This week’s Sapphic Book Bingo post delves into a wonderfully diverse genre: sapphic speculative fiction.
Speculative fiction is an umbrella term for books featuring fantastical, supernatural, or futuristic elements. It includes genres such as sapphic fantasy, science fiction, paranormal romance, horror, superheroine books, and alternate history.
20 sapphic speculative fiction books
Since sapphic speculative fiction is such a broad category, I included 20 instead of just 25 recommended books.
Second Nature by Jae
For solitary novelist Jorie Price, true love seems as fictional as the shape-shifting creatures she writes about in her paranormal romances.
Griffin Westmore doesn’t believe in love either, but she’s one of those not-so-fictional shape-shifters who secretly live among humans.
When Jorie’s writing gets uncomfortably close to the truth, Griffin is sent to investigate and, if necessary, kill the author to protect the secrets of her kind.
But when Griffin unexpectedly finds herself drawn to Jorie, her world is turned upside-down. Hell, she’s supposed to kill the human, not fall in love with her! How can she complete her mission now?
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Soul Food Stories by Anna Burke, Jenn Alexander, Jacob Budenz, Virginia Black, Cathy Pegau, and Ann McMan
To the living, “soul food” has a specific meaning, history, and flavor. But what does “soul food” mean to the demon, ghost, fiend, witch, spirit, or vampire? How does their ingenuity and wit rise and fall in the taking, baking, erasing, embracing, and defacing of sustenance?
West and Cogneau have challenged their authors to explore these and other questions in surprising and fascinating ways. Sometimes sweet and other times terrifying, sometimes warm or otherwise demented, these stories set the table for an otherworldly feast of delight and intrigue.
Let the banquet begin . . .
Soul Food Stories is packed with literary confections by award-winning authors, Anna Burke, Jenn Alexander, Jacob Budenz, Virginia Black, Cathy Pegau, and Ann McMan.
Featured stories include:
“The Five Year Revenge Agency” by Anna Burke
“Tilly’s Tarts” by Jenn Alexander
“Of the Air and Land” by Jacob Budenz
“Ravenous” by Virginia Black
“In Speary Wood” by Cathy Pegau
“Perhaps You Missed My Signs” by Anna Burke
“Ghost Writer” by Ann McMan
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Her Rival Dragon Mate by Arizona Tape
Junior property lawyer Alisha didn’t expect to run into her one-night-stand at work and discover she’s her new colleague. Dragon shifter Kendra has no interest in finding her mate but fate keeps putting Alisha in her path.
When they’re forced to work together on a case, tension grows between the two women as the stakes get higher. Can Kendra and Alisha look past their ambitions and find common ground or will their rivalry break them apart?
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Lies Are Forever by C. Jean Downer
Sloane West is an ex-New York City cop turned private investigator needing a distraction. She’s grieving her secretive mother’s death, and her ex-best friend and ex-lover have just sent her an invitation to their upcoming nuptials.
When a stranger arrives seeking her help, she receives a deadly diversion to the quiet Canadian village of Denwick. There, Sloane learns she’s not the only target in a murderous plan—so is her long-lost cousin, the High Priestess of her family’s coven.
To find the killer, Sloane must solve a murder while accepting a crash course in witchcraft. The choice is hers. Will she embrace her power as a protector—or flee from the birthright she’s only beginning to understand?
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Without Words by Cameron Darrow
Words aren’t always easy. Sometimes they’re impossible. Only too rarely are they unnecessary.
Long set apart from the rest of her tribe, Zifa’s life of quiet invisibility high in the mist-shrouded trees of the Great Forest has meant the first two have always been true, the last barely a dream. It takes the arrival of a foreign princess unlike any elf Zifa has ever seen to leave her speechless. The newly-installed Princess Skathi brings with her dire news, however: the desert-dwelling Cantari tribe is on the verge of losing its only source of water and magic. Charged with finding a way to save her people by any means necessary, when negotiations go poorly her options quickly dwindle to accepting their fate or taking a new home from their pacifist cousins by force. So when a final, remote chance to fix things peacefully presents itself, she takes it, even if it requires venturing with Zifa into the most cursed place in any elven tongue to confront not only their fears, but everything Skathi thought she knew about strength.
From the highest place to the lowest, they will need everything they find in each other to face the truths awaiting them.
If it isn’t too late.
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Demon Hunters of Kitty Cat Café by Davina Lee
Miss Nakamura’s Kitty Cat Café in downtown Neo Tokyo provides a unique service. The hostesses who serve tea routinely strip down to nothing but cat ears and a tail to entertain their female clients. But that’s just their day job. Behind the scenes, they also use their supernatural abilities to protect the city from ancient demons thought to exist only in folklore.
When new girl Kaiya joins the team, she’s unaware of anything more than the serious crush she’s developing on Miss Nakamura’s daughter Ayumi. But soon the demons come calling, forcing Kaiya, Ayumi, and the other warrior hostesses into action. Will Kaiya find her power? Will she get her girl?
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Aurora’s Angel by Emily Noon
Joined in a battle for survival, a broken-winged angel and a shapeshifter huntress with a bloody past form a bond that may change their world.
Alone since her father’s murder, Aurora has spent years hunting his killers. Battle-weary she’s ready to start over where no one knows who or what she is, she just has one last mission to complete. Everything is going to plan until she discovers the beautiful winged girl caged underground.
Her decision to rescue Evie and to help her get home safely, despite avians being infamous for selling out shapeshifters like Aurora to cutters and black-market flesh dealers, will put her on a perilous path.
As the women travel together their attraction grows but Aurora is guarding her lonely heart almost as much as her dangerous secrets and Evie is struggling to accept how important Aurora has become to her.
When their enemies conspire to kill them, they may be each other’s only hope. Aurora is powerful but she’s also emotionally scarred and it will be up to Evie to save her from herself and to fight for them or innocent people will die along with the guilty ones and Aurora will disappear from Evie’s life forever.
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Harsh Reality by Elle E. Ire
After demon elementals kill the good folks Sheriff Cali McCade has sworn to protect, the last place she expects to find herself is the future.
Cali McCade is happy being the only female sheriff in the West until evil destroys her town of Oblivion and everyone in it. But when a magical creature sends her forward in time, Cali gets a chance for justice—and to stop history from repeating itself.
Now, on the set of Harsh Reality, a television show that challenges average people to survive in historical settings, Cali isn’t just the sheriff of Oblivion—she also plays herself on TV. It isn’t easy to find her path in this new world, but at least she knows what her “character” would do… even if it’s a little strange to be navigating a blooming romance with the woman playing Arlene, her long-lost love.
When the elementals show up to destroy Oblivion all over again, can Cali find a way to defeat the demons, keep her cover, and still ride off into the sunset?
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The Blood-Born Dragon by JC Rycroft
A bond she didn’t choose.
A love she can’t escape.
A creature so powerful it bends the limits of time…
Smart, sassy, and sanguine, Des Mildue is a traveling sellsword in Rescalin, a dry and dusty kingdom full of rogues, opportunists, and thieves. She keeps her nose clean, brazens it out with a blade when she can’t, and keeps others at arm’s length where they can’t mess up her plans.
That is, until a sword fight gone wrong leaves her tied by blood to the first dragon hatched in centuries. Suddenly, Des has to contend with a new voice in her head: haughty, willful Esquidamelion. Des wants to leave Squid by the roadside, but the blood bond has other ideas.
With half the world on their tail – including Liv, her beautiful, faithless ex who Des is definitely over – Des must search for answers for why so many are willing to kill, maim and torture to get their hands on Squid. But she’s beginning to suspect her blood bond has tied her not only to a dragon, but to a fight for Rescalin’s future…
…and no one else even knows it’s at risk.
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Remember Me, Synthetica by K. Aten
What happens when a woman loses her memory but gains a conscience?
Dr. Alexandra Turing is a roboticist whose intellect is unrivaled in the field of artificial intelligence. While science has always come easy, Alexandra struggles to understand emotional cues and responses. Driven by the legacy of her late great-uncle, she dedicates her life to the Synthetica project at her father’s company, Organic Advancement Solutions (OAS).
Her life is rebooted when she wakes from a coma six months after being struck by a car. Traumatic brain injury altered Alex’s senses, her memory, and her personality. Despite the changes, she feels reborn as she navigates her way back into her old life. Part of her new journey includes dating the alluring Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, Emily St. John.
Emily is enamored with the hyper-intelligent scientist, but there are things about Alex and OAS that don’t add up. With Emily’s prompting, Alex undergoes testing that leaves her with more questions than answers. What she discovers changes more than her life, it will change the world around her.
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Of Wulf and Wynd, Part 1 by Lexa Luthor
Princess Tharon and Princess Roswynd were best of friends as kids; now they are enemies and forced to marry each other.
The Kingdom of White Sommer and the Kingdom of Wyndfeld had been united and strong. Princess Tharon of White Sommer grew up with her best friend Princess Roswynd of Wyndfeld, both having vowed to always be together. But it all came crashing down when Tharon’s mother was murdered by Roswynd’s family. The two kingdoms plunged into a dark, bloody war of revenge and hatred. After ten long years at war, the kingdoms agree to a ceasefire, but under the condition of a forced marriage between the two princesses.
Tharon becomes the Prince and Lord Commander of the White Sommer Army and a knight known as the Black Wulf. She has dedicated her life to conquering Wyndfeld and avenging her mother’s murder. Even better, she finally gets to claim Roswynd as her Omega. Now nothing can stop her from having it all.
Roswynd grew up broken and enraged over Tharon’s betrayal of their friendship pact. Now forced to marry Tharon, she is at a loss with her new wife, finding no remnants of her best friend under Tharon’s cold exterior. She gives her wedding vows to Tharon, but she knows their vows are based on lies. She will protect her kingdom from Tharon.
As Tharon and Roswynd play the game, they both discover they must choose between honoring their wedding vows or their vows to their kingdom.
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Scatter: Hearts of Heroes 1 by Molly J. Bragg
When Deputy US Marshal Danielle ‘Danny’ Martin was told she’d gotten a promotion, she expected to be leading her own fugitive retrieval team. Instead, she got transferred to Pontian Florida of all places, and assigned to a Superhero support detail for Focus, a seemingly immortal superhero who is also one of the most famous lesbian icons on the planet.
Bad enough she’s got to spend every day working with a woman she’s had a crush on since she was five years old, but when she arrives at her new post, things start getting weird. It turns out that Focus asked for her by name, and it quickly becomes apparent that Focus wants to be more than just coworkers, or even friends.
After Focus has a violent reaction to Danny getting hurt in the line of duty, she starts looking into why the Superhero might be so fixated on her. She begins to suspect that seeing the future might be one of Focus’ powers, but when a mission leaves her stranded thirty years in the past, right at the start of Focus’s superhero career, everything becomes clear, except why the Focus in the past can barely seem to tolerate her presence.
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The Blood Bride by Rae D. Magdon
Valis Nyxera Aefbain, queen of the snow elves, must find a consort of magic blood as soon as possible. A dangerous secret slumbers beneath her palace and only a powerful ritual can keep her kingdom safe.
Brynn Woodwarden, a wood elf with misfiring magical abilities, hates the snow elves. They killed her brother, Darrow, while poaching unicorns. But dangerous creatures prowl her forest home – twisted, rotted things that infect anyone they bite. The wood elves can’t fend them off alone.
Only Brynn’s unique blood is suitable for Valis’ ritual. Only Valis has the soldiers and alchemists Brynn needs to stop the rotted creatures. An arranged marriage is the perfect solution… but such a union might be more than either of them bargained for.
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Grave Consequences by Sandra Barret
When Tamar Richler, an unlicensed necromancer, raises someone from the dead, she is forced to earn her license from researcher and top necromancy expert in the state, Maddy Wu. Maddy is both beautiful and unreachable, with lofty standards Tamar feels she can never meet.
Maddy knows better than anyone the dangers of unlicensed magic. After an accident years before leaves one brother dead and the other mysteriously uninjured, Maddy attempts a resurrection herself before the ambulance and licensed necromancer can arrive. The result leaves her with chronic illness and fatigue, and her brother in a coma. Now her only goal is to right her wrong and bring him back.
When Tamar connects the dots to what really happened, the two of them must fight against the most politically powerful necromancer in the state to save a life and prevent the threat to their own survival.
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The Mermaid Hypothesis by Siri Caldwell
Mermaid Survival Rule Number 1: Stay away from intelligent women.
Who are so my type.
Fish are not great conversationalists.
That’s not why Niua sneaks aboard a research ship, or why she’s stumbling around on legs, pretending she’s not a mermaid, but years of living among uncommunicative sea life may explain why she’s unwisely flirting with a marine scientist who’s far too perceptive–and far too female–for Niua’s safety.
She needs to focus, but Ms. “Why Aren’t You on the Passenger List?” keeps distracting her.
In the best possible way.
She’s in over her head, and she doesn’t have time to waste. She has a shipwreck to find, a treasure to reclaim, and a secret to protect.
Before mermaids disappear forever.
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Blood Hero by T.J. Mindancer
Cutty Downes is quite content being a police chief in a village nestled next to a scenic state park. She gets to enjoy the surrounding national forest she’s explored since childhood in a job where the most excitement happens when someone falls off a bluff or gets lost in the forest.
Archivist Paula Reisling still pinches herself that she’s in the dream job she would have dreamed about if she had known it existed. As the Director of the Repository of Unusual and Unsolvable Crimes, she’s determined to solve at least one of these crimes.
Cutty’s and Paula’s worlds come together when Cutty finds a dead man with no trace of a weapon or an assailant in a cave full of electronics in the national forest. Together they embark on a twisting, mystical quest to solve this most recent of unusual and unsolvable crimes. They’re only clues: a fragment from an ancient sword and a mysterious Irish woman who is a drummer in a famous rock and roll band.
Delve into a world of Irish mysticism, warrior women, and age old traditions still very much alive in the twenty-first century.
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Prewrath and Rapture by TJ Dallas
This story follows on from the events of the Pride trilogy. Four years ago, Harry’s first act of Humility sent her hurtling to the deepest recesses of the dream world. When Death gives her the chance to save her family, her second act will prove infinitely worse. When Persephone arrives at the Cardinal, it’s time for Harry to keep her end of the deal. But it isn’t Pride, or even Humility, that Persephone wants; it’s Wrath. Emilia must join ranks with four forces of evil that long predate the Seven Deadly Sins; Death, Pestilence, War, and Famine. Emilia’s ruthless volcano has lain dormant for centuries, but a hidden agenda and a betrayal could tip her over the edge, causing an eruption felt throughout the very fabric of time and space.
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Spirit Warrior: Maiden’s Path by Tracey Love
Susan Sibley is a highly sensitive Witch who is doing her best to find where she fits in the world as she tries to understand her spiritual gift. When she falls in love with Tamika, the woman of her dreams, she discovers how easy it is to lose herself in someone else instead. In the Maiden phase, Susan’s naivety and fear create her struggle to let the light in, flow with change, and fully realize her power.
Maiden’s Path is the story of one young woman’s journey to discovering that the happiness you want can only come to you through lessons, which means living through both the painful and joyful parts of the human experience. Opportunities for growth arise as Susan’s relationship with Tamika develops. Creating a home and family challenges her Maiden mindset and invites her to step into the role of the Mother. As she continues to receive signs and messages from Spirit, Susan ultimately faces the most painful choice of her life: whether to walk away from the greatest love she has ever known or lose herself in total darkness.
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Unusual Minds by Tracie Hollis
As a child, Angela Mathers was the victim of a top-secret experimental program that implanted neural chips in children to correct disorders and enhance intelligence. Shunned by society, she, and others like her were locked away in camps.
Now an adult Luman, she is both brilliant and calculating. Her quest for redemption brings her to D.C. where she works to get a government bill that would free the Lumans passed into law.
Isabella Dodge works for Control, the agency tasked with tracking and imprisoning the remaining Lumans. But Isabella has one secret. She’s a Solo—an undocumented Luman who fled the camps years ago.
When their paths cross, an innocent touch sparks something in both women. But is it love, or simply their neural programming? When Control finds out Isabella is a Solo and captures her, Angela finds her answer—she will risk everything to save Isabella, even her own freedom.
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Consecrated Ground by Virginia Black
Like her father before her, Joan Matthews is a witch. For generations, their family of binder witches has protected Calvert, Oregon from vampires by strengthening the land with spellcraft. Pushing back against tradition, Joan defied her father and left town to become a war witch, one who fights the monsters hand-to-hand. But when her father dies, Joan returns to find her hometown assailed by a vampire lord’s endless attacks—and the answers lie with the one woman who chose a rival over Joan.
Leigh Phan once believed her heart was safe and her future was set. When Joan left town, Leigh’s choices led to ruin and unintended consequences. Now Leigh harbors a dark secret forcing her to live a moment-to-moment existence. Her only hope of survival lies in trusting the war witch who left her behind.
Now it’s up to Joan to fight for a town she left behind, while Leigh faces a destiny she never imagined was possible. With Calvert on the brink of total destruction, Joan and Leigh join forces and face inconvenient truths in order to save their town—and each other.
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Leave a comment
What book will you be reading for the “sapphic speculative fiction” category? Are there other books that are a good fit for this category? Let us know in the comments!
Grabbed a couple of these. Not a fan of witches, but I like shifters and mermaids. Always looking for good hard scifi and pirate stories.
Thanks, Jae.
Hi Jae, this is my first time hearing of the “sapphic speculative fiction” category. I’m not much for fantasy, supernatural, etc novels but my latest read is a time-traveling sapphic romance Future Wife by Nicole Pyland. I’m actually enjoying it because 1. I love sapphic romances and 2. I’m kind of fascinated by time traveling. Would this book count under the new category since time travel is science fiction?
From your recommendations, I think I may read Remember Me, Synthetica by K. Aten, which sounds interesting.
Absolutely! Time travel books fall under the “speculative fiction” umbrella.