This week’s Sapphic Book Bingo category features main characters with a disability. It could almost be a Hidden Gem category because there’s still not enough representation for disabled people in books and other media.
For this category, read a sapphic book featuring a main character who has a physical, sensory, or intellectual disability, a chronic illness, or a mental disorder.
15 sapphic books featuring main characters with a disability
Below, you’ll find 15 recommended sapphic books featuring main characters with a disability:
Roll With Me by Elizabeth Andre
Chloe is a former runner turned wheelchair racer with MS who doesn’t want sympathy or to be saved. She just wants to fall in love. When she meets Rachel, a fellow runner with long hair and beautiful legs, they initially fall for each other, but Chloe is not a regular wheelchair user and is able to keep her disability a secret. Rachel senses that Chloe is holding something back, and this secret tears their relationship apart. For them to be together, Chloe has to let Rachel run past her denial and roll even closer to her heart.
Available at:
Pivot by Anna Pulley
After a disastrous and publicly humiliating rejection at a cosplay convention, naive yet hopeful romantic Paula Suarez is left with another crushing failure in her quest for love – and her dream of becoming a costume designer. But when she stumbles upon feisty mixed-race journalist Nita Funmaker, a friendship blossoms which may soon grow into something much more.
Embroiled in a bitter divorce and immersed in pursuing her latest scoop, Nita isn’t sure if she’s ready for another try at love. But with her father’s paper on the ropes and her ex still hounding her, maybe a bit of fun and relaxation is exactly what she needs.
Drawn together by a series of increasingly amusing and absurd events – from Paula joining an underground drag wrestling show to Nita’s secret passion for ice skating – Paula and Nita must navigate their increasingly tumultuous emotions, help each other face their deepest fears, and maybe even find true love along the way.
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Just Physical by Jae
After being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, twenty-five-year-old Jill Corrigan takes herself off the romantic market. Not wanting to become a burden to a potential partner, she focuses on her career as an actress instead.
On the set of a disaster movie, she meets stunt woman Kristine “Crash” Patterson, whose easy smile instantly makes Jill wish things were different. Meanwhile, Crash is trained to fall, but she didn’t count on falling in love.
Despite their growing feelings for each other, Jill resolves to let Crash into her bed, but not her heart.
As they start to play with fire on and off camera, will they really be able to keep things just physical?
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Sweet Nothings and Other Confections by Sula Sullivan
Deceit has never tasted so sweet…
Lucille Waters, a spunky but anxious aspiring artist, finds herself caught in a conundrum. Her parents want her to marry or become a governess. In order to avoid either fate, she needs a solution— and quickly. On a whim, she lies and tells her parents she is engaged to the reclusive Lord Fondant. When her mother calls her bluff, Lucille is forced to create an elaborate scheme that will hold up against the scrutiny of her parents. The only problem? It involves convincing Lord Fondant to pretend to be her fiance.
Unbeknownst to Lucille and the rest of the Ton, Lord Fondant isn’t Lord Fondant at all. She’s the newly minted Lady Fiona Fondant; Fiona is a renowned confectioner whose delectable creations have captured the hearts of the Ton. Despite Fiona’s success and wealth, she’s struggling to navigate her new role at the helm of the family business. It’s a lonely, physically demanding job that only exacerbates the chronic illness she must manage day in and day out.
Together, they agree to go through with Lucille’s charade that challenges both their hearts and expectations. As their friendship deepens, Lucille and Fiona find themselves entangled in a world of make-believe; the line between fantasy and reality begins to blur, and an undeniably sweet chemistry simmers beneath the surface. But is their newfound friendship a recipe for disaster?
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Invisible, as Music by Caren J. Werlinger
Henrietta Cochran has spent nearly forty years dealing with the effects of the polio she contracted in 1945. Her braces and crutches restrict her, define her, but they also give her independence. Almost. She hates that she has become increasingly reliant on a series of live-in companions to help her. For some reason, the companions never seem to want to stay very long. So Henrietta retreats further and further into her art, where her physical limitations don’t matter.
Into her life sails Meryn Fleming: out, outspoken, and fiercely political. She’s young, enthusiastically diving into her first job as a history professor at the local college. When she falls, almost literally, into Henrietta’s path, she seems like a godsend.
Little does Henrietta know that this young woman is about to upend her carefully structured existence. Ryn challenges everything, barging right through the walls Henrietta has built to keep others at a distance.
To Ryn, Henrietta is an enigma: prickly and easily insulted at the slightest suggestion that she can’t do things for herself; a brilliant artist capable of producing the most beautiful paintings; and sometimes, when Henrietta doesn’t realize she’s letting her guard down, a tender and sensitive woman.
With Meryn’s youthful optimism pitted against Henrietta’s jaded acceptance of the world as it is, life will never be the same for either of them.
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What the Heart Sees by KC Luck
Four years after a horrible car accident takes her sight and kills her parents, Sage Montgomery has learned to adapt to her new circumstances in Spruce Creek, Oregon. A new life that includes running the Montgomery horse ranch, which has been in her family for generations. As the place where she grew up, Sage has only the fondest memories. But when she learns her home is at risk because of unpaid taxes, Sage must find a way to raise the money. While the bank threatens and unwanted buyers circle, she is faced with decisions she doesn’t want to make for the ranch… and her heart.
With two decades of hard work on Wall Street, Julie Aspen has everything she wants. A career she loves, the perfect Manhattan condo, and a sexy, young girlfriend. People envy what Julie has and she could not be happier. At least until the firm she works for is accused of fraud. Suddenly stripped of everything and risking indictment, Julie returns to where she grew up. The small town she hates—Spruce Creek. Things couldn’t be more miserable until she meets the daughter of a long-lost friend. Suddenly, Julie has second thoughts about what may be important in life and if it is too late to change.
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Meow or Never by Jazz Taylor
Avery Williams can sing, but that doesn’t mean she can sing in front of people. She likes to stay backstage at her new school, which is where, to her surprise, she finds a cat tucked away into a nook. Avery names the stray Phantom and visits any time she’s feeling stressed (which is a lot these days).
As she sings to Phantom one day, her crush, a girl named Nic, overhears her and ropes Avery into auditioning for the school’s musical. Despite her nerves, Avery lands the lead role!
She knows she should be excited, but mostly Avery is terrified. Can Phantom help her through her stage fright? And what will happen if anyone finds out about her secret pet?
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Truly Home by J.J. Hale
The residents of Ruth Miller’s small rural village took it upon themselves to guide her after her parents died. But she’s an adult now and determined to find her own path, starting with learning more about the parents she lost too soon. Maybe if she understands who they were and how they shaped her, she’ll be able to share her life with someone special without the cold fingers of anxiety locking her into the comfort of familiar surroundings.
Olivia Bell’s chaotic childhood has left her lonely. Her independence has served her well in everything except relationships, and she’s desperately searching for connection. She never had a happy home and left the minute she was old enough. The only person she can rely on is her little sister Grace, but Grace needs her help caring for their father—the last thing Olivia wants to do.
When Ruth and Olivia meet, they become the one bright spot in each other’s days. But Ruth wishes more than anything for the family she lost, and Olivia would do almost anything to escape hers. Could home ever be more than a four-letter word?
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The Found Jar by Jaycie Morrison
Horror fiction writer Emily Harris just wants to be left alone with her work. But plagued by writer’s block, she reluctantly agrees to join her friends at their luxurious beach house for the summer. Maybe a change of scenery will inspire her.
Local housekeeper Beck Reynolds keeps her life simple—saving for a boat and avoiding the town bullies while she attends art classes. Meeting successful but prickly Emily leaves her feeling awestruck, and she wants to make a good impression, even though Emily seems determined to run her off. But Beck’s not the one who is just visiting.
Emily knows all about loss, and guilt, and rejection. Opening her heart has always gotten her hurt, and she’s absolutely not letting anyone in, even someone good, or good-looking, like Beck.
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Novel Problems by Elizabeth Luly
Hannah Taylor has some novel problems. The best-selling fantasy author, who writes under a secret pen name, is suffering from writer’s block after her long-term relationship collapses. With the deadline for her next novel fast approaching, Hannah flees Manhattan for Sapphire Springs, New York, planning to hide away until she finishes her book. But when she’s forced to visit the local cafe-bookstore, she accidentally finds herself with a new job and one very attractive new boss. Distractions she definitely doesn’t need with her looming deadline… or does she?
George O’Grady worked hard to turn Novel Gossip into the cafe-bookstore of her dreams, but staff shortages are putting the normally unflappable lesbian under pressure. Hannah’s appearance is a godsend. Although it would be easier if her new employee was less distractingly lovely, because George has a strict rule against dating employees.
Over the course of the summer, Hannah and George grow closer. But can the two book lovers overcome their novel problems, rules, and relationship baggage to write their own happy ending?
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But By Degrees by Kit Eyre
A crumbling office on the outskirts of Leeds is an unlikely location for a bomber to target, especially when it’s only the accounting centre for a care home company. Yet the man on the other end of the phone is adamant – he wants the company director there in the morning or he’ll detonate the bomb.
Danni Morris was already dealing with the ramifications of a failed relationship when she picked up the phone that day. Eighteen months later, she’s still on a mission to find out the truth about what happened, as well as struggling to mend her broken heart.
Can she get the answers she needs and what will be left when she does?
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The Seeker of Stars by Emma Thingsted
Christie Starling is the young, quiet and introverted owner of the bookcafé The Storybook Nook in Shieldaigh, Scotland. She has a routine she follows every single day, and she prefers her simple, quiet life in the highlands with her ever faithful dog, Tiny. But she is also grieving over the woman she lost two years ago.
Helena Frost is a struggling writer from London. Stuck in a writer’s block ever since that day she woke up in the white room and everything was changed. Ever since that day, Helena has been feeling nothing but emptiness and she does not understand why. The words on her screen doesn’t make sense. Nor does anything else.
But on November 29th, she receives a phone call from her grandmother who lives in Shieldaigh and whom she hasn’t seen for a long while. She suggests that Helena comes to stay with her in Shieldaigh for a couple of days. This is exactly the excuse Helena needs to close her laptop, pack her bags and leave London.
In Shieldaigh, it doesn’t take long before she steps into a book café where the fireplace always flickers and books are waiting to be read, and Helena meets the fairy-like woman who owns the store. And her dog who definitely is not tiny.
And as the snow falls and Christmas approaches, two women experiences a Christmas miracle of their own…
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Fragmented by Eliza Lentzski
Residing in the attics of our brains one finds an assortment of things: personal baggage, photo albums spilling with childhood memories, and family skeletons. Harper Dawkins has locked and sealed the door to her personal attic by moving out of state to attend college and dropping all contact with former friends and family. She’s even changed her accent.
Be normal. Fit in. Blend into the crowd: it’s all she’s ever wanted. But Harper’s about to discover that while you may be able to divorce yourself from your past, you can’t run away from yourself.
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House of Refuge by CJ Murphy
Rhebekka and Naomi Deklan have built a life with family and friends surrounding them and their ministry. Their message offers the marginalized an understanding of grace often withheld within the confines of mainstream religion. A documentary on Rhebekka’s former religion unearths buried incidents of abuse. Rhebekka is determined to unseal the special blue envelopes and bring justice to the victims preyed upon by those in power.
The Deklans will make room for old and new family members at their crowded table. Faith will be the rock on which their house of refuge will be built, while walls of love and acceptance will shelter them from the wind and tides of an ever-shifting world.
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My Dream Woman by C H Clepitt
When your dreams are real there’s no-where to escape!
Andi is just holding it together. Working two jobs means she doesn’t need to rely on anyone, but doesn’t have much of a life. In her dreams, however, she is a hero: battling monsters and saving innocents. When her dream woman turns out to be very real, Andi’s life begins to spiral out of control.
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In the Shadow of the Palace by Eliza Andrews
The one thing Cara knows about herself is that she doesn’t want to grow up to be a prostitute. But as the daughter of a prostitute, growing up in a brothel in one of the seediest districts of Port Lorsin, she has resigned herself to her fate. As soon as her monthly blood comes, she will follow in the footsteps of her mother.
But a client of her mother’s takes pity on Cara. Leveraging his status, he takes Cara somewhere she never thought she’d see up close: the palace of the House of Dorsa. When a crisis strikes, Cara finds herself thrust into the very center of palace politics. What comes next will change Cara — and the course of kingdom history — forever.
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Don’t miss Give Something Away Day
For Give Something Away Day on July 15, I put together a special event for readers of sapphic fiction. 88 authors joined me to create the biggest sapphic book giveaway of the year with a total of 100 books.
This year, the event includes not only book giveaways but also free ebooks for everyone to download and book gift cards from Amazon, Bold Strokes Books, and Bella Books!
Whether you prefer ebooks, paperbacks, or audiobooks, there’s something for everyone.
I’ll send out a newsletter as soon as the event starts, so if you’d like to make sure you don’t miss it, please sign up to my monthly reader newsletter.
Leave a comment
What book will you be reading for the “sapphic book featuring a character with a disability” category? Are there other books that are a good fit for this category? Let us know in the comments!
6 Responses
I love this list of books and I will keep it for future reading. I am going to re-read a book from last year by Olivia Janae called “The Loudest Silence”. It’s a beautiful love story and there is a lot of insight into the world of the deaf. A truly enjoyable book.
Does the roommate arrangement count? i would say yes but just checking
Yes, absolutely. The Roommate Arrangement is a good fit for this category.
Hi all ✨🌚🫶🏾🌝✨
Although I am still reading, I fully recommend “Leaving’s Not the Only Way to Go” by Kay Acker.
This storyline evolves like a precious flower blooming.
How about “Off Balance” by L.E. Royal? It features a main character with a movement disorder caused by cerebral palsy. I agree about “the Loudest Silence” – very good book! It also has found family theme.
Sounds great! I’ll have to put that on my reading list too.