Lovesick Blossoms by Julia Watts

In a small Kentucky college town in 1953, two married women desperately fall in love with each other, until a moment of indiscretion threatens to destroy both their lives.

In her new adult novel, award-winning author Julia Watts creates a compelling, emotional queer tale of power and passion. Colleagues and neighbors of Samuel and Boots are more than willing to accept their married status, even though Samuel “dresses like a boy” and the pair’s relationship is one of convenience that will never be consummated. But when Samuel meets a new professor’s wife, Frances, at a faculty party, she soon falls in love, and learns the difficulty of discretion in a small town—with tragic consequences. LAMBDA award-winning author Julia Watts (Needlework, Quiver) returns to adult fiction in this heartbreaking, yet hopeful novel. Highly recommended for fans of Lauren Groff, Rosie Walsh, and Alexandria Bellefleur.

Julia Watts is the author of fourteen novels and several short story collections in the genres of young adult fiction and lesbian fiction/erotica. Her books, set in Appalachia, often depict the lives of LGBTQ people in the Bible Belt. Her most recent YA novel, Needlework, was selected as Tennessee’s youth selection for the “Great Reads from Great Places” list for the 2022 National Book Festival of the Library of Congress, and won Honorable Mention for Best YA novel of the year in the Foreword INDIES awards. Her novel Finding H.F. (Alyson Press) won the Lambda Literary Award in the children/young adult category. Her YA novel, Quiver, set in rural Tennessee, received a rare “Perfect 10 Rating” from VOYA Magazine, and was selected for the American Library Association’s Rainbow List. Her novel Secret City (Bella Books) was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and a winner of a Golden Crown Literary Award. In 2020 Watts was given the Tennessee Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Award. She lives in Knoxville, TN.