Perfectly Matched

Lexi Bradshaw is in the business of fantasies. She manages Hotel Fantasy, where guests can stay in themed rooms designed to help put the spark back into their relationship. Lexi has made it a personal rule to never indulge in the many pleasures of the resort. But when a mysterious woman checks in with an intriguing proposition, she challenges Lexi’s rule, unlocks a steamy past, and opens the gate to her desires.

Molly Taylor has a fantasy in mind that only Lexi can fulfill. However, convincing her to participate could prove challenging. But Molly has an ace up her sleeve, or in this case, a one-of-a-kind queen of hearts, whose image is none other than Lexi.

How did a stranger come to possess a card that represents such an intimate part of Lexi’s life? All the answers Lexi seeks and more will be revealed over an erotic game of cards.

So, tell me, do you want to play?

Jamie Carr recently inherited her aunt’s struggling vineyard, nestled in the picturesque hills of Northern California. With help from Jamie's slightly out-of-control best friend, Kali, and her aunt’s surviving lover, Kate, the vineyard is about to get a makeover.

Being stuck on a fifty-acre vineyard for over a century can be a bit mind-numbing, especially for Ruth, the resident ghost, who never wanted to be there in the first place. Fortunately, as time has passed, so has the ownership of the property, and if the three friends who now live in the old Victorian house are any indication, things are about to get much more interesting. 

Intrigued and entertained, Ruth decides to introduce herself to Jamie on a beautiful full moon night. The attraction that surges between them is immediate…but seriously, a relationship with a ghost? That’ll never work.

To the community, Aradia Burke is the premier dog trainer and breeder of Anatolian shepherds in the region. Whether it is training the family pet or a top-tier working K9, Aradia is the go-to person. The truth is buried beneath centuries of closely held secrets. Aradia’s birthright and duty is to train the Guardians, those special dogs that keep the world safe from demons. When pre-cognitive Mercy Burroughs has a vision and Aradia arrives on her doorstep, her careful life unravels. Demons are close to breaching one of the portals and will threaten the Western Washington Guardian team and K9, Clemons. It’s up to Aradia, Mercy, and the K9s to stop them before darkness falls over the world.

Suri Daniels, a beautiful and troubled woman, is the descendant of a family of supernaturally gifted women, known as the Blessed, and literally holds keys to gateways between the earthly plane and seven powerful gods. A series of tragic losses and a stipulation in her grandmother’s will has her returning to the family’s home in New Orleans, unaware that she will need to step into the role of Orisha priestess and escape the attention of a powerful demon. To top it all off, she must accept the help of a Cambion—Lyla Jefferies, a dark supernatural being she has spent her life avoiding. What’s worse? She can’t help being drawn to Layla in ways she doesn’t understand.

Being the child of a top-tier demon and a human isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. For the past two hundred years, Layla Jefferies has lived a life of quietude. When an unknown force draws her out of seclusion, the pull is too strong to ignore. Layla is tasked to assist with protecting the gateways and saving Suri from becoming a vengeful demon’s avatar. Falling in love with her is definitely not part of the plan.

Layla and Suri are brought together by fate to defeat the darkness threatening to tear their world apart. What they don’t expect to discover is a love that might set them free.

Content advisory: Opening chapter includes a depiction of sexual violence and rape.

Dear Reader,

I wrote The Blessed to honor the resilience, strength, and faith of my community’s ancestors. To tell a story, in my own way, of their survival in a world that treated them as less than the lowest of creatures. A world that continues to methodically strip away our sense of selves as humans and our culture as a people. Layla is the embodiment of all People of Color, particularly Women of Color, in this country and the suffering they have endured, which was violent, painful, and has lasted for generations. I choose to honor all those women like Layla, her mother, and grandmother who survived and rather than turn to violence themselves, chose to stand tall and lift their community up.

The Blessed begins with an act of physical violence to represent how some People of Color were brought into the world. Just as we survived our violent past, so does Layla. Just as we did not allow what was wrought upon us to break us, to take away our capacity to love and cherish others the way we were not, Layla also does not let her circumstances break her. She turns that violence into the resolve to help her community. In the process, she finds a love that strengthens her even more.

You may feel discomfort when reading Layla’s beginnings as it mirrors the pain of the past. Atrocity and its generational impacts should not feel comfortable or easy. But her story is ultimately an uplifting one of family, faith, culture, and love that I believe you will enjoy. I hope you see The Blessed as honoring the struggles of my ancestors and accepting the blessing of life, faith, and love that they have bestowed upon me as a result of their survival.

Forever thankful, always grateful, abundantly blessed,

Anne Shade

In the year 2597, Earth’s colony world of Mariposa is shared with an alien race, the Tipruii. When war breaks out between the human colony and the aliens, Fiona learns that her future will be the price of peace. To save her people, she will be the tribute in a treaty marriage to the Tipruii princess, Simaala, and spend the rest of her days on the other side of the wall between their races.

As peace hangs in the balance, Simaala and Fiona navigate the confusion of new cultures and new desires to find a love that will transcend their differences. But not everyone wants peace, and Fiona is in more danger than she knows, putting all their plans and the fate of the human race in jeopardy.