Ocean State Libraries

"1902, the Brookhants School for Girls. Flo and Clara are obsessed with each other and with Mary MacLane, the author of a scandalous bestselling memoir. The girls establish their own private club and call it the Plain Bad Heroine Society. Their bodies are discovered in a nearby apple orchard, with a copy of Mary's book splayed beside them, the victims of a swarm of stinging, angry yellow jackets. Within five years three more people die on the property--...

The author's engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing relationship with a charismatic but volatile woman, Machado struggles to make sense of how what happened to her shaped the person she was becoming.

"Jodi McCarty is seventeen when she's sentenced to life in prison for manslaughter. She's released eighteen years later and finds herself reeling from the shock of unexpected freedom. Not yet able to return to her lost home in the Appalachian mountains, she heads south in search of someone she left behind, as a way of finally making amends. There, she will meet and fall in love with Miranda, a troubled young mother living in a motel room with her...

"There is a voice of longing inside every woman. We strive so mightily to be good: good mothers, daughters, partners, employees, citizens, and friends. We believe all this striving will make us feel alive. Instead, it leaves us feeling weary, stuck, overwhelmed, and underwhelmed. We look at our lives, relationships, and world, and wonder: Wasn't it all supposed to be more beautiful than this? We quickly silence that question, telling ourselves to...

"Ro becomes obsessed with a woman she met at the farmer’s market selling artisan soaps, and discovers she both wants to be her and have her while beginning to wonder which of them is actually becoming consumed by the other."--

“A landmark work of lesbian fiction” and the basis for the acclaimed film Desert Hearts (The New York Times).
 Against the backdrop of Reno, Nevada, in the late 1950s, award-winning author Jane Rule chronicles a love affair between two women. When Desert of the Heart opens, Evelyn Hall is on a plane that will take her from her old life in Oakland, California, to Reno,...

After her lover of thirty years dies, a Boston woman opens a bookstore for her neighborhood, an endeavor that forces her to confront her past while she rebuilds her future
Over the course of their thirty-year relationship, Vicky and Harriet fell into a predictable cadence: Vicky took the lead while Harriet was content to follow. When Vicky dies, Harriet is lost and in search of an identity that was subsumed by that of her partner for three...

"Betty Rhyzyk, Brooklyn's toughest female police detective, relocates to rough-and-tumble Dallas, Texas, where she must contend with a group of unruly subordinates, a persistent stalker, a formidable criminal organization, and an unsupportive girlfriend." --

Liza puts aside her feelings for Annie after the disaster at school, but eventually she allows love to triumph over the ignorance of people.

Two brothers -- Will and Jeff -- and their friend Tom are out one night at their favorite South Beach bar, the Wild Zone, and decide to make a bet on who can be the first to seduce a mysterious-looking young woman drinking by herself. Pretty, dark-haired, blue-eyed Suzy has an innocent, almost ordinary girl-next-door way about her. Little do the friends know that their harmless bet is about to take on a life of its own, a life full of deadly consequences...