Since it’s Asexual Awareness Week, this week’s Sapphic Book Bingo post features sapphic books with asexual characters!
For this category, read a sapphic book with a main character who is asexual or on the asexual spectrum—they could be asexual (a person who doesn’t experience sexual attraction), demisexual (a person who experiences sexual attraction only once an emotional connection has been established), gray-asexual (a person who experiences sexual attraction very infrequently, very weakly, or only under specific circumstances), or have another identity that falls under the asexual umbrella.
15 sapphic books featuring asexual characters
Below, you’ll find 15 recommended sapphic books that feature an asexual main character:
Perfect Rhythm by Jae
Pop star Leontyne Blake might sing about love, but she stopped believing in it a long time ago. What women want is her image, not the real her. When her father has a stroke, she flees the spotlight and returns to her tiny Missouri hometown.
In her childhood home, she meets small-town nurse Holly Drummond, who isn’t impressed by Leo’s fame at all. That isn’t the only thing that makes Holly different from other women. She’s also asexual. For her, dating is a minefield of expectations that she has decided to avoid.
Can the tentative friendship between a burned-out pop star and a woman not interested in sex develop into something more despite their diverse expectations?
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Never Too Much by Sienna Eggler
Romance was never a priority in Cyrille’s life; her work on the local nature reserve came first. And compounded by her upbringing in a small town, finding a girlfriend seemed out of reach. “If it happens, it happens.”
But now that she’s in her late 30’s, Cyrille realizes it’s better now than never.
And a lot has changed over the last twenty years, leading to a steadily progressive attitude in town. A not yet out Cyrille braves a speed dating event, where she meets three potential partners: a childhood friend, a fellow park ranger, and a self-proclaimed “Goblin of the Forest.”
A hopeful Cyrille has one person in mind, but life is full of surprises.
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The Love Project by TB Markinson & Miranda MacLeod
Joni Fisher is facing economic ruin. The once successful advice column she runs with her mother is on the brink of cancellation, and it’ll take a miracle to turn things around. Joni’s last-ditch effort to save her job and preserve her mother’s legacy is The Love Project, a web series she’s developing to bring the Help Me Henrietta franchise alive for a new generation. All she needs is a willing victim…er, star.
Hope Alvarez dreams of falling in love, but she’s always suspected she’s different. Physical attraction is a foreign language to her. After her only prospect for a meaningful relationship falls through, Hope has to face the fact that she’s completely hopeless when it comes to love. Can her favorite advice columnist, Henrietta, save her from a lonely future?
As the series gets underway, fans swoon for the lovable yet unlucky Hope, and they’re not the only ones. Joni is smitten, too. But she’s been down that road before, vowing never again to fall for a straight woman who will keep her forever in the friend zone. Except, what if she’s been reading the situation all wrong? Helping Hope make sense of her identity might save Joni’s job, but will it also bring her love?
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Fragments of a Fallen Star by Viano Oniomoh
Moira Karl-Fisher is ready to do anything to bring her parents back from the dead, even embark on a desperate trip across the sea in an attempt to find the missing pages of a spell to turn back time.
She’s barely spent one night away from her island when she’s nearly killed for being a MagiK, and now owes her life to the eccentric Nailah, another MagiK who apparently runs her own ship, and makes Moira’s insides twist with unwanted heat.
After agreeing to aid Nailah on a quest that promises magic, danger, and adventure, Moira finds her search for a happiness she thought long gone, turning into so much more.
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Truly Enough by J.J. Hale
Robyn Moore is a firefighter by trade and a lesbian lothario by choice. After losing her father and witnessing her mother’s broken heart, Robyn learns that loving someone never ends well. Spending her days trying to honor her father’s legacy isn’t easy, and the best way to blow off steam is by falling into bed with whomever happens to be available.
Lexi Lynch is an artist with a passion for painting. That is, until real life kicked in and bills piled up. To prove to her overprotective father that her chosen profession isn’t a mistake, Lexi takes on commissions that pay well but bore her to tears. Missed deadline after deadline has her career in jeopardy with the only bright spot in her days being her gorgeous friend and roommate, Robyn.
As Lexi leans on Robyn for support, more than just a creative spark flares between them. Their close proximity may ignite a fiery romance or send their friendship up in flames.
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This Is How Immortals Die by Nicole Hidalgo
Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, unleashed a life-changing apocalypse that reshaped the world and cursed humankind with immortality. Now injury, old age, and death mean nothing. Until the Soul connects with its Twin. Once true Love is found, immortality is lost.
The Priestesses of Aphrodite exist to hunt down and send those blessed souls to Aphrodite’s Golden Palace in the afterlife. They are devout and efficient… if only a little blinded by the lustre of gold and the taste of blood.
Carys Epistro’phia, an infamous Priestess, will go to great lengths to put her hands on a chest with fifty thousand gold coins. Including turning a blind eye to Twin Souls who rule over an isolated island and are willing to hire her unique skills to bring their daughter back home. Princess Ishana, a fragile and naive girl who has never died before, is Carys’ key to the treasure… as long as she arrives home with her soul intact.
But in this sacrilegious contract, not everything is as it seems, and sometimes the heart has its own schemes.
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Go Truck Yourself by J.R. Hart
Between being a single parent and running a successful food truck, Myla Horan has no room for drama in her life. She’s got her nose to the grindstone to make Tasteful Noods a successful business year-round. But when her friend-turned-rival Zo comes back to town, they start to squeeze into her prime Clover Hill locations… and her memories of how things used to be.
After Zo moves home to care for their ailing uncle and starts a business of their own, they’re not surprised that Myla’s Tasteful Noods are faring better than their tiny food trailer, You’re My Jam. After all, driven Myla can do anything she sets her mind to. Unfortunately, it also means all of the animosity they ended things with has resurfaced.
When Myla and Zo agree there’s only room in Clover Hill for one of them, they make a deal: whoever loses the First Annual Clover Hill Food Truck Frenzy shuts down their truck. Forever.
But serious sabotage threatens to leave them both truckless for the competition and harm not only their chances at victory, but their very livelihoods. Working together as an unexpected dream team seems impossible. There’s no way they’re better as partners than rivals, are they?
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Dump Stat by Alex Silver
Laura and I have both had our share of heartache navigating the minefield of finding true love.
Despite that, Laura seems determined to find her perfect match. I understand how hard it is to keep leaping into first dates hoping this one will stick. Heck, the hardships of finding someone new when you don’t fit the factory default settings of being cishet and allosexual are half the reason I’ve been with Noelle for years. No matter how toxic our off and on relationship has become.
What starts out as bonding with my cousin’s new friend over a string of terrible dates and broken promises becomes the closest adult friendship I’ve ever had. We share the ups and downs of dating other people. Laura is the one who gives me the confidence to walk away from Noelle’s verbal abuse. Hers is the shoulder I cry on afterward. And she’s the one person I want to share everything with. From cozy nights at home to the view from a mountaintop. If only I could trust myself to be worthy of her.
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The Tell Tale by Clare Ashton
Snow, secrets, an icy lady of the manor, a vile villain, open fires and hidden love.
A frosty December and Bethan Griffiths has returned home to unwrap secrets. It’s the 1970s and she is back in the village of Foel in the Welsh hills to raise her daughter. They arrive to the open arms of her family and the community, but not all is what it seems and Beth isn’t home for the reason she pretends either.
Vicious notes start appearing that reveal harsh truths about the village inhabitants, stirring up ancient past, old loves and the dead. Not even local dignitary, the elegant and aloof Lady Melling who hides in her manor house, is safe from the accusations.
But when Beth receives her notes, they aren’t what she expected. Is she being toyed with like the other villagers, or is she being guided to a long-sought truth?
The Tell Tale has been watching and waiting, because there’s something queer about the village of Foel.
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Returning to You by Gwen Tolios
Monica’s relationship with her father is falling apart, made more obvious when her return to Madison after years aboard results in him throwing her out of the house. Lisa Carson, her BFF and old college roommate, takes her in. Turns out Lisa has her own issues with her parents – they’re pushing her to date despite her lack of desire. So when Monica joins a Carson family dinner, she lies and says it’s starting a relationship with Lisa that brought her back to America.
Lisa goes along with the ruse – it gets her parents off her back and it’s only until Monica repairs her relation-ship with her father and moves out. What Monica failed to take into account however is that crush she had on Lisa in college? Yeah, that didn’t go away.
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Not Just Friends by Jordan Meadows
Seventeen-year-old Jen’s best (let’s face it, only) friend Deanna is five years older and big on parties. Jen has been trying to live in Deanna’s world, but she’s coming to realize guys, drinking, and drugs aren’t really her thing. Just as she’s figuring out how to tell Deanna the truth, tragedy hits, leaving Jen struggling to figure out who she is and what’s important to her.
Consumed by grief and guilt, Jen finds support in unexpected places. Stephanie’s sociable, smart, and upbeat—all the things Jen is not. Yet she seems to want to be Jen’s friend. Stephanie is also a lesbian, and when she takes Jen along to an LGBTQIA+ club, Jen starts to see not only her past with Deanna in a new light, but more importantly, her feelings about Stephanie.
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The Summer We’ve Had by Katherine Blakeman
After a nightmare couple of years following the death of her celebrity singer mother, Cass Mulligan is moving down to the sun, sea and shingle of Cornwall for a fresh start. But she soon realises that she’s not the only one in need of some TLC…
Felicia Wilson’s life is one long series of spinning plates. She has Dissociative Identity Disorder, a system of five alternate personalities living in her body, and they all have different hopes, fears and desires.
When Cass is thrown together with Felicia, some beautiful friendships grow, and soon there is substantial mutual attraction between Cass and dominant alter Heather. But if things go wrong, they could go very wrong. Can they build a relationship AND keep everybody happy?
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Winter’s Moons by Lise MacTague
When Cassidy Nolan agreed to take over as the Alpha for Chicago’s North Side werewolf pack, she knew she was in for a challenge. Four months later, and she’s wondering how things deteriorated so far so quickly. Her sister—the Hunter of Chicago, a genetically-engineered werewolf/vampire/demon slayer—has disappeared, and wolves from her pack are vanishing without a trace. Complicating matters is the lone wolf in town whose motivations Cassidy isn’t sure she trusts.
All Snow had planned was to check in on her brother’s old pack, to make sure they were doing all right and that she didn’t need to avenge him. The new Alpha might be floundering, but with some guidance, Snow thinks she could be a decent leader. Not one to stay too long in one place, she should already be heading out of town, but the Alpha’s plight and that of her pack have her sticking around a little longer.
Cassidy and Snow quickly realize that time is a luxury and they’re about to run out. Forces far greater than the North Side Pack are aligning against them. And when they go looking to forge outside alliances, they discover that those who would call themselves allies may not have their best interests at heart.
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Blood of the Basilisk by Molly J. Bragg
Kota, a sorceress who works as a detective with the Grimmani Detective Agency, is on her way to a new posting on the world of Proximus. She’s been charged with transporting a mystical artifact called a Keystone that will allow Proximus to build a magical gateway back to Kota’s homeworld of Emake Maa. When the Aethership transporting Kota is attacked by pirates, Kota helps fight them off, and finds herself taking care of a half demon woman, Nadani who was being held as a slave on the pirate ship.
When Kota and Nadani arrive on Proximus, Kota is injured in an attempted assassination, and finds herself embroiled in a plot involving cultists who want her dead for some reason. Kota begins to dig into the motives of the assassin while trying to navigate her growing feelings for Nadani. Something made all the harder by more attempts on her life and the emotional minefield that Nadani’s past as a slave left behind.
When Kota learns that the assassins may be after Nadani as well, she becomes desperate to learn what they want. Something that puts her on a collision course with a cult that wants to use Nadani and the Keystone to open a permanent gateway to hell itself.
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The Sting of Victory by SD Simper
Haunted by a history of horror and abuse, Flowridia, a witch with a tender heart, finds a second chance in the home of her kingdom’s royal family. With employment comes friendship, and perhaps she has finally found a place to belong—until she catches the eye of Lady Ayla Darkleaf, a woman with enticing grace and a predatory smile. The corrupt world of politics consumes her, and Flowridia falls into a toxic love affair surely doomed for heartbreak. Yet when Ayla’s legacy as a monster unfolds, Flowridia sees only the tender soul hiding beneath.
An ancient deity returns, hell-bent on restoring the world to its natural order, and Flowridia’s kingdom is tasked to stop him. Caught in the ensuing clash of gods, her loyalties will be tempted at every turn—by family, by fate, and by the woman whose claws grip her heart.
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Old Flame, New Fire by Serenity Snow
For Andy Blackmore, now is the time to up the ante in her political career. She’s ready to push all distractions aside and run for mayor. But, when her manager insists dating the right woman will change her image, Andy’s skeptical. What could be worse or more distracting?
Cinnamon is looking to better her career but playing “girlfriend” to a mayor hopeful isn’t exactly what she had in mind. Being paired with her old flame isn’t the worst thing that could happen, but falling in love with her all over again…
Finding out who the faux girlfriend is, makes Andy wary, but learning it’s Cinnamon’s ideas that her manager has been working from convinces Andy that Cinnamon is exactly what her career needs. However, the incumbent mayor has more to lose than just another term. He will do whatever it takes to force Andy out of the running, even set her up for murder.
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Dear Wendy by Ann Zhao
Sophie Chi is in her first year of college and has long accepted her aroace (aromantic and asexual) identity. She knows she’ll never fall in love, but she enjoys running an Instagram account that offers relationship advice to students at her school. No one except her roommate can know that she’s behind the incredibly popular “Dear Wendy” account.
When Joanna “Jo” Ephron (also a first-year student and aroace) created their “Sincerely Wanda” account, it wasn’t at all meant to take off or be taken seriously. But now they might have a rivalry of sorts with Wendy’s account? Oops. As if Jo’s not busy enough having existential crises over gender identity, whether she’ll ever truly be loved, and the possibility of her few friends finding The One then forgetting her!
While tensions are rising online, Sophie and Jo grow closer in real life, especially once they realize their shared aroace identity. Will their friendship survive if they learn just who’s behind the Wendy and Wanda accounts?
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Leave a comment
What sapphic book will you be reading for the asexual character category? Are there other books that are a good fit for this category? Let us know in the comments!
2 Responses
I’m so happy that Blood of the Basilisk is on this list. That and the Heart of Heroes series by Molly J Bragg are so good!
From this list, I’ve read Perfect Rhythm and Dear Wendy – both lovely reads! I put How You Get the Girl by Anita Kelly in this category – I really enjoyed this sports romance where a former college basketball star reluctantly agrees to be assistant coach to the high school basketball team the teenage family member she’s fostering joined.