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We hope the bookshop is a space to learn about, be inspired by and share in our love of queer books, writing, histories and storytelling.”
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Thanks, @lilyevenspotter ! And OP, I absolutely second Dahlia’s recommendation for Eight Kinky Nights. It’s a really thorough romance about healing and self care.
LGBTQIA+ Historical Romance Novels for Winter, Hanukkah, Solstice, and Christmas 2019
A Very Surrey SFS Christmas by Nicola Davidson (m/f, m/m, f/f, bisexual, and poly)
- Welcome to the Surrey Sexual Freedom Society - where unconventional and uninhibited ladies and gentlemen discuss all matters erotic… It’s Christmastide in Surrey, and the Society members have gathered at Lady Portia and Denham’s estate to host a magnificent masked ball. Alas, not everything is going quite to plan, as a curmudgeonly duke, England’s naughtiest cat, a viscount with writer’s block, two newborns, and some colorful local residents conspire to turn order into chaos. But with those you love all things are possible, and it wouldn’t be A Very Surrey SFS Christmas without madcap mischief, banter, and a whole lot of wicked fun…
This series of extended epilogues include Beatrice and Amelia, Madeline and Ethan, Clayton, Susanna, and Joseph, Lady Portia and Denham, and Fairfield. Please note this book contains explicit language and sexual content.
Peter Cratchit’s Christmas by Drew Marvin Fraye
- Peter Cratchit, a young lad preparing to make his way in the world, is the eldest son of Scrooge’s lowly clerk Bob Cratchit. Peter flourishes under the tutelage of his “Uncle” Scrooge and seeks to make his mark as a man of business, like his uncle before him. One Christmas Eve, as Scrooge lays dying, Peter embarks on a risky ocean voyage that he believes will secure the future for his family. Onboard, Peter finds love, happiness, and success, only to lose it all by the voyage’s end. Returning to London, Peter shuns his family and instead finds himself living on the streets, haunted by his failures and his dead lover, selling his body just to survive while he waits for the winter cold to claim him once and for all. But winter snows also mean Christmas is coming, and for the Cratchit family, Christmas is a time of miracles. Can a visit from three familiar spirits change Peter’s life again? Is there one more miracle in store for the lost son of one of Dickens’ most enduring families?
Yuletide Treasure by Eliot Grayson
- There’s not enough Yuletide spirit in the world to fix this holiday disaster…
Eben Sypeman’s world is falling apart. It’s two days before Yule and his business partner is dead, leaving behind empty accounts and looming bankruptcy. And if that isn’t bad enough, his patron goddess is irritated with him. It seems she’s tired of his tendency to mince words and avoid conflict. She’s insisting—quite forcefully—that he start being totally honest with everyone, including himself. Divinely enforced honesty couldn’t have come at a less opportune time, especially when his clerk’s tall, dark and distractingly handsome son enters the picture.
The last thing on Tim Pratchett’s mind is romance. All the former soldier wants is to fill in for his sick father at work and recover from his war wounds in peace. But there’s something about the grumpy Eben that confounds and entices him in equal measure. Their timing couldn’t be worse. They’re complete opposites. And yet … none of that matters when he’s with Eben.
But if Eben and Tim have any hope of finding their very own happily ever after, they’ll have to survive a dickens of a truth curse and the machinations of a trickster goddess—all while searching for enough yuletide treasure to save them all.
A joyous, relaxing Yule indeed. Bah, humbug.
This is an M/M romance with explicit scenes, a voyeuristic pagan goddess, and an odious nephew. Despite any other possible similarities to A Christmas Carol, there are neither ghosts nor geese, but readers can expect a happy ending and at least one use of the word “dickens.”
The Stonecutter Earl’s First Christmas by Adella Harris
- Nathan Fitzroy hates the holidays. Estranged from his family for refusing to marry, he’s still expected to keep up appearances, which means attending their holiday celebrations. And that means that, from the beginning of December until the middle of January, he needs to find work that will let him take off almost as many days as he works there. For him, that means working at a molly house called the Goat’s Horn.
Owen Landon was quite content to be a stone cutter. It was what he’d trained for, and it earned him enough money to pay his brother’s school fees and still live comfortably enough in a cottage in their village. He’d always been told his father was distantly related to nobility, but he’d never thought much of it, until a solicitor came to tell him he was the new Earl of Morebrook, a position he has no idea how to fill.
One night in December, when Owen can’t stand his new role another moment, he sneaks away to the seediest molly house he can find, the Goat’s Horn, for a distraction. And find one he does, a beautiful fellow with just the accent and bearing he’s supposed to be learning. When he sees the man again away from the molly house, he comes up with a plan to both spend more time with him and learn to be an earl. Owen offers him a position tutoring him before the start of the Christmas parties he’s supposed to attend.
Nathan’s worst nightmare comes true when one of the clients of the Goat’s Horn recognizes him outside of the molly house. But the man offers him a position that will allow him to earn money away from the Goat’s Horn until Christmas. If only he can remember he’s supposed to be tutoring the fellow, not bedding him, and certainly not falling in love with him.
A steamy Christmas romance with hints of Pygmalion. Approx. 50,000 words, 200 pages
Tinsel and Spruce Needles holiday series by Elna Holst (f/f and f/non binary MCs, MCs with disabilities !!!!!)
Candlelight Kisses
- Malmö, Sweden, 1994
Erika Stolt is a feminist activist, and not one of the slick, lipstick lesbian variety. She’s the kind who trashes beauty contests, who graffitis her own subversive messages over commercial billboards, and who fucks people mainly as a political statement. But then a community service sentence lands her a spot as the unlikely new assistant of one of the candidates for the Malmö Lucia contest, and the world as she knows it is promptly turned on its head.
Little X
- Malmö, Sweden, 1996
Sofie Andersson is a dyslectic born under the star sign Aries, who drives the local buses for a living. Her hobbies include knitting terrible hats and intermittent lesbianism. This December she is on the point of moving into her first flat of her own, figuring out her place in the world, when an instant attraction to a handsome stranger leads her to question everything she’s taken for granted.
Wild Bells by Elna Holst
- Lund, Sweden, 1998
Mia Andersson is not a nice person. She is a sharp, sensational-looking, aloof lawyer-to-be, and the busiest sapphic player in town. Mia Andersson takes no prisoners, tells no tales, and if you gave her your number, chances are she won’t call. But this holiday season, at age twenty-seven, wheels that are out of her control have been set in motion, and it looks like she might just get caught in the spin.
Christmas for a Vampire by Ruby Moone
- Because even Vampires deserve a second chance.
Companion story to The Christmas Curse.
Recently turned vampire Ellis Davenport faces another dismal Christmas. His new life is filled with riches but is cold, lonely, and empty. Refusing to acknowledge his vampire self or to participate in any kind of vampire society, he skirts the edges of that world and has done so since the man he loved chose death rather than spend eternity with him. As far as Ellis is concerned, Quinn Fordham died on the battlefield in Badajoz. But, as he circulates at yet another tedious Christmas party, he hears piano music, someone playing the Moonlight Sonata like Quinn used to play for him. Entranced, he finds his lover but just as their lips touch, Quinn disappears. Before Ellis has time to resolve this odd hallucination, he and his friend Trent sense the approach of Lord Heath, their vampire sire. Yet, before their sire arrives, Ellis is stunned to find Quinn not only alive, but a vampire, and furiously angry with him. Can they move beyond the lie that separated them and find each other again?
Dances Long Forgotten by Ruby Moone - Coming December 19th!
Per Ruby:
Ghosts of past romance
Second chance love
Gentlemen dancing with gentlemen
Long buried family secrets
Hither, Page by Cat Sebastian
- A jaded spy and a shell shocked country doctor team up to solve a murder in postwar England.
James Sommers returned from the war with his nerves in tatters. All he wants is to retreat to the quiet village of his childhood and enjoy the boring, predictable life of a country doctor. The last thing in the world he needs is a handsome stranger who seems to be mixed up with the first violent death the village has seen in years. It certainly doesn’t help that this stranger is the first person James has wanted to touch since before the war.
The war may be over for the rest of the world, but Leo Page is still busy doing the dirty work for one of the more disreputable branches of the intelligence service. When his boss orders him to cover up a murder, Leo isn’t expecting to be sent to a sleepy village. After a week of helping old ladies wind balls of yarn and flirting with a handsome doctor, Leo is in danger of forgetting what he really is and why he’s there. He’s in danger of feeling things he has no business feeling. A person who burns his identity after every job can’t set down roots.
As he starts to untangle the mess of secrets and lies that lurk behind the lace curtains of even the most peaceful-seeming of villages, Leo realizes that the truths he’s about to uncover will affect his future and those of the man he’s growing to care about.
If anything else becomes available, this list will be updated, and the date listed at the top–after the post title.
2018′s Extensive List
Up until recently I’ve avoided short stories. I wanted a nice, full novel to sink my teeth into and take my time with. But now I have a full-time job with a long commute and reading full novels becomes a bit more challenging. So with that, now I love short stories, which brings me to Gingerbread Hearts by a multitude of authors.
Find lots more (80+) lesbian and bi Christmas books on the Goodreads list!
I can personally recommend Mistletoe Mishap by Siri Caldwell and Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days by Jeanette Winterson. The Winterson title doesn’t have a lot of sapphic content (only one story talks about her and her wife), but it’s my favourite Christmas book: the stories feel like timeless Christmas fables.
