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This collection of Lee Lynch's columns chronicles over a quarter century of queer life in the United States, from the last decades of the twentieth century into the twenty-first.

"From the beginning of my writing career, I just wanted to write about lesbian/gay life as I experienced it. Like so many, I came from a place of great isolation. At the same time, being gay filled me with great pride and joy. Writers Jane Rule, Isabelle Miller, Radclyffe Hall, Valerie Taylor, Ann Bannon, and Vin Packer gave me inspiration and even the lesbian companionship I needed as a baby dyke. More than anything, I want to give to gay people what those writers gave me. And I want to do it well enough that my words might someday be considered literature and, as such, might endure because, as open as some societies have become, there are always haters, and cycles of oppression. Our writers strengthen us, offer a sense of solidarity and validation that we are both more than our sexualities and are among the best that humanity offers."

Barrett and Kelly, two complete strangers, shared a harrowing experience where they were completely dependent on each other for survival. When Barrett is rescued and forced to leave Kelly behind, she returns several months later to free her from their captors. After returning home, they go their separate ways and try to pick up their lives, but circumstances and feelings they didn't expect pull them together and threaten to drive them apart.

Can love overcome feelings of guilt, obligation, gratitude, debt, and responsibility?

Brendan Madden is in the midst of his senior year of high school and couldn't be happier. He has a great group of friends, his pick of colleges, and he has recently come to terms with his sexuality.

One night, he meets Mark Galovic, a gorgeous, younger classmate of his. In a matter of minutes, Brendan is hooked. As the friendship between them grows, Brendan reaches his breaking point when he spontaneously confesses his feelings to him. Brendan is shocked and elated to find out that Mark feels the same way about him. The two begin to date, but because Mark is not out, it must remain a secret. As their friends and family become suspicious, openly gay Brendan becomes increasingly frustrated with their discreet relationship, while Mark becomes more and more paranoid that they're going to be found out.

Mia Daniels has never forgotten the night her first crush sent her running home, humiliated. She has spent the last fifteen years trying to forget Teri Stanton. Just as she thinks her life is moving forward, Mia loses her lover and then must become her parents' caretaker. She is still determined to make a life without Teri's ghost haunting her.

Teri Stanton has sold her soul to her family's business. She's tripled the net worth and made it a global company. One day she will be the CEO. That is all she cares about. Until Mia Daniels shows up and keeps telling her to go away. Mia is attractive and smart, and Teri is interested, but Mia has too many responsibilities for Teri to deal with.

Mia may be Teri's one chance to regain her soul back, but first she has to make time to prove to Mia she is worth the effort. Teri's not sure if she can.

Nine years after leaving the small Scottish town where she'd grown up, Tag Grainger is forced to return following the sudden death of her fatherand back to a life she's long since put behind her. After inheriting a share in a family business she wants no part in, Tag is overwhelmed by the dark clouds of her past: her brother can't forgive her, the nephew she adored doesn't remember her, and everywhere she goes there are whispers about how she abandoned her family.

With her old wounds reopened, Tag longs to escape again, until the appearance of the intriguing and spirited Freddie Metcalfe forces her to reevaluate much more than she thought she needed to. But while Freddie is nursing her own broken heart, can she help Tag reconnect with her family and move on from her past?

Times are tough for sixteen-year-old Stick McLaughlin, running from a trumped up arson charge and hiding among hobos in 1918 Boston. Denied the companionship and support of lifelong soul mate Ellie, Stick edges her way through prison as "Mac," only to be thrust alone and wide-eyed into the very definitely Roaring Twenties. She swallows what's left of her pride through the final year of her sentenceserving as maid to a wealthy familybut stockpiles many invaluable lessons about rapidly-changing life in 1924.

Confrontations with bootleggers and a particularly enthralling flapper go a long way toward molding a strong, confident, clever "Mac," who hits the streets with a gang of her own, determined to claim the good life she deserves by beating the corrupt system and Boston's ethnic mobs at their own game.

Little does she know that the lost love she's mourned for years is closer than she thinks. But have time and circumstance conspired against her once and for all?

Ex-Chicago cop and new PI Josie Harper has been hired by an outside group to clear the name of publisher Lauren Wade, recently acquitted of the murder of her lover. That means finding the real killer, a task made more difficult by Lauren's unwillingness to cooperate and a large family problem—Lauren's parents have been kidnapped for a ransom she can no longer pay. Josie has a big challenge of her own: how to redeem herself after losing her job as a detective. When Josie and Lauren join forces to rescue the parents, they discover they make a great team, in more ways than one.

Will Josie's troubled past come back to haunt her? And who did kill Lauren's lover?

FBI agent Sera Warren has been working undercover to track a domestic terrorist group to its origins. When her cover is blown, her priority shifts from closing her case to just making it through the day alive. She ends up in the middle of a bank heist, pointing a gun at her ex-girlfriend, Torrence "Tor" Jewel. She sees a flicker of recognition in Tor's eyes as she pulls her gun and yells, "On the floor!"

Before Tor can fully register that "the one who got away" is standing in front of her, she's pushed facedown onto the floor. Sera might as well shoot her now because as soon as she gets up, Tor's going to kill her. Or kiss her. She's still undecided.

First, they have to survive their reunion, then they can worry about happily ever after.

Her sister's bachelorette party is the highlight of a miserable year for Alexis Chambers, but once her bridesmaid's dress is packed away, she's back to coping with her life as a once popular athlete and violinist turned loner and the focus of her parents' disappointment. She isn't expecting much from her freshman year of college until she finds herself sharing a class with Treasure, the gorgeous stripper from her sister's party.

Trisha Hamilton has finally gotten the credits and the money together to transfer to a four-year university. Between classes, studying, and her job as a stripper, she has little time for a social life, until she runs into the adorably shy baby butch from the club. Trisha can't seem to hide her feelings for Alexis, even when Trisha discovers what she has been through, but will Alexis have the strength to be just as fearless about their new love?

A diverse cast of lesbian, bi, and trans women, on both sides of the bars and through the centuries, find life-changing moments of love, hope, fear, excitement, passion, desperation, and inspiration.

Prison. The very word sends shivers of fear through the soul. A place of gloom and shadows, where freedom is taken, humanity is lost. A place of cruelty and pain, of claustrophobia, soul-searching, and waiting. A place where guilt and innocence fade away, identity is transformed, and the voice that cries in the darkness is no longer heard. One aspect of human existence that has endured through the centuries: incarceration, implied guilt, punishment.

But when all is lost, so much can be gained. It is in prison that the colors of freedom become sharper and brighter, more alluring because they are distant. It is here that impossible relationships become reasonable, that hopes are kindled by a word or a glance. It is where senses are heightened, as alert to danger as to love, to fear as to passion. It is where everything is at once ordered and disordered—and queer is only relative.

Lania Marchiol keeps a wary sailor's gaze trained on the horizon. Somewhere out there, the perfect boat is waiting to take her around the world in a self-sufficient home powered by wind, sunshine, and the strength of her will. When she finds it, she'll sell her beloved antique printing press, retire her renowned literary magazine, and wave good-bye to her life on land.

When a suave filmmaker flirts his way into her literary life, Lania must fight to maintain a steady heading toward the high seas. The magnetism of wickedly handsome trans man Oly Rassmussen send her trusty compass spinning off course and they must reimagine freedom and love in order to sail together in the greatest adventure of all.

Life in Amsterdam isn't all windmills and tulips when you're homeless. Jason Dekker lives in a jeep with his dog, Calvin, on the outskirts of the city. A thesis on Van Gogh brought him to the Netherlands, and the love of Dutch artist Willy Hart convinced him to stay. But Willy is gone and Dekker is on the brink of a total meltdown. On a summer morning in the park, Calvin sniffs out the victim of a grisly murder. Dekker sees the opportunity for a risky strategy that might solve their problems. Unfortunately, it puts them directly in the sights of the calculating stone-cold killer, Gadget. Their paths are destined to collide, but nothing goes according to plan when they end up together in an attic sex-dungeon. Identities shift and events careen out of control, much to the bewilderment of one ever-watchful canine. Oscar Wilde wrote that each man kills the thing he loves. He didn't mean it literally. Or did he?

Maria Spencer is in the middle of her third divorce. She doesn't know what it is she wants, but she knows there's something she's missing. When Maria brings her Dachshund into a grooming school and meets Dana, an out lesbian, something shifts for her. Torn between her church teachings and her emerging truth, she embarks on a journey to find herself as a single woman of God.

Dana struggles to trust that Maria isn't going to decide to go back to men, and Maria strives to understand her budding feelings for Dana. When a disturbed woman becomes obsessed with Dana, they find themselves having to deal with her following their every move.

Can their mutual attraction and growing connection become too strong to deny and draw them into each other's arms?

Seventeen-year-old Raven Walker has never had a boyfriend. She's never really been interested in boys. But she was always too afraid to examine what that might mean. Until she meets Morgan O'Shea and finds herself inexplicably drawn to her.

As their friendship develops, Raven is forced to face the possibility that her interest in Morgan might actually be attraction and that she might be gay.

Acknowledging the possibility opens Raven's world to the excitement of her first romance, but it also leaves her struggling to come to terms with her sexuality and the impact it will have on her relationships with her family and friends.

Mystery writer Bethany Lange wasn't prepared for the twisting emotions that left her breathless the moment she laid eyes on folk singer sensation Ali Hart. Of course she was flat on her back and looking up and backward at the gorgeous singer, but that didn't stop her body and heart from bursting into a kaleidoscope of want, need, and lust. Scared at the intensity of her feelings, Bethany does everything she can to avoid Ali at Camp Jacomo, the camp designed specifically for children of lesbian and gay families where Bethany volunteers every summer. The camp director convinces the hottest singer at the moment, Ali Hart, to spend a week teaching the children music to everybody's delight except Bethany's. On her last day at camp, Ali approaches Bethany with an offer of friendship, but they both know it's the prelude to something bolder. Should Bethany take the risk? Does she really believe she can balance her quiet private life with Ali's outspoken one?