Sapphic Bookclub
Every Fourth Friday of the Month | 6pm
additional social meet-up with your book of choice the 2nd Friday of the month | 6pm
You asked, we listened. This by-request Sapphic Book Club is a spin-off of our LGBTQ Book Club and Spicy Book Club—created to make space specifically for sapphic stories, voices, and joy. Expect sapphic reads, good conversation, and the same welcoming, judgment-free vibes you know and love at Tardigrade’s. All identities are welcome; sapphic stories are centered. An all-around clam jam.
Where do I get my bookclub book?
Below each book title is a link to purchase through Bookshop.org. In most circumstances, we do not keep mulitple copies of each bookclub book in the bookbar.
Bookshop.org partners with independent bookstores like ours so we can offer e-books, audiobooks, and home delivery—all while keeping money in the indie bookstore ecosystem. If you would like us to pre-order you a copy of a bookclub book to pick up at the bookbar, let us know!
Could you buy the book on Amazon instead? Yep. Free will is a beautiful thing.
Would it be cheaper? Maybe… probably.
But here’s the rub.
We’re a family-owned bookbar in the Fox Cities. We live here. Our staff are basically extended family. We’re not a global conglomerate, and none of us owns a private island for parties.
We’re just trying to keep the lights on, stack the shelves with great books, and keep building a cozy, nerdy space where the community can gather.
So if you choose to buy your next read through us, thank you. Truly. It means a lot that you’d spend a few extra dollars to support a small, quirky neighborhood spot.
Upcoming Books
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March
March Sapphic Book Club Pick: Sunburn
Author: Chloe Michelle Howarth
For fans of Normal People, comes a tender, queer coming-of-age story about first love, first loss, and the kind of heartbreak that reshapes you forever.
It’s the early 1990s in Crossmore, a small rural town in Ireland, and Lucy already knows the script written for her life: fall for the farmer’s son next door, marry young, have children, stay quiet. Above all, don’t disrupt the fragile order of a community where everyone knows everyone—and no one forgets.
But Lucy is keeping a truth she barely dares to name. The reason she feels out of step with the future laid out before her is Susannah—her best friend, her secret, her impossible first love.
As one long, hot summer stretches toward graduation, their friendship deepens into something undeniable. What follows is equal parts euphoria and terror. In a town bound by tradition, religion, and watchful neighbors, love becomes both refuge and risk. When Susannah grows tired of hiding, Lucy is forced to confront what she’s willing to lose to protect herself—and what it might cost to live honestly.
Achingly intimate and atmospheric, Sunburn captures the claustrophobia of small-town life and the intensity of loving someone when the world insists you shouldn’t. It’s a story about longing, silence, and the courage it takes to choose yourself.
If you’ve ever remembered your first love like a bruise you can still press, this is your March read. 🌅💔
✨ For fans of…
Queer coming-of-age stories 🌈
Small-town tension & secret relationships 🌾
Slow-burn, character-driven romance 💞
Bittersweet, nostalgic summer settings ☀️
Emotionally rich literary fiction 📖
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April
April Pick: Big Swiss
Author: Jen Beagin
What happens when obsession meets opportunity… and the object of your fixation walks straight into your life?
In Big Swiss, Greta is living in a crumbling Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, New York—uninsulated, slightly feral, and buzzing with bees. By day, she transcribes therapy sessions for a self-styled sex coach named Om. It’s intimate work, the kind where strangers unknowingly spill their deepest fears and fantasies into her headphones.
Then comes the newest client: a tightly wound, married woman Greta privately dubs “Big Swiss.” Through hours of transcription, Greta becomes enthralled—by her voice, her vulnerability, her contradictions. When Greta unexpectedly recognizes Big Swiss in town and the two strike up a real-life connection, things spiral deliciously out of control.
Big Swiss has no idea Greta has already heard her most intimate confessions. But with her, Greta feels electric. Seen. Alive. The chemistry is undeniable, the secrecy intoxicating—and the moral line increasingly blurred.
Darkly funny, offbeat, and razor-sharp, Big Swiss is both an unconventional love story and a piercing exploration of infidelity, therapy culture, sexual identity, loneliness, and the messy ways we try to connect. It’s weird in the best way—and impossible to look away from.
If you love complicated women, morally gray romance, and stories that are equal parts absurd and tender, this is your next read. 🐝💬
✨ For fans of…
Messy, obsessive queer romance 🌈
Offbeat literary fiction with bite 📖
Dark humor & awkward intimacy 😅
Stories about therapy, identity & reinvention 🧠
Unreliable narrators & morally complicated choices 🔍
⚠️ Topics Included:
Infidelity
Therapy & mental health
Sexual identity
Obsession & secrecy
Loneliness & connection
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May
May Sapphic Book Club Pick: The Seep
Author: Chana Porter
What if the world became a utopia overnight… and it still wasn’t enough to save your marriage?
In The Seep, Trina FastHorse Goldberg-Oneka is a fifty-year-old trans woman living in the aftermath of a quiet alien invasion. The Seep has gently reshaped humanity—dissolving capitalism, dismantling hierarchies, and making the impossible possible. Through its strange, connective presence, suffering has eased and society has transformed into something softer, freer, more fluid.
Trina and her wife, Deeba, have built a blissful life under this new order—until Deeba decides she wants more. More possibility. More becoming. She chooses to be reborn as a baby, starting life over through Seep technology in pursuit of an even better future.
Left behind, Trina is shattered.
As grief pulls her into isolation and self-destruction, an unexpected encounter with a lost child sends her on a strange, searching journey—one that forces her to confront not only The Seep’s most devoted believers, but the hollow space love has carved inside her.
Tender, surreal, and deeply human, The Seep is both a sci-fi fever dream and an elegy for love that doesn’t survive transformation. It asks: If everything is possible, what do we do when the person we love chooses a future without us?
If you’re ready for sapphic speculative fiction that blends utopia with heartbreak, this is your May read. 🌌💔
✨ For fans of…
Queer sci-fi & speculative fiction 🌈
Trans protagonists & complex adult love stories
Philosophical explorations of identity & reinvention 🧠
Soft dystopias (or complicated utopias)
Lyrical, emotionally rich short novels 📖
⚠️ Topics Included:
Grief & loss
Addiction
Rebirth & transformation
Alien utopia & post-capitalism
Love after radical change
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June
Description coming soon!
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July
Description coming soon!
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August
April Sapphic Book Club Pick: The Ruthless Lady’s Guide to Wizardry
Author: C. M. Waggoner
What do you get when you mix down-on-her-luck fire witches, high-society intrigue, murder-for-hire magic, and one extremely inconvenient attraction to a dangerously competent lady bodyguard?
In The Ruthless Lady’s Guide to Wizardry, Dellaria Wells is many things—broke, chaotic, magically gifted, and very good at setting things on fire. When she lands a suspiciously well-paid job protecting a noblewoman during a wedding season filled with threats and dark magic, she expects trouble. She does not expect Winnifred, the cool, sword-wielding, unfairly attractive woman assigned to work alongside her.
As assassination attempts escalate and secrets unravel, Delia finds herself navigating glittering ballrooms, criminal conspiracies, and her own very inconvenient feelings. The stakes are deadly—but the banter is sharp, the romance is swoony, and the found-family energy is immaculate.
With wit, magic, and a heroine who is gloriously messy and unapologetically queer, this fantasy delivers action, heart, and a love story that burns just as brightly as Delia’s spells.
If you’re craving sapphic chaos, magical mayhem, and enemies-to-lovers tension wrapped in Regency-inspired sparkle, this is your April read. ✨🔥
✨ For fans of…
Sapphic fantasy romance 🌈
Grumpy/sunshine & opposites-attract dynamics 💘
Found family & lovable disaster protagonists 🫶
Magical intrigue with humor 🪄
Slow-burn tension with sharp banter 💬
⚠️ Topics Included:
Magical violence & peril
Class differences
Criminal conspiracies
Slow-burn queer romance
Found family
Past Reads
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February 2026
