Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 318 - On the Shelf for July 2025
- Transcript
(Originally aired 2025/07/08 - listen here)
Welcome to On the Shelf for July 2025.
You might think that retirement means I’d never have a late podcast ever again, but here I am uploading it several days past the first Saturday. A certain amount of it is finding myself in the middle of “Time? What even is time?” But there’s another factor at play. They say that in retirement, every day is a weekend. Well, my weekends used to be jam-packed full of projects, and now every day is a weekend. On the plus side, I’m making a lot of progress on a lot of projects.
Publications on the Blog
I fulfilled my pledge to blog a publication every day in June for Pride Month, focusing mostly on materials relating to US history, which I’ve tended not to prioritize in the past. This included surveys of Colonial-era legal issues and cases, such as:
- Richard Godbeer’s “’The Cry of Sodom’: Discourse, Intercourse, and Desire in Colonial New England”
- Robert F. Oaks’ “"Things Fearful to Name": Sodomy and Buggery in Seventeenth-Century New England”
- Alden Vaughan’s “The Sad Case of Thomas(ine) Hall”
and
- Greta LaFleur’s “Sex and ‘Unsex’: Histories of Gender Trouble in Eighteenth-Century North America”
or similar issues in the post-Colonial period, such as:
- Estelle B. Freeedman’s “Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century America: Behavior, Ideology, and Politics”
Several articles looked at literary themes, such as:
- Lillian Faderman’s “Female Same-Sex Relationships in Novels by Longfellow, Holmes, and James”
- Mary E. Wood’s “’With Ready Eye’: Margaret Fuller and Lesbianism in Nineteenth-Century American Literature”
and
- Kristin M. Comment’s “Charles Brockden Brown’s ‘Ormond’ and Lesbian Possibility in the Early Republic”
Several articles examined transmasculine topics, such as:
- Jen Manion’s “The Queer History of Passing as a Man in Early Pennsylvania”
and
- Rachel Hope Cleves’ “Six Ways of Looking at a Trans Man? The Life of Frank Shimer (1826-1901)”
And of course I spend over a week blogging Cleves’ book Charity & Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America.
Several articles tackled the process of researching queer lives or the historic resistance to doing so, such as:
- Sylvia Martin’s “'These Walls of Flesh': The Problem of the Body in the Romantic Friendship/Lesbianism Debate”
- Pamela VanHaitsma’s “Stories of Straightening Up: Reading Femmes in the Archives of Romantic Friendship”
- Lillian Faderman’s “Who Hid Lesbian History?”
and
- Linda Garber’s “Claiming Lesbian History: The Romance Between Fact and Fiction”
And due to the vagaries of my process, some non-US topics slipped in, such as Theresa Braunschneider’s “Acting the Lover: Gender and Desire in Narratives of Passing Women.” It’s been a while since I covered that much material in a single month, so I guess I can be excused for getting distracted from writing podcast scripts!
News of the Field
Before I move on to the new book listings, I wanted to give a shout-out to that rare instance of sapphic characters in a historic tv series. Edith Wharton’s unfinished novel The Buccaneers follows the careers of a group of American heiresses looking to marry into aristocratic English society. There was a previous miniseries based on the same material in 1995 that stayed somewhat closer to the original material. The current show plays a bit more fast-and-loose with historic accuracy, introducing some race-blind casting and modern party-girl sensibility, but most pertinent to our interests, we get a sapphic romance that develops with the same scope and detail as several of the other relationships. This particular plot point does not exist in the original text, so we must be grateful to the producers for acknowledging that a female same-sex romance was solidly accurate for the period and working it in. We can’t yet know whether they’ll be allowed a happy ever after ending, but as the heterosexual pairings in the story don’t all get one, it’s probably a toss-up.
Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
While pulling together this month’s new book listings, it felt like I was finding a lot of titles on the theme of unsent or lost letters, though some of them were part of the current flood of publications that smell like AI, so they won’t be mentioned here.
I’ve been doing some initial stats for this year’s books and one interesting—or possibly concerning—trend is the dearth of historicals from the small queer presses, though in exchange we’re getting a startling number from major publishers. I hope to get back to doing a deeper analysis at some point, though it means I have to go back and do a lot of data-coding.
There are a couple of May books that only just came to my attention.
The Housekeeper's Ledger by Allison Ingram has a solidly gothic feel to it, but it’s difficult to guess exactly when the story is set.
When Anna Hale takes a humble position as housekeeper at the sprawling Ashmore estate, she expects long days, silent halls, and the cold indifference of Lady Catherine Ashmore. What she doesn’t expect is a trail of secrets hidden behind locked doors, a crumbling legacy haunted by old debts, and the sharp undeniable pull between herself and the woman she serves.
As whispers of betrayal and scandal echo through the estate, Anna and Catherine must navigate a web of lies, dangerous rivals, and the looming threat of ruin — all while confronting the fragile, fierce love blossoming between them. In a world eager to break them, Anna and Catherine will risk everything to stand side by side, but surviving the storm will take more than trust. It will take a choice.
I’m not sure that I can give a recommendation to A Truthful Companion By My Side by Claudia Haase, although the historic setting looks solid, but the writing feels like a very awkward translation from some other language.
Princess Agatha is alone at court with her cultural interests and intellect. She does not find any suitable conversation partners in her companions and ladies-in-waiting. Her curiosity is aroused all the more by the smart Ernestine and her unconventional lifestyle - and finally she finds the person with whom she can share all her passions.
The young Countess Ernestine doesn't think much of the aristocratic goings-on at court. She represses the thought that she was once promised to a crown prince as his wife. However, she could imagine a life together with Princess Agatha. But no sooner have they become close than the royal family insists on an early wedding ceremony with Agatha's brother.
Immerse yourself in the love story of two aristocratic women who lived at Bergfels Palace and Sturmstein Castle in the transition from the 17th to the 18th century!
June books cover a fairly wide spread of eras, including some unusual ones.
Secrets at the Ambrose Café by Carryl Church from Choc Lit Historical Romance is set in England just after World War I.
Two women. Two different worlds. One secret that could ruin them both.
Exeter, 1925. Della Wilde has set aside her dream of moving to Paris to study at the renowned Le Cordon Bleu, choosing instead to support her family torn apart by war. By night, she works at the prestigious Ambrose Café, serving the city’s elite — she feels utterly invisible.
Until a chance encounter with rebellious Alice Winters, the daughter of a powerful MP, upends Della’s world.
Alice is a woman caught between duty and desire. She secretly yearns to be an artist but is expected to marry a respectable suitor and raise a family. Della, with her sharp wit and quiet strength, is unlike anyone she has ever known. She makes Alice feel alive.
So she draws Della into her orbit — first as a muse for her secret art, then as something infinitely more intimate. But in a world where reputations are easily shattered, their growing bond is a danger that threatens not only their futures, but those around them.
As Alice risks scandal and Della faces the consequences of following her heart, they must decide: will they allow others to choose their path, or dare to forge their own?
Salt in the Silk by Delly M. Elrose sounds like it’s telling a Titanic story in an alternate form, set a decade earlier on a fictional ship.
1898. Aboard the RMS Victoria’s Grace, bound from Liverpool to New York, two women from opposite worlds collide: one born into ivory and etiquette, the other into soot and survival.
Catherine Ashbury, a refined upper-class heiress, is being shipped off across the Atlantic for an arranged marriage to save her family’s dwindling fortune. Cloaked in silk, obedience, and unspoken longing, she’s resigned to her fate—until she meets a girl who lives with no rules at all.
Nell Nolan, a tough and clever third-class passenger from East London, is an orphaned pickpocket disguised as a seamstress. With calloused hands and a pocket full of stolen coins, Nell isn’t afraid of breaking laws—or hearts. She boards the Victoria’s Grace with a stolen ticket and nothing left to lose, desperate to start a new life in America.
Their first meeting is accidental. Their second, unforgettable. What begins as curiosity becomes defiance—then desire. But love is dangerous in the shadows of a ship ruled by class, reputation, and silent codes. And when disaster strikes in the icy Atlantic, Catherine and Nell must face a choice no woman should have to make: Love, or survival.
A couple years ago I listed the first book in the Lavender and Foxglove series by Hilary Rose Berwick, set in a medieval convent in a world with a bit of magic. Somehow I missed books 2 and 3 when they came out—A Bounty of Bitterwort and A Rondel of Rosemary—but now book 4 turned up on my radar once more: A League of Lavender. Now I only wish the series was available somewhere other than Amazon because it sounds intriguing but not quite intriguing enough to drop my ethical objections.
Within the convent walls, the pestilence has largely passed, and Prioress Emmelot des Étoiles has a new conundrum: how, exactly, do bones become relics, and what will it mean for her convent when the pilgrims come to see them? Of more concern is the king's increased interest in those with magic sheltered by holy orders, including Emmelot's beloved, the novice Ysabeau.
But before she can solve those problems, Emmelot discovers the infirmary holds an unknown body with no signs of pestilence: a young woman clutching a posy of lavender — a sign of the conflict between followers of the old gods and the new. Now Emmelot must solve this murder before a longstanding feud erupts into open warfare.
In Her Own Shoes (The Ferrier Chronicles #1) by Mark Prime is another book with a medieval setting. I was a bit thrown by the title, because I’ve never encountered any adage similar to “in her own shoes” and can’t quite figure out what spin it’s trying to give.
In a castle built on legacy, one woman dares to claim her own name.
England, 1425. Tamworth Castle stands as a fortress of stone, secrets, and centuries-old power. When Elizabeth de Ferrel arrives to marry into the Farrier family, she isn’t stepping into a life of privilege—she’s walking straight into a battleground.
To secure her inheritance, Elizabeth must wed Sir Thomas Farrier, the ambitious heir of a noble bloodline now clinging to its influence. But she brings with her more than a title—she brings a dagger, a sharp wit, and a past she refuses to bury.
Inside Tamworth’s walls, every gaze has weight. Elizabeth forms an unexpected bond with Mae, a dark-haired scullery maid whose loyalty cuts deeper than her silence. Meanwhile, Griselda, the stone-faced housekeeper with more secrets than the cellar, watches Elizabeth’s every move—not as a threat, but perhaps as a guardian. And in the shadows, young Jonah, a servant boy marked by trauma, carries a truth that could set the castle ablaze.
When a bishop dies under mysterious circumstances, and Elizabeth receives a lock of hair as warning, alliances fracture, hearts are tested, and no one escapes untouched. Whispers rise of a Black Nun haunting the chapel—a spectral reminder that Tamworth remembers every sin carved into its walls.
At the heart of it all: a woman who refuses to shrink. Elizabeth isn’t interested in being the lady of the house. She wants to rule it. And she’ll do it in her own shoes.
The Letters Beneath Her Floorboards by Mira Ashwyn is one of those “unsent letters” stories I mentioned above, this time with a supernatural twist and stories in parallel timelines.
One letter. One mystery. One chance to heal.
When Rae Ashcroft returns to her late grandmother’s coastal estate, she isn’t looking for closure—she’s looking for silence. Haunted by a past she’s tried to bury, Rae just wants to escape. But the creaking old house has other plans.
Beneath a warped floorboard, she discovers a letter.
Written decades ago by a woman named Elise, the message unravels a forgotten love story between two women—one that was silenced, hidden, and never resolved. Drawn deeper into the mystery, Rae begins uncovering secrets Elise took to her grave… and uncovers echoes of her own.
At the heart of it all is Camille: the fiercely gentle, storm-eyed artist living next door. Rae doesn’t want to fall for her—but Camille is patient, kind, and maddeningly persistent. As the two grow closer, past trauma rises like a tide, threatening to drown the fragile trust Rae is learning to rebuild.
But someone is watching. The more Rae uncovers, the more dangerous things become. And the more she realizes—Elise never left. And maybe… she never meant to.
We get another medieval romance with lots of danger and angst in House of Ash and Honor by W.S. Banks.
When duty demands sacrifice, love demands everything.
Lady Avilene Northcliff has always been the perfect noble daughter—until her family arranges her marriage to the cold and calculating Lord Westmark. Desperate to escape a loveless union, she flees to the one place no one would think to look: the estate of her family's sworn enemies.
Lady Elara Blackwood should turn away the Northcliff daughter seeking sanctuary. Their houses have been locked in bitter feud for twenty-five years, built on lies, betrayal, and bloodshed. Instead, she offers shelter to the woman who ignites feelings she never knew existed.
As forbidden attraction blooms between them, both women discover that the enmity dividing their families rests on a devastating deception. When explosive family secrets surface, Avilene and Elara must choose between the safety of silence and a love that could cost them everything.
In a world where women's hearts belong to others, two enemies will risk everything to claim their own destiny.
The July books are mostly 20th century settings, or close enough. And as usual, the rhythms of pre-publication publicity mean that they’re almost all from major publishers.
Lavender & Gin by Abigail Aaronson leans in to the current fashion for Prohibition stories.
Taking on her brother’s identity has given Kasia almost everything she wants: money, power, a gang to call her own in Prohibition-era Detroit. Until a new police chief threatens to destroy everything she’s worked for, and a beautiful woman tempts her to expose her secret.
After a decade disguised as her missing twin brother, Kasia leads a gang running liquor for the most powerful mob in the city. The ruse gave her a foot in the door, but in order to keep her position—and more importantly, to keep money flowing in for her and her sick mother—she has to be willing to do whatever it takes. And what it takes is cold calculation and a ruthless hand. She needs both in spades when a new police chief is determined to eliminate Detroit’s mafia, a threat to destroy everything she’s built.
When Kasia learns Sophia—a glamorous flapper who owns an underground queer club—has an unusual hold on the supposedly-incorruptible chief, Kasia wants in on Sophia’s secret. Blackmailing Chief Harding could protect her gang and give her a leg up in the mob’s ranks. But her plan unravels when she falls for Sophia’s fiery spirit and sophisticated charm. After years of avoiding relationships to protect her identity, her feelings for Sophia lead Kasia to take bigger risks than ever. Risks that endanger her gang, her secret, and her life.
Emma-Claire Sunday follows up on last year’s Regency romance The Duke’s Sister and I with another Regency, The Fortune Hunter's Guide to Love once more from Harlequin Historical.
How can Lady Sylvia save herself from financial ruin?
Step 1: Move to the seaside for the summer, where there will be no shortage of wealthy bachelors holidaying.
Step 2: Strike a deal with local farmer Hannah. If Hannah can help Sylvia bag a rich husband, Sylvia will fund Hannah’s dream of opening a cheese shop.
Step 3: Charm their way into luncheons, parties and exclusive balls, but do not start to confuse friendship with romantic feelings for Hannah.
Step 4: Focus on her fortune-hunting scheme and do not let her heart get carried away by her unexpected and magical kiss with Hannah!
With a title like The Rebel Girls of Rome by Jordyn Taylor from Harper Collins, one might guess we were looking at a classical setting, but this one is a dual-timeline story set during World War II and the contemporary era.
Now:
Grieving the loss of her mother, college student Lilah is hoping to reconnect with a grandfather who refuses to talk about his past. Then she receives a mysterious letter from a fellow student, Tommaso, claiming he’s found a lost family heirloom, and her world is upended.
Soon Lilah finds herself in Rome, trying to unlock her grandfather’s history as a Holocaust survivor once and for all. But as she and Tommaso get closer to the truth—and their relationship begins to deepen into something sweeter—Lilah realizes that some secrets may be too painful to unbury…
Then:
It’s 1943, and nineteen-year-old Bruna and her family are doing their best to survive in Rome’s Jewish quarter under Nazi occupation. Until the dreaded knock comes early one morning, and Bruna is irrevocably separated from the rest of her family.
Overcome with guilt at escaping her family’s fate in the camps, she joins the underground rebellion. When her missions bring her back to her childhood crush, Elsa, Bruna must decide how much she’s willing to risk—when fully embracing herself is her greatest act of resistance.
Another story using that popular motif of dual timelines via historic research is The Secrets of Harbour House by Liz Fenwick from Harper Collins.
When Kerensa is sent by her father’s auction house to catalogue a neglected house overlooking the sea in Newlyn, Cornwall, it’s a welcome escape. Once the home of two female artists, Harbour House is a treasure trove, but one painting in particular catches Kerensa’s eye – a hypnotically sensual portrait of a beautiful young woman which dominates the hallway.
Captivated and intrigued, Kerensa finds herself piecing together the enigma of Bathsheba Kernow, a fiercely talented young artist who left St Ives almost a hundred years before, eager to escape a society that wouldn’t understand her, and her sweeping journey from the underbelly of Paris to the heady luxury of Venice, where a chance encounter would change her life for ever, drawing her into the most dangerous and forbidden of love affairs.
For Kerensa, still reeling with a grief of her own and facing an uncertain future in love, Harbour House will have secrets that will change her life too, and in ways she could never have imagined…
It’s fairly rare to find sapphic stories set in non-Western cultures written from within those cultures but there have been several in the past year. This month’s candidate is Whispers Beneath the Banyan Bath by Moon Heeyang, set in Korea, although I’m not quite sure of the date as the reference is to a dynasty that lasted for five centuries.
In a world where lineage rules and silence is survival, two women in a noble Joseon household discover a forbidden love that defies rank, custom, and time.
Soona, a humble maid, and Lady Hyeon, the daughter of the house, share stolen glances in the steam of the bathhouse. What begins as duty unfolds into desire, and soon into a secret bond.
But when their love is seen—by the Lord himself—everything changes. A proposition is made. A second wife is named.
And both women find themselves pregnant.
Whispers Beneath the Banyan Bath is a lyrical, emotional, and unflinching tale of queer motherhood, silent rebellion, and love that grows like magnolia in the cracks of stone.
The Original by Nell Stevens from W.W. Norton & Company has a twisty plot that looks like it has a lot of layers.
In a grand English country house in 1899, an aspiring art forger must unravel whether the man claiming to be her long-lost cousin is an impostor.
An unwanted guest of her uncle’s family since childhood, Grace has grown up on the periphery of a once-great household. She has unusual predilections: for painting, particularly forgery; for deception; for other girls. Her life is altered when a letter arrives from the South Atlantic. The writer claims to be her cousin Charles, long presumed dead at sea. When he returns, a rift emerges between family members who claim he is an imposter and Grace’s aunt, who insists he is her son. Grace, whose intimate knowledge of fakes is her own closely guarded secret, is forced to decide who to believe and who to pretend to believe. In deciphering the truth about her cousin, she comes to understand other truths: how money is found and lost, and who deserves to be rich; what family means to queer people; and the value of authenticity, in art and in love.
Skating the edge of my definition of historical fiction, we have Wayward Girls by Susan Wiggs from William Morrow Paperbacks, where the lesbian is one of a large cast of characters.
In 1968 we meet six teens confined at the Good Shepherd—a dark and secretive institution controlled by Sisters of Charity nuns—locked away merely for being gay, pregnant, or simply unruly.
Mairin— free-spirited daughter of Irish immigrants, committed to keep her safe from her stepfather.
Angela—denounced for her attraction to girls, sent to the nuns for reform, but instead found herself the victim of a predator.
Helen—the daughter of intellectuals detained in Communist China, she saw her “temporary” stay at the Good Shepherd stretch into years.
Odessa—caught up in a police dragnet over a racial incident, she found the physical and mental toughness to endure her sentence.
Denise—sentenced for brawling in a foster home, she dared to dream of a better life.
Janice—deeply insecure, she couldn’t decide where her loyalty lay—except when it came to her friend Kay, who would never outgrow her childlike dependency.
Sister Bernadette—rescued from a dreadful childhood, she owed her loyalty to the Sisters of Charity even as her conscience weighed on her.
Wayward Girls is a haunting but thrilling tale of hope, solidarity, and the enduring strength of young women who find the courage to break free and find redemption...and justice.
Finishing up this month’s books we have a mid-century rural English romance: Miss Veal and Miss Ham by Vikki Heywood from Muswell Press. This is another book where my impulse is to buy it, but the publisher makes that difficult, not because of my Amazon blockade this time, but because they only distribute ebooks through one particular obscure phone app. Ah well.
Public companions, private lovers.
It is 1951 and behind the counter of a modest post office in a leafy Buckinghamshire village Miss Dora Ham and Miss Beatrix Veal maintain their careful facade as respected local spinsters. But their true story is one of passion: suffragist activists who fell in love at a rally in the 1900s, danced in London's secret gay clubs between the wars, and comforted one another during the first night of the Blitz. Together they have built a life of quiet dignity and service in rural England. Now over the course of one pivotal day their carefully constructed world begins to fracture. Through Beatrix's wry perspective we witness the severe impact of post-war changes on their peaceful existence. Changes that will lead to heart-breaking decisions for Miss Veal and Miss Ham. At the heart of this intimate, moving and witty novel is a story of resilience, the dignity of love that cannot be spoken, and the challenges that come when the future no longer feels safe.
What Am I Reading?
So what have I been reading this month, once I get past the complex logic of how I want to acquire and read books? I often have three novels going at a time: one in hard copy, one in ebook, and one in audiobook. The different formats help me keep the stories separate in my head, but that was a bit trickier than usual this time because Joanna Lowell’s A Rare Find (my audiobook) and Lindz McLeod’s The Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet (my print book) are both Regency romances and overlapped so solidly in feel and reading period that I kept having to remind myself which story I was in. Not that the stories are that similar in plot or characters, but if I had it to do over I’ve have avoided overlapping them. A Rare Find has a lot of resonances with the author’s Victorian-era story A Shore Thing which you may have spotted if you listened to my interview with the author. In addition to interesting gender choices, they share a tendency to pack the story full of subplots. So if you like a lot going on, this could be your thing. The Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet is a fairly standard “let’s pick a couple of characters from the Austen Cannon and make them sapphic.” McLeod’s Mary Bennet is quite different from the book’s character and gets a complex queer community supplied by the author’s imagination.
A sale on the Chirp audiobook platform let me to pick up a series starting with The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman about which I’ve heard good things from friends. Like magical school stories, there’s an entire subgenre of magical library stories, which should be solidly my jam. In retrospect, I did definitely enjoy the book, but somehow in the middle of it I kept forgetting that it was waiting for me. Not sure why, but it meant it took me over a month to finish.
Wanting something a bit more bite-sized, I browsed through my to-be-read bookcase (yes, I have an entire bookcase with lonely hard-copy books waiting for me to pet them) and picked up Servant Mage by Kate Elliott. This fantasy novella managed to pack in enough plot and action for an entire novel—maybe even for a trilogy. A masterpiece of telling you just enough about the world and setting that you can fill in large spaces on your own.
Author Guest
One of the things I’ve wanted to work harder on in my theoretically greater free time is doing more interviews. I’ve made a good start this year, but from the other dropped balls you might guess that I don’t have one in this show. I do have several interesting people lined up for later this year—not all of them authors—and I’m always interested in doing companion interviews for new releases. In the last couple years, that means most of them have been for books from major publishers, because those are the books I know about enough in advance to set up the interview. I’d love to work with more small press and indie authors, but you have to let me know that you’re going to have books coming out!
Show Notes
In this episode we talk about:
- TV series: The Buccaneers
- Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog
- Faderman, Lillian. 1978. “Female Same-Sex Relationships in Novels by Longfellow, Holmes, and James” in The New England Quarterly, Vol. 51, No. 3: 309-332
- Godbeer, Richard. 1995. “’The Cry of Sodom’: Discourse, Intercourse, and Desire in Colonial New England” in The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 52, No. 2: 259-286
- Manion, Jen. “The Queer History of Passing as a Man in Early Pennsylvania” in Pennsylvania Legacies, vol. 16, no. 1, 2016, pp. 6–11.
- Vaughan, Alden. 1978. “The Sad Case of Thomas(ine) Hall” in Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 86: 146-48.
- Oaks, Robert F. 1978. “"Things Fearful to Name": Sodomy and Buggery in Seventeenth-Century New England” in Journal of Social History, Vol. 12, No. 2: 268-281
- Wood, Mary E. 1993. “’With Ready Eye’: Margaret Fuller and Lesbianism in Nineteenth-Century American Literature” in American Literature 65: 3-4.
- Comment, Kristin M. 2005. “Charles Brockden Brown’s ‘Ormond’ and Lesbian Possibility in the Early Republic” in Early American Literature, vol. 40, no. 1, pp. 57–78.
- Freedman, Estelle B. 1982. “Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century America: Behavior, Ideology, and Politics” in Reviews in American History, Vol. 10, No. 4, The Promise of American History: Progress and Prospects: 196-215
- LaFleur, Greta. “Sex and ‘Unsex’: Histories of Gender Trouble in Eighteenth-Century North America.” Early American Studies, vol. 12, no. 3, 2014, pp. 469–99.
- Cleves, Rachel Hope. 2014. Charity & Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America. Oxford University Press, Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-933542-8
- Martin, Sylvia. 1994. “'These Walls of Flesh': The Problem of the Body in the Romantic Friendship/Lesbianism Debate” in Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques, Vol. 20, No. 2, Lesbian Histories: 243-266
- VanHaitsma, Pamela. 2019. “Stories of Straightening Up: Reading Femmes in the Archives of Romantic Friendship” in QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, Vol. 6, No. 3:1-24
- Cleves, Rachel Hope. “Six Ways of Looking at a Trans Man? The Life of Frank Shimer (1826-1901).” Journal of the History of Sexuality, vol. 27, no. 1, 2018, pp. 32–62.
- Faderman, Lillian. 1979. “Who Hid Lesbian History?” in Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Autumn 1979, Vol. 4, No 3. 74-76.
- Garber, Linda. 2015. “Claiming Lesbian History: The Romance Between Fact and Fiction” in Journal of Lesbian Studies, 19(1), 129-49.
- Braunschneider, Theresa. 2004. “Acting the Lover: Gender and Desire in Narratives of Passing Women” in Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation 45, no. 3: 211-29
- Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
- What I’ve been consuming
- A Rare Find by Joanna Lowell
- The Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet by Lindz McLeod
- The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman
- Servant Mage by Kate Elliott
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
Links to Heather Online
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