This week’s category of the Sapphic Book Bingo focuses on sapphic books with a main character who is a person of color. The book needs to be written by an author of color.
Of course, I encourage you to read diverse books, including books by authors whose race, ethnicity, or culture is different from your own, for ALL categories of the Sapphic Book Bingo, not just for today’s category. You’ll find books with POC characters in all my recommended reading lists for the Sapphic Book Bingo, but this category is all about them.
You’ll also find recommendations for more sapphic books with Black main characters, Latinx main characters, and Asian & Pacific Islander characters in last year’s reading challenge.
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15 recommended sapphic books with a POC character
Here are my book recommendations for sapphic books featuring a main character who is a person of color. Each book is written by an author of color.
Prize Money by Celeste Castro
Eva Angeles is a professional barrel racer headed for her third world title when a competition mishap throws her in the path of an on-the-loose bull. She is saved from impending disaster by a tall, dark, and handsome bullfighter—a woman.
Toma Rozene is an equestrian stuntwoman fresh off the set of a blockbuster film when a family emergency calls her home to help run the family business: rescuing fallen rodeo riders before blustering bulls and bucking broncos trample their dreams.
Eva and Toma’s shared passions and competitive spirits make friendship easy, but, as their feelings deepen, they must decide if the divergent futures they seek will stand in the way of love.
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The Unbroken by C.L. Clark
In an epic fantasy unlike any other, two women clash in a world full of rebellion, espionage, and military might on the far outreaches of a crumbling desert empire.
Touraine is a soldier. Stolen as a child and raised to kill and die for the empire, her only loyalty is to her fellow conscripts. But now, her company has been sent back to her homeland to stop a rebellion, and the ties of blood may be stronger than she thought.
Luca needs a turncoat. Someone desperate enough to tiptoe the bayonet’s edge between treason and orders. Someone who can sway the rebels toward peace, while Luca focuses on what really matters: getting her uncle off her throne.
Through assassinations and massacres, in bedrooms and war rooms, Touraine and Luca will haggle over the price of a nation. But some things aren’t for sale.
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Give Me Thorns: A Lesbian BDSM Romance by Elizabeth Andre
The worst day Megan has ever had is about to transform her life in ways she never believed possible.
Megan, a long-haired femme lesbian with beautiful pale skin and chestnut brown hair, is having a very loud and public fight with her soon to be ex-girlfriend when a woman on a motorcycle comes to her rescue. Against her better judgement, Megan hops on, and they ride off into the setting sun.
Stevie, a handsome African American butch lesbian with a lock of blonde hair curling out of the front of her helmet, loves rescuing damsels in distress. Sometimes, she just gives them a ride home when they need it. Sometimes, she ties them up in her playroom when they are both ready to have some fun.
At first, Megan is terrified of Stevie’s playroom, but soon admits that BDSM is something she’s always wanted to try. Stevie is initially willing to give Megan a chance, but isn’t sure about playing as hard as she really wants to with a total newbie.
Together they explore Megan’s limits as well as Stevie’s and discover that true love requires knowing yourself most of all.
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You, Me, U.S. by Brigitte Bautista
Best friends Jo and Liza are as opposite as night and day. Sex worker Jo swears by the worry-free, one-day-at-a-time dance through life. Salesclerk Liza has big plans for her family’s future, and there is nothing bigger than a one-way trip to the U.S. But an almost-kiss, a sex dare, and news of Liza’s engagement to her American boyfriend unveil feelings Jo and Liza never thought they had.
Deciding between staying together and drifting apart puts Liza’s best-laid plans and Jo’s laidback life in jeopardy.
When love clashes with lifelong ambitions and family expectations, someone has to give in. Question is: who?
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When Tara Met Farah by Tara Pammi
Nineteen-year-old Tara Muvvala didn’t mean to lead a double life. But her bone-deep aversion to math + a soul-deep desire to please her mother = her failing math grade + exploding food vlog ‘this masala life’. Enter her mother’s research intern and resident math genius Farah Ahmed. Tara makes a deal with Farah – help her pass the math course and she’ll welcome Farah into the local Bollywood Drama & Dance Society.
Grumpy girl gets life lessons…
After losing her mom to a heart attack, dumping her small-minded boyfriend (she’s bisexual, not confused) and reluctantly moving to the US to be near her dad – all in the span of eighteen months, twenty-three-year-old Farah has hit the full quota on LIFE. Two things keep her going – her internship with a brilliant statistics professor and the possibility of meeting her dancing idol through the Bollywood Drama & Dance Society. That is, if her new hot-mess housemate will let her.
Soon Tara and Farah are bonding over chicken biryani, dancing to Bollywood Beats at midnight and kissing against all the odds. And maybe beginning to realize that while life’s even more complicated than math, love is the one variable that changes everything!
Will Tara and Farah realize that together they have the recipe for a Happily Ever After?
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My Little Green Girlfriend by Kimberly Hart
When Marsha’s broken teleporter sends her to Earth, her only priority is to get back to civilization. Unfortunately, she has no way to get off this primitive planet or even contact home. Since she’s stuck here indefinitely, she’ll have to make the best of it.
Sophie is surprisingly calm when the beautiful woman wandering the streets says she’s from outer space. Having often felt like an alien herself, she’s determined to help Marsha however possible – even if that means letting the complete stranger move in with her.
As Marsha tries to settle in on Earth, Sophie realizes she’s unique in the universe. It’s not just Marsha’s unearthly good looks; Sophie is drawn to her kind and curious nature. Meanwhile, Marsha realizes that even a backwards planet can be home to intelligent life – and that the life form called Sophie is also downright sexy.
Will Marsha find her way home? Or will her heart convince her to change her plans?
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Stud Like Her by Fiona Zedde
Chance has been in love only once, but it wasn’t with the girlfriend she stayed with for far too long. The same girlfriend who dropped Chance when she became too inconvenient. Or maybe just boring.
To bury her disappointment, Chance tries to return to the woman she loved back when she was too afraid to be herself. A stud attracted to other studs.
Instead of her old love, though, Chance finds Garet – a new and persistent admirer with the kind of swagger that leaves Chance weak in the knees. Garet is hot and very popular with her half a million followers on social media. She’s also a lot younger than Chance is used to. Not to mention there’s something familiar about her, something dangerous, that Chance can’t quite put her finger on.
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Match to Love by Johana Gavez
An internet friendship becomes so much more in this light-hearted lesbian sports romance.
World-renowned tennis player Daniela Martinez has everything she could wish for, except love. When romance knocks on her door, she will have to find a balance between her athletic ambitions and her desire for a relationship or risk sacrificing one for the other.
Law student Ari Nunez is struggling with managing the expectations of her family and dedicating her life to a profession she dislikes more every day. Her relationship with Daniela, full of international travel and vacations, is the perfect escape, even if it feels too good to be true.
Follow their journey from a chance online meeting to power couple taking on the world together.
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The Makings of You by Ava Freeman
After living recklessly for years, Giselle Turner knows the negative feelings her family has towards her. She’s determined to prove herself once and for all but that’s easier said than done. When she decides to move in with a relative for a fresh start, the last person she expects to run into again is Aaliyah, the woman who awakened her sexuality. As she fights to get her life in order, she discovers that there may be something sweet on the other side of sobriety.
Aaliyah Spencer has a good life. Great friends, a job she enjoys, and loving parents. What she doesn’t have is someone to share it all with. Fear of letting anyone in has rendered her unable to truly connect romantically leading to one failed relationship after another. Giselle is a breath of fresh air and her arrival challenges what Aaliyah thinks she knows about love.
Despite an undeniable attraction, their respective journeys couldn’t be more different. Yet each may have just what the other needs to become whole.
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Whispering Oaks: A WLW Romantic Suspense by Stephanie Shea
A missing sister, an unexpected romance, an impossible mystery…
Nothing ever happens in Whispering Oaks.
The air is clean; uncorrupted by a tawdry downtown. Birds twitter. Crime is nigh non-existent. It’s the picture-perfect suburb with all the effects of classy restaurants and diverse nightlife. Not to mention block parties marked by face-forward flattery and back-biting.
Cassidy Linden hates it. Rather, the false mystique of it all disturbs her.
Nothing ever happens in Whispering Oaks.
So, when Cassidy’s younger sister vanishes one night, it’s not just surprising, it’s unfathomable—the only trace of her disappearance a trail of red petals and her cell phone left in the grass of her backyard.
No witnesses.
No suspects.
A police department who claim to be doing everything they can, and the poorly-timed return of a family friend.
When a one-night stand with the charming, enigmatic Ashlyn Castille reveals an unforeseen connection, Ashlyn and Cassidy realize they have more in common than either expected.
But one thing is certain, seventeen-year-old girls don’t just disappear. Someone must have taken her. Can Cassidy prove it in time to bring her little sister home? Or is she a fated anomaly?
The perfect mystery for a perfect suburbia.
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Between a Rock and a Soft Place, Collected Works by Renée Bess
The short stories in this collection invite you to walk alongside characters in the midst of their journeys. Meet the Black high school student who dares to take a glimpse of her future-self while she sits at the mercy of the straightening comb in the beauty parlor. Observe the newly-degreed journalism major who travels alone to 1920’s Paris in search of truths and secrets. Tread gently beside the woman who struggles to cope with her lover’s departure. Indulge the faithless entrepreneur who’s convinced she’ll be betrayed. Listen to the woman whose bitter memories bring her clarity as well as rewards among the folds of forgiveness. Join two friends who bump into America’s original sin during their visit to a women’s bar. And smile along with the proud older woman who is determined to cast her vote in honor of her forebearer’s legacy.
Some of the poems in this book are personal. Others are political. Each poem traveled a path from the author’s heart straight to her pen. Each poem breathes with each reader’s breath. Each poem says whatever it says to whomever reads it.
The creative non-fiction pieces are born of the necessity to think during the last four years of our nation’s constant stress and socio-political chaos. May these essays inspire the reader to ask questions and seek answers.
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Love and Lotus Blossom by Anne Shade
Janesse Crawford spends her teenage and young adult years trying to balance her tomboy, girl-loving side with being the picture-perfect daughter her mother wants. It’s difficult, and Janesse is full of self-doubt, but she manages to find a way to make it work. Then Janesse meets sexy, confident Maya Lawson, who is everything she didn’t realize she wanted, and her world is turned upside down. But Janesse makes a choice and doesn’t look back.
Thirty years later, Janesse is married to a man who loves her, has raised two wonderful children, and has a successful career doing what she loves. But when a chance meeting with Maya brings her past rushing back, the lie Janesse has been living comes crashing in on her. She let Maya get away once, but her second chance at true love could cost her the picture-perfect world she’s spent a lifetime building. It’s not too late for Janesse to blossom into the woman she’s always wished to be. But on her path to self-acceptance, she will risk everything—and possibly everyone—she loves.
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Internet Famous by MB Guel
Billie Alvarez is your average punk rock loving high school senior who just wants to hang out with her best friend, Rex, and get her ex-girlfriend back. In a half-baked attempt to impress her by auditioning for the lead part in the school musical, Billie gets turned down because she’s a girl trying out for a traditionally male part. When her online rant about the school being homophobic goes viral, she must navigate her newfound fame along with the typical drama that comes with getting through high school.
Between rehearsals, trying to get her band back together and an endless onslaught of online admirers, Billie must decide what’s important to her. Is it the fleeting happiness of getting attention online? Figuring out what she wants to do after high school? Or getting her ex back?
Then there’s her co-star in the school play, who’s getting much more interesting now that they’re spending more time rehearing together.
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Guardian by Jen Lawrence
Every Guardian was born a warrior with powerful magic and a soulmate to complete her. All except for Luna, it seemed, who despite having mastered her craft, continued her fight in solitude. She was an enigma in their society—alone for far longer than any Guardian before her. Still, Luna remained hopeful that one day her soulmate would find her, and all the tender yearning would have been worth it.
Then Gia stumbles into her life. Gia—who lives a Human life, in Human glamour, with a Human fiancé.
Now Luna finds herself questioning everything that she—and the Guardians—have believed in for millennia.
“Love isn’t always enough.” Luna had always understood the words, but she had never actually believed them.
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Choosing Grace by Regina Jamison
As a young African American woman from Durham, North Carolina, Sky Valentine is tired of being boxed in by small minds and Southern expectations. To escape the restraints of her Southern upbringing, Sky flees to Rhode Island to attend college. Once there, Sky doesn’t just work on her degree, she also works on shedding many of the things that peg her as a Southerner.
Sky also falls head over heels with the sexy and vibrant Zenobia, solidifying what she had felt in her heart all along―that she loves women. But their affair is brief and interrupted by Zenobia’s sudden departure from school.
With college completed, Sky returns home to find that her domineering mother has promised her hand in marriage to a rich and arrogant man. But it’s 1986, and Sky is determined to live her own life. She gathers her courage and flees to New York City, where she lands a teaching job and an apartment.
In time Sky meets Grace Webster and it’s love at first sight. But then Zenobia comes back into Sky’s life and Sky is faced with an impossible choice―finish what she started with Zenobia years ago, or fight for the relationship she is building with Grace. What will she choose?
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SBF Seeking by LaToya Hankins
Four months before her wedding, Yvette Thurman realizes this might be her last chance to have a sexual fling with a white man. But she never thought placing a personal ad would lead her to discover she was a lesbian.
Yvette’s small town life in eastern North Carolina never prepared her for the personal journey she undertakes as she struggles to find her heart’s path.
Through personal ads and late night visits to an adult bookstore, Yvette learns more about her own personal desires than she ever did when she was engaged to be married. If she embraces her true self, can she find acceptance and love from her family and friends? Or will she be forced to hide who she really is from those she cares about the most?
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Leave a comment and let us know what book you’ll be reading for the “sapphic book with a POC main character” category!
absolutely love Fiona Zedde!
Me too! Her use of language is so lovely!