This week’s Sapphic Book Bingo topic, found family, has always been a strong theme in many sapphic books.
“Found family” means that the main characters have formed a family of choice with people they aren’t related to. It can be a friend group, neighbors who support each other, a tight-knit community, or a blended family.
Maybe it’s because LGBTQ+ people are sometimes estranged from their families or have unsupportive families, but for many of us, friends and found family play an important role in our lives, and that’s reflected in our books.
15 sapphic found family books
Below, you’ll find 15 recommended sapphic books with a “found family” theme.
Playing Catch-Up by Zoey Lennox
Twenty-three-year-old Alexis Lenz’s life is a mess: she hates her job, has lost touch with most of her friends, and her love life is non-existent.
When she meets LGBTQ youth counsellor Ramie Ramirez at a dinner party, sparks fly. But Ramie is still putting herself back together after an acrimonious split from her long-term girlfriend and is only looking for something casual. If living with the repercussions of her ex’s lies has taught her one thing, it’s to keep her heart locked up tight.
As the two women begin to date, Alexis finds herself in a predicament. She’s never dated a woman before and is afraid Ramie will dump her sorry arse once she finds out.
What’s a girl to do? A little white lie can’t hurt, can it? It’s not like they’re going to do something stupid like fall in love…
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Women of the Post by Joshunda Sanders
1944, New York City. Judy Washington is tired of having to work at the Bronx Slave Market, cleaning white women’s houses for next to nothing. She dreams of a bigger life, but with her husband fighting overseas, it’s up to her and her mother to earn enough for food and rent. When she’s recruited to join the Women’s Army Corps—offering a steady paycheck and the chance to see the world—Judy jumps at the opportunity.
During training, Judy becomes fast friends with the other women in her unit—Stacy, Bernadette and Mary Alyce—who all come from different cities and circumstances. Under Second Officer Charity Adams’s leadership, they receive orders to sort over one million pieces of mail in England, becoming the only unit of Black women to serve overseas during WWII.
The women work diligently, knowing that they’re reuniting soldiers with their loved ones through their letters. However, their work becomes personal when Mary Alyce discovers a backlogged letter addressed to Judy. Told through the alternating perspectives of Judy, Charity and Mary Alyce, Women of the Post is an unforgettable story of perseverance, female friendship and self-discovery.
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Jericho by Ann McMan
Librarian Syd Murphy flees the carnage of a failed marriage by accepting an eighteen-month position in Jericho, a small town in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia. Her plans to hide out and heal her wounds fall by the wayside as she gets drawn into the daily lives of the quirky locals. When Syd gets a flat tire and is rescued by the town physician, Maddie Stevenson, the two women form a fast friendship—but almost immediately begin struggling with a mutual attraction. And, if that’s not enough, Syd is straight and going through a divorce—and Maddie somehow forgets to mention her sexual orientation to her new best friend. Almost everyone who crosses their paths believes it’s only a matter of time until they figure it out, but sometimes, it takes a while to see the obvious. Together, Syd and Maddie learn that life and love can have as many twists and turns as a winding mountain road.
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Dangerous Distraction by Yadira Douglas
As a sniper for the Strategic Response Team, Victoria “Viper” Perry doesn’t get close to people. Not even in her private life. Let down time and again, she has given up on finding the perfect partner, but deep down lies a heart yearning to be understood.
She’s not the only one who keeps others away. Ever since Evelyn’s father died abruptly, she hasn’t been able to connect with people. Distancing herself from serious relationships to avoid another heartbreak, she has all but forgotten what it’s like to love and be loved.
When fate and fleeing gunmen bring the elite cop into lonely Evelyn’s apartment, the two clash in an explosion of pent-up frustrations. Viper lets her guard down for the first time in her career, and she almost pays for it with her life. But in the chaos that follows, the reckless blonde proves to be more than just a dangerous distraction.
Can Victoria finally allow herself to be vulnerable? Or will her indulgence in her deepest desires tear down everything she has fought for?
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Is She Lying? by Frances Lucas
Nine months after solving the mysterious death of a classmate, Virginia Eaton and Katie McRanes are looking forward to spending their senior year together. The school year has barely started when a friend’s ex-boyfriend shows up to make trouble.
And someone dies.
As the girls investigate the murder of a member of their tight knit circle, their differing suspicions about who’s responsible put them at odds, jeopardizing their newly rekindled romance. It’s clear someone they care about may be lying, and time is running out. Can they stop a new killer before others die?
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Violet Moon by Mel E. Lemon
Seraphine’s days are filled with fresh coffee, fruit tarts, and doing her best to be the Beta her pack needs. But when Sera discovers she has feelings for Parisa, her best friend and pack Alpha, she decides to bury those feelings for the sake of the pack. (After all, what’s a little secret pining between friends?) Strong feelings can’t stay buried forever, though, and when they cause her to act rashly, Sera risks losing everything, but could gain so much more.
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The Forever and The Now by KJ
Bron McIntyre, forty-two, has it all together. Terrific job. Loving family. No desperate need for a girlfriend but would be interested if one came along. Bron McIntyre is Teflon.
Kate Agostino, forty-eight, is not Teflon. Yes, she has a terrific job. But a loving family? Not really. And her personal life is rapidly disintegrating and turning into dust.
When her orange smoothie explodes all over her business suit while she’s on her afternoon walk, Kate simply shakes her head in resignation.
Bron, having witnessed the smoothie eruption, races to help, and suddenly her life takes an unexpected turn.
Falling in love is like watching the grandest sunset on the calmest ocean where the tiniest ripples wear silver sparkles as their hats. Kate and Bron find that sunset on that ocean with those ripples of love, but what happens when you take that love for granted? What happens when your person disappears? The answers are hard to hear and Bron chooses not to listen.
After a relationship break, a family intervention, and conversations that rip apart seams, Bron and Kate eventually find themselves, each other, and their now. And what they discover is that love is the large and the deliberate, and the simple and the small.
So when tragedy strikes, they call on its strength because, when you think about it, love can live on in the forever, particularly if it lives courageously in the now.
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No Strings by Lucy Bexley
Fun is the one thing Elsie Webb takes seriously. Though she’d be having a lot more of it if Haelstrom Media paid her enough to actually get out of debt. She’s determined to hold out on contract negotiations for her kids’ television show Fangley Heights until she gets what she deserves. There’s only one problem, the head of the network just died and left her future more uncertain than ever.
Forty-eight hours and one funeral–that’s all Jones Haelstrom has to get through before she can return to her life in LA that’s as ordered and sparse as an IKEA showroom. When she steps in as CEO of her father’s media company, Elsie Webb is her first problem to deal with. Elsie ends up challenging Jones in ways she never could have predicted, starting with an attraction neither can avoid.
As their attraction teeters on the edge of something more both agree to keep it casual. A no-strings agreement and disclosure to HR should be enough to keep things between Jones and Elsie from getting tangled, right?
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For the Love of Charley by Patty Schramm
Ten years ago, Charley Townsend lost her wife and has never truly moved on from that day. Most of her time is consumed by her work as a Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sergeant in Whitehorse. She has little time for anything else; especially dating. Jada Deveraux came to the Yukon because it was as far from Ontario as she could get without leaving Canada. What she never expected, was the prospect of falling in love. Jada and Charley meet under stressful circumstances, but Jada is fun loving and hopeful that she can break through the walls Charley has built up over the years. But is Charley ready to take the chance on love again? Will Jada be able to win Charley’s love?
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Home: The First Nillionaires Club by K’Anne Meinel
Home; such a beautiful word, but not something everyone wants, needs, or desires. For Taylor and Bree Moore, having their own home was the ultimate plan. They scrimped and saved for years, and now they are going to have to work even harder than they could have ever imagined to achieve it.
They might have had their dream home years earlier if life hadn’t gotten in the way. Taylor and Bree Moore aren’t poor, but they are bursting at the seams in the apartment they rent. With four children they first fostered and then adopted, the three-bedroom apartment isn’t enough to call home anymore.
Friends and family all chip in with their advice, support, and opinions, wanted or not, as these two make their new place home.
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The Birdwatchers by Louise Vetroff
In the mid-19th-century United States, fate brings together three people from Louisiana: a birdwatcher, a runaway wife, and a little girl, and leads them to a wagon train from Texas to California.
Three different characters with three distinct reasons to leave their homes have something that unites them — the dream of a better future.
Will they struggle to overcome their challenges alone or receive guidance from unexpected places so they may achieve their collective dream?
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Venus’s Power by Reese Quinn
Shane has been looking for love in all the wrong places because the woman who makes her skin tingle lives just a few miles from her.
Shane’s work allows her to visit many places, but it’s her love for horses that brings her face to face with the woman of her dreams–shy and sweet Miller.
Too bad that Miller’s heart is guarded with reinforced walls, and she doesn’t want to be more than friends.
As a hired assassin, Shane needs to keep her work a secret, which also doesn’t help her score points with her crush. Or the fact that she’s pregnant and plans to be a single mom.
When a twist of fate brings Miller and Shane closer than ever, will Miller allow Shane and her children to be her new family?
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A Sweet Sting Of Salt by Rose Sutherland
When a sharp cry wakes Jean in the middle of the night during a terrible tempest, she’s convinced it must have been a dream. But when the cry comes again, Jean ventures outside and is shocked by what she discovers—a young woman in labor, drenched to the bone in the bitter cold and able to speak barely a word of English.
Although Jean is the only midwife for miles around, she’s at a loss for who this woman is or where she’s from; Jean can only assume that she must be the new wife of the neighbor up the road, Tobias. And when Tobias does indeed arrive at her cabin in search of his wife, Muirin, Jean’s questions continue to multiply. Why has he kept his wife’s pregnancy a secret? And why does Muirin’s open demeanor change completely the moment she’s in his presence?
Though Jean learned long ago that she should stay out of other people’s business, her growing concern—and growing feelings—for Muirin mean that she can’t simply set her worries aside. But when the answers she finds are more harrowing than she ever could have imagined, she fears she may have endangered herself, Muirin, and the baby. Will she be able to put things right and save the woman she loves before it’s too late, or will someone have to pay for Jean’s actions with their life?
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Lost in Love by Emily Banting
Historical tour guide Anna Walker is determined to make a good impression on her new bosses, but juggling a full-time job with caring for her ailing father is putting her own health – and potentially his – at risk.
When she meets Dr Katherine Atkinson, a charming yet intimidating new arrival to the village, Anna is infuriated by the doctor’s attempts to convince her that her father needs professional, full-time care. She’s even more frustrated by her growing attraction to the classy, wealthy doctor.
Anna’s determination to prove she can cope forces Katherine to divulge a painful event from her past that still haunts her, hopeful it will make Anna see sense before it’s too late.
With Katherine’s heart lost to the past and Anna’s overwhelmed in the present, can the two women help each other overcome their struggles and move forward? Will a curtain-twitching busy body curtail any blossoming attraction before it even has a chance to bloom?
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The Number 94 Project by Cheyenne Blue
When handywoman Jorgie’s uncle leaves her an old house in Melbourne, it’s a dream come true. Sure, 94 Gaylord Street is falling apart, and she has to deal with her uncle Bruce’s eccentric friends thanks to his unusual Will.
But that’s okay. She’ll fire up her power tools and turn the dilapidated terrace house into a desirable inner-city pad. Then she’ll sell up and head home to the country.
Jorgie hasn’t counted on falling for cute neighbour Marta, who’s found her heart-home among the tight queer-community of Gaylord Street. Between mugs of too-strong tea and Jorgie’s lack of a working shower, the two forge a surprising connection.
But what happens when the renovation’s complete? Can Jorgie really just toss aside her tool belt and saunter away?
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Leave a comment
What book will you be reading for the “sapphic found family books” category? Are there other books that are a good fit for this category? Let us know in the comments!
4 Responses
I didn’t realize Women of the Post was sapphic?
Thanks for these blog posts, Jae. I enjoy reading them even though I am not participating in the reading challenge this year. I can wholeheartedly recommend both The Number 94 Project and Jericho to other potential readers. Seeing Emily Banting’s book on your list made me push it up higher on my TBR list because found family is a favorite theme for me.
The family we choose by sherryl Hancock part of the weho series but I would say it can be read as a standalone
I recommend Suzanne Falter’s Oaktown Girls Series. It centers around the women who own and work for the oldest woman-owned garage in Oakland, California. They are a tight-knit, ethnically-diverse group but easil
y bring others into their circle.
Pat