Set the Stage

Bonnie James has built her life around her passions—cats, coffee, and community. She rejected her family’s narrow visions of success and instead chose the non-lucrative, fur-filled life of a cat café owner. So what if her decision means she works way too much to have time for true love? She has plenty of friends and cats to keep her company.

Wedding planner Taryn Ritter has a knack for making impossible dreams come true. She might not understand the appeal of getting married in a cat café, but if that’s what her clients want, then she’ll make it happen. She’s not about to let the reluctant café owner stand in her way, so she makes Bonnie an offer she can’t refuse—give her the venue for one day and she’ll find a way to get more cats adopted into happy homes.

When Bonnie and Taryn join forces to help a bunch of shelter cats find their forever homes, they just might discover forever for themselves as well.

City girl Alana Brendt accepts a one-year contract as an event coordinator in remote Yakima, Washington, to reboot her career. So what if she padded her résumé a little…doesn’t everyone? Then she discovers she has to lead trail rides and white-water adventures, not just coordinate them. Add a litter of puppies underneath her rickety farmhouse’s porch, and Alana is desperate enough to accept help from the local vet…the gorgeous, sexy, outdoorsy vet who is absolutely not Alana’s type. At all.

Veterinarian Tegan Evans avoids the tourist side of Yakima, venturing there only when an animal needs her. Tourists only break your heart. Still, she can’t resist helping Alana, who, despite being in over her head with rambunctious puppies and a job she is barely qualified to perform, seems determined to make a success of things.

Alana and Tegan both know they don’t belong together. Only problem is, they’re falling in love.

Marine biologist Tess Hansen has left her high-tech lab at Evergreen College and returned to Washington’s northern coast to take care of her aging parents. Although her new job studying orcas in the Pacific excites her, she finds life in the small town where she grew up to be stifling and boring. Until she meets Brittany James.

Chemist Britt James has made the move from a hectic city to the rural coast as well, but she embraces the isolation. She’s looking for a way to reconnect with the environment and make amends for the damage her chemical company has done, and Tess’s center for orca research is a top contender for her endowment. 

Change has become an unwelcome part of Tess’s life and a desperate hope for Britt. Can these two women find a place of refuge with each other?

Animal rescue worker Iris Mallery thinks she has created a stable and secure home for herself, but when her small town is battered by an earthquake, Iris needs to rebuild not only her own life, but the lives of the displaced dogs and cats now filling her shelter.
 
The quake’s effects are personal for Iris, but not for seismologist Casey Radnor. Casey is a scientist above all else, logical and disconnected from the natural disasters she studies. When she rescues a stray dog from some rubble, she finds herself caught up in the lives of Iris and the others affected by the quake, despite her best efforts to remain professional.
 
The beautiful San Juan Islands in Washington State become the epicenter of both the earthquake and the collision of Iris's and Casey’s hearts. Can love bind the shattered fragments together again?

Over the course of a year at Cannon Beach, tourists and locals alike find solace and passion at the Sea Glass Inn.

Melinda Andrews and Pamela Whitford own the Sea Glass Inn at Cannon Beach on the Oregon Coast. After an oil spill threatens their shore, Mel and Pam join members of the community as they fight to heal the beach and its inhabitants while finding creative ways to keep businesses alive until the tourist trade recovers.

In these four novellas, Pam and Mel’s guests and neighbors find healing for themselves as well. From local residents, including a baker and a bookseller, to a visiting author and a Department of Fish and Wildlife Officer, these women come to the ocean in need of comfort, inspiration, and renewal. They not only discover these qualities at the inn, but they also find what they need most: love.

Archaeologist Berit Katsaros travels the world in search of treasures from ancient times. A serious injury forces her to take a break from fieldwork and accept an interim teaching job at Whitman College. She finds nothing redeeming in her frustrating sabbatical…except her sexy landlord, Tace.

When Stacy "Tace" Lomond takes charge of her brother's failing microbrewery, she discovers a passion and talent she never realized she possessed. After years of putting herself last and supporting others' dreams, she's ready to make a name for her artisanal beer among the academics and sophisticated wineries in Walla Walla, Washington. Berit might be a tempting distraction, but she's only a temporary fixture in town and in Tace's life.

Slow-crafted beer and time-worn artifacts. Both women recognize what's important in their careers, but can they learn to appreciate the value of love?