By T.L. Hayes
Graduate student Rachel Cole is feeling the weekend blues and heads to her favorite lesbian hangout, looking for Ms. Right Now. She is immediately attracted to a brown-haired, brown-eyed, flannel-wearing soulful singer named Bobby Layton. But when Bobby introduces himself to Rachel, Rachel questions things about herself—things like her own sexuality and her very identity. Could she be falling for this sweet boy?
Bobby Layton lost a lot when he came out as trans. And he's sworn off dating lesbians because dealing with hate from the straight world is hard enough. Who needs the drama? But something about wild girl Rachel Cole keeps him coming back.
Love may be enough to take them to unexpected places beyond their expectations.
By T.L. Hayes
Twenty-five-year-old theater grad student Rory Morgan walks into her Intro to Theater class expecting it to be a piece of cake. She isn’t prepared for the diminutive little fireball of a professor who walks in. She is instantly captivated by Dr. Margaret Parks, her forty-year-old professor, and even works up the courage to flirt a little, which Dr. Parks quickly dismisses. After their first class, Rory finds herself thinking about the professor more and more and spends most of her class time watching the professor as she passionately does her job. Rory really wants to ask her out, but she doesn’t know if the professor is even gay, to say nothing of the fact that she’s her professor. What follows is a romance full of humor, passionate awakenings, and college politics. Can they overcome the hurdles that lie before them and still be a class act?
A new friendship evolves into something unexpected and extraordinary in Rainbow Overalls, a heartfelt college romance by debut author Maggie Fortuna.
All Ginny Holland wants is to skip over her dramatic coming out story and live a being out story. Arriving for her first year at an artsy, incredibly queer college in middle-of-nowhere Vermont, she’s ready to be her true bisexual self. But being out and welcomed doesn’t mean self-acceptance is so simple.
Natalie Becker knows exactly who she is, and she’s right where she wants to be—so why isn’t she happy? She shouldn’t be preoccupied by what awaits her after college: working at her mother’s Jewish deli and giving up on her dream of being an artist. With anxiety about the future always in the back of her mind, Nat is determined to live in the moment at all costs.
Nat and her friends welcome Ginny into their group, but there’s an undercurrent of something more between them. A friendship is safe—not too intimidating for Ginny, and not too serious for Nat—as long as they can keep it that way.
By Ana Hartnett
Emma Wilson has it all figured out. She’s the starting point guard for the Alder Lions. She’s got a post-grad job lined up. Every queer woman on campus wants her. And she’s definitely over her old flame. The one she never even got to date.
She’s coasting.
Until the new basketball coach arrives on campus and clearly dislikes her. So does Lake Palmer, the arrogant new player the coach brought with her. Sure, Lake’s gorgeous, and Emma wants to kiss those annoyingly enticing lips, but she plans to steal Emma’s spot. And that just can’t happen. It won’t happen. Their epic arguments are the stuff of courtside legend, but the more Lake pushes her to play better, the harder it is for Emma to resist her attraction.
Oh, and maybe Emma’s major makes her want to rip her own hair out as much as being Lake’s teammate does. With her future anything but a slam dunk, coasting is beginning to feel a whole lot like crashing.
Thomas Simmons nearly died when a rocket-propelled grenade threw him ass over teakettle while flanking insurgents in Mosul, ending his military career. Recovery’s rough and gives him all the time in the world to face the question he’s avoided all his life: Why does he feel jealous of women?
The more Thomas searches, the closer he comes to an answer: gender dysphoria.
Seeking therapy as a road through his confusion, Thomas embarks on an unexpected journey as Emily is born. Emily’s route to self-acceptance, love with another woman, and community are only some of the challenges that began the day her world exploded.
Reader Advisory: Transphobic violence.
By Karis Walsh
Tig Weston’s beloved classics department is evolving, expanding its course offerings to entice a new and more diverse generation of students. Not everyone is willing to accept these changes, though. Tempers flare, and when the body of a prestigious alum turns up outside Denny Hall, Tig doubts she can bring her department through the crisis.
Sergeant Adriana Kent always pictured classical scholars as tweedy bookworms, but suddenly her campus police officers are being called to Denny on a near-daily basis. Arguments in the halls, threatening emails, and even a fistfight, for God’s sake. What should have been the most sedate department on campus seems to be going through a volatile transformation. And the most visible proponent of that transformation? The decidedly unstuffy and very sexy Professor Antigone Weston.
Kent and Tig seem to be on opposing sides in this battle until the stakes become more personal. But before they can even think about a future together, they’ll need to fight to protect the campus from a killer.