Award-Winning Author of Slow-Burn Romances between Strong Women
I often see the same dozen or so books from big mainstream publishing houses being promoted for Pride Month, while books from small queer presses and indie authors are largely ignored. That’s why I’m sharing the top 10 best places to find sapphic books to read for Pride Month, each published by a small queer press or an indie author.
Happy New Year and welcome to the Sapphic Book Bingo 2023!
Since my previous reading challenges (the Sapphic Book Bingo 2022, the Sapphic Reading Challenge in 2021, the F/F Fiction Crossword Challenge in 2020, and the Lesbian Book Bingo in 2018) were so popular with readers, I decided to host a new reading challenge in 2023. I hope it will keep you reading all year and help you find new favorite books and authors!
The Sapphic Book Bingo is a fun, year-long reading challenge for readers of sapphic fiction. It runs from January 1 to December 31, 2023.
In this post, you’ll find the rules, the bingo cards, and the categories for the Sapphic Book Bingo 2023.
For this month’s Book Unicorn, read a sapphic book that is told from more than two points of view. That could mean that not just the two main characters, but also at least one supporting character gets their own perspective in the book. Books with more than two POVs are a Book Unicorn because most sapphic books, especially sapphic romances, are told from the points of view of the two main characters or, sometimes, just from the perspective of one protagonist. 15 recommended sapphic books with more than two points of view: Here are my book recommendations for the …
For this week’s Sapphic Book Bingo category, read a sapphic book with a meet-cute. A “meet-cute” is a first meeting between the two main characters that is cute, hilarious, or unusual in some way. Often, it’s a misunderstanding or an awkward situation, e.g., one character spills coffee on the other.
As a surprise for you, I put together an anthology full of “meet-cute” scenes from 45 popular authors of sapphic fiction. You can download “Meet-Cute” as a free ebook.
This week’s category of the Sapphic Book Bingo focuses on sapphic books with a main character who is a person of color. The book needs to be written by an author of color.
Of course, I encourage you to read diverse books, including books by authors whose race, ethnicity, or culture is different from your own, for ALL categories of the Sapphic Book Bingo, not just for today’s category. You’ll find books with POC characters in all my recommended reading lists for the Sapphic Book Bingo, but this category is all about them.
This week’s Sapphic Book Bingo post features sapphic books with an established couple, meaning the main character needs to already be in an established romantic relationship at the beginning of the book.
There aren’t that many “established couple” books within the romance genre because, by definition, the plot of a romance novel revolves around two (or more) characters falling in love. The central question is whether they’ll end up with getting their happily ever after. But while the “happily ever after” is the end of a romance novel, it’s not the end of the couple’s story. Sometimes, readers would love to see how the couple handles problems life throws at them or whether they start a family.
So for this category, read a book in which the characters are already together at the start of the book. The book can be part of a series, with the characters getting together in an earlier book, or it could be a novel that isn’t a romance at all.
It’s time for another Book Unicorn category of the Sapphic Book Bingo. This week’s post features sapphic books about faith.
For this category, read a sapphic book in which faith, religion, or spiritual experiences plays an important role. It could be any faith or religion, including Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Bahá’í, Shinto, Jainism, or Zoroastrianism. You could even read a science fiction or fantasy novel with a fictional faith.
The main character could embrace religion as a positive influence on their life or end up rejecting it.
This week’s Sapphic Book Bingo post features the “award-winning sapphic book” category. Read a sapphic book that won a literary award. It doesn’t matter which award the book won, when, or in which category. It could be an award for LGBT+ literature or a mainstream award.
For awards celebrating LGBTQ books, check out the Golden Crown Literary Society Award (affectionately called “Goldie”), the Lambda Literary Award (“Lammy”), or the Rainbow Awards.
In 2021, I’ll be hosting the Sapphic Reading Challenge, a fun, year-long event for readers of books about women-loving women. The challenge will start on January 1, when I will post the rules and categories. To make the reading challenge even more fun, I created a book journal to help you keep track of all the sapphic books you’ll be reading in 2021. It’s a hardcover journal that includes: A table of contents that lets you rate up to 100 books. Pages to fill in what books you read for each category of the Sapphic Reading Challenge. A to-be-read list …