Lesbian Romance Books With Second Chances After Divorce: 12 Sapphic Reads About Starting Again

Anne starts over outside Los Angeles after thirty years of marriage and finds herself next to a neighbour she can’t stop thinking about. Both women are near sixty.

Some of the best character work of the year. The love story turns faster than the careful set-up deserves.

Tina’s ex-wife used to handle the bills and the repairs. Now Tina is on her own, starting roller derby, and falling for the butch coach.

The female friendships are some of the best in the genre. The secret-relationship conflict is the weak spot.

Newly divorced math teacher Ashleigh plans to be a tourist in her own city for the summer. Her best friend sends his army buddy Kellan along instead.

Breezy and very sexy. Ashleigh’s ex left her for a man, which gives the fling more weight than it first seems.

A flood leaves a pessimist homeless on the doorstep of the town’s sunny, secretly gay mayor. Joy is recently divorced and still the subject of town gossip.

Sweet and community-minded. The insta-love speed bothered some readers.

A newly divorced 46-year-old takes six weeks in Key West and falls for the confident 30-year-old next door.

Short, sunny and very low angst. A lovely escape if you don’t need much plot.

Marin walks into a house viewing and finds that her realtor, Charlotte, is the stranger who held her hand while she lay in the snow. Both women are in their forties and both are coming out.

The opening is unforgettable. A missing-mother mystery never sits easily beside the love story.

A 54-year-old West Virginia sheriff and the high-school girlfriend who comes home three decades later, divorced and ready to start again.

Low on relationship angst, high on rescues and small-town family. Expect a crime subplot with gun violence.

Olivia comes back into Margot’s life divorced, short on work and needing a place to stay. They were each other’s first.

Funny and warm, and the best-rated book in its trilogy. Our no third-act breakup guide marks its late conflict as disputed.

Thirty years ago, Ruth left her college girlfriend to marry the man her father chose. Now she’s divorced, out, and their reunion is coming up.

Thoughtful and well researched, with a lot of history. It’s slow, and heavy in places.

Erin comes out at fifty-one and runs into the high-school girlfriend she let go.

Gentle and sincere, with some flat prose. Know going in that there’s a third-act breakup.

Anna, a divorced teacher, signs up for a crochet class to get a hobby and meets Ollie, a divorced army veteran who runs the shop.

Warm and gentle, with a slow pace. Anna’s cruel boyfriend is the subplot some readers can’t forgive.

Miranda is a 52-year-old Edinburgh teacher who finds out she loves women.

A tender, feel-good debut. Some readers found it predictable, and so far there aren’t many reviews.