June is Pride Month–a month to celebrate the LGBTQIA+ community–so for this week’s Sapphic Book Bingo, read a sapphic book in which the main character attends a Pride parade or another Pride event.
Sapphic books featuring a Pride scene
Here are 15 recommended sapphic books in which the main character attends a Pride event:
Wrong Number, Right Woman by Jae
A single text message can change everything!
Flirting has never been Denny’s strong suit, but so what if she’s too shy to ask women out? She’s content with her simple life, working as a cashier and helping her sister raise her niece.
But then she gets a wrong-number text message from a stranger named Eliza, asking her of all people for dating advice!
Eliza is Denny’s total opposite: witty, outgoing—and straight. Despite their differences, the accidental text sparks an unlikely friendship. Soon, Eliza—self-proclaimed queen of disastrous first dates—would rather banter back and forth with Denny than to keep trying her luck at online dating.
When they meet in person, there’s an instant connection. But what Eliza is feeling can’t be attraction, right? It doesn’t mean a thing that she’s starting to wish the guys she dates would be more like Denny. Or does it?
Can the wrong number lead to the right woman after all?
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The One That Got Away by Carol Rosenfeld
Bambi Devine, known to her friends as b.d., is a middle-aged bridal consultant who has recently come out to her friends after years of kidding herself about her sexuality—only to find out her friends knew all along and were just too polite to say anything to her. Then b.d. meets Bridget McKnight, the woman of her dreams. Unfortunately for her, Bridget is in a relationship with Natalie Lamont. But Natalie’s intense friendship with Maxine Huff has New York City’s lesbian community buzzing with speculation. Are they really just friends? Could these two members of the Park Slope Clitocybes—a mycological society—share a passion for more than morels? And more importantly for b.d., does this mean she stands a chance with Bridget?
After years of hand-holding demanding brides, b.d. knows what love can do to sane people. Fortified by doses of drag queen wisdom from her boss, Eduardo, b.d. tackles unrequited love and lust, dyke drama, and being in a relationship without having a date for New Year’s Eve in this romp about queer life in New York City.
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Just Like Her by Fiona Zedde
Delphine’s life is made up of secrets. About her job, her sexual identity, and even her past.
She coasts along on a tide of half-truths until a familiar “straight” woman splashes deeper into her world, threatening her tenuous peace of mind.
This woman wants to be everything Delphine has never had before – a confidant, a seductress, a trusted lover. By giving in to this siren, is Delphine setting herself up for heartbreak?
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Loving Artemis by Janet Mason
Artemis found the love of her life when she met Linda, but their passionate relationship fizzles when Artemis lands herself on the other side of the law. Pulling the pieces of her life together, Artemis rekindles her relationship with Linda, and together they raise a daughter.
Meanwhile, Grace, running from her past, starts a life with Thalia. At a pride parade, Grace spots someone who reminds her of Artemis, who she was briefly involved with in her youth. Old feelings are rekindled. A lifetime of rejection, abandonment, and fleeing rears its head. Now she must come to terms with her past, put her relationship with Artemis to rest–or risk losing everything.
Artemis and Grace embark on a journey of revolution, love, and marriage and discover that love finds us when we least expect it.
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Howl by Lucy Bexley
Lou McCallister owns Howl, the only surviving queer bar in Boston. When an investment opportunity to save the floundering bar is inadvertently sabotaged by Clementine Darby, Howl’s newest employee, Lou is ready to give up. Now Clem will do anything she can to make it right and keep Howl alive, but will she be able to save the bar in time? This sapphic Coyote Ugly reimagining brings the funny and the feels.
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No Rings Attached by Rachel Lacey
Lia Harris is tired of being the odd one out. She’s never quite fit in with her uptight family, and now that her roommates have all found love, she’s starting to feel like a third wheel in her own apartment. Fed up with her mother’s constant meddling in her love life, Lia drops hints about a girlfriend she doesn’t have. But with her brother’s London nuptials approaching, she needs to find a date to save face. Lia turns to her best friend, Rosie, for help, and Rosie delivers—with the fun, gorgeous Grace Poston.
Grace loves to have a good time, hiding her insecurities behind a sunny smile. Her recent move to London has provided her with a much-needed fresh start. Grace isn’t looking for love, and she hates weddings, having weathered more than her fair share of heartache. Friendships are different, though, so for Rosie’s sake, she reluctantly agrees to pose as Lia’s adoring girlfriend for the wedding festivities.
Both Grace and Lia are prepared for an awkward weekend, complete with prying family members and a guest room with only one bed. As it turns out, they get along well—spectacularly, in fact. Before they know it, the chemistry they’re faking feels all too real. But is their wedding weekend a fleeting performance or the rehearsal for a love that’s meant to last?
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An Outsider Inside by RJ Samuel
For Irish-Indian lesbian activist, JAYA DILLON, an outsider who craves belonging over all else, survival depends on hiding the truth of who she is and who she loves – from herself.In the heated run-up to Ireland’s referendum on same-sex marriage, she finds herself trapped between the “Yes” and “No” sides. And Jaya’s got a boulder on her shoulder about bisexual women and being brown in Ireland.While clearing out an Indian couple’s rental house in Galway, she discovers a manuscript, written by the wife, Lana, who disappeared in worrying circumstances. When Jaya travels to France, she comes closer to the characters in Lana’s unfinished novel than she ever imagined possible. And she is shoved back into contact with her ex- fiancée, Chloe, who is planning her own wedding. To a man. Jaya is drawn into a fictional world that may be truer than reality. As she fights to uncover the truth, everything she thought she knew about her politics and her place in the world turns on its head as she falls for the elusive Lana, is attracted to the charming, gay French-Algerian Ishmael and his beautiful sister Isabella, and confronts her unresolved feelings and dread over the choices Chloe is making. Can she find Lana and the truth in time to save Chloe … without losing herself?
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Take Two by T.B. Markinson & Miranda MacLeod
They were the perfect couple until pride got in the way….
Gina Mitchells has a problem. The assistant professor is in charge of her college’s pride festival committee, and the celebrity grand marshal they’d painstakingly recruited has just blown up the internet with a major scandal. Messing up the festival could ruin her chance to be approved for tenure. There’s exactly one famous person Gina knows who could save the day as a last-minute replacement.
The problem? The woman is Gina’s ex-girlfriend, and to say the relationship did not end well is an understatement.
Sophia Rossi has starred in so many squeaky-clean holiday romances since moving to Hollywood that everyone calls her the Queen of Christmas. An important new contract has her filming in a quaint New England town, but there’s a catch. It’s Sophia’s hometown, and surviving a month with her meddling, relationship-obsessed mother and sisters might be too much for Sophia’s sanity to bear.
When Gina reappears in Sophia’s life with a proposition, Sophia has one of her own. It’s a match made in heaven, if only they can get over their past heartbreak long enough to convince everyone they’ve rekindled their old spark. But can this fake relationship lead them to a second chance at love?
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Every Version by Bryce Oakley
Lizzie Goldstein needs a prom date.
Queer Prom-A-Rama is Denver Pride’s biggest event and as one of the head organizers, Lizzie can’t stand the thought of going alone—especially not when she finds out her ex is bringing a literal local celebrity.
She’s willing to try on every version of herself to find the perfect date—she could be the quirky dream girl for an Ice Queen or the snarky and ambitious competitor for a workplace rival. As Lizzie and her best friends continue their search, she begins to realize that maybe what she’s really been looking for is someone who doesn’t want to change her. Someone who loves her just the way she is. And maybe that someone has been right beside her all along…
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The Glow Up by Cara Malone
Jo’s dreams have always been too big for her small-town Montana life. When she lands a competitive internship in Chicago, her conservative parents worry about letting her go. But it’s the opportunity of a lifetime, sure to change her world.
Hazel is a city girl to the core, absorbing all the culture Chicago has to offer in her quest to make beautiful queer art. When a gorgeous girl in a prairie dress stumbles in front of her scooter during the city’s Pride Parade, it’s almost vehicular manslaughter at first sight – but Hazel acts in the nick of time and winds up with a clueless baby gay in her lap.
Meeting Hazel and her friends unveils a world Jo never imagined, as well as parts of herself she’s long kept hidden. But first loves are doomed to end, and the summer won’t last forever. Jo’s parents expect her to return to her life in Montana, sacrificing the new family she’s found with Hazel. Can she go home again?
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Faux Pas by Lily Seabrooke
Willow Arches is a queer-destination small town, but Paige doesn’t know that—she’s never even heard of it before a granduncle she never knew about passes and leaves his restaurant, Faux Pas, in her name. A real estate developer by day, for Paige, renovating the restaurant to sell it for a tidy profit is a no-brainer.
But things get harder when the restaurant is in shambles, the town’s bustling queer population is in full force when she arrives right at the start of Pride, and all of them want her gone. With no practical or people skills, and no cooking skills to run the restaurant, she’s in a world of trouble—until Willow Arches’ most eligible bachelorette, brooding soft-butch lumberjane Madison Hartley, sweeps her off her feet and kisses her in the public square.
It’s a tenuous deal: Madison’s help with the restaurant, in exchange for a fake relationship, to keep the suitors off her back for Pride month. Sure, Paige has a massive crush on her, but it’ll all work out somehow, right?
Right?
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Pride Festival by Nicole Pyland
When Ruby Simon wanted something, she usually got it and didn’t mind working hard for it. Her small town had never done anything for Pride Month, and she was determined to change that. Starting with a parade would be a little much, so Ruby started planning a festival.
Chance Curtis was used to always being pulled into her best friend’s orbit. She was an ally to the community, believing that love was love and that she’d find her person one day, but she never had anyone in her life like that, so it didn’t matter anyway.
Jo Hemsworth never fit in. When Jo’s single mother decided to move to a small town toward the end of Jo’s junior year, Jo planned not to talk to anyone and just hoped to go to college one day. Never feeling like fitting in, and only in part because of being gay, Jo had no idea Chance was helping to plan a festival and would change Jo’s life.
Jaden Hugo had been the girl with two gay dads ever since they adopted her, and she’d been questioning things about herself for a while. When her dads volunteer themselves and her to work at a Pride festival in another town, Jaden is completely taken aback because there was Ruby Simon, the girl who had made it all happen.
On the cusp of their high school graduation, Ruby and Chance were about to leave this place they’d called home and wanted to leave it better than they found it. In planning this first Pride event for their community, their lives also end up changing for the better.
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The Perfect Fit by Erica Lee
Ashton Levengood has never felt like she fit in anywhere. After coming out, her overbearing, but loving, family suggests a Pride tour – a different Pride event every weekend of June. Ashton reluctantly agrees but worries she won’t even be able to find her place at Pride.
When she meets Dakota Douglass, it seems too good to be true. There’s no way a hot, cool artist could possibly be interested in Ashton, but the flirting and kissing say otherwise.
Is this just a Pride month fling or has Ashton finally found the perfect fit?
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Down to a Science by Haley Cass
Ellie Beckett’s life is simple and uncomplicated; she’s on track to become a leading expert in biomedical engineering, she has a pub where she feels comfortable enough to hang out multiple times a week, and so what if she doesn’t have time for . . . people? She doesn’t need or want them.
Until she meets Mia Sharpe.
As it turns out, maybe Ellie does want at least one person.
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Stonewall Pride by Sherryl D. Hancock
It’s Pride month and the gang are off to San Diego to support Memphis, the legendary DJ, who has been asked to perform at the event. As people descend on the city from all corners of the country, the atmosphere is electric.
But it wasn’t always like this and echoes of a more troubling time can still be heard amongst the celebrations. Many years have passed since the uprising at the Stonewall Inn, but the rebellion that made history is never far from people’s minds.
Join the WeHo ladies as they celebrate this life-changing event, and remember all those who made it possible for them to be who they are.
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Leave a comment
Leave a comment and let us know what book you’ll be reading for the “sapphic book with a Pride scene” category!
One Response
Hi Jae.
I’m not actually participating in the fun bingo this year but am following the blogs for all the fun suggestions. Thanks for this, and the trivia questions.
Even so, may I suggest your short story ‘Pigeon Post’ for this category? 🤔🤓. I realize it doesn’t exactly fit because it isn’t lgbt… pride but it’s such a fun read!
cw