Hope in the Heart of Winter

Evelyn Hopkins leaves everything she knows and heads to London at the height of the Roaring Twenties, intent upon living her life to the fullest. But will the dark cloud of the Great War keep her from happiness and love?

Edward Hopkins returned from the war, but he is a shadow of his former self, broken by his experiences. His sister makes him a promise: to live her life well enough for both of them. London is a colorful world of jazz, fashion, and opportunities for lust and romance at every turn. When Evelyn meets handsome, eccentric Jos—with her butch style and gentle manner—she knows true attraction for the first time. But can love sustain them through tragedy and carry Evelyn into a new life she can be proud of?

A diverse cast of lesbian, bi, and trans women, on both sides of the bars and through the centuries, find life-changing moments of love, hope, fear, excitement, passion, desperation, and inspiration.

Prison. The very word sends shivers of fear through the soul. A place of gloom and shadows, where freedom is taken, humanity is lost. A place of cruelty and pain, of claustrophobia, soul-searching, and waiting. A place where guilt and innocence fade away, identity is transformed, and the voice that cries in the darkness is no longer heard. One aspect of human existence that has endured through the centuries: incarceration, implied guilt, punishment.

But when all is lost, so much can be gained. It is in prison that the colors of freedom become sharper and brighter, more alluring because they are distant. It is here that impossible relationships become reasonable, that hopes are kindled by a word or a glance. It is where senses are heightened, as alert to danger as to love, to fear as to passion. It is where everything is at once ordered and disordered—and queer is only relative.

Will the masked outlaw who stole Lucia's locket also claim her heart?

When Miss Lucia Foxe is robbed by a band of shadowy highwaymen, she does not realize this frightening event will change her life forever. Her brave quest to retrieve her stolen locket brings her into close contact with the thieves and their dashing and fearless masked leader, Len Hawkins. But there is more to Len than meets the eye. Beneath the robber's mask lies a woman who, in her heart, is not really so very different from Lucia.

As their unlikely love grows against the backdrop of the poverty and violent protest of Regency England, Lucia learns how much more there is to the world than her upbringing has taught her. Len flirts with death every day, and eventually, an attempt at exacting revenge on her cruel father threatens to snatch her from Lucia's arms.

Will Len survive her encounter with death and avoid the retribution of the agents of justice? And can respectable gentlewoman Lucia love Len enough to sacrifice everything she knows?

Can Ros Wynne, who has lost everything she thought defined her, find her true life— and her true love—surrounded by the lingering history of the once-grand Winter Manor?

When Ros unexpectedly inherits Winter Manor on the condition that she oversee the restoration of the remote and dilapidated house, it seems the perfect place for her to retreat from her recently failed relationship, the death of her mother, and the loss of her job. But Winter Manor is not entirely at rest. The echoes of its past reach forward into the present, and Ros's life is perceptibly shaped by the lives—and loves—of the people who inhabited those rooms and corridors in the centuries before her.

Then Anna arrives. The architect—with her designer clothes, hot car, and air of supreme professionalism—is at first an unwelcome, if necessary, intrusion. But as Ros learns Anna's truths, she finds solace from her past losses in their developing intimacy. And when their love is threatened, Ros must decide whether her own ghosts will forever define her, or if she can embrace her life for what it is—past, present, and future.

Two women, Elizabeth and Jen, separated by two hundred years, but inescapably connected. Will the echoes of the past be enough to save Jen as she begins to discover her truth?

In 1808 Elizabeth Cooper, found guilty as a thief, is sentenced to hang and thrown into prison, the convicted women with whom she shares her gloomy cell the only solace she will have until the day of her execution. In gentle Gilly Stevens she finds the strength and comfort of a growing intimacy. As the horrors of the prison threaten to overwhelm her, Elizabeth and Gilly must soon fight to ensure Elizabeth's innocence, her truth, can survive into the future.

In 2008 Jen is a costumed tour guide, the prison where Elizabeth Cooper was imprisoned now an atmospheric museum. Jen's work relating its horrors distracts her from the confusion of her personal life. Then she encounters Aly, an intriguing, confident photographer, who seems to change everything. Jen is determined not to deny her truth any longer and to finally reach for happiness, but, as the shadows within the high prison walls lengthen and seem to warn her of the threat, she is in more danger than she realizes.

Miss Cassandra Belvedere and Miss Louise Sheffield were once debutantes vying for the same gentleman’s attentions. Bitter rivalry turned to passion—but at the end of the Season, Louise chose the earl instead of the girl.

Fifteen years later, Cass strides back into London Society to demand Louise’s help. After all, it’s the least she can do after destroying Cass’s life. Her family’s glove making business is in peril, and the elegant Louise, now the widowed Countess of Atwater, wields enough power to bring Cass’s gloves into fashion.

But Louise didn’t expect the attraction between them to burn stronger than ever, or that society would turn on her for associating with Cass. Bold, brash Cass has the real power—to unravel Louise’s strait-laced life and show her that their passion is worth fighting for.

Nothing could prepare them for the Season of a lifetime—or a second chance to fall in love.