Romance Books

Josie Lockner scores big when she’s awarded a summer artist-in-residence in the small beach town of Goda, Massachusetts. The Wellingtons are the perfect host family and Revere Estates the best backdrop. She’s more than ready to capture the beauty of nature with her pencils and brushes. Falling for the Wellingtons’ quiet neighbor, Olivia Monteclair isn’t in the picture, but just because it won’t last forever doesn’t mean she can’t have some fun. 

Olivia’s peaceful days are interrupted when Josie, with her infectious grin and sunny disposition, crowds her space. Was Olivia ever that young or that hungry about life? She isn’t in the market, not after her devastating heartbreak, but there’s something about Josie that brings out a lightness she’s missing from her life. 

Both cherish the time spent together, but when the summer ends and their temporary romance melts into the real deal, reality gets complicated.

Forty years ago, Sydney Hansen’s best friend was murdered. His killer left her a menacing note. Now the man Syd suspected was behind the killing has died—and she receives another threat, attached to a photo of her thirteen-year-old great-niece. Terrified but angry, she turns to the NYPD and Detective Gale Sterling to reopen the case.

Gale has been handling cold cases for over a decade, burying herself in her work and caring for her elderly father, a former detective himself. But this case isn’t like the others. Maybe it’s Sydney Hansen—she finds her beauty captivating. Or maybe it’s the bullet she takes for Syd one night when their date turns into an impromptu stakeout.

Syd and Gayle just want to protect the innocent and bring a killer to justice, but as their feelings for each other grow the once cold case turns dangerously hot.

Venture capitalist Jude Benoit is named Majesty of Artemis, New Orleans’s premier lesbian Mardi Gras parade and ball, and enlists the expertise of private dance instructor Gabriella Viard to save her from making a fool of herself. Jude can follow the steps, but what happens when Gabby challenges her to lead with her heart?

Follow Her Lead was originally published in Opposites Attract: Butch/Femme Romance Novellas (Bold Strokes Books, 2021).

Dylan Fleming is a confident and capable woman in every way except the stereotypical ways her ex-girlfriend thought she should be. When her insecurities get the better of her and she fumbles on a date with beautiful auto mechanic Carrie Grice, Dylan has to let go of the past. Can she accept that she is loved just as she is?

Just as You Are was originally published in Opposites Attract: Butch/Femme Romance Novellas (Bold Strokes Books, 2021).

The only thing keeping Joan’s dangerous powers under control is her cousin Sabrina's rare ability to counteract them. Luckily, they've got the support of their powerful Family, they're best friends, and they've managed to build a life around each other’s constant presence. But now they’re seventeen, and things are changing. They don’t want to study the same things in college, not to mention neither of them has been on a single date.

When Joan meets the lovely and witty Ellie, she talks Sabrina into trying a group date. That only makes Joan desperate for more time with Ellie. With more proximity comes more risk and the fear that Ellie will eventually notice that Joan and Sabrina are weirdly codependent. Important secrets will be put at risk, which may incur the Family's wrath. Someone could get hurt and not just emotionally. When things inevitably go wrong, Joan is sure Ellie won’t stick around, but learning to control her powers without Sabrina by her side is almost impossible

Sweet Spot—the place on the face of a wave where a surfer can catch the greatest speed.

Standing up on the wave is hard enough, but finding the sweet spot is almost impossible when you’re battling riptides. Shia Turning has been battling riptides her entire life and she knows she’s close to finding the sweet spot. Having spent most of her life in the foster system, she’s worked hard to make something of herself in the pro-surfing world. And living at Oceana has given her the community and support she needs to take her there. But when the mother she never expected to hear from again shows up, everything she’s worked for is threatened.

As the property manager for Oceana, her grandfather’s mobile home park, Rose Monroe is anxious to make him proud even at the expense of her own dreams. When Shia and Rose meet, their attraction threatens to distract them from their goals—something neither of them is willing to risk. What they don’t seem to know is that riptides often create the perfect waves. Will they be willing to take a chance of a lifetime to find the sweet spot that can take them to a happily ever after?

A private resort on a tropical island, a feisty old chief, and a kleptomaniac pet pig bring Suzanne and Allie together for unexpected love.

Heiress Suzanne Bennett was making the wrong kind of name for herself as her hard-and-fast lifestyle played out in the tabloids. But one fateful night upends everything, and she trades the glitz and glamour of LA for an unassuming life on her private Bahama Island. She changes her name, builds a small resort, and hopes her new identity will keep the paparazzi, and the lure of her old life, at bay.

Allie Aukai was born on the other side of the tracks and never had many opportunities or luxuries. When her father’s dying wish sends her to the Bahamas to fulfill an unconventional request, Allie’s life takes a surprising turn. The mystery Allie uncovers leads to misguided betrayal and reminds Suzanne and Allie of the unexpected power of love.

Josie Sanchez is the head winemaker at Cadieux Vineyards, and all her dreams ride on the upcoming crush. If she can produce a gold medal pinot noir, the owner will give Josie her own wine label. Finally. She’s worked years for this opportunity, and nothing will stand in her way. Not even Mac, the owner’s annoyingly beautiful niece who doesn’t know anything about wine, but whom Josie’s forced to hire as her only harvest intern. Josie can’t imagine a more ill-suited partner for the most important harvest of her life.

After a lackluster start in her marketing career, Mackenzie Layton is eager to jump headfirst into the illustrious Willamette Valley wine industry. Thanks to her uncle, her first harvest job is with one of the most prestigious wineries in town. But when she meets Josie, it’s clear her presence is a nuisance, even if she does occasionally catch Josie’s gaze lingering on her. Mac has a proclivity for misadventure, and she is unable to resist the one person who is off limits.

This crush will be a messy one, indeed.

You are cordially invited to Decadence, Las Vegas’s most talked about invitation-only Masquerade Ball. Come for the entertainment and stay for the erotic indulgence. We guarantee it’ll be a party that lives up to its name.

Ashly Harris has a secret she’s been keeping all her life.

To everyone else she’s just a seventeen-year-old party girl and problem senior at Hackley High School. She has always felt alone, and not just because she’s biracial and openly bisexual. Ashly sees faeries all around her, all the time. She has learned to hide her Sight, but that doesn’t change the fact that she is constantly taking the blame for the havoc that the faeries wreak. The only person who knows about Ashly’s ability is her eccentric, yet level-headed best friend, Caris, who might be playing along while also playing with Ashly’s feelings.

As Ashly speeds toward graduation with few future prospects on the horizon, she must protect the classmates she claims to hate from an evil that no one else sees.

"This is an accessible story with an interesting premise: The fantasy metaphor for Ashly’s adolescent alienation and despair works well and livens up the plot, especially when a revelation draws Ashly into the throes of a faerie war as well as a rewarding queer romance. A relatable fantasy weaving in real-life issues." –Kirkus Reviews, 08/15/2023

Maeve’s quiet life of isolation has kept her from the outside world—as a gorgon, she has to protect herself and others. Princess Keeva Glantor is proud to be a member of Uterni’s royal family. But her mother’s health is failing quickly, and Keeva’s life of ease is turned upside down.

On a hunt for the key to keeping Uterni’s queen on the throne, Keeva meets Maeve. The princess is intrigued by the lone woman in the fen, but she has her own mission to complete and no time for anything, or anyone.

Maeve yearns to believe she has a chance at a regular life and is curious enough to push the boundaries of what she’s always known, revealing a deception that has kept her a pariah in a world she fears as much as it fears her.

Both must unravel lies and come face-to-face with the truth to create a future they can call their own, perhaps even one that includes each other.

As a kid, Adley Purcell dreamed of owning Get the Scoop ice cream shop, and now that she does, she’s worried it could go under. She’s trying to focus on her love of ice cream, but she’s edgy and stressed. And how the hell she’ll survive national dessert chain Sweet Heaven opening a store less than two blocks away, she has no idea. Life is a rocky road right now, and there’s only one cherry on top: the sexy business suit-clad blonde at happy hour.

Sabrina James doesn’t stay still. Sweet Heaven takes her all over the country, opening new stores, then moving on to the next city. Smooth and simple. Until the gorgeous woman she meets at a bar who leaves her craving more turns out to own the small-town ice cream shop barely two blocks from the new Sweet Heaven location. Could life get any more complicated?

Have Adley and Sabrina bitten off more than they can chew, or will they swirl the salty with the sweet? In love and ice cream there’s only one rule: When life gives you heavenly hash, eat dessert first.

Crab fishing is in Remy Miller’s blood. Millers have been fishing off the coast of Oregon for three generations, so she’s heartbroken when her dad refuses to give her the chance to prove she can captain her own boat.

When Julia Clayman, the beautiful daughter of a rival crabbing family, offers Remy a chance to run her own boat for the Claymans, she knows the decision could deepen the long-standing rift between their families.

All Remy wants is the chance to live her dream, and the more time she spends with Julia the more her dreams include the chance for a happily ever after. But blood is thicker than the waters lapping the Oregon coastline, and old rivalries may mean Remy loses her career and her heart.

Will love overcome the odds for this modern-day Romeo and Juliet?

Lily Andrews is only eleven years old when she boards a small aircraft with her mother, destined for the beautiful gulf coast of Texas. Tragedy strikes midflight when the plane goes down deep in the wild Ozarks, and Lily must survive in the unforgiving forest. With the help of a gruff mountain man and his dog, along with Lily’s intense grit and determination, she thrives in her private oasis. When a simple mistake forces her to make a life-altering decision, she is ripped from her mountain paradise and thrust into civilization once more.

Jessica Velasquez has never recovered from the death of her father. The only way she can get closure is to find out what really happened when his plane went down. When a stranger races out of the wilderness with her father’s belongings eight years after his plane went down, Jessica hopes the woman will have the answers she’s looking for.

Between Lily’s sheltered life and Jessica’s reservations about letting anyone close, both are ill-equipped for a relationship, but can they deny their true feelings?

Hereditary witch Tamsin Chaney didn’t ask to be the Keeper. But you don’t mess with centuries of tradition. Even though she’ll do everything in her power to keep the Witch Finders of the Dark Faction from gaining possession of the Book of Darkness, she’s just fine tucked away on her farm dispensing white magic to keep her community safe and healthy.

Morrigan James, a Witch Finder of the White Faction, will stop at nothing to guard the Keeper and the sacred grimoire that holds the secrets to unleashing unstoppable evil into the world. The Dark Faction grows stronger and bolder, and time is growing short. Tamsin is in terrible danger, and Morrigan must protect her and the secrets she guards even if it costs Morrigan her life.

As they grow ever closer, only Tamsin and Morrigan can stop the Dark Faction and fulfill the prophesy that will keep the world safe forever.

Dinah Pelletier managed to be a vampire for an entire minute before she was arrested for murder and sent to prison at nineteen. Now, twenty-four years later, she’s about to be up for parole…and is still nineteen.

Dinah has done her best to avoid her once girlfriend (and also a vampire), Rachel Evans. Dinah went to prison to save her that night, but no matter how much she’s pushed Rachel away, she could never force herself to move on. So Dinah’s surprised to be face-to-face with her long-lost love, and the reason for her upcoming parole.

No sooner do they reconnect than a string of vampire killings begin again and evidence seems to be pointing at Dinah. Dinah, with Rachel's help, must prove her innocence while finding out if the two of them are still compatible after all these years. Even if time can heal old wounds, these deaths could destroy any hope for a life together.

Reader advisory: References to addiction

The lands of Jeenobi and Aelshia are separated by hundreds of miles of dangerous desert, and antithetical views on dragons. Now, under a tenuous new peace agreement, Jeenobi has agreed to ban dragon slaying within its borders.

As a visiting ambassador to Jeenobi and a rider to the dragon Loren, Litz expected to meet resistance to all she represents. She did not expect Kella, the kingdom’s most famous living dragon slayer, and she certainly didn’t expect to find her attractive.

When Litz is forced into extraditing Kella to Aelshia for trial, they’ll discover more monstrous things in the wilds of the desert than each other, and they’ll need to put aside their differences if they want to survive. The future of both nations may hang in the balance.