Contemporary Books

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

By day, Holly Hudson’s a story editor for Wifetime Network. By night, she’s the writer for the network’s very cheesy, very straight holiday romance series—Christmas in Evermore. Holly took the job to accomplish exactly one thing: a gay Christmas movie. She’s been shot down before, but things start to look up when Meredith Drake unexpectedly moves into the network’s holiday division.

On the heels of a brief (but totally hot) fling, Holly and Meredith agree to keep things professional now that they’ll be working together. Especially since the network has a strict policy about workplace relationships. Instead, they vow to channel their passion into a pitch for the network’s first Christmas movie to feature two female leads.

In this contemporary romance, Holly and Meredith work to make the Yuletide gayer while discovering that happy endings aren’t only for the movies.

When it comes to mistakes, social worker Madison Hewitt doesn’t do anything halfway. Her last relationship managed to break her heart and her professional prospects. Coming home to Providence is her chance to regroup, even if she’s always waiting for the other shoe to drop, in life and in love.

Jen Winslow has her hands full raising her son, dealing with her ex-wife, and managing a career that takes more energy than it gives. She’s spent a lifetime being the strong one, and occasionally playing the hero. Case in point? Meeting Madison at a wedding and saving her from a run-in with the woman who ruined her life. But the more time Jen spends with Madison, the more it feels like she’s the one in need of rescuing.

Can the promise of love survive the realities of life, or is it just another example of too good to be true?

Reese Conlon’s much anticipated family leave is only two weeks away, and nothing is going to stand in the way of her being at her wife’s side for the upcoming birth—not even the summer crowds in Provincetown, a new rookie cop with a hero complex, and a cruise ship at anchor in the harbor with a reported outbreak of a mysterious illness.

Andy Champlain might be a rookie cop, but she was raised by a family of cops, and she’s ready to take on any challenge, if she only gets the chance. With a disaster brewing in Provincetown Harbor, a journalist who’ll do anything for a story, and sexy summer PA, Laurel Winter, at the local clinic, she’s about to have all the excitement she can handle.

Before long, Reese, Tory, Laurel, and Andy are caught up in the gathering storms of an epidemic that could threaten all their lives.

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?