Romance Books

Starting a new life in a new city is never easy, but Kelsey Peterson is managing. She owns her own specialty shop, she’s made some new friends, and she’s finally feeling like she’s ready to put down some roots in this small Chicago suburb. She’s even struck up some regular flirtatious banter with that sexy blonde she continually runs into at Starbucks. But when her business and personal life unexpectedly collide, Kelsey’s confidence in her newfound happiness starts to slip through her fingers, and the hardest part is figuring out what matters most...

February 1862. The War Between the States has been raging for nearly a year with no end in sight. Philadelphia socialite Wilhelmina Fredericks is safe from the war’s clutches, yet she feels compelled to do her part to bring the madness to an end. Accordingly, she disguises herself as a man, takes up arms, and heads South to join the fight. What could possibly go wrong?

Clara Summers’s father and older brother are serving in the Confederate army. Forced to look after her two younger brothers as well as the small Tennessee farm the family depends on for its livelihood, Clara has no time for or interest in love. Then she meets a handsome Union soldier named Wil Fredericks, and her loyalty to both her family and the Southern cause is put to the test.

If you knew the gods worked from a building in Santa Monica, California, would it change you?

Avenging fury Alectho (Alec) Graves has been tasked with saving the world, when she isn’t out seeking justice for those innocents who suffer at the hands of evil-doers. If she fails in her mission, those she loves will cease to exist. 

Selene Perkton is a philosophy professor in Los Angeles. She lives an ordinary, well scheduled life, and knows her place in it. When Alec appears, the world she thought she knew becomes a very different place.

Can Alec and Selene put aside their differences, or will the evil lurking in the shadows manage to pull them apart?

Parker Duncan has sworn off love forever since she discovered her wife—her ex-wife—cheating on her on their tenth anniversary. Sydney Hyatt doesn’t even do overnight. She attracts women effortlessly, then discards them after an hour or two of mutual pleasure. They meet at a party celebrating Parker’s divorce, and they’re tailor-made for a no-strings encounter. Yet when their paths cross again, lightning strikes, and both women begin to question their life rules in the face of undeniable passion and growing love. 

But demons past and dangers present threaten the lovers, and Parker and Sydney must fight to find new traditions in dark spaces as they cling to the relationship neither of them thought she wanted.

In New Orleans for a conference, exhausted English professor Kit Kelly has been going through the motions in just about every regard for some time now. She’s tired of her job and sick of sleeping around, and her life is starting to feel like one long, stale rerun of similar days and nights. A chance encounter with Teddy, a local chef, stirs an enthusiasm for life she hasn’t felt in a long time, but news of an impending hurricane threatens to disrupt what they’ve just begun.

Kip Kensington owes four hundred hours of community service for a joyride gone wrong. Jordan Rice has no time for younger women with trouble written all over them no matter how sexy they might be, even if she is in desperate need of more hands—and more funds—to keep her community garden project alive. Kip’s past follows her into Jordan’s carefully constructed, and safe, world, disrupting Jordan’s orderly life and threatening to uncover all the secrets she’d locked away: secrets she guarded as closely as her heart. Together they discover the only way to build a future is to make peace with the past.

FIRST PLACE WINNER of the 2018 Book Buyers Best Contest, sponsored by the Orange County Chapter of the Romance Writers of America (Contemporary Romance)

It is 1944, and vast armies drive each other back and forth over blood-drenched Europe. 

In the midst of it, two radically different women meet, one a Russian speaking American on a failed diplomatic mission and the other a Soviet sniper. The American, fleeing a sordid past worthy of Dostoyevsky, has murder in her heart but has injured no man. The other, a once-saintly believer, has killed a hundred of them for Stalin. Their politics are worlds apart, but a reckless drunken kiss has tied them together, through church and trench, incense and the smoke of battle. If they survive the war, can they survive the peace?

Andy can’t seem to stop worrying about Kate. Instead of obsessing over things she can’t control, Andy takes on a unique case involving a troubled troop of cadets from the RCMP training academy. The troop is tightly bonded, especially since the recent death of a fellow cadet. They are also hiding a secret, and Andy has been tasked with uncovering it. When Kate unexpectedly shows up as part of the team supporting the troop, Andy has to find a way to balance her job and her heart. As the conspiracy is exposed, a medical emergency brings Kate and Andy closer together even as the troop begins to fall apart.

Following an incident on her last protection assignment, Special Agent Ryan O’Connor’s life is in shambles. Her sort-of ex, Det. Lucia Mendez, was killed, and the guilt she feels is crushing. Her current girlfriend, Special Agent Allison Reynolds, is upset about something, but Ryan doesn’t know what. She’s on light duty because of her own injuries, which severely limits what she’s allowed to do. And what little sleep she’s getting is plagued by horrible nightmares of recent events that confuse as much as terrify her. 

Ryan tries to put her emotions on the back burner and focus on discovering who was responsible for Lucia’s death, but life keeps derailing her efforts. When Ryan finally manages to get to the bottom of who shot her, she inadvertently discovers the truth will indeed set you free. But not until it’s finished with you. And before it does, it’ll royally piss you off.

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?

Airlie Porter has a secret. A deep, dark, destructive secret that threatens to engulf her if she can’t find the courage to face who she really is and who she really wants to be with.

On a working holiday in Ireland, Airlie finds herself embarking on much more than a drunken year guzzling Guinness in Dublin. The previously protected bubble of denial, harbored deep within her, has threatened to pop for many years, but after a harrowing experience in a Dublin bar, the bubble violently explodes. Lost and alone, she turns to Olivia Swanson, the only person she’s ever truly loved. Married and unsettled, Olivia has her own demons to battle. Drawn together by something inexplicable, pulled apart by fear, how long does it take to become you?

When her spies bring news that a swordswoman imprisoned in a neighboring kingdom bears the Royal mark, Princess Kathryn sets out to rescue Aiden, the woman she’s sure is the true heir to the Belstaff throne and the solution to a tyrant’s campaign to overrun her small queendom of Olmstead.

That solution, however, is more of a problem. Too footloose for responsibility and distrustful of Kathryn’s selfless moral code, Aiden is a resistant heir. Her only interests are freedom and adventure. Despite their differences, Kathryn and Aiden discover common ground and a growing attraction as they set out on their mission to defeat the ruthless rogue ruler of Belstaff.

The true test lies ahead, when they find they must free their hearts to finally liberate their queendoms.

Best-selling mystery writer Sam Torres loves jetting around the world, researching her next plot, and enjoying local culture, cuisine, and women. Her next stop: the Big Easy. Tess Arceneaux is a New Orleans native who likes life simple and uncomplicated. That includes shucking oysters for wealthy tourists and singing at the neighborhood bar—no pretense and no pressure. 

When Sam saunters in looking for company in addition to dinner, she sets her sights on Tess. Although Tess is hardly inclined to get involved with a woman who’s just passing through, Sam proves very persuasive. But when casual dates hint at something more, strange and sinister things ensue. Someone doesn’t want them together and will go to extreme lengths to make her point. Will looming danger bring them closer or drive them apart for good?

Wylie Boase is the consummate womanizer. She’s smart and charming and women love her, but she’s never found anyone who makes her want to stick around. Until she goes to Broome, Australia. She feels an immediate attraction to Amarina, the woman who manages the hostel where Wylie’s staying.

Things are great between them, except Amarina isn’t out to her family and Wylie is terrified she’s going to out her unintentionally. Wylie tries to explain to Amarina that she needs to leave before she does something to hurt her, but Amarina thinks she’s just leaving to leave.

Life is hell without Amarina, so Wylie returns to Australia. Will Amarina take her back or is her heart too broken to recover?

After a year of mourning, Montana rancher Miles feels stagnated. When Karen, an outdoor adventures leader, turns up at Miles’s ranch in the bone-chilling winter with a proposition for her to lead an all-woman group into the Montana wilderness, Miles snaps it up like a rare steak. Her body comes awake at the sight of Stormy, the horse wrangler sent by the stock supplier to assist her, but Rachel, one of the guests, reaches into her heart with the warmth of a freshly baked pie. The pack trip leads them deep into an isolated area, where cell phones are useless, and the trip morphs into an excursion with a deadly obstacle. The eight guests, the two outfitters, the trip organizer, and Miles must bring their singular wits to bear to surmount an impasse of not granite but men.

Quinn Burke loves being a bartender. She meets new women every night and has her choice of bed partners. That’s fine with her because she isn’t interested in anything serious after having her heart shattered eighteen months ago.

Grace Everett is perfectly content owning a bookstore, but not so much in her personal life. She wants forever, but hasn’t had much luck with relationships. She’s hoping the newest woman in her life will be the one.

When Quinn’s mother falls ill, something shifts in the twenty-year-old friendship for both women. Quinn struggles with old feelings for Grace, and Grace is seeing Quinn in a different light. They know falling for their best friend is wrong, but could it be the right kind of wrong?

Tobin Parks has been described as a cross between Janice Joplin, Aretha Franklin, Joan Baez, Reba McIntyre, and a little bit of Elvis thrown in for balance. She’s at the top of every chart, and with her sultry voice and bad girl image, she has no trouble attracting screaming fans to her concerts, women to her bed, and paparazzi to her doorstep. 

Kiersten Bradley is riding the wave of her dream. The inventor and CEO of JOLT, a popular energy drink, Kiersten is having a phenomenal year of success. When Tobin Parks comes knocking on her door asking JOLT to be the sponsor of her next guaranteed blockbuster tour, Kiersten passes. Linking her company’s name to Tobin’s is a public relations nightmare waiting to happen. Both professional and personal sparks fly when the two strong-willed, very public women meet. Kiersten will not risk everything she has worked for, even for the chance to make millions, and Tobin is determined to have JOLT has her sponsor.

Praise from RT Book Reviews:

"This book pulls you in from the moment you pick it up. Kiersten and Tobin are very different, but from the moment they get together, the heat and sexual tension are there. Together they must work through their fears in order to have a magical relationship."

Drew Chambliss started her life at age twelve. Everything before then was lost when trauma wiped her past away. She adjusted to a new family and a new life, but something was always missing. 

Cicely Jones lives life big and out loud. She has no room in her life for secrets. When Cicely meets Drew at a music festival, the chemistry is unbelievable. They fit effortlessly. When Drew starts to remember bits of her past and a stranger begins to stalk her, she pushes Cicely away to protect her. When Cicely demands the truth, Drew has to choose between keeping her safe and the past that could destroy them both.

Praise from RT Book Reviews: "Michaels provides thrills and heat aplenty in this unusual and occasionally deeply disturbing story of haunted pasts. The connection between the scarred heroines is palpable, grounding this story and providing the emotional charge to drive the plot forward....Michaels delivers plenty of high-stakes tension as her heroines race to survive the clutches of a genuinely chilling adversary."