestat: babytrap.exe has been activated

869 notes - Posted October 3, 2022

#2

I’m going to classicist hell but it’s okay

5,336 notes - Posted March 23, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

The other day one of my friends was like “Where on earth do you hear about all the books you read?” and I’m honestly trying to think about that because I don’t really pay attention to Booktube, Booktok, Book Twitter, or Bookstagram, only occasionally dip back into book blogging, and mostly use Goodreads as a place to track books I want to read or have read rather than searching for recommendations, so I’m trying to make a list of the places I hear about books from besides a few trusted social media mutuals.

Tor.com is one major place I hear about science fiction and fantasy books–they do deal announcements, cover reveals, lists of new releases, and reviews, as well as columns reviewing backlist work. I really like “The Book Queered Me,” for instance, which is people looking back on books that were important to their understand of identity. 

The Book Smugglers isn’t really that active anymore, but they reviewed science fiction and fantasy media, as well as publishing essays and short fiction and I read them religiously for a long time.

Book Riot I read occasionally and they publish bookish news and essays. I forgot I was subscribed to their LGBTQ+ book newsletter for a while and went through the emails I’d been sent earlier this week and that particular newsletter is nice because it highlights a couple books and does a round-up of recent news about queer books.

Austraddle’s book section, especially the Rainbow Reading column, does reviews, interviews, and news related to queer books, mostly queer women. It’s helpful for non-SFF stuff because I’m usually very up-to-date on news in the science fiction and fantasy world but they cover poetry, nonfiction, romance, etc.

We Need Diverse Books is a great resources, of course, and I really like the interviews they do with authors of recent releases.

LGBTQ Reads is an invaluable resource for queer literature–new release highlights, author interviews, lists of books by representation or age/genre if you’re looking for something specific.

Electric Literature is where I hear about more adult lit fic/nonfiction stuff, they also have a column called Novel Gazing in which people write about books that have impacted them and I find that really interesting. They also publish poetry and short fiction but I haven’t read much of that.

The Lesbrary does reviews of books about lesbian and bisexual women, as well as round-ups of new releases. Good resource for keeping up with sapphic books.

Rich in Color reads and reviews diverse YA books and is a good place to keep up with books by authors of color.

5,777 notes - Posted August 16, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[biandlesbianliterature]

Do you love reading sapphic books? Feel like talking about them at least once a month? Want to be buried in an insurmountable pile of free sapphic ebooks? Join the Lesbrary!

I am looking for more reviewers at the Lesbrary! You just have to commit to one review, list, or essay a month about sapphic books and in return you get forwarded all of the sapphic ebooks sent to us for possible review. You also get access to the Lesbrary Edelweiss and Netgalley accounts, where you can request not-yet-released queer titles.

I’m looking particularly for more reviewers of color, disabled reviewers, and trans reviewers, but anyone who regularly reads sapphic books is welcome!

(More info at the link below.)

The Lesbrary Is Looking for More Reviewers!

[spellscribe]

Adding Mercury Stardust to the list. The Trans Handy Ma'am gives loads of helpful home maintenance and repair tips on tiktok and when I just googled now (because I don't know how to spell ma'am confidently enough, apparently), I found out she also has a book! Safe & Sound, a Renter Friendly Guide to Home Repair.

Mercury has also visited people in need to do desperately needed home repairs for free. I'd buy the book just to support that, even if I wasn't in desperate need of a crash course in basic fixing 😅

She is also super supportive of ND people and those who struggle with maintaining a home for other reasons. The kindest soul out there.

(I can't remember which int'l bookstores are not defunct, so here's a link from The Lesbrary! https://lesbrary.com/safe-and-sound-by-mercury-stardust/)

Homemaking, gardening, and self-sufficiency resources that won't radicalize you into a hate group

It seems like self-sufficiency and homemaking skills are blowing up right now. With the COVID-19 pandemic and the current economic crisis, a lot of folks, especially young people, are looking to develop skills that will help them be a little bit less dependent on our consumerist economy. And I think that's generally a good thing. I think more of us should know how to cook a meal from scratch, grow our own vegetables, and mend our own clothes. Those are good skills to have.

Unfortunately, these "self-sufficiency" skills are often used as a recruiting tactic by white supremacists, TERFs, and other hate groups. They become a way to reconnect to or relive the "good old days," a romanticized (false) past before modern society and civil rights. And for a lot of people, these skills are inseparably connected to their politics and may even be used as a tool to indoctrinate new people.

In the spirit of building safe communities, here's a complete list of the safe resources I've found for learning homemaking, gardening, and related skills. Safe for me means queer- and trans-friendly, inclusive of different races and cultures, does not contain Christian preaching, and does not contain white supremacist or TERF dog whistles.

Homemaking/Housekeeping/Caring for your home:

Making It by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen [book] (The big crunchy household DIY book; includes every level of self-sufficiency from making your own toothpaste and laundry soap to setting up raised beds to butchering a chicken. Authors are explicitly left-leaning.)

Safe and Sound: A Renter-Friendly Guide to Home Repair by Mercury Stardust [book] (A guide to simple home repair tasks, written with rentals in mind; very compassionate and accessible language.)

How To Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis [book] (The book about cleaning and housework for people who get overwhelmed by cleaning and housework, based on the premise that messiness is not a moral failing; disability and neurodivergence friendly; genuinely changed how I approach cleaning tasks.)

Gardening

Rebel Gardening by Alessandro Vitale [book] (Really great introduction to urban gardening; explicitly discusses renter-friendly garden designs in small spaces; lots of DIY solutions using recycled materials; note that the author lives in England, so check if plants are invasive in your area before putting them in the ground.)

Country/Rural Living:

Woodsqueer by Gretchen Legler [book] (Memoir of a lesbian who lives and works on a rural farm in Maine with her wife; does a good job of showing what it's like to be queer in a rural space; CW for mentions of domestic violence, infidelity/cheating, and internalized homophobia)

"Debunking the Off-Grid Fantasy" by Maggie Mae Fish [video essay] (Deconstructs the off-grid lifestyle and the myth of self-reliance)

Sewing/Mending:

Annika Victoria [YouTube channel] (No longer active, but their videos are still a great resource for anyone learning to sew; check out the beginner project playlist to start. This is where I learned a lot of what I know about sewing.)

Make, Sew, and Mend by Bernadette Banner [book] (A very thorough written introduction to hand-sewing, written by a clothing historian; lots of fun garment history facts; explicitly inclusive of BIPOC, queer, and trans sewists.)

Sustainability/Land Stewardship

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer [book] (Most of you have probably already read this one or had it recommended to you, but it really is that good; excellent example of how traditional animist beliefs -- in this case, indigenous American beliefs -- can exist in healthy symbiosis with science; more philosophy than how-to, but a great foundational resource.)

Wild Witchcraft by Rebecca Beyer [book] (This one is for my fellow witches; one of my favorite witchcraft books, and an excellent example of a place-based practice deeply rooted in the land.)

Avoiding the "Crunchy to Alt Right Pipeline"

Note: the "crunchy to alt-right pipeline" is a term used to describe how white supremacists and other far right groups use "crunchy" spaces (i.e., spaces dedicated to farming, homemaking, alternative medicine, simple living/slow living, etc.) to recruit and indoctrinate people into their movements. Knowing how this recruitment works can help you recognize it when you do encounter it and avoid being influenced by it.

"The Crunchy-to-Alt-Right Pipeline" by Kathleen Belew [magazine article] (Good, short introduction to this issue and its history.)

Sisters in Hate by Seyward Darby (I feel like I need to give a content warning: this book contains explicit descriptions of racism, white supremacy, and Neo Nazis, and it's a very difficult read, but it really is a great, in-depth breakdown of the role women play in the alt-right; also explicitly addresses the crunchy to alt-right pipeline.)

These are just the resources I've personally found helpful, so if anyone else has any they want to add, please, please do!

[gefdreamsofthesea]

So NaNoWriMo said some bullshit about how being against AI is classist and ableist so here is my novel that I wrote during NaNoWriMo as a disabled person with no money to hire an editor.

The Lesbrary gave it a five star review.

[rebeleden]

Lesbian Poetry: Because it Didn’t End with Sappho – The Lesbrary

[npdclaraoswald]

Where do you find all of these books?

Sorry I'm only just getting to this, you sent it while I was at work and then I forgot about it until now. But I'm assuming this is in reference to my answers to this book ask game yesterday, and the answer is mainly booktube. I do also follow people on bookstagram (though their stupid algorithm makes it so I barely see the people I follow), as well as regularly looking through @lgbtqreads over here, the lesbrary's website, and through books people have added to storygraph challenges. Storygraph, if you're unaware, is basically goodreads just not owned by Amazon. And they have a feature called challenges where you can have any larger prompt with a bunch of smaller subcategories, and people joined in the challenge can add whatever books they think fit the prompt. If you do just use goodreads though, if you have any particular book you enjoy, if you scroll to the bottom of its page there's a "readers also enjoyed" section and a section called lists, where people compile books that have things in common. So for example, This is How You Lose the Time War will have lists like queer sci fi, lesbian enemies to lovers, etc, so if you're looking for more books with those elements, it gives you a lot of options.

I'm gonna recommend some of my favorite booktubers under the cut. All of them read across genres, but I'm also gonna put what genres they tend to read the most of.

Jesse on YouTube reads a lot of mystery/horror/thriller

A Sunny Book Nook reads mostly literary fiction

Perpetual Pages reads a pretty even spread across genres, but reads like 90% queer books

Books are my Social Life reads mostly contemporary

Bookish Realm reads absolutely everything, she reads like thirty books a month, it's insane. She also has a second channel called Realm of Comics for comics, graphic novels, and manga

With Cindy reads a lot of literary fiction and nonfiction, but lately has also been developing a love of trashy romance

To Be Black and Loved reads a lot of literary fiction

This Story Ain't Over reads a lot of fantasy and fantasy romance

Mina Reads reads a lot of romance

Myonna Reads also reads a lot of romance

My Name Is Marines reads across genres because she reads through a lot of best book lists online and a lot of booktok darlings to see if they're worth the hype

And also here's a quick bonus listing of channels that don't really upload anymore but that I really loved and that still have their old videos up: Et Tu Brody?, Problems of a Book Nerd, Starlah Enjoys, and Pages of Hayley