Counting for Thunder

For most, the Colorado Amateur Street Sports Tour means a chance to see some local skateparks and fun antics as participants compete for some unusual point prizes. While he doesn’t expect to go pro as a skateboarder or BMX biker, Arturo hopes winning will jump-start his career in media. To win, his team must snag one of the bigger prizes, which means marrying his best friend Thomas “Pirate” Jefferson. But every plan has its hiccups. With bigots, journalists, and pressure from sponsors and teammates, Arturo must perform his best to pull it off.

The stakes are high for skateboarder and rollerblader Thomas. Invited onto the team because he’s that good, Thomas must win to prove he deserves to be there. To secure the biggest prizes, he’ll do almost anything, even marry his crush—Arturo “Uno” Ortiz. Although his feelings are a secret, his attraction gets harder to hide when the competition starts to push their relationship out into the open. When pressure drives a wedge through his team, Thomas is going to need more than a win to keep everyone he loves.

Arturo and Thomas know falling can hurt, but they didn’t anticipate marriage would be an extreme sport.

Cassie Burke never believed in second chances. If something didn’t work out, then it was never really meant for her. In the years following two heart-wrenching breakups, she kept her life simple. She’d dated when the opportunity arose but focused her energy on her career and best friends of over thirty years, Jenn and Maggie. Tight since their high school days in the 80s, they’ve weathered many storms. The most tempestuous being Deana, who had briefly joined their “pantheon” and stirred things up as only a beautiful lost soul can, testing their friendship and the strength of Cassie’s heart.

Now as Cassie, Jenn, and Maggie plan a celebration for their fiftieth birthdays, none of them are prepared for the whiplash changes their half-century mark year has in store. Least of all Cassie, who discovers a second chance with Deana might be just what her heart needs.

Reader advisory: References to homophobic violence/sexual assault.

Two divides perfectly into four, not five.

Zara Keller is a survivor turned piano phenomenon living for a big dream. When she’s invited to spend the weekend with four long-time friends outside of London, she has little use for luxurious Fullerhill Manor—but Lady Jillian Stansfield might be a different story.

The obligations thrust on Jillian Stansfield as Lady of the Manor center on home and family. Even her best friends expect her to put aside the desire for a meaningful life and carry on her legacy through marriage and children. Will the arrival of a fifth person be enough to tip the balance of their “gang of four” in her favor?

Zara challenges Jillian to pursue grander plans and stirs something new and profound, compelling Jillian to be true to herself and make the hardest decisions of her life. But when tragedy strikes, saving Jillian may cost Zara the goal of a position at the Royal College of Music, and the chance at love. 

Content advisory: This book contains instances of trauma and homophobia.

Master mechanic Lyle James built a successful but lonely life in Tinker Creek after rescuing his dad’s auto repair shop until an international development firm conspires with local officials to condemn the shop and steal his land.

Jose “Manny” Porter has come home to take a reporting job at the South Georgia Record, a regional newspaper where his father is publisher and editor-in-chief. As the son of a driven Anglo father and Cuban exile mother, Manny knows all about how competing parental expectations can chill efforts to even find sex—much less love.

After a night of passion, Lyle and Manny are thrown together in a fight to save Lyle’s business. Their struggles may lead to more than either expected for their community and their lives.

Growing up middle-class in Cleveland, Ohio, Darcy O’Brien and his sisters learn they’re about to inherit a long-rumored, immense family fortune from their great-grandfather Cooper Tiller—until a mysterious stranger from New York City swoops in and claims ownership of the estate.

When his lawyer forbids Darcy from confronting the interloper, it only fuels his determination to protect their rightful inheritance. In many ways a mirror of Coop—a masculine, hard-charging businessman from the early 20th century—Darcy’s uncertain about his ability to find love with the right man, but he secretly longs for Jake Tester and allows him to join his quest.

The journey will change their lives as they uncover Coop’s epic tale, unraveling a seventy-year-old family secret that forces Darcy to face his fears and leads to a breathtaking discovery waiting more than a century to be unearthed.

When Ray O’Brien volunteers to raft the Grand Canyon with a research team, the last thing he expects is murder. After a few days on a river closed to the public, one of the volunteers is found struck dead on a secluded beach. Sixty wilderness miles from contact with other people, the group must carry on in total isolation, sure someone committed murder and may kill again. 

Despite the terrible timing, Ray falls for Duke, the group’s handsome ranger, who seems to return the attraction. Ray and Duke join forces with Jenny Bridger, the group leader, to solve the mystery. Jenny must act with confidence and decisiveness but meets puzzling resistance from the volunteers. Ensuring safe passage for all will mean overcoming the group’s misgivings and slaying Jenny’s own demons, but her compassion for the victim’s widow may lead them all astray.

The age-old Canyon becomes more and more ominous as the group fights to survive alone in nature and uncover a murderer among them.

Fresh Grave in Grand Canyon contains a racial slur by a minor character.