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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

Aerin McLeary’s post-divorce Finger Lakes vacation is interrupted when an ominous vibration shocks her entire body, leaving her with the strange new ability to read minds along with an extreme sensitivity to sound. Fearing the consequences if her condition becomes public, Aerin has no choice but to turn to her childhood best friend and first love for help. 

College professor Olivia Ando is not happy to see Aerin again after their disastrous breakup, but she can’t resist a great research challenge. When they discover that Aerin’s body is the host for an alien being, they race against time to find the truth and stop an impending explosion. 

Will Aerin and Olivia be able to save the world or will Aerin become an unwitting instrument in the alien agenda before she can tell Olivia how she truly feels?

For cattle rancher Laramie Bowman, family always comes first. After her brother is injured in a rodeo accident, she accepts a lucrative position in remote Godoroye, Russia, to help pay his medical bills. When she meets the woman assigned to be her interpreter, however, her heart might end up getting lost in translation.

Anastasia Petrova would prefer to remain on the front lines of the seemingly futile fight for gay rights in her conservative homeland, but dwindling finances force her to leave Moscow to take a full-time job working as a translator for a pair of American trainers on a start-up cattle ranch. If she comes out to her new coworkers, she could lose the job she so desperately needs. But when she meets gorgeous cowgirl Laramie, how can she possibly deny her feelings?

When her cell phone rings, Giselle Cutler answers it—and finds herself speaking to a dead woman.

As Giselle and her partner Marta Perry get ready for the birth of their baby, the last thing they expect is to be drawn into another mystery. But there’s been a horrible mix-up with identification of a body found in the bay, and Marta’s supervisor Chrissy Burton is very much alive and desperate for their help.

Intrigue turns deadly as they uncover illegal organ transplants, black market sales, and ties to international terrorism. The killer is willing to do anything to keep the public from knowing how the transplant system really works, even if it means killing Giselle and Marta.

When one woman sets out to make her lover's dream come true with a sexy, secret present, she ends up on the receiving end of a hot fantasy.

Previously published in Change of Pace: Erotic Interludes (Bold Strokes Books, 2004).

Naos has come to Calamity, and chaos has come with her. Cordelia had enough problems without teaming up with former enemies in order to defeat a mad goddess. And she doesn’t yet know that the Storm Lord has been resurrected in a new body. On the plains, the prophet Lydia is convinced that Fajir is the one chosen to stop a massive firestorm in the future, if only Fajir wasn’t so set on killing everyone around her.

With their murderous leader dead, hostilities have ceased among the drushka, but the long-living aliens are slow to adapt. The last thing they want is a drushkan king with powers none of them dreamed of before.

For corporate consultant Paige Leighton, the ends always justify the means. She does whatever it takes to make her clients' businesses profitable. She has no room for sentimentality in business or in her personal life and loves nothing better than pushing others out of their comfort zones.

Kassidy Drake has spent a lifetime creating her comfort zone, and she has no intention of leaving. Her home is as orderly and as beautiful as the rows of lavender surrounding it, but she needs to make Lavender Lane Farm solvent or she might lose everything. She agrees to listen to Paige’s advice as long as Paige doesn’t expect much more from her than changing the font on her business cards.

Accompanied by the buzz of honeybees and the scent of lavender, Paige and Kassidy must find a way to compromise if they want to save Lavender Lane Farm—and find a way to make room for love along the way.

Maggie McShay wants a little magic in her life. Something more than the drab existence of going to work and coming home to a cat that barely tolerates her.

When she spontaneously replies to a want ad asking for someone to take care of a fairy tale cottage, it turns out magic wasn’t as far away as she thought. Maggie discovers she wasn’t who she thought she was either. Recalcitrant fairy tale shepherd and ladies’ woman Kody Wilk shows Maggie a world she knew nothing about…a world they need to save before the villains of the world’s fairy tales take over New York City.

It’s up to Maggie, her grumpy, shape-shifting cat, a dwarf hell-bent on finding romance, and Kody to set the fairy tale world to rights. The big bad wolf has nothing on Maggie McShay.

Fifteen years is a long time. Long enough to forget the past, forge ahead, and create a terrific life. Bella Hunt has done exactly that, complete with a successful career, a gaggle of close friends, and a home she loves. Life is good. 

Or it was, until her teenage nightmare and the bane of her high school existence shows up for Bella’s class on conflict resolution. Easton Evans, in all her pretty, blond, my-parents-are-surgeons glory, throws Bella into an existential tailspin as her unpleasant memories from her past come screeching back. Easton doesn’t even recognize Bella, and what’s worse, Easton is...different somehow. Softer, kinder. And still unfairly attractive. None of it computes in Bella’s head. She’s hated Easton for fifteen years, done her best to scrub the past away. But now here it is. The past. Sitting in her classroom and waiting for Bella to teach her how to resolve a conflict of the heart.

After appearing in Best Gay Love Stories, HarringtonGMFQ, Q Review, and Off the Rocks, Lenny and his partner, Dave, return in a hotbed of manhood and jealousy. 

Lenny is managing a failing bookstore and struggling to keep his promise of fidelity to Dave. He flirts relentlessly with grad student Ian until he discovers that Ian’s ambivalence masks something personal and devastating. Caught up in a whirlwind of sex and lies, Lenny and Dave’s relationship spins out of control. Lenny clings to Dave’s unassuming manhood in hopes of keeping himself grounded, but when another seductive stranger becomes too tempting to resist, Lenny and Dave face the ultimate challenge.

For Molly Kennan, senior year is already an epic disaster. It feels like the whole school knows she made out with Lily at that party, and now she’s accidentally outed herself as a lesbian. Her ex-best friend is trying to ruin her life, and school generally sucks. All she wants is to drown her sorrows in sweet potato fries, but she finds herself tongue-tied by the diner’s new waitress, Zia. 

Zia is way out of Molly’s league. Older, beautiful, and definitely way more sophisticated. It’s probably just wishful thinking, but Molly can’t help wondering if maybe Zia is flirting with her. Despite Zia’s always-there boyfriend, Molly falls hard for her, and Zia says she feels the same way. So then why doesn’t Zia break up with her boyfriend, and why does she keep so many secrets? 

Then there’s Lily, who she can’t seem to stop accidentally kissing. When your head and your heart are saying two different things, which one should you listen to?

Penelope Huntingdon-Stewart, highly successful clean-eating food vlogger and owner of the website Penny’s Kitchen, is looking for a new direction for her brand. At least that’s what she tells herself when she retreats to Axedale to record a new web series and write a cookbook. That sounds so much better than damage control after her only live, on-screen interview ends in an oh-so-public epileptic seizure.

Farmer Sam McQuade is immediately attracted to Penelope, but the ultra femme and high maintenance city girl seems way out of her league. When Penelope struggles to get her health on track, Quade insists on being her knight in shining armor, much to Penelope’s displeasure. Quade is annoyingly good-looking, not to mention kindhearted, and falling for her would be so easy. If only it didn’t force Penelope to face the secrets she’s hidden from everyone. Can love alone bring a complex city girl and a simple rural farmer together?