Counting for Thunder

By Phillip Irwin Cooper

When struggling actor Phillip Stalworth breaks up with his girlfriend, he returns home to the Deep South to care for his ailing mother and unexpectedly falls for a local carpenter. Working through his past with his complicated family, some old high school chums, and the desperate characters who grace his hometown, Phillip ultimately finds his own voice as his mother is finally regaining hers.

Already an award-winning film, Counting for Thunder was inspired by writer Phillip Irwin Cooper’s personal experience and, like Augusten Burroughs, covers many of the universal themes of love, life, sex, and death with his own brand of gallows wit. Phillip’s three-year quest is a hero’s journey proving we truly can go home again to learn the lessons we should have mastered the first time around.

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Eris

By Winter Pennington

A Bold Strokes Books Short Story

“Consider me a therapist of sorts...one that wields a different set of tools.”

Vampire and dominatrix at Oklahoma City’s local vamp club, The Two Points, Eris offers a glimpse into her life and her hidden motivations for her chosen career.

 

Previously published in Women of the Dark Streets, edited by Radclyffe and Stacia Seaman (Bold Strokes Books, 2012).

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Falling

By Kris Bryant

Big City

Shaylie Beck just wanted to go home.

She managed to snag the last seat on a late flight from New York to Denver. No one thought anything would go wrong. Nobody expected the unimaginable to happen. When the plane crashes, Shaylie fights for her life and is one of only eleven survivors.

Piper Cole wants answers.

Why did her fiancée’s plane crash? She lost everything that night, and the investigation is taking too long. To help cope with losing the woman she loved, Piper attends a support group for survivors.

The friendship Piper and Shaylie develop helps each to heal, but as their feelings turn to love, Shaylie’s torn. She can follow her heart to the woman she loves, or she can come clean about what really happened right before the plane crashed and risk losing Piper forever.

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Rogue Hunt

By Radclyffe

Midnight Hunters | Book 7

Alpha Sylvan Mir‘s efforts to achieve sovereignty for the Weres, Vampires, and other non-humans is made even more difficult when a neighboring wolf Were Pack petitions Sylvan for aid. Someone, or some thing, is raiding the territory of the Snowcrest wolf Weres along the Canadian border. While newly ascended Snowcrest Alpha Zora Constantine, along with Ash, the captain of her guard, awaits the decision of Sylvan's war council, inter-Pack tensions rise. Especially when Ash and Sylvan's centuri Jace develop an unexpected and unwanted primal attraction. 

Are the raids just an attempt to secure more territory by rogue Weres? Or is it all a ruse to bring Sylvan and her mate Drake out into the open where they are vulnerable to enemy attacks? When Sylvan and Drake's war party heads north to hunt the rogue raiders, Ash and Jace must decide between duty and the call of their deepest desires.

A Midnight Hunters novella

Also available in paperback: Rogue Hunt & Enchanted Hunt

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Secrets in a Small Town

By Nicole Stiling

Women in Uniform
Enemies to Lovers Romance
Psychological Thriller
Small Town Romances
Police / Cops
Bodyguard/Protection Romances
Children / Families

Town manager Savannah Castillo has everything under control, just the way she likes it. But when she starts to receive unsolicited gifts and messages from a stranger, her life turns to chaos. Against her better judgment, Savannah accepts Deputy Chief Mackenzie Blake’s help in the investigation and is more than a little annoyed when Mackenzie suggests herself as a part-time, live-in bodyguard.

Savannah isn’t Mackenzie’s favorite person. She’s rude and entitled, and she always has to have the last word. Always. But when she and her daughter Eliana need help, protecting them becomes more than just a job. Mackenzie’s mission is to find the person harassing them before they cause real harm. Savannah’s fleeting and incredibly sexy smiles don’t make the task any easier, and there’s no time for distractions.

Not when someone waits in the shadows, watching and preparing to strike.

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Stormy Seas

By Ali Vali

Military
Women in Uniform
New OrleansĀ 

Commander Berkley Levine and Captain Aidan Sullivan might have a life together if they survive the next mission. They’re undercover hunting down a treasonous ex-vice president and the militia he’s assembled to topple the US government, and the twisting trail grows deadlier at every turn. After an assassination and numerous attacks that could only have happened with inside help, they don’t know who they can trust, and the future looks darker than ever.

Just when they think the trail has run cold, their old enemy, North Korean pilot Jin Umeko, unexpectedly offers to help. Reluctantly, Berkley and Aidan accept the uneasy alliance, even while suspecting Umeko is motivated by vengeance for the loss of her mother and family. If they want to destroy the threat to the country, they’ll have to risk their lives and their futures, but they’ve been prepared for that since the day they put on the uniform.

 

The high-octane follow-up to the best-selling action-romance, Blue Skies.

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The French Lesson

By Kim Baldwin

A Bold Strokes Books Short Story

An American tourist gets an unexpectedly erotic French lesson on the Eurostar train to Paris. Who knew learning a new language could be so much fun?

 

Previously published in Erotic Interludes 3: Lessons in Love, edited by Radclyffe and Stacia Seaman (Bold Strokes Books, 2006).

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The Road to Madison

By Elle Spencer

Reunion Romance
Financial gap/Class disparity
Big City
Second Chance at Love
MulticulturalĀ 
Virgins/First Love
New York City
Friends to Lovers Romance

As the sole heir to her family’s banking empire, a lot is expected of Madison Prescott. Falling in love with her childhood friend Ana Perez was not in the cards. As Madison’s father puts it, “A gay daughter? Married to the maid’s daughter? Running my company? Over my dead body.”

By the time George Prescott dies, it’s been 15 years since Madison and Ana were ripped apart by his lies. They haven’t spoken since, but Madison has spent every minute waiting for this day to come. Unfortunately, it turns out time doesn’t heal all wounds. Why was Madison willing to give up everything in the face of her father’s threats, and why can she never tell Ana the truth about what really separated them?

Caught between a present they can’t trust and a past they can’t forget, Madison and Ana must decide if this is their second chance, or their final heartbreak.

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Word Play

By Radclyffe

A Radclyffe Short Story

In the still dark of the night, a woman writes her desire and dares, at last, to send her words to the woman who inspired them.

 

Previously published in Erotic Interludes 3: Lessons in Love, edited by Radclyffe and Stacia Seaman (Bold Strokes Books, 2006).

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Dangerous Curves

By Larkin Rose

Celebrity
Enemies to Lovers Romance

NASCAR photographer Lacy McGowen never thought she’d capture the moment of death. Unable to watch another race after a fatal crash, she flees Pittsburgh to shoot weddings and capture the images of LA’s young, fashionable, and oh-so-spoiled. She’s desperate to get back to the racetrack but has no idea how to overcome the images that haunt her.

Up-and-coming NASCAR driver Kip Sellars has a death wish. At least that’s what Lacy thinks when her best friend convinces her that cleaning up the young rookie’s image will be a breeze. Kip’s rude, arrogant, and unprofessional, not to mention scruffy, which shouldn’t be nearly as sexy as it is.

What Lacey doesn’t know is that Kip’s penchant for trouble masks a secret she can never tell and a deal with the devil she never should have made. When love waits at the finish line, dangerous curves are a risk worth taking.

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Love's Portrait

By Anna Larner

Financial gap/Class disparity
International Setting
Homecoming
Children / Families
Workplace Romance

Newly appointed art curator Molly Goode is committed to diversifying her museum’s collection. When Georgina Wright, the museum’s aloof benefactor, asks for Molly’s help in identifying the provenance of a 19th century portrait of social activist Josephine Brancaster, Molly welcomes the opportunity, even if it means spending time with the standoffish financier. But passions soon flare as the women uncover the heartbreaking story of doomed lesbian love behind the watercolor painted by Josephine’s lover, Edith Hewitt.

As their love blossoms, Molly is determined to display Edith’s portrait of Josephine and to tell their story in the museum, but she needs the influential Georgina to help convince the board. When an unforeseen twist in the painting’s provenance forces Georgina to confront her own painful past, will history repeat itself, or can Molly and Georgina’s love prevail?

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Model Behavior

By MJ Williamz

Fashion photographer Ronnie Mannis loves women. She loves to photograph them, and she especially loves to sleep with them. But when she meets model Lana Ferguson, she knows she’s found the one for her. Lana has never been happier, and this time it could even be love.

Ronnie is finally ready to settle down, but her ex, Whitney LaRoche, isn’t going to accept that she’s moved on. When Whitney’s jealousy ends in an attack that leaves Lana disfigured, Lana's world comes crashing down. Her career is over, and life as she knows it changes forever. Certain that Ronnie, surrounded by the world’s most desirable women, couldn't possibly want her now, Lana pushes her away. 

Despite her guilt over the price Lana has paid for her past mistakes, Ronnie vows to convince Lana she’s just as beautiful as ever in all the ways that matter most.

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Music on the Wind

By Radclyffe

A Radclyffe Short Story

A blind musician and her lover take a romantic journey where love is the melody that plays for only them.

 

Previously published in In Deep Waters: Cruising the Seas, by Karin Kallmaker and Radclyffe (Bella Books, 2007); republished in Best Lesbian Romance 2009, edited by Radclyffe (Cleis Press).

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Pretending in Paradise

By M. Ullrich

When travelwisdom.com assigns PR specialist Caroline Beckett and travel blogger Emma Morgan to cover a hot new couples retreat, they’re forced to fake a relationship to secure a reservation. Ten days in paradise would be a dream assignment, if only they’d stop arguing long enough to enjoy it. 

Reputations are Caroline’s business. Too bad she was forced out of her previous job when an ex smeared hers all over the office grapevine. She’s never getting involved with a coworker again, especially not one as careless and unprofessional as Emma. 

Emma knows that life is too short to play by the rules. But when she goes too far and a defamation lawsuit puts her job in jeopardy, she has to make nice with Caroline, the image police, and deliver the best story of her career. 

Only pretending to be in love sure feels a whole lot like falling in love. When their story goes public, ambition and privacy collide, and their chance at making a fake relationship real might just be collateral damage.

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Recipe for Love

By Aurora Rey

Food
Small Town Romances
People of Color

A recipe for love:
One cup of homespun country farmer
Two dollops of hotshot city chef
A sprinkle of funky little restaurant
Increase the heat until romance sizzles.

Hannah Little doesn’t have much use for fancy chefs or fancy restaurants, but that’s exactly what Three Willows Farm needs to survive. When a local restaurant wants to feature her produce, she’s thrilled. But the contract means working with an egotistical, and (let’s face it) drop-dead-gorgeous head chef from New York City.

Chef Drew Davis can’t wait to run her own kitchen. If taking a job at some trendy farm-to-table restaurant in the middle of nowheresville will get her there faster, she’s on board. She has no intention of staying though, and that means the feisty farmer who keeps trying to tell her how to do her job can’t be anything more than a pleasant distraction.

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Saints+Sinners 2019

By Paul Willis and Others

An anthology of short fiction featuring the finalist selections from the 2019 Saints + Sinners Literary Festival.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  • Brody’s Family Secret by J.R. Greenwell
  • Figures of Speech by Lewis DeSimone
  • Foxes by Jonathan Harper
  • Omaha by Michael H. Ward
  • Fixing Uppers by Maureen Brady
  • Stones with Wings by Louis Flint Ceci
  • Flawed by Felice Picano
  • The Grove of Mohini by J. Marshall Freeman
  • Shopping for Others by William Christy Smith
  • Solid Gold Saturday Night by W.L. Hodge
  • Washington’s Retreat by Stephen Greco
  • Salvage by Karelia Stetz-Waters
  • Trick Hearts by Michael Graves
  • The Importance of Being Jurassic by Daniel M. Jaffe
  • Arundel’s Name by Jamieson Findlay
  • The Unit by Aaron Hughes
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Survivor's Guilt and Other Stories

By Greg Herren

New OrleansĀ 

A Katrina survivor waits for rescue on his roof in the brutal heat, reflecting on the life choices that brought him to this moment. A young woman discovers there’s more to her perfect man than she thought. A gay journalist travels to Italy to interview his teen idol, only to discover a darkness in the Tuscan hills. A gay man cleans his home, reflecting on his sociopathic criminal mother. Chanse MacLeod returns to his hometown to help his younger brother, accused of murder. A daughter keeps her father’s legacy alive while hiding his darkest secrets. 

Including five new stories written for this collection (along with the first-ever Chanse MacLeod short story), Greg Herren’s tales of murder, crime, and the darkness that lives inside all of us are evocative of the proud Southern Gothic tradition of writers and are now available, for the first time, in a single collection.

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The House

By Eden Darry

Sadie, Fin, and their two children were a perfectly ordinary family. Even if Fin felt taken for granted sometimes. Even if their introverted son, Liam, had terrible nightmares and knew things he shouldn’t. 

But everything changes the night Sadie is viciously assaulted by former client Lance Sherry. Sherry knows where they live, and when the police fail to catch him, Sadie and Fin are forced to run. They think they’ve found the perfect place to start over. The house is everything Fin dreamed of, but as they settle in, Sadie  discovers their home may not be what it seems, and daughter Lucy’s imaginary friend might not be imaginary at all. Or even a friend. With Lance Sherry hunting them, the house could be the least of their problems. He’s coming to finish what he started. And he won’t stop until he finds Sadie.

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