Driving Lessons

Abbey Brooks, Gila High freshman-to-be, never thought a hellish day of shopping at the mall with her best friend, Kate, could change her life. But when she orders French fries from the flirtatious Hot Dog on a Stick Chick, she gets more than deep-fried potatoes. Abbey tries to ignore the weird, happy feeling in her gut, but that proves to be as impossible as avoiding the very insistent (and--rumor has it--very lesbian) players on Gila High's girls' basketball team. They want freakishly long-legged Abbey to try out, and Abbey doesn't hate the idea. But Kate made Abbey pinky swear to avoid basketball and to keep away from the you-know-who girls on the team.

Sometimes promises can't be kept. And sometimes girls in uniform are impossible to resist.

Seventeen-year-old Ella Gatz is alone when the thief enters her father’s mansion on Halloween night. Ella fights the intruder but fails to stop the theft of Her Heart, her mother’s favorite painting. Ella mourns the loss of the only remaining piece of the mother she lost, and when her father, CEO of a security firm, refuses to report the crime for fear of the humiliation he will face at having his security system fail in his own home, Ella determines to hunt down the culprit and reclaim Her Heart.

The only hint to who the thief may be is a long, pink-and-blond hair. Finding her thief will become Ella’s first move in a dangerous game of wits that exposes family secrets and could lead to her family’s financial ruin.

Ashly Harris has a secret she’s been keeping all her life.

To everyone else she’s just a seventeen-year-old party girl and problem senior at Hackley High School. She has always felt alone, and not just because she’s biracial and openly bisexual. Ashly sees faeries all around her, all the time. She has learned to hide her Sight, but that doesn’t change the fact that she is constantly taking the blame for the havoc that the faeries wreak. The only person who knows about Ashly’s ability is her eccentric, yet level-headed best friend, Caris, who might be playing along while also playing with Ashly’s feelings.

As Ashly speeds toward graduation with few future prospects on the horizon, she must protect the classmates she claims to hate from an evil that no one else sees.

"This is an accessible story with an interesting premise: The fantasy metaphor for Ashly’s adolescent alienation and despair works well and livens up the plot, especially when a revelation draws Ashly into the throes of a faerie war as well as a rewarding queer romance. A relatable fantasy weaving in real-life issues." –Kirkus Reviews, 08/15/2023

Competitive barrel racer Lacey Bishop has worked her way from homelessness and poverty to needing only a few points to qualify for the National Rodeo Finals when her only horse suffers a career-ending injury. Without the money to buy a new horse, Lacey has no choice but to trust an offer from Two Rivers Ranch to lease one of their best barrel-racing horses.

Horse trainer Wil Rivers is working hard to get her family’s ranch profitable again after the coronavirus pandemic shut them down for more than a year. Her best chance to save the ranch from foreclosure is a million-dollar-plus offer to buy the one barrel horse that could defeat the mare she’s leased to the bewitching Lacey Bishop.

When Lacey discovers Wil’s plan to sell the Two Rivers “money” horse to her fiercest competitor, she sees their chance for a future together and her chance to qualify for the finals disappearing in the rodeo arena dust.

Evelyne, born into nobility, and Annika, a peasant girl with a deadly secret, struggle to change their destinies in Valmora, a medieval world controlled by religion, magic, and men.

If only she’d been born a boy, Evelyne could fight with her brothers and fulfill her dreams of glory. Instead, her father has arranged her marriage. Annika knows she’s different. She has gifts the Valmorans call talents, and she’s waited too long to turn herself over to the Temple for training. If she tells anyone now, she will burn as a heretic.

Their blossoming love changes everything.

Both are forced to confront who they are when saving an innocent life exposes Annika’s talent and she’s held prisoner by the unforgiving Temple Paladin. Saving Annika will cost Evelyne all she’s ever known, but her sacrifice may lead them on a path to love and a destiny that will change Valmora forever.

Asher Evans is living her dreams eight seconds at a time. She’s finally at the top of the rankings and headed for the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas, and she owes it all to the man who taught her everything, Silas Wilson.

Reagan Wilson vowed she’d never return to Louisiana. Her father, Silas, had been a world champion rodeo rider until an accident destroyed his career, then killed him. Now she’s interning at a sports clinic in New Orleans, and her first patient is Asher Evans. Seeing her childhood neighbor and teenage crush brings all those painful memories rushing back.

Asher and Reagan are from different worlds, even if they grew up side by side. Reagan doesn’t understand why anyone would risk their life for a title and belt buckle, and Asher doesn’t do safe and predictable. Falling in love makes no sense, but as the spark between them ignites they may have more in common than they think.