This week’s Sapphic Reading Challenge features books with a main character who rocks a power suit.
Nowadays, women’s business attire is a little more casual and leaves room for individuality, but if the main character works in certain professions–as a lawyer, CEO, executive, or politician, for example–she might still be regularly seen wearing a pantsuit or a skirt suit, looking self-assured and in control.
Read up on the rules of the Sapphic Reading Challenge
If you are only discovering the Sapphic Reading Challenge now, the good news is you can still join! It’s a year-long challenge, so it runs until December 31, 2021. Read up on the rules of the Sapphic Reading Challenge and download your PDF so you can keep track of the books you read this year.
15 sapphic books featuring a character who rocks a power suit
I put together a list of 15 sapphic books featuring a character who rocks a power suit. I hope you find at least one you’ll enjoy.
Next of Kin by Jae
For years, ambitious Deputy District Attorney Kade Matheson has taken case files and law books, not lovers, to bed, ignoring her personal life in favor of her career. When she finds herself with a stalker, she tries to handle the situation the way she always does: on her own.
Lieutenant Del Vasquez has admired the standoffish lawyer for a while, and she’s determined to protect her at all costs.
When Kade’s stalker situation escalates and she and Del have to hide at her mother’s, Kade is finally forced to face her attraction to women for the very first time.
Suddenly, she’s no longer sure which one is more dangerous—the threat to her life or to her heart?
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Out of Practice by Carsen Taite
Attorney Abby Keane’s vacation is perfect, especially her steamy interlude with a beautiful stranger. But her newfound zen crumbles when her biggest client, a chain of bridal stores, leaves hundreds of brides without dresses. As if reentry isn’t bad enough, a new wedding blogger is doing her best to stoke the anger of the already unhappy brides, and has chosen Abby as the villain.
Roxanne Daly’s blog has finally hit the sweet spot, and her popularity is soaring. With a regular TV spot on the line, she’ll do whatever it takes to impress the network producers. Running point for a horde of angry brides against a hotshot lawyer seems like the perfect plan until her crusade collides with Abby, the woman she hasn’t been able to stop thinking about since she left her in a tropical paradise.
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Hotel Queens by Lee Winter
Over one long night at a bar in Las Vegas, two powerful hotel executives meet, flirt, and challenge each other—having no clue they’re rivals after the same dream deal.
Brilliant ice queen Amelia Duxton is a hotel vice president who thrives on control, truth, and efficiency. She’s in no mood for love or the mess it brings. All she wants is to buy the coveted Mayfair Palace—a massive deal that could finally help her land the CEO job in her family’s hotel empire.
Fiery Kai Fisher is charming and chaotic and renowned for closing ambitious deals. Her sights are set on snatching the Mayfair Palace out from under the nose of her hated arch rivals, the Duxton family.
But when secrets emerge and everything starts to fall apart, how can either of the warring women win—especially when they’ve just met their match?
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Uncommon Emotions by Lynn Galli
As a turnaround specialist, Joslyn Simonini spends her days analyzing corporate profit margins and trying to keep her likeness from being turned into a voodoo doll by company employees. If she does her job well, they often lose theirs. So, it comes as a surprise when she finds herself being kissed one day at work. She’s even more shocked to find out that the mysterious kissing bandit is a woman.
Not in the habit of kissing women, Joslyn tries to brush off the unintentional mistake. But before long, she’s forced to examine the rush of emotions that accompanied the kiss, especially when she meets Raven Malvolio. At first, she needs Raven to complete her analysis, but she doesn’t expect to need the friendship that Raven offers. When those friendly feelings escalate to something more, Joslyn’s confusion and underdeveloped emotional range might ruin her chance at a relationship that could surpass even her dreams.
Uncommon Emotions takes a look at how someone can think she’s happy with her life only to be surprised by the passion she’s yet to feel.
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If the Shoe Fits by EJ Noyes
Jana Fleischer loves her life—wonderful family, best sister in the world, awesome soon to be sister-in-law, fabulous job, and a never-ending stream of men to chew through and spit out. So what if everyone says she’s too picky and she’s never had a real relationship?
When a chance meeting with Brooke Donnelly leaves Jana literally and figuratively off-balance, it doesn’t take long for her initial annoyance to turn into the first sparks of friendship. Jana always thought she was happy with her life, but the more time she spends with Brooke, the more she realizes something is missing. And maybe not just in the friendship department.
But how do you make that leap when you’ve never even considered kissing a woman, and have spent your whole life avoiding romantic commitments? Being brave, taking the first step, and admitting she wants to try to make things work with
Brooke is only the beginning. Whether it’s the beginning of a disaster—or everything Jana hadn’t realized she wanted—depends on if Brooke can also be brave enough…
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Trial by Fury by KG MacGregor
When a coed is viciously assaulted on the campus of Harwood University, performance studies professor Celia Perone learns a brutal truth—star athletes can get away with whatever they want. Threatened with her job if she goes public, Celia pays a secret visit to celebrated women’s rights attorney Theodora Constantine.
Theo’s riding high after winning a very public sexual harassment claim against a cable news network. Next up for her firm is a class action suit that will strain her small staff. She can’t afford to get sidetracked by another case, but Celia won’t take no for an answer.
The case is compelling and so is Celia—so much that Theo finds herself falling hard. But before they can win love, they have to win justice.
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One Way Or Another by A.L. Brooks
Corporate lawyer Sarah Connolly keeps her love life simple—no strings, no complications, and definitely no falling in love. It works for her, even if it’s getting a little, well, boring.
Demure teacher Bethany Keane has been out of the dating pool for ages but is ready to dip her toe back in. She would love to be swept off her feet by some beautiful, romantic soul.
A chance encounter outside a sex shop in London draws the unlikely pair together and the attraction is immediate and powerful. But how can two people so different even connect, let alone fall in love? Can Ms. Wrong ever be right?
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A Heart This Big by Cheyenne Blue
Australian country girl Nina Pellegrini runs a program for city kids to experience a taste of rural life at Banksia Farm. But when a child is hurt and a lawsuit threatens, Nina is determined to find the best legal assistance to help her save the farm.
Enter high-flying lawyer Leigh Willoughby, whose city world is far from the farm’s chaotic mix of kids and animals. She certainly doesn’t have time for small cases that don’t pay or farm visits that wreck her cool—and her clothes.
Still, the warm-hearted Nina and her challenging, twelve-year-old daughter, Phoebe, are awfully hard to say no to. What on earth has she gotten herself into?
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The Love Factor by Quinn Ivins
Molly Cook is almost thirty, with dismal career prospects, and has given up on saving the world. It might be the nineties, and everything’s shoulder pads, Doc Martens, and The X-Files, but people won’t budge on gay rights. Molly decides to give a PhD a whirl but finds herself more interested in campus politics…and her strict and sexy statistics professor.
Professor Carmen Vaughn is stuck in small-town Maryland with smarmy blowhards for colleagues and ungrateful students who can’t handle her high standards. She has no intention of coming out, least of all to Molly, a troublemaking grad student who can’t stop picking fights with the conservative faculty.
But when Molly discovers evidence implicating a homophobic colleague in a scandal, Carmen can’t ignore it—even if the subject hits too close to home. As the two women work together to make their case, they grow closer than Carmen ever imagined. But she absolutely refuses to get involved with a student.
The thing is, as the chemistry builds between them, Molly isn’t sure she wants to be a grad student anymore…if she ever did.
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Don’t Let Go by Cynthia Dane & Hildred Billings
Rose Wu’s ordinary life as a concierge clerk was only meant to be a means to a financial end. Yet there is one resident in her high-rise luxury building who makes coming to work worth it.
Cindy Ling, the enigmatic businesswoman who always has a lady on her arm, also has a wink to spare the mild-mannered clerk looking her way.
When chance brings Rose up to Cindy’s penthouse suite, her life isn’t simply changed forever. It’s transformed.
From the moment she first sees her, Cindy knows that Rose is a font of endless potential. For a woman who has spent her whole life running away from a core part of her identity, taking Rose as a lover is not only the greatest escape, but Cindy’s best chance at reformatting her image as Taiwan’s foremost playgirl.
Except whenever Cindy makes such drastic changes to her life, she discovers that the old ghosts she attempts to lock away come hurtling back. Falling in love with Rose is a blessing and a curse from the very deity Cindy has held a grudge against since the tragic death of her father.
But Cindy knows they’re a match made in the stars. This time, she’ll overcome her inner demons.
Yet when Cindy is inevitably consumed, Rose persists. She’ll overcome her traditional family, her sheltered upbringing, and her insecurities if it means not only bringing Cindy out of the darkness, but reclaiming the world Rose knows they deserve to inhabit.
No matter how hard Cindy pushes her away, their carnal connection and fairy-tale romance are too pure to spoil. Rose has nothing to fear.
She won’t let go.
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You Matter by Jazzy Mitchell
A disgruntled former client attempts to kill Reggie Esposito, a senior law partner at Hawk, Esposito & Associates—a leading Boston law firm, after she loses his lawsuit. Chrissy Kramer, her paralegal, prevents him from shooting Reggie, but she is hurt in the process.
While Chrissy and her son, Ben, stay with Reggie to recuperate, their connection deepens, and they embark on a romantic relationship.
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Too Close to Touch by Georgia Beers
Life gets complicated when love turns out to be nothing like you expected – and the woman you want is too close to touch. Gretchen Kaiser is a workaholic corporate honcho with issues – she’s got daddy issues, she’s got female-executive-in-a-man’s-world issues, and she’s got one night stand issues.
What she doesn’t have are love issues. She isn’t looking for it, she doesn’t feel she needs it, and she doesn’t expect to find it…certainly not right under her nose.
Kylie O’Brien is the kind of girl who believes in true love and is willing to wait until it shows up at her door. Her best friend Mick would sweep her off her feet given the chance, but Mick doesn’t make Kylie feel the way true love should. And now Kylie has to worry about her new boss – Gretchen Kaiser’s icy reserve makes life as her administrative assistant a challenge.
It doesn’t matter one damn bit that Gretchen is extremely attractive with a voice as rich and smooth as melted chocolate. It absolutely doesn’t…
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Getting Back by Cindy Rizzo
Elizabeth Morrison has ascended the ranks of her industry and now runs one of the most successful publishing companies in the US. But even after three decades, she has never been able to get past the devastating end of her relationship with the beautiful and brilliant Ruth Abramson. As Elizabeth approaches her 30th college reunion, she must face the woman who long ago acceded to the demands of her father, a famous Russian dissident, and married the young man who’d been chosen for her. It doesn’t make it any easier that Ruth, now divorced and living openly as a lesbian, is the class luncheon speaker.
As the two women face one another and attempt to reconcile their past, Elizabeth finds she must wrestle with a number of issues she has avoided confronting. And she must carefully decide whether she is more distrustful of Ruth or of herself. Is she headed for another fall with this woman? Or does she want to get close again, so she can be the one to walk away?
When it comes to reuniting with the love of your life, it’s not always easy to know the difference between getting back together and just getting back.
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Climbing the Ladder by Amanda Radley
Chloe Dixon has landed her dream job, working for Europe’s top lesbian magazine: Honey.
The magazine, under the leadership of the impressive Helen Featherstone, shaped Chloe’s life and all she wants to do is give something back.
When she trusts the wrong person, she finds herself in the middle of a PR storm.
Join Chloe for her first week at Honey and experience the multiple office romances, unrequited crushes, and captivating characters that make up the Honey team. And find out if Chloe will survive her first week.
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Never Say Never by Rachael Sommers
Ambitious corporate shark Camila Evans might have just lost her marriage but she decides she doesn’t need love to build a television empire and raise her young son alone. What she does need is a nanny, but the incompetent idiots sent her way make her lose faith in ever finding anyone useful.
Enter Emily Walker—fresh out of college, bright, a little naive, and new to New York City. Emily is everything Camila is not and frankly it’s a little unsettling how innocent and gentle the young woman is.
That’s not all that’s unsettling. Camila’s growing feelings for Emily are making it hard to maintain a professional distance. Surely she can’t possibly be falling for the nanny? God, it’s such a mid-life crisis cliché. But would it be too impossible?
As time goes on, Camila starts to wonder if maybe even she can get her happy ending after all.
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Leave a comment
Leave a comment and let us know which book you’ll be reading for the “character rocks a power suit” category!
I read Jae’s “Just for Show” and Lola Keeley’s “A Roll in the Hay” for this category.