Contemporary Books

Maggie Davidson lives in fear after being robbed on the street outside her office. But the trauma has only just begun, and now she must face her attacker in court. A chance encounter with a beautiful woman in the courthouse café is the only bright spot in her day, until she finds out just who the woman is.

Ally Becker has always been her brother’s hero, and she’s at the courthouse to support him as he faces up to his mistakes. When she discovers that the stranger she shared coffee with is actually Maggie, the victim of her brother’s crime, she is torn between family loyalty and an attraction she can’t seem to forget.

Maggie and Ally have absolutely no intention of falling in love, but what they find in each other just might heal them both.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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?

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.

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.

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?

The last time Brody Clark left the Rivers, she walked away from her life—her foolish dreams, her few friends, and the secrets she'd kept from everyone. For ten years she'd told herself there was nothing in her past she cared about—not the family who'd given her a home or the one girl she never stopped thinking about. But now she’s back as part of the new medevac flight crew, for at least as long as it takes to finally bury her ghosts.

Val Valentine, DVM, planned on a big city boutique vet practice with high profile clients, easy hours, and lucrative profits. All until the man who was more father to her than her own asks for her help, and she ends up back in the backwater where all she has are bad memories.

Brody figures cutting her ties to the past would be a hell of a lot easier if she could only avoid the woman she’s never been able to forget. Since Val never even knew she was alive back in high school, that shouldn’t be too hard now. When their lives collide, both women discover what might have been is closer than they think.

Jannika Peterson arrived in Grangeton, New Hampshire, with a broken heart and a new job managing the local bookstore. She has a gift for pairing readers with the perfect books, but her matchmaking skills don’t extend to her love life. Love doesn’t stand a chance against her well-protected heart.

Eighteen years ago, Lee Thompson was Jannika’s summer camp counselor, and Lee has never forgotten the beautiful girl with the unusual name. Still healing from her wife’s sudden death, Lee hopes her new job in a new town will help her to begin a new chapter. 

When Jannika and Lee reunite, their instant connection feels like a gift, but neither is ready for a second chance at love. Unable to deny their attraction, will they finally get on the same page when it comes to love?

Former child music prodigy Lily Croft spends most days in her home office crunching numbers and analyzing data as an actuary. Once she filled concert halls across the world, until the pressure got to be too much and forced her retreat. When her boss hands her a temporary assignment, Lily has to leave the safety of working from home to work with people at an office. She keeps her head down and stays focused, but one night on her way to the train station, she hears music wafting from The Leading Note and the life and feelings she suppressed for over a decade bubble up to the surface.

Lily is inexplicably drawn to Hope D’Marco, Leading Note’s gorgeous and brilliant founder. But falling for Hope and re-exploring her passion for music force Lily to face her past. Will she go back into hiding, or have the courage to confront the consequences of her past and present colliding?

Sara Wright knows better than to fall for a cop.

For Sara, an elite police dog trainer for the federal government, attractive women in uniform are an occupational hazard. But she gave her heart to a coworker once before and the battle scars from that failed relationship are still fresh. She dodges every chance at romance with the officers she trains, focusing her energy on turning out the finest handler-canine teams in the country. But when annoyingly perky, unfairly sexy Isabel Marquez arrives at Homeland Security’s Northeast Regional Training facility brimming with excitement, and a surprising desire to succeed, Sara's good intentions start to falter. She can’t help being drawn to Isabel's enthusiasm, and, okay, her long dark hair and brilliant smile don’t hurt either. Keeping their contact limited to friendship is harder than she thought. When it comes to enforcing her own rules of the heart, Sara might need to break a few for a chance at forever.

Lowe Carter and Faith Williams could not be more different. Lowe comes from money, very old money. Faith scrapes by, living paycheck to paycheck, sending what little she has left to her mother and little sister. Lowe is just starting her obligatory two-week visit with her parents when she collides, literally and figuratively, with the beautiful Faith. What better way to spend two weeks of hell than in the company of a hot, sexy woman? The only problem is that employees like Faith are forbidden to fraternize with residents and their guests. Join Lowe and Faith as they sail on The Escape, the world’s largest private residence on the water.

The last thing world class violinist Ava Wellington wants is some nosy writer publishing her biography. Unfortunately, her manager is insistent this is the best way to capitalize on her fame. Ava is terrified someone might discover the secret she’s kept for nearly twenty years, one that could not only destroy her career, but ruin the lives of those she loves most.

Journalist Bianca Vega has only just recovered from the loss of her wife and isn’t prepared to see Ava again, not after the deep connection she felt almost two years ago. When Bianca is hired to write Ava’s biography, they’re thrust together on a whirlwind music tour and neither can ignore the desire that’s simmered between them since that first chance meeting. Will Ava be able to trust Bianca with her darkest secret or will hiding her past destroy their chance at forever?

High school teacher Emily Sanders’s bucket list didn’t include getting divorced and starting a new job in a new city. Those challenges pale, however, when her mother dies and Emily finds herself caring for her sister who has Down syndrome. 

When Emily meets Andi Marino she thinks she’s found a new best friend, just the right kind of fun and caring person to keep her from spending every weekend alone. So when Emily discovers she’s a lesbian and wants to explore her feelings for women, Andi seems like the perfect social guide. Except Emily doesn’t know that Andi has been attracted to her from the start and is fast falling in love with her. Caught up in exploring her sexuality, will Emily see the only woman she needs is right in front of her?

Army veteran Catherine Daye long ago accepted her passable looks, mediocre talent, and average intelligence. In fact, she bought a rundown farm on seventy acres to retreat from the world and live out her simple, ordinary life. Atlanta marketing superstar Autumn Swan’s world is anything but simple. Constantly plugged in to what’s trending on social media, it’s her job to keep her clients ahead of the competition. When her favorite cousin dies suddenly, she finds herself the owner of a modest country home, guardian to a sullen, tomboyish ten-year-old, and neighbor to an intriguing woman who isn’t as ordinary as she appears.