This week’s Sapphic Book Bingo category features sapphic books about coming out later in life.
For this square of the bingo card, read a sapphic book in which the main character comes out as LGBTQ+ later in life, either because it took them longer to figure out they aren’t straight or because they were struggling to come out to friends and family.
What “later in life” means is subjective, of course, but the character should definitely be older than 30.
15 sapphic books about coming out later in life
Below, you’ll find 15 recommended sapphic books about coming out later in life.
I Do by Cheyenne Blue
Accountant Allie Lane would do anything for her injured twin sister, including pretend to be her to save Sophie’s fledgling event-planning business. All Allie has to do is fake being a lesbian for a few weeks and coordinate a rural gay wedding festival. Simple. Except she’s nothing like her outgoing sister and, last Allie checked, she was straight.
Tarryn Harris cannot stand weddings. Now her small Australian town of Quandong is being overrun by matrimonial madness for its first gay wedding festival. The other hitch is she’s been roped into being the assistant to the cute lesbian event planner. Frankly, she’d rather be left alone with her alpacas and metal art.
The finale of the festival is a fake wedding. Surely no one will vote for a wedding hater and an undercover straight woman to play the fake couple? Right?
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Dead Letters from Paradise by Ann McMan
The year is 1960, and Gunsmoke is the most popular show on TV. Elvis Presley tops the Billboard charts, and a charismatic young senator named John F. Kennedy is running for president. And, in North Carolina, four young Black men sit down at a Woolworth’s lunch counter and demand service.
Enter Esther Jane (EJ) Cloud, a forty-something spinster who manages the Dead Letter Office at the Winston-Salem post office. EJ leads a quiet life in her Old Salem ancestral home and spends her free time volunteering in the town’s 18th-century medicinal garden.
One sunny Spring morning, EJ’s world is turned upside down when she is handed a stack of handwritten letters that have all been addressed to a nonexistent person at the garden. This simple act sets in motion a chain of events that will lead EJ on a life-altering quest to uncover the identity of the mysterious letter writer—and into a surprising, head-on confrontation with the harsh realities of the racial injustice that is as deeply rooted in the life of her community as the ancient herbs cultivated in the Moravian garden.
When EJ is forced to read the letters for clues about the anonymous sender, she discovers lyrical tales of a forbidden passion that threatens to unravel the simple contours of her unexamined life. EJ’s official quest soon morphs into a journey of self-discovery. Her surprising accomplice on this quest becomes a savvy, street-smart ten-year-old wielding an eye patch and a limitless supply of aphorisms. Together, the unlikely duo makes pilgrimages to a tiny town called Paradise to try and crack the case—while ultimately learning better ways to navigate the changing world around them.
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May I? by Isa G.C.
Moving to Brazil is supposed to be Amanda Jones’ fresh start away from her ex-husband, but she arrives in Rio de Janeiro completely unprepared for the city’s culture, language, and her daughter’s rebellious teenage phase.
As head of a bilingual school, Amanda can’t just shut everyone out if she wants to survive. Fellow American expat Danielle sparks a connection: she’s funny, charming, and free in a way that captivates Amanda like never before. But can Amanda even cross this line with her daughter’s teacher? Will she allow Dani to guide her as she navigates a new city, a new school, and a new life?
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Only a Bridesmaid by Haley Donnell
It’s the strangest job that actress Meli has ever been offered—posing as a bridesmaid for an apparently friendless woman at her upcoming Caribbean wedding. Then she meets the shy bride-to-be, Hannah, and feels an instant connection that makes her put her doubts aside. She’s not only doing this because Hannah is gorgeous, even though she really is. Too bad she’s straight.
Hannah is ten steps beyond shy. Even connecting with her fiancé is difficult, despite how badly her religious parents want her to marry. But something about Meli makes her feel safe. A close encounter with Meli at the bachelorette party leaves Hannah shivery and warm, and wondering if she’s making a mistake by getting married.
To chase her real happily-ever-after, Hannah has to not only defy expectations she’s conformed to all her life, but also risk her heart getting broken and find the words—and the courage—to be her true self.
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Live It Out by Jenn Alexander
Spencer Adams was never expected to be anything more than a high school dropout. She’d been a troubled teen, spending more time at the skate park than in school, at least until her music teacher introduced her to the guitar, and music class became her lifeline. Ten years later, she is the guitarist in a band that has become a breakout success, and she wants to use that success to help other teens who have had the same rough start as her. She takes on a volunteer project with local youth as a way of honoring her past, not knowing that it will force her to revisit the one part of her past that she’d hoped to forget.
Faith Siebert has always had high expectations to live up to, and she has tried her best to fulfill those expectations, to be a good daughter, a good student, and a good friend. When she fell for Spencer in high school, she knew her family and friends would never approve. Scared of their reactions, Faith ended things with Spencer, following the path her parents wanted for her, even at the immense personal cost. Of course, it had only been a high school romance, destined for brevity anyway. At least, that’s what she told herself. But when Spencer shows up in her life once again, partnered with Faith on a youth music project, her world is rocked and she is forced to re-examine everything she knows about relationships and herself.
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Forgetting With You by Robin Clairvaux
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?
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Stars Collide by Rachel Lacey
Eden Sands has been a star for twenty years, but it’s lonely at the top. Her mediocre marriage just ended, and her inner circle is smaller than ever. The stage is the only place she’s ever felt like she truly belonged, and yet, her last album flopped, and her upcoming tour hasn’t sold out. Eden’s desperate for her star to shine bright again, but when her team suggests a collaboration with an up-and-coming young star to give her a boost, she balks.
Anna Moss is pop music’s rising star. She’s idolized Eden Sands for most of her life—so it’s a dream come true when she’s invited to perform with her at the Grammys. Anna’s tired of being defined by her bubbly persona. She wants to be taken seriously as an artist, and a duet with Eden could be just what she needs.
As Anna and Eden rehearse, they soon realize they have more in common than their musical talents. Now they just have to decide if what is between them is a one-hit wonder or the making of a romance worthy of one of the greatest love songs of all time.
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Coming Out in Ten Dates by Reba Bale
After eighteen years of marriage, Rebecca finally admits the truth: she likes women. Tired of living a lie, she divorces her befuddled husband and sets out to explore life as a newly single lesbian woman.
Concerned that Rebecca will fall for the first sweet-talking sapphic sister she meets, her sister Alice challenges Rebecca to go out on ten dates with ten different women to explore Seattle’s lesbian dating scene. And she’s recruited all of her friends to try to fix Rebecca up!
Little did she know dating women would be such an adventure…good dates, bad dates, totally weird dates…Rebecca is going to experience them all before she finally pops her lesbian cherry and finds “the one” and gets her happily ever after.
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The Stepmother by Melissa Tereze
After the death of her estranged father, Hayley McAllister plans to endure cold, wet England just long enough to tie up loose ends. Then she’s heading straight back to Ibiza, where she lives exactly as she pleases—performing her music, soaking up sunshine, and indulging in flings with gorgeous women.
She has no interest in meeting her dad’s new wife. A wife Hayley assumes must be just as bitter as he was. Until she comes face to face with Diane Astell—a walking, talking dream, from her dark hair and eyes and brilliant smile, down to her divine legs.
Diane is intimately acquainted with heartbreak and loneliness, both within and outside of marriage. Now? She just wants to let it all go and have some fun for a change. Despite their age difference, she quickly recognises a kindred spirit in the beautiful, vivacious Hayley.
Their sexual chemistry is hotter than the Ibizan sun, but their undeniable connection comes with an expiration date—and consequences neither expected. Now, both must decide if holding onto lives they thought they wanted is worth losing the love of a lifetime for.
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Blood Remains by Cathy Pegau
Callie Payne once ran with the Jackson Street Roses, but she left Seattle—left the Roses—to marry a rancher. After his death, she returns to take over the family butcher shop; a fitting career for an out-of-practice blood mage. When the leader of the Roses, Eileen “EJ” Jordan, stops by, Callie knows it isn’t just to buy T-bone steaks. What does the suave gangster really want after all these years?
EJ needs Callie’s magic against rival gangster Paul Underwood, who is horning in on Rose territory. Callie refuses to get involved; she won’t risk violating the Laws of the Covenant forbidding intentional harm. Then EJ tells her Underwood was responsible for the death of one of the Roses years ago. Callie is compelled to get revenge however she can.
A three-day incantation to repel Underwood re-establishes and strengthens Callie’s connection to the Roses, particularly EJ. Old feelings return, but EJ worries a personal relationship will endanger Callie. Their desire, however, proves impossible to ignore.
Days after Underwood threatens them, he’s found dead in an area awash in magic residue. The cops and the Covenant Investigation Office are eyeing EJ and Callie for the crime. Whoever is responsible knows magic well enough to be a step ahead, and they’re setting up EJ and Callie to take the fall.
EJ is determined to find the culprit, no matter the cost, and Callie is willing to bend the Laws for her. Can they catch the killer before more blood is spilled?
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Broken Beyond Repair by Emily Banting
Sydney MacKenzie, personal assistant to the rich and famous, is looking forward to a well-earned break to go travelling in her beloved VW camper van, Gertie — that is, until Gertie cries off sick. When her boss calls in a favour, one that will pay Sydney handsomely and put Gertie back on the road, she can’t refuse.
Internationally renowned actress Beatrice Russell — adored by her fans and despised by those that know her — is splashed across the tabloids, all thanks to her broken leg. She limps back to her palatial English country estate to convalesce for the summer, where she finds herself in need of yet another new assistant.
Enter Sydney, who doesn’t take kindly to the star’s demands, attitude, or clicking fingers — much less her body’s own attraction to the gorgeous diva. If not for that, and Gertie’s worn-out engine, she would leave tomorrow. Or so she tells herself.
As the summer heats up, the ice queen begins to thaw, and Sydney glimpses the tormented woman beneath the celebrity bravado, drawing her ever closer to the enigmatic actress — sometimes too close.
Can Sydney reach the real Beatrice and help heal her wounds before the summer ends and she returns to filming in the States, or is the celebrity broken beyond repair?
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Cat Sloan is Swirling by Jamey Moody
Cat Sloan needed something to be happy about. After a devastating heartbreak she is focused on opening her bookstore, alongside her sisters, in their brand new shopping center.
Elena Burkett had been swallowed by grief the past year. But when she spotted a new bookstore about to open in her neighborhood she felt a spark of hope.
As Elena nervously walks into the bookstore for the first time Cat immediately puts her at ease. Amidst their shared love of books and sadness a much-needed friendship blossoms.
When Cat’s ex and reason for her heartbreak returns to town, Elena devises a plan to help her friend send the ex packing for good. It all starts with a fake kiss.
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A Perfect Fit by Kellan McKnight
Ella Gardner is a high school English teacher and former volleyball star who lost out on her chance to play in college when she became pregnant with her daughter in her senior year of high school. Fed up with the direction of her life, she acknowledges her sexuality at thirty-five and decides to try online dating. While her first and only foray into that world did not work out the way she had intended, happenstance brought her into the orbit of the woman who would change her life forever.
Parker Chase is everyone’s friend and every woman’s conquest. She’s always looking for her next one-night companion until a statuesque blonde strolls up to her bar one night. She never believed in love at first sight before now, but can she overcome a troublesome past which leaves her feeling unworthy of any lasting affection?
The twists and turns on the road to love are never easy to navigate. And with a cast of characters that will make you cry and keep you in stitches from one chapter to the next, this story visits old tropes and looks at them with new eyes. Happily ever after free with purchase.
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Catboat Road by Kate Rounds
For Candace “Ace” Ragsdale, Mrs. Forest is an irresistible force of nature: luscious, tantalizing—and maybe not completely out of reach.
No one in her family is moored to social convention—but they’ve each learned to surf the wave of the unfamiliar and make the most of chaos. From Ace’s womanizing-yet-worshipful brother to her elusive-yet-loving parents, we watch this well-meaning family weave its way into a rich tapestry of townspeople, often to comic effect.
The backdrop is the Massachusetts seaside town of Horton, cut off from the world. On the surface, boats sway on their moorings, while below bubbles a primal brew of salt and sea life—much like the Ragsdales, a decidedly modern family whose humor and goodwill skim breezily above an ocean of smoldering emotions.
Into this infinite chaos careens a rebel grandmother who shows up to help the family save the town windmill, whose mysterious energy whips up the coastal disturbances of a changing world. As this spectacle of public conflict and private anguish unfolds, we’re fully on Ace’s side as she pilots the turbulent waters of love, sex, and traditionally non-traditional small-town values.
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Coming to Terms by Laura G Wiser
It is the start of the fall term and Olivia Brandon is returning to her alma mater for graduate school. Now at 35, she is an adult and knows what she wants in life. Or so she thinks. Upon arriving, she comes face-to-face with her former English professor, the one who flunked her a decade before. Olivia has grown since then and knows the consequences of failing helped form her into the adult she is today and she is grateful. But meeting this professor again, the beautifully dark-haired and dark-eyed Kate Edwards, poses more questions than Olivia can answer. Is she a potential friend or something more?
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Leave a comment
What sapphic book about coming out later in life will you be reading? Are there other books that are a good fit for this category? Let us know in the comments!
4 Responses
Honey in the Marrow, by Emily Waters.
About That Kiss by Harper Bliss
Yes, I just finished Honey in the Marrow and both main characters are between 50 and 60 yrs old. It was really great.
Dawn of Change by Gerri Hill