Top Books Read | January – June 2026

From the author of Stars Collide and Cover Story comes a steamy will-they-won’t-they romance about a bright young teacher reconnecting with the jaded professor she once pined for.
For Audrey Lind, working with clay still evokes memories of her favorite professor. The woman’s zeal for art history ignited Audrey’s own academic career—and her tweed blazers and British accent kindled her first female crush. After fate brings Audrey back to Northshire University to teach, she’s thrilled to be working alongside her former mentor, but the grumpy woman she encounters upon her return is nothing like the dynamo she remembers.
Divorce and a stalling career have turned Dr. Michelle Thompson bitter and guarded. When Audrey swoops in to teach the Women in Art class Michelle’s been pitching for years, she longs to hate her. But her young rival is too kind, too enthusiastic, too irresistible. And her passion for life slowly reawakens Michelle’s own.
Wary of age gaps and workplace politics, they suppress their smoldering attraction—until one wine-filled night at the pottery wheel puts their romantic truce to the test. Will they keep things on the tenure track or risk it all for love?

An ice queen’s newfound passion for her best friend upends both their lives in this beautiful lesbian romance about the power of desire and discovery.
No one has ever melted uptight Anne Lowell’s icy exterior, not even the husband of thirty years she just divorced. Still, she has her dazzling best friend and neighbor, Sadie Rosenthal, to brighten her days, so she’s content. Really, she is.
But when Anne realizes that her feelings for warm-hearted Sadie might be more than just friendship, she’s no longer able to ignore the shattering truth she’s spent a lifetime repressing.
Anne’s choice is clear. She can keep her rigid existence, or she can find the courage to begin a daunting journey with Sadie—one that just might help them both find true happiness.

What if the line between irritation and attraction is thinner than the wall between you?
After another brutal night in the ER, Dr. Theodora Brennan wants one thing: sleep. What she gets is a new neighbor, Catherine Matthews, a former concert pianist with a rigid routine and music that bleeds through the walls at two in the morning.
What begins as a wary standoff becomes something neither of them expects. Catherine has spent years perfecting the distance between herself and the rest of the world. Theo has spent years running toward everyone else’s emergencies to avoid her own. In the quiet hours between their apartments, when defenses slip, something shifts.
In the Lonely Hours is an emotionally intimate slow burn about two women who have spent years avoiding the very thing they are now being offered. Wry, tender, and quietly charged, it explores control and vulnerability, the wounds we carry in private, and the unexpected ways people find each other in the dark.
For readers who love character-driven romance, slow-burn enemies-to-friends-to-lovers tension, and second chances that ache before they heal.

Two single mothers. One shared betrayal. Can they see past the hurt to a future they’d never imagined?
Danika Evershed is still reeling from the tragic accident that stole her husband Chris. But when she opens the door to a stranger, she learns the man she loved was living a lie: Chris also had a de facto partner and another daughter the same age as Danika’s.
Kim Varga needs the truth. Yet she’s not prepared for her quest for closure to lead to a real connection with the woman who shares her heartache. As their two daughters discover their sisterly bond, Danika and Kim embark on an emotional journey that could either transform their view of family and love forever…or shatter their hearts all over again.
The Other Family is a poignant, hope-fuelled slow-burn sapphic romance and family drama about love that appears in the most unexpected places.

From Rachel Lacey, author of Learning Curves, comes a tender, hopeful romance about how fate is what you’re given but love is what you choose, and how small sparks can change everything.
Two years after an accident in Manhattan almost claimed her life, Marin is determined to take advantage of her second chance. She’s left her husband, her job, even her home to pursue the life she’s always wanted. Now she’s teaching statistics at Northshire University and preparing to do something she’s spent decades dreaming about: date a woman. But the last woman she expects to encounter on her journey is the one she’s been fantasizing about since their chance encounter the morning Marin nearly died.
Charlotte has made big changes in her life since that fateful day too. Most importantly, she’s moved back to her Vermont hometown, determined to finally solve the thirty-year-old mystery of her mother’s disappearance. An unexpected—and unexpectedly intense—friendship? That wasn’t in the plan. Neither was questioning her sexuality, but the more time Charlotte spends with Marin, the more she realizes her feelings run deeper than friendship.

Addison Moore moved to this small town for a fresh start after divorcing her cheating ex-wife. Now she’s the head chef at the Mayweather Inn, and the only drama she has to deal with comes from her ridiculous but well-meaning boss. The last thing she wants to do is date again.
Enter Riley Rowland, a country superstar famous for her string of failed relationships and the catchy breakup songs she’s written about them. She’s staying at the inn, trying to lay low after an exposed PR stunt and a compromising photo have her fans turning on her.
There’s no way Addison would fall for a fussy—and supposedly straight—celebrity. But there’s more to Riley than what the world sees, and the woman’s vulnerability and kindness draw Addison in even more than those flimsy little sundresses Riley wears.
Riley came here feeling lost, but spending time with Addison has helped her find herself and inspired a new direction for her music. With the future of Riley’s career in question, though, and Addison’s past coming back to haunt her, their new love song might end up fading out with the summer sun—unless they decide it’s a something worth singing forever.
Other Sapphic Book Recommendations

Fiona Turner is about to face two, equally impossible challenges: repair a deteriorating, centuries-old estate in time to host the Queen of England, and turn an all-American farmer into a proper English duchess.
Fresh off a painful divorce, Fiona seizes the opportunity to renovate Alabarden Park and assist its new duchess, Alice Stewart—an effervescent, unpretentious American whose open attraction to Fiona intrigues and unsettles her. As their mutual feelings grow stronger, the professional distance Fiona put between them begins to crumble.
Now, Fiona is faced with two new, equally impossible challenges: keep Alice out of her battered, broken heart, or risk everything and let her in.

A deliciously intense erotic romance. Two resilient women, both juggling the weight of heavy pasts, find healing and hope in one another.
Jennifer Dupont lives a successful solitary life as crème de la crème of San Francisco’s most elite escort service. To clients, she is the Director, an imposing beauty with a fondness for expensive whisky, tailored suits, and uncompromising control. It’s a fitting persona even outside work, as old wounds have left her unwilling to risk her heart. That is, until she meets her newest client.
Over a decade has passed since Theodosia “Dosie” Fisher was rescued from an isolated, abusive cult founded by her father, and while years of therapy have earned her an emotional maturity most never acquire, her body remains neglected, riddled with questions she has long been afraid to confront. So, when her two best friends suggest she hire an escort as a pressure-free way to explore, she decides to go for it.
The attraction is immediate, the curiosity and connection even more so. Every exchange is electric. Every touch sparks. Every kiss siphons secrets and edges them nearer a level of intimacy that Dosie has sought all her life. Jennifer, on the other hand, has only ever wanted the opposite.
Content Warning
This novel explores aspects of psychology and mental health and contains occasionally descriptive references to past traumas, including child abuse, physical and mental abuse, cult/religious abuse, sexual abuse, domestic violence, and murder. Please read with care.

Starting over is hard. Falling for her gorgeous butch roommate might make it impossible.
When a tall, stunning butch protects Mira from her ex-boyfriend at the club—and offers her a safe place to stay—Mira should be relieved. Not flustered. She’s not into women.
Yet this tough electrician with curves for days makes Mira’s heart race like never before.
But Isabel, wounded by grief, forces Mira to keep her distance. Until Mira’s desperate to win a union election at work—and only Isabel has the experience to teach her how.
Soon they’re lingering over dinner, teasing each other as the apartment heats up. And Isabel is making her coffee every morning, hanging her shelves, giving her smoldering looks before bed…
But Mira can’t afford temptation. Not after living with her nightmare ex.
No matter how well Isabel takes care of her…or how much Isabel needs healing, too.
She can’t risk her freedom—or her heart.
Make Room for Love is a steamy slow-burn romance starring a trans woman discovering she’s bi and finding her happily ever after.

For the first time, Regan Gallagher is facing the world without her best friend by her side – no, Sutton isn’t dead but she is in Rome, following her dreams. And Regan really is thrilled for her. Left to her own devices, she’s doing… fine.
Oh, except for the fact that her new roommate, Emma Bordeaux, has hated Regan since the literal day they’d met two years ago. Sure, most of their interactions end in disaster and Regan is the root cause, but they are all accidents! She’ll win Emma over though; she’s determined to make this living arrangement work come hell or high water.
Emma never planned on finding herself living with the most frustrating person she’d ever met, but for rent this low, she’s positive that she can put up with anything Regan throws her way.
What she isn’t sure she can handle is her mom returning to her life, wanting to bond with Emma. She definitely doesn’t know how to manage her mom believing that she and Regan are a couple. And she doesn’t want to deal with the fact that Regan seems far too into acting the part.
Perhaps the most daunting aspect of all is realizing that she might have been wrong about Regan all along…

When a driven businesswoman from Boston collides with a free-spirited artist on a Vermont mountainside, they share a memorable—and steamy—night, but life soon pits them against each other over the fate of a family business.
Emily Janssen prefers to play it safe. At thirty-five, she’s still working at the inn her grandmothers own while dreaming of a day when she’s able to support herself fully with her art. And while her friends have all hiked to the summit of the mountain in their hometown of Crescent Falls, Vermont, something has always held Emily back.
Diana Devlin has already made it to the top. Well, almost. She’s this close to securing the promotion that will put her in line to take over as CEO of her family’s hotel chain when her father retires. Everything is going to plan until an unexpected run-in with an alluring artist on a mountainside throws Diana off course, resulting in one of the hottest nights either she or Emily have ever experienced.
Emily walks away from their rendezvous feeling inspired to channel some of Diana’s confidence and finally chase her dreams. For Diana, it’s a reminder that with the right woman, she is capable of wanting more than one night.
But their growing passion threatens to burn them both when they learn that the hotel Diana’s in town to buy is none other than Emily’s grandmothers’ beloved inn. It’s Emily’s home, and no big city outsider—not even Diana—is going to take it away from her.
Will the view from the top be worth the climb, or will they both have farther to fall?

Darkness blooms in bestselling author Kalynn Bayron’s new contemporary fantasy about a girl with a unique and deadly power.
Briseis has a gift: with a single touch she can grow plants from tiny seeds to rich blooms.
When Briseis’s aunt dies and wills her a dilapidated estate in rural New York, Bri and her parents hope that surrounded by plants and flowers, she will finally learn to control her gift. But their new home is sinister in ways they never expected-it comes with a mysterious set of instructions, a walled garden filled with the deadliest botanicals in the world, and generations of secrets. There is more to Bri’s sudden inheritance than she could have imagined, and she is determined to uncover it.
From the bestselling author of Cinderella Is Dead comes an enchanting story about a young woman with the power to conquer the dark forces descending around her.

A simple night of forgetting. A connection that’s simply unforgettable.
Camryn Durant plays it safe. Since losing her heart to the wrong woman ten years ago, the shy graphic designer focuses on work and never takes risks. But when a chance meeting in a bar with a beautiful stranger turns into a night of reckless passion, Cam struggles to go back to her cautious habits, even though falling for a straight woman is bound to lead to emotional disaster.
Jackie Webster has no business questioning her sexuality. So why can’t the poised and predictable politician’s daughter stop thinking about the warm, adorable butch woman she hooked up with in an ill-advised moment of heartache? Getting closer to Cam means discovering herself in ways she never thought possible, but it can also mean losing her reputation, her relationship with her family, and the future she’s always wanted.
Each moment they spend together pushes them closer to an agonizing choice. Will they cling to security or reach for love?
Forgetting with You is a charming one-night-to-forever, toaster oven sapphic romance you’ll be sure to remember long after the story ends.
