Is it possible to overcome a lifetime of barriers and finally take a chance on love?

Jamie Callahan handles her job as an investment analyst, her distant relationship with her niece, and her romantic liaisons with a cool head and unaffected heart. Until she meets Kate Brown, a woman who threatens to push aside Jamie's protective defenses and uncover the emotions hiding underneath.

Kate has a mask for every occasion. She wears them to please her parents, to move ahead in her career, to fit in the right social circles. She meets with Jamie because she needs funding for an Olympic-caliber horse, but instead she finds someone who sees beyond the image Kate projects and brings out her true desires.

From the boardroom to the show ring in Portland, Oregon, Jamie and Kate routinely face uncertainty and challenge in their careers but never in romance. As their growing attraction threatens to expose vulnerabilities both try to hide, will they decide the stakes are too high or that love is worth the risk?

No risk is too high. No adventure too daunting.

Emery Lawson reinvents herself after another near-death experience prompts a thorough reevaluation of her priorities. Empowered to live a life of no regrets, she casts aside all that is familiar to face her fears and chase her dreams. But as she heads for the wilds of Alaska, romance is definitely not on her agenda, because she's convinced she's incapable of falling in love.

Pasha Dunn has learned to expect the unexpected in her job with an adventure outfitter in the remote Alaskan interior. Adaptability is essential in such a savage and unforgiving landscape. But she's woefully unprepared when her infallible intuition tells her that client Emery Lawson is the soul mate she's been waiting for all her life. Emery is clearly determined to remain unattached, and her high-risk vagabond lifestyle is too far outside Pasha's comfort zone.

All that they think they want and know will be challenged when they are thrust into a nightmare of survival and endurance high above the Arctic Circle.

Tyler Logan reluctantly agrees to pose as the girlfriend of her in-the-closet gay BFF at his company's annual retreat. Stupid idea, but simple. She'd done it a dozen times before.

Kristin Walker doesn't want to go on this trip, be the perfect hostess, or be the boss's wife anymore, but finds herself trapped in all three.

When an unexpected turn of events transforms their three days in paradise into a fight for survival, both women struggle against the odds and their own fears. However, the biggest challenge is their growing attraction toward each other and the question of who will rescue whom?

Some of the hottest writers of gay erotica spin tales of Riding the Rails.Trains are so romantic. The clock fades from your mind as the country spreads out before you. Forget catching up on your readingyou have scenery to inspire you and time for an innocent flirtation or two. Or ten. Maybe not so innocent and more than a flirtation.It could be the guy in the cargo shorts across the aisle, sleeping with his legs just far enough apart. It could be the blond in the tight muscle shirt and baggy sweatpants heading for the bathroom. It could even be the handsome stranger sitting opposite you who chats you up and invites you to the dining car with yet another invitation in his eyes. This train will take you places you never dreamed of going.

The policewoman got shot and she's bleeding everywhere. Get someone here in one hour or I'm going to put her out of her misery.

An ultimatum that forever changes the lives of police officer Sam Lucas and Dr. Kate Myles.

When heavy snowfall isolates the small English village of Birchenlow, a violent robbery shatters the community. Taken as a hostage and stranded with the increasingly desperate criminals, Sam is seriously injured during an ill-fated escape attempt. Already struggling to save the lives of the villagers caught up in the raid, Kate volunteers to walk straight into the lion's den. Cut off from help, with only each other to rely on, Sam and Kate must find a way to fight the odds and stay alive if the growing attraction between them is to survive.

Every sorority has its secrets...

And college freshman Ginger Carmichael couldn't care less. She has more important things on her mind, like maintaining her perfect GPA. No matter how much she can't stand the idea of the cliques and the matching colors, there's something about the girls of Alpha Beta Omega—their beauty, confidence, and unapologetic sexuality—that draws Ginger in. But once initiation begins, Ginger finds that her pledge is more than a bond of sisterhood, it's a lifelong pact to serve six bloodthirsty demons with a lot more than nutritional needs.

Despite her fears, Ginger falls hard for the immortal queen of this nest, and as the semester draws to a close, she sees that protecting her family from the secret of her forbidden love is much harder than studying for finals.

Joel Patterson should be happier than ever. He's just returned from a two-week vacation in London, where he met Philip, who might be the man of his dreams. Instead, Joel's heading to Maine for his mother's funeral. He quits his job to fulfill one last request for his mother: unload his parents' albatross of an RV by delivering it to an old family friend--in California.

Somehow, Joel's high school "friend" Lincoln has invited himself along on the ride--and into Joel's bed. The other person who's invited herself along? The ghost of his mother, who still has plenty to say about her son's judgment (or lack thereof). Joel has to get the RV to San Francisco, get rid of Lincoln, and get back to Philip. It would also make him feel better if he learned what's keeping his mother tied to this earthly plane. However Joel manages it, the route is likely to be anything but straight.

Four acclaimed erotic authors re-imagine the past...welcome to the hidden queer history of men loving men not so very longand centuriesago.

In "Heaven on Earth," Lambda Literary Award-winner editor and author Simon Sheppard evokes a noirish Depression-era setting for Wichita rich kid Eli who, with an innocent young gas station attendant as his sidekick, embarks on a bloody, lust-fueled crime spree: Bonnie and Clyde meet Leopold and Loeb.

In "Camp Allegheny," Lambda finalist Jeff Mann recounts a clandestine Civil War romance between two Rebel soldiers whose passionate lovemaking survives bitter winters, life-threatening sickness, and bloody fighting during the real-life Battle of Allegheny in 1861 and the Battle of McDowell in 1862.

In "Tender Mercies," Dale Chase imagines the world of young Luke Farrow, a failure at prospecting during the California Gold Rush who succeeds in the more lucrative role of camp boy, where physical violence is as much a part of a rough, raw world as is selling sex for nuggets of golduntil a surprisingly tender man comes into Luke's life.

In "The Valley of Salt," David Holly blends legend with lust in the beautiful city of Gomorrah more than 3,000 years ago, where the Priests of Ball summon a beautiful young man as a temple sacrifice which means he's now the indoor sport of the legendary city's sexually potent warriors, until taken captive during the Battle of the Vale of Siddom.

In the high stakes world of women's tennis, love means nothing. Or at least that's how Sinjin Smythe sees it. Then she begins to fall for her friend and former doubles partner Laure Fortescue. Having had her heart broken by one player, Sinjin isn't willing to have it happen again. The talented but oft-injured Brit enters Wimbledon fighting her feelings—and struggling to resurrect her career.

Laure Fortescue has fame, fortune, and a ranking inside the top ten. She has everything she ever wanted. Everything except Sinjin Smythe. As a rule, Laure doesn't date other players. A rule she would gladly break if it means winning Sinjin's heart.

Both women reach Wimbledon desperate to claim tennis's crown jewel—Sinjin because it would be her greatest victory, Laure because it could be her last.

Where does love fit in a game that only one can win?

The lives of two women and the community that shelters them shatter in a single night of violence.

Ex-gang member Mica Butler is running from a past that just may kill her if she's ever caught. Paramedic and ordained priest Flynn Edwards struggles to recover her faith in herself and find absolution for her greatest failure. Sheriff Reese Conlon fights to embrace the joy of new life while a dark threat bears down on her partner, Doctor Tory King.

In one explosive night, the destines of all involved change forever as a man with nothing to lose threatens to take anyone in his path with him to the grave.

Seventh in the award-winning Provincetown Tales

Kendal Richoux's life began during the reign of Egypt's only female pharaoh. After accepting the opportunity to drink the elixir of the sun, Kendal becomes immortal and the Genesis Clan's slayer. History has taught her the dangers of getting too close to anyone who hasn't harnessed the power of time.

After many years, she returns to New Orleans to finish a job she's trained for all her life. It's time for her to face her brother Henri, and it will have dire consequences to mankind if she fails.

Piper Marmande believes Kendal has come to take over the company her family has built over generations. As Kendal prepares for the most important battle of her long life, Piper does her best to uncover every one of Kendal's secrets, making herself a distraction Kendal can't afford as she hunts Henri and Ora, the vampire who seduced him to a life of darkness.

Contemporary Gay Romances is the third collection of short fiction by legendary novelist and memoirist, Felice Picano (The Lure, Like People in History, Ambidextrous). It is also his most diverse in terms of the times, places, themes, characters and situations he writes about. Filled with the unexpected, the true, and the amazing, Contemporary Gay Romances moves with ease from gas-lit, upper class London, to a future, climate-altered Bay Area; from semi-rural Florida to Southern California beaches, to an extrasolar planet where people have surprising existences. His characters range from ordinary American suburban housewives to extraordinary children, from grieving young geologists and memory-haunted middle aged men, to British Midlands soccer stars and 22nd Century war heroes. Picano subtitled this collection of stylish, unique, and moving works "Tragic, Comic, Mystic & Horrific," and they are all that and more. The ten tales include prize winners as well as stories published here for the first time, and are as different from any standard "romances" as you can get, but they will linger in the mind and memory.

Great sex can be magical, but what if magic adds sizzle--or horror--to the sex?

A young man's magic binds him to both a demon and a vampire. The unlikely love of two men survives the tragic death of one. A college student experiences a nerve-wracking close encounter with dick-grabbing tentacles slithering out of his toilet. And when a man comes to visit an old school buddy, he's seduced by the father who has stolen his son's soul...

Arcane mystery, supernatural seduction, sex that haunts in a manner both weird and wondrous--these stories by ‘Nathan Burgoine, Gregory L. Norris, Mark Wildyr, Jeff Mann, Johnny Murdoc, Davem Verne, and others offer sexual thrills and perverse arousal, spooky chills, and magical orgasms. Dare to enter a sexual Otherworld.

Everything can change in a heartbeat.

Hunter Roswell thought she had left her past behind. But her carefully structured world starts to fall apart when a serial killer connected to her past emerges from the shadows and begins stalking her. Already responsible for the deaths of five women, the killer now has Hunter firmly in his sights. And he's picked a target date—the night of October's full moon—also known as the blood moon or hunter's moon.

Sara Wilder, a psychologist and former FBI profiler, is brought in to help Hunter unravel the connection between her past and a ruthless killer. But as the search for the killer intensifies, both women find themselves struggling with an unexpected and undeniably mutual attraction. In a race against time, can they survive a killer who is willing to use anything—even love—to further his own agenda?

Dakota Riley is not looking forward to the next three days in Vegas. Her best friend Riann is getting married there, but Dakota doesn't like the heat or the fact that she is going to be spending three days with twenty women she can't stand. All she wants is a little free time and a warm body to fill her bed, that is until her world is upended by the introduction of her best friend's cousin, the mysterious Shawn Camello.

Shawn Camello has been invited to her cousin Riann's bachelorette party at the last minute. She is reluctant to go but is persuaded by Riann in the hope that they can become re-acquainted after not seeing each other for twenty-five years. The moment she meets the sexy, determined Dakota Riley, she tries avoiding her at every turn. The problem is, everywhere she looks, Dakota is there, and she's becoming harder and harder to resist.

In a town like Vegas where anything can happen, Shawn and Dakota find that the stakes are love at all costs, and it's a gamble neither can afford to lose.