The Last First Kiss

By Julie Cannon

Vacation
Second Chance at Love

According to newly single Kelly Newsome, whoever came up with the idea of a lesbian resort located on a warm tropical island is a goddess. Kelly’s bound and determined to experience everything, and everyone, the island has to offer.

Matt Parker is on her first “real grown up” vacation since her wife died six years ago, leaving her to raise their young son alone. With no responsibilities to tie her down, Matt’s not looking for anything other than a good time and toe-curling, no strings attached sex.

Neither one expects to meet the woman who could give them their last first kiss.

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The Mandolin Lunch

By Missouri Vaun

Music

Children’s book illustrator Garet Allen has just escaped her most recent ill-fated relationship and accepts a temporary teaching position at a rural public school. After all, how hard can teaching kids about art really be? Apparently, pretty hard because her first day on the job is a complete disaster, and that has nothing at all to do with the fact that Tess Hill, the captivating and overly conscientious music teacher, shares the same classroom.

Tess, a dedicated teacher and single mother focused on creating a stable life for her daughter, is immediately attracted to the handsome, cavalier Garet for all the wrong reasons. Everything about Garet says short-term, and Tess refuses to consider anything less than forever. She’s not about to give her heart away to someone she can’t count on.

Can Garet and Tess survive three months sharing the same classroom without killing each other…or falling in love?

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Thor: Daughter of Asgard

By Genevieve McCluer

College Life
Other Worlds
Magic

Hannah Olsen just wanted to be an accountant. She met the girl of her dreams and was more than ready to settle in for an ordinary life. Then she found out she was the reincarnation of Thor. Suddenly, she’s thrown into a world of magic and intrigue, unexpected attraction, and a mystery she’s got to unravel. All she can count on are her friends and her partner, and perhaps her new crush. With their help, she just might be able to find her way in this new life, and maybe stop an evil plot along the way.

 

Praise from Publishers Weekly: "Norse mythology intrudes on a bubbly romance in this light adventure from McCluer. Hannah Olsen, an athletic, heavy drinking recent graduate of Portland State University, meets bombshell bartender Emily Johnson on a night out, and the pair soon start dating...Soon thereafter, two burly, armor-clad men accost Hannah and Emily, claiming the women are reincarnations of husband and wife Norse gods, Thor and Sif....Readers will come for the gender bending mythology and stay for the light romance."

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Veterinary Technician

By Nancy Wheelton

Veterinarians

Veterinary Technician, Valerie Connor, longs for love, but as hard as she tries, her relationships never last. As a single mom, Val’s determined not to give her heart to someone who doesn’t also love her daughter and their small-town life. When an intriguing school teacher moves to town, Val hopes it just might work out this time.

After her career and love life crash and burn, Ronnie Yakimoto escapes the big city and surprises herself by enjoying life in tiny Thresherton, Saskatchewan. She’s there to teach and learn to live a stable, peaceful life. But she’s just gotten clean after hitting rock bottom, and nothing is more important than staying clean, not even love.

When a stable of horses is threatened, Val and Ronnie must work together against the odds to save them, and maybe even themselves, along the way.

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16 Steps to Forever

By Georgia Beers

If there’s one thing Brooke Sullivan knows for sure it’s that people let you down, but that hasn’t stopped her from going after the life she wants. In a new city, with a new job and a new start as a high-end real estate agent, she’s finally back on her feet. The last thing she needs is a distraction. Not her volatile neighbors, not a damn stray cat, and certainly not the flaky, infuriatingly adorkable girl-next-door property stager she has to work with.

Macy Carr believes in soul mates and true love. She knows because she had it all until a freak accident took the love of her life. She’s doing okay though, surrounded by her family, her animals, and her BFFs. Home staging gives her a sense of control, and she’s made her job her happy place. If only the super sexy, super cold new agent working for Macy’s biggest client wasn’t determined to ruin that.

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All I Want for Christmas

By Georgia Beers and Others

Holidays

In Triple Dog Dare by Georgia Beers, Sasha Wolfe has been talking up her new girlfriend to her overbearing mother for months, and when her skeptical sister dares her to invite this new squeeze over for family Christmas, Sasha accepts the challenge. After all, how hard can it be to bring your nonexistent girlfriend home for the holidays?

In Hustle & Bustle by Maggie Cummings, Hannah Monroe is ready to dazzle customers with her pop-up shop at NYC’s winter holiday market. NYPD beat cop Toby Beckett, who just wants to protect and serve, barely notices the spirit of the season until events keep pushing her into Hannah’s path.

In A Christmas Miracle by Fiona Riley, Mira Donahue’s bar, Mirage, is the hottest Christmas party venue in Boston, despite Mira’s secret: she hates Christmas. When self-described Queen of Carols Courtney Rivers books Mirage for her company’s holiday party, she clashes with Mira over the plans. Then a freak storm strands them in the bar, and more than miracles abound.

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From the Woods

By Charlotte Greene

Psychological Thriller

When Fiona’s friends drag her along on a two-week backpacking trip in the remote Colorado mountains, she’s pleasantly surprised to learn that she’ll be spending that entire trip with their attractive trail guide, Roz.

Once in the woods, however, far from anything resembling civilization, something or someone comes for them.

With their lives in danger, Fiona and Roz are forced to set off on their own to look for help, drawing the threat from the woods and away from their friends but directly toward them.

 

Praise from Publishers Weekly: "[N]onstop action and vivid depictions of the wilderness keeps the pages turning...[A] satisfying diversion."

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Heart of the Storm

By Nicole Stiling

Juliet Mitchell is doing just fine. Her career with the Shell Creek Police Department is on track, her son, Declan, is amazing, and for the first time in a long time, life is simple, if unremarkable. Until a dead body is found outside the Shell Creek Library.

Sienna Bennett doesn’t know how she ended up here. She’s overwhelmed as a big city victim advocate, her soon-to-be-ex-husband is living in their pool house, and she feels like her stepson, Declan, blames her for the state of their family. She needs something else to focus on.

Juliet and Sienna might share a history with Declan’s dad, but they’re nothing more than friendly acquaintances. When they’re thrown together in the midst of the biggest investigation Shell Creek has ever seen, neither anticipates a forbidden attraction. It definitely isn’t worth upending the life they’ve worked so hard for. Is it?

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If You Dare

By Sandy Lowe

BDSM
Small Town Romances

Lauren West is stuck. Stuck in her hometown over the holidays. Stuck in a Wi-Fi dead zone. Stuck watching her longtime crush make out with her ex-best-friend. The small town of Sunrise Falls thrives on gossip, and everyone’s talking about the mess she’s made of her life back in San Francisco. One festively decorated bar and two vodka tonics later, a game of truth or dare seems like just the thing to distract her. Until the dare to seduce the next woman who walks through the door brings her face-to-face with librarian Emma Prescott.

Emma’s a good girl with a mind dirty enough to make a sex worker blush. A painful experience as a teenager has left her anxious and afraid of her own desire, but when gorgeous Lauren West kisses her senseless, Emma thinks maybe she’s finally found the perfect person to help her break free. That is, until Lauren comes clean about what really turns her on and reveals passions far darker than Emma ever anticipated.

Reader Advisory: If You Dare contains explicit fantasies of non-consent.

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Love Changes Everything

By Jaime Maddox

Coming Out
Virgins/First Love
Homecoming

Dr. Samantha Brooks is having a midlife crisis. Her twin sons are about to go off to college, leaving her struggling to find direction. On top of that, she’s being deposed for a lawsuit. And just when it can’t get any worse, she finds out her lawyer is Kirby Fielding, the woman she had a brief but dazzling affair with just before starting medical school. Sam didn’t have the courage to follow her heart back then, or to reach out to Kirby since, but now she’s ready for a change. She only hopes Kirby will give her another chance to prove that love changes everything.

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Not This Time

By MA Binfield

Celebrity

Sofia is tired: of touring, of her record company, of her fake boyfriend. After collapsing on stage, she’s forced to recuperate at her beach house.

Madison feels settled for the first time in a long while. She’s back home in Miami and her interior design business is thriving. So what if she’s a little lonely, the universe will send her someone when she’s ready. But Madison soon discovers the universe has a sick sense of humor when Sofia turns out to be her new client. Once upon a time, they were bandmates in America’s hottest girl band. Their biggest secret? They were in love—the forever and ever kind—until Sofia told Madison she was going solo.

Flung back into each other’s lives, each is forced to face the hurt they caused the other. But maybe, just maybe, Sofia’s new single, “Not This Time,” is the universe playing matchmaker again.

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The Dubious Gift of Dragon Blood

By J. Marshall Freeman

Children / Families
Royalty
Young Adult
Enemies to Lovers Romance
Coming Out
Friends & Community
Virgins/First Love
People of Color
Other Worlds
Big City
Multicultural 

High schooler Crispin Haugen already has so many identities to sort through—Asian, Scandinavian, not to mention gay. Then a messenger from another world arrives to tell him he also carries the blood of dragons in his veins.

Transported to the Realm of Fire, where dragons and humans live in harmony, Crispin falls for Davix, a brooding, nerdy scholar. But dark mysteries threaten the peace of Crispin’s new world. Without warning, dragons from the Realm of Air unleash a bloody war.

With everything he cares about on the line, Crispin must find the courage to fight...for justice and for love.

The writing of this book was supported by the Toronto Arts Council with funding from the City of Toronto.

 

Advance praise for THE DUBIOUS GIFT OF DRAGON BLOOD:
"Freeman does a great job of building an unfamiliar environment without overwhelming the reader with superfluous details....VERDICT From swoon-worthy romances to epic dragon fights, this has a little bit of everything for readers to enjoy." —School Library Journal
 
"Sixteen-year-old Crispin Haugen is chosen to be the Dragon Groom who will
mate with the Dragon Queen in order to maintain the Five...Further complicating matters is the growing attraction between Crispin and the Prime Magistrate’s handsome and devout pupil Davix. The recurring emphasis on personal agency and consent is a pleasant surprise, especially as it is applied to both intimate relationships and the chosen-one trope." —Kirkus Reviews
 
"In J. Marshall Freeman’s fantasy novel, Crispin wants to leave the shadow of his sophomore year, when he was outed and lost his first boyfriend, behind him. He takes comfort in starting his junior year as part of the popular clique, even if their ringleader treats him as a filler....Most concerned with a boy who has always felt out of place, The Dubious Gift of Dragon Blood is a young adult fantasy that’s primed for a sequel." —Foreword Reviews
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The Found Jar

By Jaycie Morrison

Close Quarters
Virgins/First Love
Age Gap
Financial gap/Class disparity
Food
Vacation
Friends & Community
Blue Collar
Friends to Lovers Romance
Small Town Romances
Big City

Horror fiction writer Emily Harris just wants to be left alone with her work. But plagued by writer's block, she reluctantly agrees to join her friends at their luxurious beach house for the summer. Maybe a change of scenery will inspire her.

Local housekeeper Beck Reynolds keeps her life simple—saving for a boat and avoiding the town bullies while she attends art classes. Meeting successful but prickly Emily leaves her feeling awestruck, and she wants to make a good impression, even though Emily seems determined to run her off. But Beck's not the one who is just visiting.

Emily knows all about loss, and guilt, and rejection. Opening her heart has always gotten her hurt, and she’s absolutely not letting anyone in, even someone good, or good-looking, like Beck.

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Aurora

By Emma L McGeown

When 32-year-old Elena Ricci wakes up in the hospital, the last thing she recalls is walking home from work the night before. Except the night before turns out to be eight years ago and Elena has no memory of the time she’s lost. Family feuds, breakups, and sexual awakenings—all forgotten. For Keelin Jax, Elena’s wife, the long nightmare only continues upon Elena’s awakening when Keelin becomes a platonic roommate overnight. While Elena struggles to adjust to her new present and find the life she left behind, someone from Elena’s past finds a way to seize the opportunity after years of silence.

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Avenging Avery

By Sheri Lewis Wohl

Three hundred years ago, a vengeful vampire turned Isa Meyer into the undead, and Isa has been planning her revenge every day since. That same vampire destroyed the love of Deputy Sheriff Jeni Denton’s life, and she vows to annihilate every vampire she can.

Amid a rash of local disappearances, Isa’s and Jeni’s paths cross, and a common enemy forces them into an unlikely partnership. If their growing feelings for each other have any chance to survive, they must do the one thing they both fear the most: trust. Will that be enough to defeat a vampire set on destruction? Or will it take love to conquer all?

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Bulletproof

By Maggie Cummings

Dylan Prescott has all the answers, even when she doesn’t know the questions. She’s in her element cruising the singles scene and crushing cases as a newly minted NYPD detective. Equal parts free spirit and thrill seeker, catching bad guys and charming good girls are what she was born to do. 

Briana Logan doesn’t play. A successful Assistant United States Attorney with several convictions on her résumé, she’s a commanding presence in the courtroom. In any room, to be honest. Smart and sexy, she’s got her work-life balance down. It’s simple: career first, everything else second. That is, until Dylan Prescott is assigned to the team investigating a sophisticated narcotics ring. 

Their chemistry is undeniable, but the complicated NYC criminal justice system doesn’t leave room for real feelings. Keeping their emotions in check isn’t easy. Where the heart is concerned, no one is bulletproof.

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Her Lady to Love

By Jane Walsh

International Setting

Country mouse Lady Honora Banfield arrives in London with one mission: to catch a husband. A perpetual wallflower, she’s going to do whatever it takes to win a proposal from London’s most eligible bachelor, including teaming up with the most popular (and least proper) woman in London.

Miss Jacqueline Lockhart is having too much fun in her sixth season to ever consider settling down, even though she’s been unsuccessful at mingling with the upper echelons of London society.

When Lady Honora agrees to exchange invitations to the most exclusive events in return for Jacqueline’s introductions to eligible gentlemen, neither expects their friendship to ignite passion. Nora and Jacquie begin an affair with the strict understanding that it will end once Nora is married, but as a proposal becomes more imminent, choosing between a conventional life without love, or certain ruination if they stay together, isn’t as simple as it seems.

 

Praise from Publishers Weekly: "Walsh debuts with a charming if flawed Regency romance...Though Honora’s shift from shy curiosity to boldly stated interest feels a bit abrupt, her relationship with Jacquie is sweet, sensual, and believable. Subplots about a group of bluestockings and a society of LGBTQ Londoners add depth..."

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No Regrets

By Joy Argento

Jodi Michaels has life figured out: she owns her business, has a relationship and two great kids. She just hadn’t counted on someone like Beth Bellamy coming along to shake up her world. When Beth makes Jodi wonder if really loving someone and having someone love you in return is what life is all about, her perfect picture begins to crumble.

Beth has never considered herself anything but straight, and all her focus has been on raising her daughter. When she meets Jodi, she can’t deny her attraction. Now all her ideas about what she should do and who she should love are turned inside out.

Jodi and Beth have a love worth fighting for, but when illness threatens Jodi’s life, the battle might be beyond their control. Beth vows to stand by Jodi’s side, but the biggest problem is, Jodi won’t let her.

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