Lost Harbor

By Kimberly Cooper Griffin

Friends & Community
An Oceana Series Romance
Coming Out
California

Alice Johns and Bridget Moore were young nuns when a forbidden spark lit between them. After being discovered, they were released from their convent and lost touch. But they never forgot their intense connection.

Twenty-five years later, they meet again, and the old spark is just as strong. Outside the convent, they couldn’t be more different from one another. Alice lives a quiet life, is active in her church, and doesn’t talk about her past as a nun. Aside from the longing she has for her first and only love, her chosen family in Oceana is everything she needs to be happy. Bridge, an outgoing sales executive whose life has expanded in the years since they were together, has come to know that life is more than her job. She has also sworn off religion. When they reunite, their passion runs deep. But when they think about the future, they worry about how different they’ve become.

For their love to survive, they must find a way to reconcile the most important passions in their lives—devotion to the church and each other.

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Appalachian Awakening

By Nance Sparks

Friends & Community

Facing yet another failed relationship and a full-blown identity crisis after losing her job in a corporate merger, unemployed executive Amber Shaw realizes she hasn’t been happy in a long time. Who is she if not a CEO, and if everything she’s worked for hasn’t made her happy, what will? Inspired after learning about the Appalachian Trail, Amber sets off in hopes of figuring it all out. 

Leslie Brown lives life on her own terms with nothing to tie her down. She’s an experienced hiker and has one final trail left on her bucket list, the Appalachian Trail. Only problem, all her friends have settled down and started lives that don’t allow for seven months away from responsibilities. She’s out there alone.

Amber and Leslie assume they are polar opposites based on their first impressions of each other, but the more their paths cross, the more this hike of a lifetime begins to look like a love of a lifetime.

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Letters from Sarah

By Joy Argento

Animals 
Actors/Artists
Friends & Community

It’s been almost two years since Sarah Osborn’s wife, Julie, died. She never expects that the email she sends to Julie’s old account, hoping for closure, would end up in someone else’s inbox.

Lindsey Cooper is deeply touched when she receives an email meant for someone else. She writes back, explaining the mistake and tries to ignore the immediate connection she feels to the sender. A handful of emails later, their growing online connection leads to a real-life meeting.

Even though Sarah wants to be ready for her growing feelings for Lindsay, her guilt over moving on after Julie’s death stands in her way. A simple mistake brought them together, but if Sarah is to embrace a future with Lindsey she never dreamed possible, she must find a way to let go of her lost love.

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Not Just Friends

By Jordan Meadows

Virgins/First Love
Coming Out
Asexual/Aromantic
Friends to Lovers Romance

Seventeen-year-old Jen’s best (let’s face it, only) friend Deanna is five years older and big on parties. Jen has been trying to live in Deanna’s world, but she’s coming to realize guys, drinking, and drugs aren’t really her thing. Just as she’s figuring out how to tell Deanna the truth, tragedy hits, leaving Jen struggling to figure out who she is and what’s important to her.

Consumed by grief and guilt, Jen finds support in unexpected places. Stephanie’s sociable, smart, and upbeat—all the things Jen is not. Yet she seems to want to be Jen’s friend. Stephanie is also a lesbian, and when she takes Jen along to an LGBTQIA+ club, Jen starts to see not only her past with Deanna in a new light, but more importantly, her feelings about Stephanie.

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Of Auras and Shadows

By Jennifer Karter

Friends & Community
Ghosts
Close Quarters
Military
Bodyguard/Protection Romances
Other Worlds
Magic

Eryn is the greatest hero the Community has ever trained. When a priest foresees that she and her guardian will save the Community, it seems like Eryn’s future is assured. But when she loses her guardian on their first mission to gather the ichor that maintains the life-preserving dome over the Community, Eryn is stuck with Rina, the worst-ranked guardian. Things get harder as Eryn’s resentment turns to love. Heroes don’t fall in love with their guardians. It’s supposed to be the other way around.

Rina has spent her entire life trying to prove that shadows don’t always lie. She fights her unconditional love for her hero rather than accepting it as she is supposed to. When Rina discovers that the corruption of the Dark Lands may not just be outside the dome but also in the Community’s system itself, Eryn is the only person who might listen. But will Eryn accept that the Community she loves so dearly is causing the destruction Eryn was prophesied to fix?

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The Secret Duchess

By Jane Walsh

The Spinsters of Inverley | Book 3
International Setting

When the Duke of Stanmere’s will reveals a nasty secret, London Society is shocked—and so is his widow, Joan. Humiliated by the scandal, Joan flees to Inverley in disguise. Surely the quaint seaside town would be the last place anyone would look for a duchess on the run.

After her mother’s remarriage, fashionable spinster Miss Maeve Balfour must make a living with hands whose only labor has been arranging her hair into the latest style. With nowhere to turn and nothing to lose, she persuades mysterious newcomer Joan to let her stay in her manor house.

Although entranced by worldly and seductive Maeve, Joan doesn’t know if she can trust again. As Maeve learns Joan’s secrets, she yearns to protect her from the men who have sought to destroy her. But can a spinster and a widow dare to defy a dukedom—and win each other’s hearts?

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Winter's Spell

By Ursula Klein

Actors/Artists
Magic

Theater director and high school drama teacher Tessa Flowers is still carrying a torch for her old college roommate, Roxy Bright, despite not having seen her in years. When they end up in Provincetown over the winter, Tessa convinces Roxy to help her put on a Shakespeare production. What better way to fan the long-held spark of attraction into the roaring fire of passion? Cue the instant attraction they long to explore. But when Roxy unwittingly saves a stranded mermaid named Mo, things go off script.

Mo is tall, curvy, and stunning, with long green hair and absolutely no clue about life on land. Lured into Cape Cod Bay by an evil spell, she cannot return to her true form. In gratitude to Roxy for having saved her, she vows to help Roxy find her true love. This would all be great, except that Mo doesn’t actually know anything about human courtship, and her help creates more problems than it solves. Throw in Tessa’s icy ex, who has the lead role in the play, and the stage is set for a comedy of errors that even the Bard could appreciate.

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Every Beat of Her Heart

By KC Richardson

Actors/Artists
Friends & Community
Friends to Lovers Romance

Piper James was given a new lease on life when she received a heart transplant. She lives in the apartment above her art supply store, Rainbow Arts, with her cat. She has all she wants, except a woman she can love for the rest of her life. Her biggest problem? The rest of her life is on borrowed time and love isn’t an option.

Gillian Phillips moves into a new neighborhood for a new start after losing her wife in an accident two years ago. After taking advice to be more social, she decides on a pottery class at Rainbow Arts. There’s something about her instructor, Piper, that seems so comfortable and familiar to Gillian, but she can’t quite put her finger on it.

When a tragic coincidence leads to an unexpected connection, revealing secrets neither wants to face, they realize that love never really dies.

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The Memories of Marlie Rose

By Morgan Lee Miller

Actors/Artists
Celebrity
Music
New York City
Amnesia
California

Would you want to forget the only woman you’ve ever loved? Marlie Rose does.

Everyone thinks Broadway legend Marlie Rose has it all: a fabulous career spanning over five decades, all the major awards, and a lifetime in the spotlight. Only Marlie knows the heavy weight of her memories. When a new, experimental procedure promises to relieve trauma and heartbreak by erasing unwanted memories, Marlie signs up, desperate to let go of her tumultuous childhood, grief, and broken heart.

As Marlie recalls her memories and decides which ones to keep and which to erase, she unexpectedly reunites with Eleanor Olson, the woman she’s been in love with for forty-seven years. As her heartbreak fades and her heart races anew for Eleanor, Marlie discovers their love isn’t as dead as she thought it was, and she starts regretting the procedure.

Eleanor might be the only person who can help her restore her memories, but remembering might break her heart all over again.

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An Atlas to Forever

By Krystina Rivers

People of Color
Friends & Community
Animals 
Big City

Ellie Efron is heartbroken when her best friend suddenly passes away. How can she possibly refuse her friend’s last request to take care of her rescue dog, Atlas, so he doesn’t end up back at the shelter? Ellie reluctantly agrees but ends up in over her head with the 100-pound, reactive Atlas. Desperate not to let her friend down, she seeks help from an animal behaviorist. 

For Hayden Brandt, impermanence is the only constant in life. She’s already lost everyone important to her. Instead of dwelling on her losses, she focuses on helping animals overcome traumas so they can live their best lives. Content, she spends her evenings with simple pleasures such as a glass of wine, a good book, and the occasional no-strings hook-up.

Ellie and Hayden’s chemistry is instant, though neither is ready to make any promises. But Atlas knows a thing or two about grief, and he just might find a way to give this busy, hopeless romantic and commitment-phobic vet a roadmap to forever.

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Buried Secrets

By Sheri Lewis Wohl

Tuesday Johnson spent her career helping the Spokane, WA, community as a probation officer and a search and rescue K9 handler. After suffering a career-ending gunshot wound, all she wants is to heal and spend quiet time with her mother during her last days of battling cancer. Instead, visions of murder disrupt her hopes for peace, and family secrets shake up everything she thought she knew.

After twenty-five years of searching, private detective Addie Caine has all but given up hope of finding her brother alive. When the last known sighting brings her to Spokane and a routine search uncovers a decades-old burial ground, the hunt for her brother means pursuing a serial killer. Tuesday and Addie, along with Tuesday’s dog, Tripper, struggle to solve a twenty-five-year-old mystery while searching for love and redemption along the way.

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Come Find Me in the Midnight Sun

By Bailey Bridgewater

Louisa Linebach Mysteries | Book 1

It’s just another day on the job for state trooper Louisa Linebach. Hundreds of young men go missing from Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula every year, so when Lee Stanton and Branden Halifax both disappear within days of each other, Louisa doesn’t think much of it. One appears to be a simple suicide, but the other defies all explanation, with the victim’s footprints literally vanishing along an abandoned mountain runway.

As Louisa and her partner investigate, they encounter alien conspiracy theories, a town where all the inhabitants live in one building, and signs of a drug trade that’s inextricably mingled with the tourist industry around Seward. Their investigation is further complicated by a police chief who’s unwilling to let his friend be investigated and Louisa’s feelings for Anna Fenway, the local medical examiner.

When a body is identified and buried, Louisa thinks the case is coming to a close. She’s wrong.

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Whiskey and Wine

By Kelly & Tana Fireside

Food
Close Quarters
Friends & Community
Owen Station Romance Series

Lace Reynolds has a three-month rule for a reason. Long-term romantic relationships get complicated. And Lace doesn’t do complicated. She’s had enough of that in her life. Besides, she’s too busy running Frisky Business, just voted Best Sex Toy Shop in Arizona, and she’s got big expansion plans in the works. If she’s helping others find pleasure and connection, she’s happy. Right? 

Tessa Williams has moved from California to Arizona wine country to escape a cheating ex and launch her own vineyard. When she’s not battling wine snobs and fighting water wars, she’s wrangling a sulky teenage daughter and an Australian Shepard named Bleu. She doesn’t have time to go looking for love. Not that she could hold on to it, even if love found her. 

Lace and Tessa have been friends almost from the moment they met. But when Tessa opens a tasting room right next to Frisky Business, it gets harder to ignore the heat between them. The last thing they need is romance messing up a good thing. Maybe with a little help from their friends and the town’s friskiest ghost, they’ll be able to discover if love is a risk worth taking.

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Pumpkin Spice

By Tagan Shepard

A Bucks Mill Romance | Book 1
Blue Collar
Children / Families

Nicki Russell has never been smooth. More like a bumbling, awkward mess always falling short of her dreams. Good college? She never had the money. Post-grad? She’ll get around to it someday. Happy ever after with the perfect woman? One major heartbreak is enough to have her swearing off love forever. Current life plan? Avoid all unnecessary human contact. That goes double for Carter, the hot new butch in town.

Unfortunately, Carter works at the town’s pick-your-own pumpkin patch and Nicki's niece is obsessed with Halloween. So obsessed she ropes her favorite aunt into organizing the school Halloween festival, hosted by Carter Farms. Volunteer weekends are scary enough, but Carter seems to be everywhere Nicki goes, and it’s just a matter of time before she discovers Nicki's more likely to trip over a chair than successfully flirt.

But Carter can’t seem to get enough of her company, and as their accidental encounters slowly simmer into romance, Nicki begins to believe she’s not a complete disaster after all. The date of the festival is fast approaching, and this pumpkin spice season is turning out sweeter than expected.

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Western Blue

By Suzie Clarke

Coming Out
Multicultural 
Friends to Lovers Romance
Bisexual

In 1868, Caroline Bluebonnet Hutching is forced to leave her Texas home and make a new life in Nevada. But the townsmen are against her, and she can’t get the help she needs. Undaunted, she advertises for female workers, only to find that each woman who answers her ad is as desperate as she is. And she’s entirely unprepared for the one who steals her heart.

When raiders attack Isabel Segura’s horse ranch and slaughter her family, she’s left with nothing—no home, no future, no hope. When she sees Blue’s ad, a new dream sparks to life. Determined to begin again, she sets out on a journey she never could have imagined.

Heroism, loyalty, friendship, and love. The odds are against this unlikely group—but never underestimate women who have nothing to lose.

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Windswept

By Patricia Evans

Actors/Artists
Ghosts
Close Quarters
Food
Friends & Community
Multicultural 
International Setting
New Orleans 
Magic

When Sabine Rowan moves home to New Orleans after a family tragedy, she escapes into her favorite romance novels as she cares for her mother, a pampered former actress with a flair for the dramatic. Thoughts of finding love start to fade until her favorite aunt passes away and leaves Sabine with the equivalent of a ticking time bomb and a nearly impossible choice: to gain her inheritance she must leave home and find her own place in the world. 

Everyone in the tiny village of Nairn, in the Highlands of Scotland, turns to Alden Wallace when they need expert help restoring their historic homes. Still reeling from her latest romantic disaster, Alden barely notices the most recent American tourist to swan into their village. Until she buys an abandoned lighthouse and Alden is the only one who can save the crumbling disaster from disappearing into the sea.

Can the windswept shores of Scotland weave enough magic to bring them together?

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Proximity

By Jordan Meadows

Dystopian
Virgins/First Love
Children / Families

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

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Unexpectedly Yours

By Toni Logan

Financial gap/Class disparity
Animals 
International Setting
Celebrity

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.

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