I grew up with a spunky grandmother who cheated at card games, could quote the Golden Girls, and had the biggest heart ever. That’s probably why I enjoy writing spunky grandparents and why I included them as a category in this year’s Sapphic Book Bingo.
So for this category, read a sapphic book with a feisty grandparent who adds a humorous element, often by trying to matchmake.
15 sapphic books with a spunky grandparent
Below, you’ll find 15 recommended sapphic books with a spunky grandparent:
Departure from the Script by Jae
Aspiring actress Amanda Clark and photographer Michelle Osinski are two women burned by love and not looking to test the fire again. And even if they were, it certainly wouldn’t be with each other. Amanda has never been attracted to a butch woman before, and Michelle personifies the term butch.
Having just landed a role on a hot new TV show, Amanda is determined to focus on her career and doesn’t need any complications in her life.
After a turbulent breakup with her starlet ex, Michelle swore she would never get involved with an actress again. Another high-maintenance woman is the last thing she wants, and her first encounter with Amanda certainly makes her appear the type.
But after a date that is not a date and some meddling from Amanda’s grandmother, they both begin to wonder if it’s not time for a departure from their usual dating scripts.
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Shay’s Gamble by Amber Perez
In Sin City to celebrate her best friend’s upcoming nuptials, Shay, dealing with her failed marriage, is not in a party mood. But when she locks eyes with a mysterious woman across a crowded room, her strict, traditional upbringing wars against her long-hidden desires. She aches to embrace her true self, go all-in and hit the jackpot.
Allie, a student struggling to provide for her younger sister, heads to Vegas to celebrate her engagement. She thought she hit the big time when she landed the ridiculously wealthy and handsome Jackson Pemberton IV, but as his true colors are shown, it leaves her questioning everything. Maybe financial stability comes at too high a price. Perhaps it’s all or nothing in life. Responsibility battles against following her heart’s desires.
When the two bridal parties repeatedly collide, sparks fly, and they team up to make the most out of their Vegas experience. That decision tosses a wild card at Shay and Allie, forcing them to face feelings they never expected.
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Fake Marriage Planning Inc by Anne Hagan
Iva Romano runs a successful event planning business specializing in weddings with her best friend Jon, but secretly operates a side hustle staging fake nuptials for clients with something to hide.
When investigative journalist Cheyenne Moore asks her to plan a sham wedding to fool her conservative family and to pose as her fiancée, Iva reluctantly agrees despite her ethical reservations.
As they pretend to be in love and hurtle through wedding planning, the lines between real and fake begin to blur. Iva struggles to reconcile her growing feelings for Cheyenne with her concerns about the morality of their deceptive arrangement. Further complicating matters, a rival wedding planner finds out about Iva and Jon’s secret side business and threatens to expose them.
In the end, Iva and Cheyenne will have to decide if their relationship is based on lies or love. Will they take a leap of faith to find their own happy ending? Or, will the falsehoods tear them apart?
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One Last Summer by Emma Rossi
After her mother checks herself into a mental health retreat, seventeen-year-old Cyra Burton is sent to spend her entire summer with her Gran in Paradise Bay. She hasn’t returned to Paradise Bay since her father walked out on her and her mum five years ago. Cyra meets Riley, a bubbly and beautiful local who is determined to get out of Paradise Bay. But before she leaves, she wants to make her last summer the best yet. She persuades Cyra to join her on a quest to fulfil her bucket list of all the items she wants to complete before permanently leaving Paradise Bay and beginning their lives as adults.
It quickly becomes apparent that Cyra and Riley are more than friends, but Cyra keeps her at arm’s length as she believes that anyone she lets close always leaves. It seems that the only way around it is that they become a summer fling, which has a definite expiration date. However, in a small town like Paradise Bay, Cyra can’t seem to escape the past and it may just ruin her whole summer.
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Nurturing Hope by Kara Ripley
Desiree Adler does not want a girlfriend. Why would she? She has a demanding career as a photographer and content creator, an eccentric but supportive family, and a huge responsibility as a foster parent to a teenager named Hope.
Desi’s life is just fine the way it is. Why risk another heartbreak?
However, Desi’s sister is annoyingly persistent and when she arranges a blind date for Desi, it’s less trouble to agree, get it over with, and return to normal life. The blind date is every bit as terrible as predicted. So why can’t Desi stop thinking about Soledad Reyes?
If Desi has any hope of finding balance in life, she must help Hope confront the ghosts of her past, while confronting her own assumptions about race, power, and identity in the present.
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Last New Beginning by Krystina Rivers
Bailey Kaczmarek has three loves: her dog, her construction company, and her very large family. After she finds out that her fiancée never stopped dating, she resolves to be content with what she has rather than search for happiness in a relationship. It’s not like she has much free time anyway.
Skye Kohl is a high-powered commercial real estate broker who spends most of her waking hours negotiating some of the largest leases in the nicest buildings in Chicago. She’s so focused on topping the list of the most influential brokers in the city that she ignores her love life.
Bailey’s and Skye’s professional and personal lives collide as they join forces on a construction project and deal with their meddling mothers, who think they’re perfect for one another. But the more they clash, the hotter their simmering attraction burns.
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Howl by Lucy Bexley
Lou McCallister owns Howl, the only surviving queer bar in Boston. When an investment opportunity to save the floundering bar is inadvertently sabotaged by Clementine Darby, Howl’s newest employee, Lou is ready to give up. Now Clem will do anything she can to make it right and keep Howl alive, but will she be able to save the bar in time? This sapphic Coyote Ugly reimagining brings the funny and the feels.
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Heroes by Serena J. Bishop
Aurora and Leela have succeeded in their quest to balance work and family. Aurora has risen in the ranks at her company and has become a well-known environmental advocate. Leela’s business has grown and is the president of the farmers’ market. They have done this all while raising their conceived-by-magic eleven-year-old daughter, Kari. However, the time has come for them to tell Kari about her mystical origins, as Kari’s mind and body start to evolve in powerful ways.
As the family focuses on ways to test Kari’s new abilities, Aurora is placed in the public spotlight due to an ongoing public battle with Houston Energy. The corporate monstrosity dislikes Aurora, but no one despises her—or Leela—more than the social media group, God and Country, or G and C. Rather than get swept up in the hate, they focus on Kari’s emerging supernatural talents.
But that changes when the attacks migrate from the internet and move closer to home.
Will G and C’s taunts and threats cause Aurora and Leela to fall back in the shadows? Do they have what it takes to take the fight to G and C? Or, is Kari the key to saving them all?
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Heartlines by Simonetta Pastorini
Dianna Laydon is an actress starring in one of TV’s top series, Treasure Hunt, but she has never gotten used to fame. In her heart, she’s still the simple Southern girl who had moved to Los Angeles years ago to make her dream come true. She’s also a control freak, a play-by-the-book kind of girl, and a totally rational person. Her life, though, is turned upside down when a new actress is cast as a recurring character in Treasure Hunt.
Vivien Reese has spent her whole life under the spotlights, being the wild daughter of a renowned British director, and a famous actress herself since she was just eighteen years old. With her party-girl reputation and her go-with-the-flow attitude, she seems Dianna’s polar opposite, so when the two girls meet sparks start flying, and not necessarily in a good way. But as they work together and they get to know each other, they discover that they might be more similar than they had initially thought, and more importantly, they’re terribly drawn to each other.
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Full Circle by Susan X Meagher
After a sudden, dramatic, devastating breakup, Dex and Tracy tried their best to continue being good moms to their daughter Kendall. But they accomplished that in a unique way. Family members served as go-betweens, allowing Dex to have frequent visits with Kendall, while not interacting with Tracy at all. No visits, no calls, no emails, no texts. They have spoken not a single word since the night that Dex was banished from their home.
Surprisingly, Kendall handled the split very well. Her parents’ lives ran on parallel tracks with no drama whatsoever. They were deeply involved with Kendall’s life, just not each other’s.
Now she’s about to graduate from college, and her fondest desire is to have both Dex and Tracy attend her celebration. But since she learned early on that her moms would never choose to share space, she’s had to get creative.
Their forced meeting careens from anger to tears to slap-stick to tender reminiscences. And that’s just in the first hour.
Kendall’s thrilled to be getting exactly what she wanted, and now that the wall of silence has been breached, there might be space for more. Maybe much more…
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Birds of a Feather by Laina Villeneuve
Adrienne Stecher has always known she’s different, and she’s fine with her place on the spectrum. She loves her job and her apartment, and she’s happy to help out her grandfather a few times a month. If she could just get the peacocks that plague his neighborhood to stop destroying his yard, she’d be set.
Native to Mississippi, Casey Knight knows beautiful when she sees it, and California is full of beauty. She appreciates everything about her college town—the weather, her job, and the majestic birds that populate her neighborhood.
Though every encounter Casey has with Adrienne seems designed to scare her away along with the birds, Casey keeps finding herself drawn back to her neighbor’s granddaughter. Adrienne is adamant that her quirks make it impossible to date, but something about her makes Casey just as certain that they could be birds of a feather.
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Chasing Shadows by Lila Bruce
Avery Smith, who returned to her hometown of Bethel Springs after time spent away in the big city, is finally beginning to absorb the culture shock and settle into her job at the local Sheriff’s Department. The pay’s not great, there’s a decided lack of decent coffee and available women in town, but those are sacrifices she’s willing to make to in order to be closer to her aging and increasingly eccentric grandmother. When the discovery of a dead body in the county coincides with the arrival of attractive but irritating tv personality Cameron Reinhart, Avery has to put aside her feelings of skepticism and disbelief when Cam claims to have seen Avery’s murder victim — after she was murdered.
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Beyond Always: Book Nine in the Somerville Series (Featuring Lex & Amanda) by Carrie L. Carr
Time waits for no one. Amanda learns this the hard way when her grandparent’s lives change almost overnight, throwing her entire family into disarray. Life at the Rocking W Ranch is never dull, as Lex & Amanda juggle raising a moody preteen, her talkative younger sister, and a toddler who takes “no” as a personal challenge. To make matters worse, Lex is struck by an illness even she has trouble ignoring, leaving Amanda torn between family responsibilities and her need to be with the other half of her heart. When a massive storm strikes as family members are spread throughout Somerville and the ranch, everyone learns how precious life can be.
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When to Let Go by Jo Cox
When your gran’s getting more action in the spare room than you’ve managed for the best part of a year, something’s going wrong. The trouble is, Adie hasn’t realised that yet.
Even when she meets an attractive plumber who can solve all her obvious problems, she’s still determined to play it safe. After all, Morgan is a bundle of anxiety who wants a fresh start, and it’s far easier to focus on everyone else’s issues than examine your own.
It’s all under control until it’s not under control, and when it turns out Morgan also has a knack for asking difficult questions, Adie’s left wondering what the hell she’s been doing with her life. Whether she’ll have the courage to change anything, though, is another thing entirely.
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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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Pride Reads Celebration
Have you checked out our Pride Reads Celebration? It’s basically a sapphic Advent calendar in June, with daily free books, books on sale, and book giveaways.
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What book will you be reading for the “sapphic book with a spunky grandparent” category? Are there other books that are a good fit for this category? Let us know in the comments!
5 Responses
3 Robin Alexander books have punky grandparents and are a joy to read:
The Trip
Patty’s Potent Potion
The Secret of St. Claire
Happy Pride Month, and I’m sorry you’re getting abusive comments . Please know they are in the minority and the rest of us are so appreciative of all you do for this community.
Thanks so much for your support and for the book suggestions!
Tysm!!!
Also Dear Me by Robin A.
Love her writing style 😍
A Lesbian’s Guide to Women by Erica Lee has a very funny grandmother.