Fan fiction–fan-created stories using characters and settings from original movies or TV shows–has always been popular among sapphic readers, probably because we had so little representation of sapphic characters in movies and TV shows…
Even if we got any representation, it often ended with one of the queer characters being killed off (the dreaded “bury your gays” trope) or the couple splitting up. So sapphic writers set out to rewrite those stories and give the characters their deserved happy ending.
Plenty of fan fiction writers later went on to become published authors, and some are now among the most popular sapphic fiction authors.
For this week’s Sapphic Book Bingo category, read a published book that started out as fan fiction.
For the record: You can’t publish fan fiction because it would be a violation of copyright. So any published works that started out as fan fiction have been extensively revised so the books are now able to stand on their own.
15 sapphic books that started out as fan fiction
Below, you’ll find 15 recommended sapphic books that started out as fan fiction:
Conflict of Interest by Jae [Started out as Law & Order: SVU fan fiction (Olivia/original character)]
Workaholic Detective Aiden Carlisle isn’t looking for love—and certainly not at the law enforcement seminar she reluctantly agreed to attend. But the first lecturer is not at all what she expected.
Psychologist Dawn Kinsley has just found her place in life. After a failed relationship with a police officer, she has sworn never to get involved with another cop again, but she feels a connection to Aiden from the very first moment.
Can Aiden keep from crossing the line when a brutal crime threatens to keep them apart before they’ve even gotten together?
Available at:
Truth and Measure by Roslyn Sinclair [Started out as The Devil Wears Prada fan fiction]
Jules Moretti is newly single, an aspiring writer, and the hyper-competent assistant to the most powerful woman in fashion. It’s a tough job, but her ice queen boss won’t settle for less than perfection.
Vivian Carlisle helms the internationally revered fashion publication Du Jour. She might be smack in the middle of a messy divorce, but you have to make sacrifices to be the best. That’s what she tells herself, anyway.
When the unthinkable happens, Vivian’s regimented world is turned upside-down. Her life is about power, success, and dominance—not a baby!
This single, shocking moment throws boss and assistant together into an intimacy neither could have imagined. With their lives in chaos, every day brings a new challenge bigger than the last. But everything will work out…just so long as they don’t do anything totally ridiculous.
Like fall in love.
Available at:
The Brutal Truth by Lee Winter [Started out as The Devil Wears Prada fan fiction]
Australian crime reporter Maddie Grey is working the night shift, out of her depth in New York, miserable, and secretly crushing on her twice-married, media-mogul employer.
Elena Bartell is a brilliant, fierce, ice queen boss who eats failing newspapers for breakfast and believes to her core that everything would be much simpler if people told each other the whole, unvarnished truth.
As work takes them to Australia, Maddie is goaded into a brief, seemingly harmless bet with her enigmatic boss—where they can’t lie to each other. The bet backfires spectacularly as Elena realizes that the brutal truth might not be what she wanted after all.
Available at:
Second Chances by Eliza Lentzski [Started out as Glee fan fiction (Faberry)]
High school can be Hell. Especially when you grow up in a small town where everyone knows your business and you can’t avoid the gossip about your past. That’s why, as soon as she graduated, Reagan Murphy moved to New York City to start again. Now in her junior year at NYU and with her childhood firmly positioned in the rearview mirror, the future looks limitless. But when she unexpectedly runs into the one person responsible for the misery of her high school years, will she keep running or will she stick around long enough for a second chance?
Allison Hoge, statuesque and beautiful, made sure she remained at the top of the social pyramid, even if it meant stepping on a few heads to get there. But even she had her own secrets to evade after graduation. College can change a person – it can be a new start – an opportunity for reinvention. So when she unexpectedly runs into the one person for whom she made high school especially miserable, will history repeat itself or has she changed enough to be given a second chance?
Available at:
The Best Mistake by Emily O’Beirne [Started out as NCIS: Hawaiʻi fan fiction (Kacy)]
Uptight, icy Ava Harris, rocked by grief and terrible romantic decisions, moves to Melbourne for a new university job. She definitely doesn’t expect to encounter the ghost of a dirty weekend in her first week there.
Kind, charismatic Sofia Juma, who runs a campus tutoring program for migrant students, barely recognises Ava as the charmer she met months ago, given the woman’s frosty brush-offs.
When the universe keeps hurling them together and that old attraction flares again, Ava keeps giving in to Sofia’s charms. Sex is easy, but intimacy takes courage. While Sofia is brave, a wounded Ava is still running scared. If she ever catches up, will it be too late?
Available at:
Turning In: More stories of Brenna and Cassidy by Lara Zielinsky [Started out as Star Trek: Voyager fan fiction (Janeway/Seven)]
More stories about Cassidy and Brenna after the events of Turning Point and Turn for Home.
The End of the Beginning: Brenna and Cassidy film the final scenes of their Time Trails series and enjoy time together with their castmates and alone in their trailers.
Becoming Family: Cassidy and Brenna spend domestic time at home with their sons between dinner, a family game night, and bedtime.
Family Functions: Cassidy and Brenna visit Cassidy’s home to collect some of her and Ryan’s things and Ranger gets into trouble at the neighbors, leading to a need to reassure Ryan.
Galway Getaway: The combined Hyland and Lanigan families take a vacation trip to Ireland before Brenna has to report for filming of an on-location movie.
Handling the Holidays: Cassidy and Brenna navigate the holiday programs at Ryan’s elementary school and then James’ high school before the entire family goes camping in northern California with new friends.
The Premiere: Cassidy is Brenna’s plus-one at the small venue premiering the Irish film she worked on and they mix and mingle with the movie’s other cast and the director.
Available at:
Blurred Lines by KD Williamson [Started out as Rizzoli & Isles fan fiction (Rizzles)]
Kelli MacCabe is a no nonsense detective with a tough exterior. Only a select few know her as a loyal, loving friend. Committed to her family, her friends, and her job, Kelli puts her needs behind everyone else’s.
As a surgeon, Nora Whitmore is used to being in control. The hospital is her life and leaves room for little else. Respected by her colleagues, but misunderstood by the residents, Nora takes what she needs and keeps everyone at arm’s length. In the process, she creates unexpected enemies.
Tragedy brings them together. As chaos grows around them, the lines between them begin to blur. Despite being from different worlds, friendship grows between them, turning quickly to attraction. Will these two strong, independent women find a way to deal with their individual baggage? Or will they be overcome by it?
Available at:
#Cassinova by Lori G. Matthews [Started out as The 100 fan fiction (Clexa)]
Samantha Cassidy, award-winning actress, up-and-coming Hollywood “It Girl”, is missing three things in her life: an Oscar, a special someone to share her life with, and a baby goat in pajamas.
Alex Novato married her college sweetheart, but tragedy struck and the love of her life was ripped from her arms. Now she refuses to open her heart again, choosing casual sex over deeper commitments, until a not-so-chance meeting with her favorite Hollywood starlet turns her world upside down.
Will Alex give love another try? Will Sam find the courage to follow her heart, Hollywood be damned? Will anyone get a baby goat in pajamas?
Available at:
Never Say Never by Rachael Sommers [Started out as Supergirl fan fiction]
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.
Available at:
Always Believe by Aimée [Started out as Holby City fan fiction (Berena)]
Lieutenant-Colonel Greyson Walsden returns to her hometown of Gloucester after a fulfilling career as an Army doctor. She takes a position as a general practitioner while pursuing ordination as an Anglican priest. Overworked and naturally reserved, she doesn’t have time or patience for socializing, let alone for falling in love.
For Angela Arlingham, life as she knows it is over. God played a cruel trick on her by robbing her of her daughter, Sybil, and Angela refuses to believe in Him any longer. When she meets Greyson Walsden, she’s impressed by the handsome doctor, but struggling with her loss makes falling in love with a priest all but impossible.
As circumstances throw them together again and again, the choice to follow their hearts may be the most difficult one of all.
Available at:
Birthday Letters by Helen West [Started out as Glee fan fiction (Brittana)]
Brooke Blackwell and Julietta Alvarez have been secret girlfriends for years and Brooke can’t take it anymore. She breaks up with Julietta and attempts to move on with her life. Then she receives a letter on her birthday from Julietta, and so begins a tradition of birthday letters between the two.
Available at:
Doll Face by Shannon O’Connor
Barbara Ann (Barbie) as her friends know her, is the CEO of her parents toy company Up, Up, Away toys. All Barbie wants to do is pop a bottle of champagne, create and sell the best toys in the world and maybe forget about the girl who broke her heart.
Kenzie might be one of the world’s top models right now but under the lipstick and dresses, all she can think about is her first love. She left Barbie years ago to pursue her career in modeling and has been lonely ever since. So when a week long shoot in NYC lands her back in town with Barbie, she can’t help but want to rekindle things. She has a week to convince her that they belong together.
Can she get back her one true love or will she be thrown out like a used toy?
Available at:
All Things Beautiful by Alaina Erdell [Started out as Carol fan fiction]
Leighton Vaughn’s prestigious fine art atelier—and her life—appear to be settling down after a messy divorce. She prioritizes her daughter, art, and, teaching—that is until gifted Casey Norford joins the close-knit New York academy.
Casey didn’t receive the artistic education she expected from her bachelor’s degree, but a spot at Atelier Vaughn will remedy that. Even more than the opportunity to study with the famed Leighton Vaughn, Casey wants to give her son a stable childhood that won’t resemble her own. She’s not sure of the true extent of her artistic talent, but she’s keenly aware of her attraction to her instructor, and that attraction appears mutual.
Their sticky teacher-student relationship puts the future of the atelier in jeopardy, the needs of their young children are at odds with their dreams, and Leighton’s obsessive ex tracks her down. Will they sacrifice everything to be together?
Available at:
The Last Scion of Ra by K. Aten [Started out as Supergirl fan fiction (Supercorp)]
Eighteen years after the Chromodec Uprising of 2020, the world is a very different place. Kaelen Ra-Evon lands on Earth, a planet where aliens exist and refugees are fast-tracked to citizenship in many countries. Her tale encompasses the age-old notions of loss, love, and found family. Kaelen tries to navigate her new life on Earth, as well as a romance with genius CEO, Leah Lockheed-Tuck, all while honoring her family’s legacy as the last of her house.
She’s wary of the Chromodec Office of Restraint and Protection, a US agency tasked with policing people of power regardless of their race or planet of origin. In an attempt to protect the woman she loves, Kaelen becomes a vigilante: Scion. She won’t let laws or the CORP stop her from doing what’s right.
Available at:
The Price of Fame by Lynn Ames [Started out as Xena: Warrior Princess fan fiction]
When local television news anchor Katherine Kyle is thrust into the national spotlight, it sets in motion a chain of events that will change her life forever. Jamison “Jay” Parker is an intensely career-driven Time magazine reporter; she has experienced love once, from afar, and given up on finding it again…That is, until circumstance and an assignment bring her into contact with her past.
Kate and Jay’s lives intertwine, leading them on a journey to love and happiness, until fate and fame threaten to tear them apart. What is the price of fame? For Kate the cost just might be everything. For Jay, the price could be the other half of her soul.
Available at:
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Leave a comment
What book will you be reading for the “sapphic book that started out as fan fiction” category? Let us know in the comments!
And Playing the Role of Herself by K E. Lane.
Popcorn Love By KL Hughes and Flight SQA016 by Amanda Radley are others options for this category.
I love the Turning In Series.
Now I would like to to know from wich fanfiction the other books resulted.
I think Unexpected Sparks from Gina L. Dartt is another book that resulted out of fanfiction.
I just added the fandoms to each book on the list!
Thank you for adding the fanfic that the stories evolved from.
My pleasure!
The Best Mistake by Emily O’Beirne is my current choice.
Thank you! I was lost for this square.
But now I just want to know what these books are based on! I am soooo curious.
I just added the fandoms to each book!
G Benson ‘All the little moments’ was Callie and Arizona fanfic. I know because it was one of my favorites.
Tropical Storm by Melissa Good. One that I have read online and in book form, and now in Audible for the last 20+ years.
It was one of the first sapphic romances I ever read, and I still re-read it every year!
I love that she and Mary Brooks wrote actual Xena episodes and then wrote Xena-esque books. Both authors write good stuff with a tall dark haired woman and a smaller blonde.
Ice by Lyn Gardner is my pick for the moment
Wasn’t “Honey in the Marrow” Emily Waters, based on “The Closer” fanfic? I didn’t know when I read it but I think I heard something about it after.
Yes, it was!
Where I find fanfic?
Great list! I didn’t know about some of these, will check some out.
More choices for readers:
– R.J. Nolan’s L.A. Metro trilogy started as fanfic (ER; Kim/OFC)
– Fletcher DeLancey’s Alsea series started as a spinoff of her Voyager fanfic (Janeway/OFC)
– Down to Science by Haley Cass I clocked as Sanvers fanfic pretty much immediately (Supergirl)
Didn’t KGMacGregor write some books that were fan-fic based?
I think the Shaken series (Without Warning, etc.) started out as Uber/Xena fan fiction.
it did
Fletcher DeLancey voyager based series is fantastic. Starts with ‘Caphenon’.
I love that series, in particular Without a Front I & II.
this was the original start for the fanfic. Caphenon was not fanfic
The Producer‘s challenge is one of my yearly rereads