Sapphic Slow-burn romances
This week’s Sapphic Book Bingo category features sapphic books in which the main character goes on an unusual first date.
What makes it an unusual first date is totally up to you. It could be an unusual date activity, the setting could be unusual, or something unexpected could happen. So there’s a lot of room for interpretation, but you’ll find some suggestions below.
It’s Lesbian Visibility Week, so to celebrate, I have put together a list of 100 lesbian books.
Each book features one or more lesbian main characters who are explicitly lesbian on the page, contributing to the visibility of lesbian women and nonbinary people.
The books have been submitted by the authors, with a focus on books published by sapphic indie authors and small LGBTQ+ publishing houses. They are listed in the order in which I received the submissions.
I hope you’ll enjoy the list and find many new favorite lesbian books and authors!
This week’s Sapphic Book Bingo post is a big one, with a long list of book recommendations. It features sapphic books that are set in a country or a US state you haven’t visited yet.
One of the greatest things about reading is that it transports us to new, faraway places. It enables us to travel the world without leaving the comfort of our homes. For this category, I invite you to travel to a place you haven’t experienced before.
For this week’s Sapphic Book Bingo category, read a sapphic book in which both main character have brown eyes.
In real life, brown is the most common eye color. 70-80% of the world’s population have brown eyes. It’s not rare to find characters with brown eyes, but usually, only one of the main characters has brown eyes, while authors will often give the other protagonist a different eye color to set the two characters apart and not make them look too similar. That’s why a sapphic book with two main characters who have brown eyes is pretty rare—at least if both main characters are white.
In books in which both main characters are people of color, this isn’t a Unicorn category at all. But then again, women of color are still very underrepresented in sapphic fiction.
For this week’s Sapphic Book Bingo, read a sapphic book in which one of the main characters inherits something within the first three chapters of the book and the inheritance plays an important role in the book.
The inheritance could be money, a house or property, a company, or any other material possession. If you want to get creative, you could also read a book in which the character inherits a title.
Have you ever noticed how butch characters are portrayed in sapphic books? I’m not talking about their personalities or how they interact with other characters; I’m talking about their physical descriptions. Most of the time, especially in butch/femme romances, the butch character will be tall and athletic and have smaller breasts compared to her love interest.
If you haven’t noticed before, pay attention to the physical descriptions the next time you read a book with a butch character.
For this category of the Sapphic Book Bingo, read a sapphic book with a butch main character who is shorter than her love interest. If you struggle to find a book with a butch character who’s shorter, I’m fine with a butch character who’s the same height as her love interest, as long as she isn’t taller.