A Degree to Die For

Bonnie James has built her life around her passions—cats, coffee, and community. She rejected her family’s narrow visions of success and instead chose the non-lucrative, fur-filled life of a cat café owner. So what if her decision means she works way too much to have time for true love? She has plenty of friends and cats to keep her company.

Wedding planner Taryn Ritter has a knack for making impossible dreams come true. She might not understand the appeal of getting married in a cat café, but if that’s what her clients want, then she’ll make it happen. She’s not about to let the reluctant café owner stand in her way, so she makes Bonnie an offer she can’t refuse—give her the venue for one day and she’ll find a way to get more cats adopted into happy homes.

When Bonnie and Taryn join forces to help a bunch of shelter cats find their forever homes, they just might discover forever for themselves as well.

Officer Clare Sawyer, newly arrived at the University of Washington’s campus police department, hopes her investigation of a murdered professor will give her a chance to show her worth and prove to herself she made the right choice leaving the big city behind. Life on campus brings back uncomfortable memories, but she is determined to do her job and remain on the outskirts of the academic world. Until Professor Hart walks into her interrogation room…

Architectural historian Libby Hart found her true home when she entered college, and she hasn’t left academia since. She loves her friends, her job, and the gorgeous buildings surrounding her. When the harsh reality of murder brings chaos into her world, she tries to help Clare restore order on campus.

Clare and Libby are from different worlds, but the more time they spend together, the harder it becomes to ignore their growing feelings for one another—until the murderer targets Clare and danger threatens to destroy their happiness.

City girl Alana Brendt accepts a one-year contract as an event coordinator in remote Yakima, Washington, to reboot her career. So what if she padded her résumé a little…doesn’t everyone? Then she discovers she has to lead trail rides and white-water adventures, not just coordinate them. Add a litter of puppies underneath her rickety farmhouse’s porch, and Alana is desperate enough to accept help from the local vet…the gorgeous, sexy, outdoorsy vet who is absolutely not Alana’s type. At all.

Veterinarian Tegan Evans avoids the tourist side of Yakima, venturing there only when an animal needs her. Tourists only break your heart. Still, she can’t resist helping Alana, who, despite being in over her head with rambunctious puppies and a job she is barely qualified to perform, seems determined to make a success of things.

Alana and Tegan both know they don’t belong together. Only problem is, they’re falling in love.

Mounted police officer Billie Mitchell has come back from the memories of war to a place of peace: a job she loves, partners she trusts, and a new home in Tacoma’s rough and neglected Hilltop Area. But when a businessman is murdered and one of her neighbors becomes a suspect, her calm shatters yet again. 

Heiress Merissa Karr has earned her own fortune working in urban renewal. After she witnesses her boss’s murder, she becomes the next likely target, and for once, money can’t buy her out of trouble. She needs to rely on Billie and other Hilltop residents—people who amount to nothing in her social circles—for her very survival.

On pristine polo fields and run-down city blocks, two worlds collide. Can hearts and minds open wide enough for acceptance and friendship to expand into love?

Over the course of a year at Cannon Beach, tourists and locals alike find solace and passion at the Sea Glass Inn.

Melinda Andrews and Pamela Whitford own the Sea Glass Inn at Cannon Beach on the Oregon Coast. After an oil spill threatens their shore, Mel and Pam join members of the community as they fight to heal the beach and its inhabitants while finding creative ways to keep businesses alive until the tourist trade recovers.

In these four novellas, Pam and Mel’s guests and neighbors find healing for themselves as well. From local residents, including a baker and a bookseller, to a visiting author and a Department of Fish and Wildlife Officer, these women come to the ocean in need of comfort, inspiration, and renewal. They not only discover these qualities at the inn, but they also find what they need most: love.

Archaeologist Berit Katsaros travels the world in search of treasures from ancient times. A serious injury forces her to take a break from fieldwork and accept an interim teaching job at Whitman College. She finds nothing redeeming in her frustrating sabbatical…except her sexy landlord, Tace.

When Stacy "Tace" Lomond takes charge of her brother's failing microbrewery, she discovers a passion and talent she never realized she possessed. After years of putting herself last and supporting others' dreams, she's ready to make a name for her artisanal beer among the academics and sophisticated wineries in Walla Walla, Washington. Berit might be a tempting distraction, but she's only a temporary fixture in town and in Tace's life.

Slow-crafted beer and time-worn artifacts. Both women recognize what's important in their careers, but can they learn to appreciate the value of love?