Love doesn't announce itself. It just keeps showing up. Close Reading is a sapphic literary romance about two middle-aged academics and mothers who discover what becomes possible when you really pay attention. Margot Voss is precise, private, and very good at keeping people out. Priya Anand is warm, brilliant, and completely, unapologetically herself. When their university pairs them for a research project neither of them volunteered for, they recognize something in each other immediately... and spend the next five months pretending they don't. The distance keeps closing. What happens when there's no space left? Slow burn · Forced proximity · Found family · Dual first-person POV · Character-driven · Literary spice · Open door ----- The Lavender House Series is six sapphic romances set in Millhaven, a Pacific Northwest college town with a coffee house at its heart. Each book follows a different love story, but the community remains. These are characters you'll want to stay with long after the last page. Priya and Margot are just the beginning.