Sapphic in the Shadows: A 1920s New York Mystery - Series 1, E01-20

by Leanna Headley, Alex B. Porter

Lesbian private investigator series set in 1920’s New York – 20 bite-size episodes.

Tired of the routine life of trying on dresses and looking pretty, Ella Quick has taken up a new job at Manhattan private investigations firm, Emerald Inc. As a secretary, Ella expects to spend her days making coffee and filing paperwork so it’s a pleasant surprise when her boss, Josie Desroches, takes her on assignments that not only open her eyes to the world but also teach her a thing or two about herself. Soon Ella finds herself falling in lust with her boss.as she enters a decadent underground world of speakeasies, sex workers and the mafia.

Full Series: 1920’s New York Mystery
Set in historical New York City in the Roaring Twenties during a period of social revolution for women everywhere, bringing about significant change from fashion to suffrage to gender and sexual expression. Sapphic in the Shadows is a racy series follows Ella’s adventures as she and her feisty boss solve mysteries, get entangled with drugs, prostitutes and the mafia and encounter the biggest, most ingenious crime organization that the city has ever known.

Does it complicate things that Ella seems to be having romantic feelings for her boss? Certainly. Will it confuse matters further when Ella discovers her boss is a queer sexual deviant of the LGBT variety? A flirtatious and outlandish lesbian who regularly uses her attributes to get what she wants? Definitely.

Has Ella bit off more than she can chew by taking this job or would she have been better off staying at home, looking pretty and hoping to snag a rich husband?

Read on to find out...

Sapphic in the Shadows is the complete series. A bundle of 20 bite-size sapphic episodes. Available on Kindle ebook, Audible audiobook and paperback.

All 20 Episodes
E01: The First Case E02: The Case of Snow White E03: The Lesson E04: The Working Girls E05: The Third Woman E06: The Man on the Sidewalk E07: The Observers E08: The Flower E09: The Garden of Eden E10: The Men with Cigars E11: The  Gift E12: The Watering Hole E13: The New Girl E14: The Leap E15: The Party E16: The Motive E17: The Man who Cried Cops E18: The Sting E19: The Shadow’s End E20: The Final Word

Genres: Lesbian, Historical Fiction, LGBT, Mystery

603 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 29, 2018

Reviews

[AnnMaree Of Oz · Rating 1 out of 5]

So these are basically just erotica with a plot so thin, it's nearly invisible. That would be OK if they were advertised as such - and look I'm no prude I don't mind some sexy naughtiness from time to time - but I definitely don't like it when something is presented as a serious mystery, when it's far more akin to a campy B grade porno with a very loose plot tying together far fetched sex scenes.

I was half waiting for the PI's assistant to ask if that was a revolver in her trench-coat, or was she just happy to see her... if that analogy even works for sapphics. lol.

Ella is the PI Josie's assistant, and PI Josie wants to teach Ella a thing or two about her investigative work, and much much more if you know what I mean... I mean you'd have to right because Josie is not shy about going down on women in her office and out in venues in full view of the public and her assistant Ella, who lingers on watching eagerly. Yeah. Then she wants Ella to have a hands-on approach if you know what I mean. (DO YOU) Lessons in lady loving, yknow!!!

There's threesomes, too! Everyone in this series is just serving themselves up on a proverbial pussy platter without pretext.

Then Ella finds herself her own innocent flower to, err, deflower and teach the ways of lady loving, all while still screwing around with prostitutes and her boss, and then even introduces her new flower to the boss for a 3-way, too, without pause from any participants.

My My these sure are some EASY-going women for the 1920's.

I'm cringing just trying to recount the stuff I skimmed. I didn't find it sexy, even if I suspend my disbelief. Because it was so poorly written.

[Marie-Therese · Rating 1 out of 5]

So so bad. I couldn't make myself read further than the first few episodes. (Just the anachronistic use of "Ms" was enough to set my teeth on edge. While the term was proposed by academicians and journalists fairly early in the 20th century, it was never adopted by the public and languished until the 1950s, only to be taken up widely in the 1970s. It's wildly out of place in this series and just made it abundantly clear early on that these authors don't know a thing about the period they're covering.)

[T · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Dev · Rating 4 out of 5]

Usually I am not a big fan of the serial style novel, but they have conveniently collected the entire thing into one book and it was actually a lot of fun. Coming in at just over 600 pages I would say it was a little long, but each episode is about 30 pages long so you can definitely work through it in small chunks. It starts out with several 'easy' one chapter mysteries to introduce us to the characters and then moves on into a few that span several chapters up until the end and finally come together in a pretty satisfactory way.

Josie was a very interesting Holmesian style detective and Ella was definitely fun to read about as well. All the characters were very well written and I liked how topical the whole thing was re: women's changing roles in the 1920s but how they still had to deal with a lot of sexism and other things. If I had to make one complaint it would probably be that there was a bit too much sex in it for me personally. There was a fairly graphic sex scene in just about every chapter and while I didn't necessarily mind it, I usually like to read books that are either entirely erotica or entirely plot-driven. Still, it was definitely a fun read and I would absolutely read a season two if the author was planning on writing one.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this on Kindle because it was free and it was a trip; it took months to finish. It's not just a lesbian romance, kind of a weird lesbian bildungsroman with romance and some light kink and a whole organized crime detective noir plot. Sort of a bizarre mash-up. For some reason, I picked this up because I thought it was going to be queer and Lovecraftian? But it is not, just regular noir. I guess I liked it? Honestly, it's hard to even say.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exciting!

I'm so glad that I read this from start to finish in one release. It would have driven me crazy to only be able to read one episode at a time. I loved this book set a hundred years ago, when women had few rights but weren't afraid to buck the system to find their own way. Every lesfic fan should put this on their must read list!

[Jean Mapp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book liked the characters

[greyreads · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF’d at 61%. I enjoyed it for the most part but it got so boring and repetitive and didn’t move along fast enough.