Contemporary Books

Leaving is what Julia Finch does best.

When a meeting with her birth parents goes horribly wrong, Julia escapes on a hastily planned road trip and winds up breaking down in a Colorado town so small the cows outnumber the people. Completely out of her element, she takes a temporary job as a ranch hand at Bennett Ranch. She only has to survive long enough to get her car fixed, and then she’s out of there for good. 

Her bad luck continues when she meets the ranch owner, Elena Bennett. Elena is unhappy, abrasive, and annoyingly breathtaking. But the longer Julia stays, the more the ranch starts to feel like home, and her feelings for Elena become impossible to ignore. She’s spent years building her defenses high and running from her past. Could a love worth staying for be the key to breaking down her walls?

Dex Putnam has been in love with her best friend Grace Standish since the fifth grade. Grace is smart, beautiful, and most unfortunately, straight. Life would’ve been perfect if Grace had only loved her back, but when Grace gets married, Dex knows it’s time to move on. Then Dex meets Emma Lawson, and her life takes a whole new direction. Only trouble is, she never expected to have to choose between her best friend and her new love. 

Emma Lawson is successful and happy except when it comes to love. She’s been alone for a year and has no intention of giving love another chance, until falling for Dex changes everything. When Grace comes between them, Emma refuses to be second best. Can Emma show Dex what true love really looks like?

Marine biologist Tess Hansen has left her high-tech lab at Evergreen College and returned to Washington’s northern coast to take care of her aging parents. Although her new job studying orcas in the Pacific excites her, she finds life in the small town where she grew up to be stifling and boring. Until she meets Brittany James.

Chemist Britt James has made the move from a hectic city to the rural coast as well, but she embraces the isolation. She’s looking for a way to reconnect with the environment and make amends for the damage her chemical company has done, and Tess’s center for orca research is a top contender for her endowment. 

Change has become an unwelcome part of Tess’s life and a desperate hope for Britt. Can these two women find a place of refuge with each other?

Lieutenant Jazz Perry finds a young girl wandering the downtown streets alone late at night. As the child becomes attached to her, Jazz is reminded of her own experiences in foster care and takes a personal interest even when she knows she should maintain professional distance. 

Social worker Emory Blake is good at her job helping children in challenging situations. She believes in the system and knows it works if you let it. When Jazz starts interfering in the case and bypassing the rules, Emory is torn between her responsibilities and an unwelcome attraction she can’t deny.

When on the job responsibilities collide with desires of the heart, becoming personally involved is the only choice.

Children's librarian Valerie Cruz has worked hard to make a comfortable life for herself since aging out of the foster care system. She loves her job but avoids intimate connections—life has taught her that she can only count on herself. When she gets the opportunity to become a foster parent, Val decides to take the leap. If she can help kids, she'll do it, even if it means reentering the system.

Foster care case worker Paige Wellington is passionate about her work, and she's been a foster parent herself. When she meets the beautiful Valerie Cruz, she is drawn to her in a way she can't explain, even though Valerie seems to want nothing to do with her. But when they clash over what is in the best interest of the children in Valerie's care, the children may be the ones who teach them that it's worth taking chances for love.

Dr. Galen Burgess has a reputation for keeping it casual. She likes women close—but not too close. Nothing is more important to her than her budding surgical career as chief surgical resident at Boston City Hospital. After spending years trying, and failing, to please her father, Galen knows getting close enough to care is a recipe for heartbreak. 

Everything in her carefully structured life begins to change when she meets her newest intern, the disconcertingly beautiful Dr. Rowan Duncan. Sheltered doesn’t even begin to describe Rowan’s comfortable, quiet life before moving to Boston. When Rowan starts to fall for Galen, everything Rowan's ever known comes into question, including her relationship with high school sweetheart Brian. 

With her own heart on the line, will Rowan have the courage to make the cut, or risk losing Galen forever?

For Addison Fairchild, success is a guarantee. Groomed since childhood to run a division of Fairchild Enterprises, she takes her birthright seriously. Maybe a little too seriously if you ask her friends. But work is so much easier than the rest of her life. Her employees hate her, her best friend is worried about her, and her last date was hide-in-the-restroom awkward. If all that wasn't bad enough, she's stuck with a new cheerful-happy-annoyingly-morning-person assistant just when the head of FE is about to choose a successor—a job Addison wants so badly, she can taste it. 

For Katie Cooper, money has never been important. That is, until her father gets dementia and needs full-time care. As the bills start to pile up, Katie takes a second job as a temporary personal assistant. Two minutes and one spilled cup of coffee later, she's sure she's not ready for Addison Fairchild—her hard head, her know-it-all attitude, or her gorgeous face.

Forced to work together, Addison and Kate discover that opposites really do attract.

Emily Wellington loves birds. Sydney Cooper loves pole dancing. The last thing they expect is to fall in love with each other. 

An exclusive exposé on the Madagascar lovebird and its mysterious migration to the small town of Ojai, California, might be the only thing keeping Emily’s magazine, The Tweet, from going under.  

Sydney doesn’t care what other people think; pole dancing gave her confidence and strength when she needed it most. Now penniless and unemployed, she needs to ace her pole dancing audition to become an instructor at LA’s hottest fitness studio. 

Emily and Sydney couldn’t be more different, but they need each other to achieve their goals. When their unlikely friendship blossoms into romance, will the secret Sydney has been keeping destroy Emily’s chance to save her magazine and their chance at true happiness?

Hayley Carpenter has always dreamed of being a famous screenwriter, but dreams don’t pay bills and LA living isn’t cheap. So when a temp position at a celebrity gossip magazine becomes available, she goes after it.

Emerson Sterling has been acting since she was little, but a rough patch as a teenager has given her a bad rap in Hollywood. Just when she thinks her dream role can turn around the public’s image of her, a conflict with her co-star and America’s Sweetheart, Rachel Blanche, puts her on the front cover of every magazine, the villain once again.

Rumors swirl that the starlets’ feud started in the bedroom, and Hayley accidentally overhears a conversation between Emerson and Rachel that could lead to the biggest scoop of her career. Will Hayley follow the story, or will her irresistible attraction to Emerson and the secrets Emerson is desperate to keep buried ruin both their careers...and their chance at love?

Fifth-generation lobster-woman Mat Pero loves her traditional Portuguese family and living in the lesbian hub of Provincetown, even if they feel like two different worlds. Or two different lives. Since she has no plans for them to collide, it’s not a problem.

Graham Connor is a romantic at heart, but she hasn’t had a date in over a year. She vows to let loose and have a little fun, and the charming and confident Mat is more than happy to help. 

But casual hookups aren’t supposed to include romantic dinners and meeting the family. Can Mat see beyond the heartbreak that led her to keep her worlds so separate, and will Graham be waiting if she does?

After kissing at the Belgian coast during a romantic sunset swim, Hélène and Sylvie find ruts in their road to eternal bliss. In this sequel to Underwater Vibes, Hélène struggles to avoid Sylvie, her sexy Greek swimming coach. Hélène’s inner turmoil and attempts to shun her deepest emotions to save her marriage make her react in bizarre ways. An intimate dinner turns sour, and Sylvie wonders why she keeps falling for women who are wrong for her. When Sylvie heads to the airport with a mysterious, gorgeous woman, and a psychic reveals unexpected news, Hélène must face up to her feelings or risk losing Sylvie forever. When disaster strikes, both women must decide how important being true to yourself, and to love, really is.

Agente editorial Emily May está a punto de perder todo el fruto de sus esfuerzos…su trabajo, su hogar, sus amigos, y la seguridad que le provee a su hermana mayor en Singapur…todo solo porque no tiene un permiso de residencia. Derian Winfield, entusiasta de carreras de autos, aventurara y temeraria, es llamada por su familia, cuando su tía, la única persona en su familia que todavía ama, se enferma. Forzada a tomar un papel en la agencia, la cual pasó años evitando, Derian necesitará mejorar de prisa su reputación negra o la agencia terminará controlada por su padre. Juntas, ella y Emily enfrentan el padre de Derian y su ejecutora, y en el proceso, Derian inventa un plan para resolver los problemas de ambas. Ahora solo necesita convencer a Emily que se case con ella, una solución perfecta para solucionar todos sus problemas, o eso es lo cree. Solo no cuenta con enamorarse.

A Spanish translation of The Color of Love

Sometimes the most imperfect match is the most perfect surprise.

Hadley Cooper believes in happily-ever-afters with her whole heart. Described by her friends as a wide-eyed, eternal optimist, she looks for the bright side in most any situation. However, when her job as the assistant manager of Silhouette, a posh boutique on Rodeo Drive, is on the line, she realizes it’s time to pull her head out of the clouds and find a way to turn business around, and that just might mean partnering with the most stubborn up-and-coming fashion designer she’s ever encountered.

Spencer Adair has a passion for fashion, but hates the fact that it rhymes. She’s serious about her designs, fiercely protective of her work, and is waiting patiently for her big break. What she didn’t plan on, however, was the unsolicited opinions of that overly-friendly blond boutique manager. Or the way her heart beats faster every time she’s around.

Jenna Thompson is a recently promoted supervisor for Child Protective Services, but she's already having a hard time following the rules. She knows that if she dares act on her desire for her new trainee, she won’t keep her job long.

Danielle Corey’s family disowned her when she came out at seventeen, so she’s passionate about helping children who have been neglected, abused, or abandoned by their families. Eager to prove herself as a new social worker, Danielle struggles with her unprofessional attraction for her new boss. 

As the case they’re working on becomes more volatile, their opinions start to clash even as coworkers become suspicious of their obvious connection. Tensions rise, and with their careers and hearts in the balance, Jenna and Danielle have to decide if they’re willing to risk everything they’ve worked for to take a chance at forever.

Lou Silver is a stage combat instructor by day, and teaches kung fu on the weekends. When Lou meets Staff Sergeant Stephanie "Steve" Adams through one of her kung fu students, Lou can’t resist her instant attraction, even though Steve’s military background stirs old resentments. As Steve battles to break down the walls around Lou’s heart, Lou must come to terms with her past to give love a fighting chance.

Courtney Abbott is a gold-medal-winning Olympian who always dreamed of playing in the NHL. But breaking into a man’s game is nearly impossible, and she’s put her all into playing in a semi-pro women’s ice hockey league.

Concert violinist Lana Caruso and her teenage son return home to care for her father. The move is only temporary, though—as soon as he recovers, Lana plans to return to Chicago and her position in the orchestra. 

Court knows Lana isn’t going to be sticking around for long, but she’s used to living life on the fly. She doesn’t think for even a second she’ll end up truly falling for Lana, but when hearts are on the line, love becomes the one game she can’t afford to lose.

Onetime lovers, unexpected rivals...

Emmett McCabe never expected to see Sydney Stevens—a woman with whom she'd shared a brief, incendiary connection before it all went up in flames—again. Luckily, ascending the cutthroat ladder of a high-pressure surgery residency to reach the top spot makes it easy to ignore what's missing in her life. Then Sydney reappears after nearly five years. Emmett is barely over her shock when she discovers Sydney is her new competition for the coveted chief's position everyone, including Emmett, expects will be hers.

Professional rivalry and long-simmering passions create a combustible combination when the two are forced to work together, especially when past attractions won't stay buried.

Also available in French translation from Homoromance Éditions: Rivales Passionnées