Contemporary Books

Finding forever is simply too hard.

As a renowned chef, Gabriella Russo knows how to season a good dish. It’s her personal life that’s been too spicy for her liking. Ready to take a break from the roller coaster of romance, Gabriella’s moved to Oregon to open Tangled, a restaurant on the grounds of Tangle Valley Vineyard. A good glass of wine and space to create is all she requires.

Ryan Jacks brings all the girls to the yard, or so it should say on her business card. She’s a skilled carpenter who’s been told more than once that she’s good with her hands. When Ryan takes a job building a new restaurant, her world comes to a halt. The sassy chef is sexy, insightful, and comes with the kind of smart mouth that has Ryan rethinking just about everything. But with Gabriella off the menu, what’s Ryan supposed to do?

Praise from Publishers Weekly: "[A]n irresistible contemporary lesbian romance....Brayden has a gift for imbuing her characters with heart and soul, and readers will quickly warm to both Gabriella and Ryan and the adorably sassy supporting characters, especially the Biddies, a group of septuagenarian gossipers. Brayden makes her characters work for their inevitable happy ending, and the realistic romantic pitfalls are balanced by easygoing humor throughout."

Dr. Daniella Waveny is back from a medical posting in Guyana carrying more than just her suitcase. The difficult to diagnose virus that forced her return to her northern Canadian hometown could threaten much more than her livelihood. It could shatter her dreams.

Luca McAffery has her own baggage. The iron sculptor and hockey coach carries the world on her shoulders, but when she runs into Daniella, her arms are—fortunately for them both—wide-open. So is her heart.

A devastating hit at center ice first brought them together years ago. Will the consequences now tear them apart or will the spark of their passion be hot enough to thaw the secrets that stand between them?

Perry Clark takes pride in her legal work for a needy nonprofit. When disaster strikes, leaving her unemployed and homeless, her sister Campbell comes to the rescue with a job offer. Perry accepts reluctantly—working for corporate clients is only temporary, right? But after Campbell assigns Grace, Perry’s childhood crush, as her mentor, Perry’s heart might be making longer-term plans.

Grace Maldonado remembers Perry Clark as her best friend’s sometimes annoying, often rebellious, little sister, so she isn’t prepared when she discovers Perry is now brilliant and gorgeous—though still bullheaded—and challenges her at every turn. When she isn’t arguing with Perry, Grace is fighting a growing attraction she can’t seem to ignore. Because not only is it wrong to fall in love with your best friend’s sister, Perry has no intention of sticking around.

To say Sheriff Natalie Strand is shocked that Sarah Eastman, the girl who kissed her at a high school party, is back in town would be a huge understatement. Between Sarah’s return and a stray dog that gets the best of her, Natalie’s world is suddenly turned upside down.

They say you can’t go home again, but that’s exactly what Sarah does when she returns to Spruce Mountain, Oregon, to live with her aunt and uncle after her divorce. All she wants is peace and to ensure her daughter, Harley, has stability. Seeing Natalie again after seventeen years ignites a passion that she hasn’t felt in a long time. Never mind that her heart tumbles in her chest or that she forgets words when Natalie’s around, she needs to focus on her family and getting her life back together.

Natalie and Sarah are about to discover that anything is possible when love takes the long way home.

When orthopedic surgeon Harriet “Harry” Basantes is called to the ER to assess a patient who has been assaulted by her husband, she’s instantly thrust back sixteen years to the day her childhood sweetheart, Desi Thompson, walked away and disappeared without a trace.

Desi’s always done the right thing, including marrying the man her father insisted was a better match than Harry. But when she ends up in the ER after an argument gone wrong, she can’t help wondering if the right thing is worth the cost.

Harry refuses to let Desi return to an unsafe home, even if that means putting aside her own broken heart. With love on the line, can they give each other one more chance?

Content advisory: This book contains graphic instances of domestic violence. 

Sometimes, you get a second chance at love. Sometimes, you hook up with your ex and remember why you broke up in the first place.

Amanda Russo knows better than to give her failed marriage another try, but the brief fling reminds her there’s more to life than work and parenting. When the architect she hires to remodel her bakery turns out to be as charming as she is talented, Amanda finds herself ready to take a chance on new love. The only problem? Her ex-wife didn’t get the memo.

For Quinn Sullivan, the sting of divorce is still fresh. Getting set up by pretty much everyone she knows hasn’t inspired her to give love another shot. Meeting Amanda does. Sure, they’re working together, but that’s not a deal breaker. Amanda’s ex might be another story.

Praise from Publishers Weekly: "[A] tender, foodie romance about a pair of middle aged lesbians who find partners in each other and rediscover themselves along the way...Rey’s cute, occasionally steamy, romance reminds readers of the giddy intensity falling in love brings at any age, even as the characters negotiate the particular complexities of dating in midlife—meeting the children, dealing with exes, and revealing emotional scars. This queer love story is as sweet and light as one of Bake My Day’s famous cream puffs."

Trina Lee would sell her own mother’s house out from under her if it meant securing a sale, no joke. Her reputation as a ruthless deal closer and her record sales year in Boston’s luxury property market should’ve landed her Realtor of the Year, so when the award goes to new girl rival Kendall Yates, Trina is left speechless. And, okay, turned on.

Kendall made more enemies than friends the night of her big win, but she couldn’t care less. She’s the best, and she has the obnoxious glass paperweight to prove it. This is the edge she needs to escape the shadow of her family’s reputation. When her boss accepts a friendly bet that she can close the holy grail of property deals, she’s not about to fold for anyone. Especially not to overly cocky and annoyingly beautiful Trina. Even if it breaks her heart.

Frustrated with small-town life, Hayley moves to the city only to get fired and lose her apartment all in the same day. Desperate, she takes a job as a short order cook in a quaint diner. Now she just has to find a place to live and learn how to cook.

Lauren manages Greta’s Diner the same way she manages everything in her life, with calm and order. All that changes the moment Hayley walks through the door. She’s loud, opinionated, wild, and completely alluring. When Lauren finds out that Hayley’s been sleeping in the diner, she makes a decision that will change both their lives forever.

Katie Fausch is content with her single life in San Francisco. When her lovingly pushy family surprises her with a weeklong trip to a singles getaway humorously named Last Resort, Katie only agrees to go if they promise not to nag her about her love life for a year.

Rhys Morgan is a true romantic at heart. She knows there’s more to life than work and wants to find someone to spend hers with. When she discovers that a local resort for singles is having a “lesbian week,” she has to give it a try.

Amid the sand and saltwater of Last Resort, Katie and Rhys endure the enforced dating of total strangers, group socializing where everything that can go wrong actually does, and must answer the ultimate question: What happens if you meet the girl of your dreams but she isn’t looking for a happily ever after?

Cam Santiago might live in paradise on a private beach in Mexico, but wealth and success mean very little to her after the death of her partner. Now she puts her heart into her friends and family while keeping everyone else at bay. That is, until she runs into a very beautiful but very rude woman in town who turns out to be her new neighbor.

Blake Livingstone is a family physician about to take over her parents' practice. No one knows about her secret dream of opening her own medical clinic in Mexico. When a friend invites her to stay at their beach house, Blake is keen to check out the area. If only she wasn’t living next door to a woman as beautiful and mysterious as she is impossible.

Cam and Blake are unable to deny their passion for each other, but surrendering to love is a whole different matter.

Sometimes it takes everything going wrong to make you see how right things are.

Dana Gottfried is a stressed-out Jewish lesbian who’s just quit her job and wants to get home to see her grandmother. When her car breaks down in Indiana on Christmas Eve, Dana is stranded—until she’s rescued by Charlie, a pig farmer who doesn’t identify as male or female. Although they come from different worlds, Dana is intrigued by Charlie’s sense of humor and kindness. Despite her better judgment, Dana says yes when Charlie offers a ride.

But the journey home is paved with detours. From car accidents to scheming ex-girlfriends to a snowy and deserted Chicago Loop, everything that could go wrong on their road trip does, but it leads Dana on a path of self-discovery that just might end in love.

Content advisory: This book contains instances of misgendering. 

Hot-tempered and outspoken Rae Starr came home to the Oklahoma prairie, bought a ranch, and started a riding school with her partner who subsequently left her for another woman. Rae has a history of the things she loves leaving her, so she’s not very trusting.

Meanwhile, the ranch next door just changed hands for the fifth time, and the new owner, Jane Barrow, is a world famous cutting horse champion and industry legend who, rumor has it, won the ranch in a poker game. Jane is all glitz and charisma, in addition to being knockdown sexy in the way she moves, talks, and rides. Everywhere she goes, people flock to her.

Rae is determined not to get involved with this womanizing gambler. Jane is determined she will. But neither ever thought their relationship would become an incendiary love affair.

High school science teacher Carla Sims is successful and happy with a network of close friends. But in affairs of the heart, she’s newly alone and happy to stay that way. After receiving a phone call from her aunt, she rushes across the country to be by her dying grandmother’s side.

Janice Carpenter is a recently divorced literature professor who can’t seem to get her best friend’s niece, Carla, out of her mind. Ever since Carla came out, Janice has been inexplicably fascinated by her, and when she sees her again, her feelings are uncontainable. Before she knows it, she’s offering Carla a quiet place to stay to regain her balance during her visit.

Under the same roof, the fiery passion neither wants to end bursts free. But Carla was never planning to stay, and Janice struggles to come out. Will Carla and Janice realize that the road to home is closer than they think before love flees?

Captain Britt Story lost more than her left arm in Afghanistan. She lost faith in honor and humanity when her command’s failure to act cost a young soldier’s life, turning Britt into a ticking political time bomb the U.S. Army and her father, an influential senator, are desperate to disarm.

Occupational therapist First Lieutenant Teddy Alexander was thrust into the national spotlight when she successfully petitioned to receive survivor’s benefits after her wife was killed in Afghanistan days before DOMA was repealed. Six years later, she remains safely cocooned in the past by her military family until her assignment to rehab Captain Story drags them both into a confusing battle between duty, consequences, and hot attraction.

Teddi Baker used to believe in happily ever after. It’s why she became a wedding planner and worked so hard to make her business, Hopeless Romantic, successful. But after the catastrophe of her own marriage, Teddi loses her heart, her hope, and half of her assets. She is officially jaded, but she needs every job she can get to make ends meet. When bride-to-be Kelly Scott walks in, Teddi is ready. Until she comes face-to-face with Kelly’s sister: Leah Scott, her ex-wife’s divorce attorney. The one who helped ruin her life.

Leah Scott wears her heart on her sleeve, an odd characteristic for a divorce attorney. When her father left her stay-at-home mom with barely enough money to survive, she recognized her calling. But Leah still believes in happiness and no one deserves it more than her sister. If only Kelly didn’t insist on using a wedding planner who hates Leah’s guts...despite the unexpected and wholly unwanted chemistry between them.

Riley Warren has spent her entire life in the same small town in Upstate New York. There aren’t many prospects for true love, but she keeps hoping she’ll find it somehow. She dreams of owning the small movie theater she manages, but that takes money, which is hard to get when you live paycheck to paycheck.

Victoria Thayer has fallen for a woman more interested in her money than her heart for the last time. When she runs into Riley, the first girl she ever had a crush on, at their high school reunion, she’s hoping there might just be a chance for the kind of relationship she’s always wanted. But Victoria can’t help wondering if Riley too is only after her money, and Riley can’t seem to forgive the fact that Victoria was part of a group of kids who used to bully her.

When hopes and dreams are on the line, will true love find a way?

Daria Fleming’s in a rut, and on a whim, she decides to visit a psychic. There has to be more to life than work, home, repeat ad nauseam. The cards tell her she’s right, and lo and behold, Daria meets Phaedra Jean-Julien, a vibrant street performer who represents everything Daria knows is missing in her life. Unfortunately, Daria has responsibilities which include taking care of her autistic kid sister, and Phaedra has sworn off relationships due to reasons she doesn’t want to go into. But fighting their attraction only drives the passion higher.

Can Daria find a way to bring love into her life without disturbing the careful routine she thinks her sister needs to thrive? Can Phaedra overcome her struggles before they destroy the promise of new love? Maybe the advice of the mysterious tarot card reader is what they need to guide them along their path to one another.

We all have things in life we cannot change. Serenity is in the acceptance.

Kit Marsden is proud that she’s put her heroin use in the past. She’d really just prefer if no one made a big deal about it so she can move on with her life. After all, people hear the word “heroin,” smile politely, and run for the hills. Kit would have more success ignoring her past if her NA meetings weren’t at the library where she nearly died. Plus, she can’t stop thinking about the librarian, Thea Harris.

Thea’s desperate to protect her library and keep it a safe place for the community. She’s used to keeping her life orderly and predictable, working hard, and preparing for every possibility at work and at home. But nothing prepares her for Kit Marsden.

Will Kit and Thea be able to embrace who they are, what they want, and what they can create together, or will the library and their chance at love falter?