Shadows of Steel

By Suzie Clarke

Las Vegas
The Moon Shadow Series | Book 2
Amnesia
Weddings
Bisexual
Private Investigator
People of Color

All Rachel and Claire want is a peaceful life together, but danger strikes, threatening to shatter their hopes and dreams, putting their hearts, and their lives in jeopardy. Eshee Yumiko, head of SeaBridge, seeks revenge for the damage Rachel’s computer program trigger has caused, vowing to get even, no matter what it takes. Derrick refuses to accept Claire’s relationship with Rachel and her continued rejection of his advances. His escalating fixation on her slowly turns into a deadly obsession no one sees coming.

As their worlds collide, and choices come back to haunt them, Rachel and Claire realize that a strong love demands a strong heart.

The sequel to Moon Shadow

Read more

The Clinch

By Nicole Disney

Coming Out
Good girls/Bad girls
Rivals
Sports
Big City
New York City
People of Color
Enemies to Lovers Romance
Celebrity

Eden Bauer grew up in a rough part of New York with an unsafe home life and took refuge in the neighborhood Taekwondo dojang. When the master of the dojang offered to train Eden as a live-in student, he started her on a journey that would eventually lead her to become the UFC featherweight champion of the world.

Eden loves competing and coaching the underprivileged kids of her community, but just as she’s getting comfortable with her champion title, a new martial artist from a legendary family comes roaring onto the scene with a dynasty on her shoulders. Brooklyn Shaw is a loud, cocky, aggressive Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu genius who’s also unfortunately pretty dreamy.

Brooklyn and Eden’s rivalry attracts worldwide attention, but as they spend time together, Eden sees past Brooklyn’s showmanship to who she really is. They ought to be perfect for one another, but can either really fall in love with the person standing in the way of her dreams?

Read more

The Last First Kiss

By Julie Cannon

Second Chance at Love
Vacation

According to newly single Kelly Newsome, whoever came up with the idea of a lesbian resort located on a warm tropical island is a goddess. Kelly’s bound and determined to experience everything, and everyone, the island has to offer.

Matt Parker is on her first “real grown up” vacation since her wife died six years ago, leaving her to raise their young son alone. With no responsibilities to tie her down, Matt’s not looking for anything other than a good time and toe-curling, no strings attached sex.

Neither one expects to meet the woman who could give them their last first kiss.

Read more

The Mandolin Lunch

By Missouri Vaun

Music

Children’s book illustrator Garet Allen has just escaped her most recent ill-fated relationship and accepts a temporary teaching position at a rural public school. After all, how hard can teaching kids about art really be? Apparently, pretty hard because her first day on the job is a complete disaster, and that has nothing at all to do with the fact that Tess Hill, the captivating and overly conscientious music teacher, shares the same classroom.

Tess, a dedicated teacher and single mother focused on creating a stable life for her daughter, is immediately attracted to the handsome, cavalier Garet for all the wrong reasons. Everything about Garet says short-term, and Tess refuses to consider anything less than forever. She’s not about to give her heart away to someone she can’t count on.

Can Garet and Tess survive three months sharing the same classroom without killing each other…or falling in love?

Read more

Thor: Daughter of Asgard

By Genevieve McCluer

Other Worlds
College Life
Magic

Hannah Olsen just wanted to be an accountant. She met the girl of her dreams and was more than ready to settle in for an ordinary life. Then she found out she was the reincarnation of Thor. Suddenly, she’s thrown into a world of magic and intrigue, unexpected attraction, and a mystery she’s got to unravel. All she can count on are her friends and her partner, and perhaps her new crush. With their help, she just might be able to find her way in this new life, and maybe stop an evil plot along the way.

 

Praise from Publishers Weekly: "Norse mythology intrudes on a bubbly romance in this light adventure from McCluer. Hannah Olsen, an athletic, heavy drinking recent graduate of Portland State University, meets bombshell bartender Emily Johnson on a night out, and the pair soon start dating...Soon thereafter, two burly, armor-clad men accost Hannah and Emily, claiming the women are reincarnations of husband and wife Norse gods, Thor and Sif....Readers will come for the gender bending mythology and stay for the light romance."

Read more

Veterinary Technician

By Nancy Wheelton

Veterinarians

Veterinary Technician, Valerie Connor, longs for love, but as hard as she tries, her relationships never last. As a single mom, Val’s determined not to give her heart to someone who doesn’t also love her daughter and their small-town life. When an intriguing school teacher moves to town, Val hopes it just might work out this time.

After her career and love life crash and burn, Ronnie Yakimoto escapes the big city and surprises herself by enjoying life in tiny Thresherton, Saskatchewan. She’s there to teach and learn to live a stable, peaceful life. But she’s just gotten clean after hitting rock bottom, and nothing is more important than staying clean, not even love.

When a stable of horses is threatened, Val and Ronnie must work together against the odds to save them, and maybe even themselves, along the way.

Read more

Bliss

By Fiona Zedde

A woman who has never been truly satisfied....

Bliss Sinclair's life of dull routine and unhappiness makes her imagination the only place she can find fulfillment. Until she meets Regina, a provocative writer who pulls her out of her head and into a sensuously real world alive with flavors and sensations beyond any she’d ever imagined. This real world is exciting and rich with irresistible pleasures, but Sinclair quickly learns these pleasures are not what they seem.

She discovers that lust can simply be another illusion, and passion without love can poison just as easily as it redeems. To cleanse herself of Regina’s poison, she escapes to Jamaica, the place where she was born, in hopes that the sun and ocean breezes will heal both old and new wounds. But among the brilliant flowers and crystal waters of the island, Sinclair finds ghosts from her past as well as strangers who challenge her very understanding of life and love.

From hidden grottos bubbling with desire to dangerous streets where violence is just a breath away, Sinclair must fight for the love she deserves, fight for herself, and for the life of satisfaction that was meant to be hers all along.

Read more

16 Steps to Forever

By Georgia Beers

If there’s one thing Brooke Sullivan knows for sure it’s that people let you down, but that hasn’t stopped her from going after the life she wants. In a new city, with a new job and a new start as a high-end real estate agent, she’s finally back on her feet. The last thing she needs is a distraction. Not her volatile neighbors, not a damn stray cat, and certainly not the flaky, infuriatingly adorkable girl-next-door property stager she has to work with.

Macy Carr believes in soul mates and true love. She knows because she had it all until a freak accident took the love of her life. She’s doing okay though, surrounded by her family, her animals, and her BFFs. Home staging gives her a sense of control, and she’s made her job her happy place. If only the super sexy, super cold new agent working for Macy’s biggest client wasn’t determined to ruin that.

Read more

All I Want for Christmas

By Georgia Beers and Others

Holidays

In Triple Dog Dare by Georgia Beers, Sasha Wolfe has been talking up her new girlfriend to her overbearing mother for months, and when her skeptical sister dares her to invite this new squeeze over for family Christmas, Sasha accepts the challenge. After all, how hard can it be to bring your nonexistent girlfriend home for the holidays?

In Hustle & Bustle by Maggie Cummings, Hannah Monroe is ready to dazzle customers with her pop-up shop at NYC’s winter holiday market. NYPD beat cop Toby Beckett, who just wants to protect and serve, barely notices the spirit of the season until events keep pushing her into Hannah’s path.

In A Christmas Miracle by Fiona Riley, Mira Donahue’s bar, Mirage, is the hottest Christmas party venue in Boston, despite Mira’s secret: she hates Christmas. When self-described Queen of Carols Courtney Rivers books Mirage for her company’s holiday party, she clashes with Mira over the plans. Then a freak storm strands them in the bar, and more than miracles abound.

Read more

From the Woods

By Charlotte Greene

Psychological Thriller

When Fiona’s friends drag her along on a two-week backpacking trip in the remote Colorado mountains, she’s pleasantly surprised to learn that she’ll be spending that entire trip with their attractive trail guide, Roz.

Once in the woods, however, far from anything resembling civilization, something or someone comes for them.

With their lives in danger, Fiona and Roz are forced to set off on their own to look for help, drawing the threat from the woods and away from their friends but directly toward them.

 

Praise from Publishers Weekly: "[N]onstop action and vivid depictions of the wilderness keeps the pages turning...[A] satisfying diversion."

Read more

Heart of the Storm

By Nicole Stiling

Juliet Mitchell is doing just fine. Her career with the Shell Creek Police Department is on track, her son, Declan, is amazing, and for the first time in a long time, life is simple, if unremarkable. Until a dead body is found outside the Shell Creek Library.

Sienna Bennett doesn’t know how she ended up here. She’s overwhelmed as a big city victim advocate, her soon-to-be-ex-husband is living in their pool house, and she feels like her stepson, Declan, blames her for the state of their family. She needs something else to focus on.

Juliet and Sienna might share a history with Declan’s dad, but they’re nothing more than friendly acquaintances. When they’re thrown together in the midst of the biggest investigation Shell Creek has ever seen, neither anticipates a forbidden attraction. It definitely isn’t worth upending the life they’ve worked so hard for. Is it?

Read more

If You Dare

By Sandy Lowe

BDSM
Small Town Romances

Lauren West is stuck. Stuck in her hometown over the holidays. Stuck in a Wi-Fi dead zone. Stuck watching her longtime crush make out with her ex-best-friend. The small town of Sunrise Falls thrives on gossip, and everyone’s talking about the mess she’s made of her life back in San Francisco. One festively decorated bar and two vodka tonics later, a game of truth or dare seems like just the thing to distract her. Until the dare to seduce the next woman who walks through the door brings her face-to-face with librarian Emma Prescott.

Emma’s a good girl with a mind dirty enough to make a sex worker blush. A painful experience as a teenager has left her anxious and afraid of her own desire, but when gorgeous Lauren West kisses her senseless, Emma thinks maybe she’s finally found the perfect person to help her break free. That is, until Lauren comes clean about what really turns her on and reveals passions far darker than Emma ever anticipated.

Reader Advisory: If You Dare contains explicit fantasies of non-consent.

Read more

Love Changes Everything

By Jaime Maddox

Coming Out
Virgins/First Love
Homecoming

Dr. Samantha Brooks is having a midlife crisis. Her twin sons are about to go off to college, leaving her struggling to find direction. On top of that, she’s being deposed for a lawsuit. And just when it can’t get any worse, she finds out her lawyer is Kirby Fielding, the woman she had a brief but dazzling affair with just before starting medical school. Sam didn’t have the courage to follow her heart back then, or to reach out to Kirby since, but now she’s ready for a change. She only hopes Kirby will give her another chance to prove that love changes everything.

Read more

Not This Time

By MA Binfield

Celebrity

Sofia is tired: of touring, of her record company, of her fake boyfriend. After collapsing on stage, she’s forced to recuperate at her beach house.

Madison feels settled for the first time in a long while. She’s back home in Miami and her interior design business is thriving. So what if she’s a little lonely, the universe will send her someone when she’s ready. But Madison soon discovers the universe has a sick sense of humor when Sofia turns out to be her new client. Once upon a time, they were bandmates in America’s hottest girl band. Their biggest secret? They were in love—the forever and ever kind—until Sofia told Madison she was going solo.

Flung back into each other’s lives, each is forced to face the hurt they caused the other. But maybe, just maybe, Sofia’s new single, “Not This Time,” is the universe playing matchmaker again.

Read more

The Dubious Gift of Dragon Blood

By J. Marshall Freeman

Children / Families
Royalty
Young Adult
Enemies to Lovers Romance
Friends & Community
Coming Out
Virgins/First Love
People of Color
Other Worlds
Multicultural 
Big City

High schooler Crispin Haugen already has so many identities to sort through—Asian, Scandinavian, not to mention gay. Then a messenger from another world arrives to tell him he also carries the blood of dragons in his veins.

Transported to the Realm of Fire, where dragons and humans live in harmony, Crispin falls for Davix, a brooding, nerdy scholar. But dark mysteries threaten the peace of Crispin’s new world. Without warning, dragons from the Realm of Air unleash a bloody war.

With everything he cares about on the line, Crispin must find the courage to fight...for justice and for love.

The writing of this book was supported by the Toronto Arts Council with funding from the City of Toronto.

 

Advance praise for THE DUBIOUS GIFT OF DRAGON BLOOD:
"Freeman does a great job of building an unfamiliar environment without overwhelming the reader with superfluous details....VERDICT From swoon-worthy romances to epic dragon fights, this has a little bit of everything for readers to enjoy." —School Library Journal
 
"Sixteen-year-old Crispin Haugen is chosen to be the Dragon Groom who will
mate with the Dragon Queen in order to maintain the Five...Further complicating matters is the growing attraction between Crispin and the Prime Magistrate’s handsome and devout pupil Davix. The recurring emphasis on personal agency and consent is a pleasant surprise, especially as it is applied to both intimate relationships and the chosen-one trope." —Kirkus Reviews
 
"In J. Marshall Freeman’s fantasy novel, Crispin wants to leave the shadow of his sophomore year, when he was outed and lost his first boyfriend, behind him. He takes comfort in starting his junior year as part of the popular clique, even if their ringleader treats him as a filler....Most concerned with a boy who has always felt out of place, The Dubious Gift of Dragon Blood is a young adult fantasy that’s primed for a sequel." —Foreword Reviews
Read more

The Found Jar

By Jaycie Morrison

Close Quarters
Virgins/First Love
Friends & Community
Age Gap
Financial gap/Class disparity
Food
Vacation
Blue Collar
Small Town Romances
Friends to Lovers Romance
Big City

Horror fiction writer Emily Harris just wants to be left alone with her work. But plagued by writer's block, she reluctantly agrees to join her friends at their luxurious beach house for the summer. Maybe a change of scenery will inspire her.

Local housekeeper Beck Reynolds keeps her life simple—saving for a boat and avoiding the town bullies while she attends art classes. Meeting successful but prickly Emily leaves her feeling awestruck, and she wants to make a good impression, even though Emily seems determined to run her off. But Beck's not the one who is just visiting.

Emily knows all about loss, and guilt, and rejection. Opening her heart has always gotten her hurt, and she’s absolutely not letting anyone in, even someone good, or good-looking, like Beck.

Read more

Aurora

By Emma L McGeown

When 32-year-old Elena Ricci wakes up in the hospital, the last thing she recalls is walking home from work the night before. Except the night before turns out to be eight years ago and Elena has no memory of the time she’s lost. Family feuds, breakups, and sexual awakenings—all forgotten. For Keelin Jax, Elena’s wife, the long nightmare only continues upon Elena’s awakening when Keelin becomes a platonic roommate overnight. While Elena struggles to adjust to her new present and find the life she left behind, someone from Elena’s past finds a way to seize the opportunity after years of silence.

Read more

Avenging Avery

By Sheri Lewis Wohl

Three hundred years ago, a vengeful vampire turned Isa Meyer into the undead, and Isa has been planning her revenge every day since. That same vampire destroyed the love of Deputy Sheriff Jeni Denton’s life, and she vows to annihilate every vampire she can.

Amid a rash of local disappearances, Isa’s and Jeni’s paths cross, and a common enemy forces them into an unlikely partnership. If their growing feelings for each other have any chance to survive, they must do the one thing they both fear the most: trust. Will that be enough to defeat a vampire set on destruction? Or will it take love to conquer all?

Read more