One Last Summer

By Kristin Keppler

Friends to Lovers Romance

It’s Emerson Fields’s last summer before she starts her dream internship at the prestigious Bardot Design Studio architectural firm in Paris. The only problem? Her application hasn’t been accepted yet. Without a backup plan in place, Emerson heads to North Carolina to stay with her aunt and uncle and resume her seasonal job waitressing at the beach…and her no strings fling with town local Peyton Reilly.

In desperate need of a Bardot distraction, Emerson asks her coworker Alice Scott to teach her how to surf. What she doesn’t expect is to fall so quickly for the Aussie surfer. While her casual relationship with Peyton is in full swing, her feelings for Alice deepen, and her future with Bardot hangs in the balance. Emerson is standing at a crossroads. The question is, which path will she take?

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StreamLine

By Lauren Melissa Ellzey

Disability
People of Color
Bisexual
New York City
Coming Out
Magic

Seventeen-year-old Diana hasn’t left her home in at least a month, but she has the whole online world at her fingertips. Waking up each day at sunset, she logs into the vast world of Garlandía, an online massive multiplayer role-playing game. Offline, she’s labeled as autistic and treated like a freak. Online, she’s Lune, an up-and-coming video game streamer with a small but steady fanbase. As Lune, Diana can access adventure, admiration, and a future career as a pro-gamer. All she needs is to hit the milestone of one thousand subscribers on StreamLine, and she’ll be well on her way.

When Lune crosses paths with the legendary girl gamer Nocht, she may have found the key that will boost her to the upper echelon of streamers. But as Nocht begins to unravel all Lune thought she knew about gaming, friendship, and love, Diana must find the courage to risk building her dreams offline, too.

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The Meaning of Liberty

By Sage Donnell

Close Quarters
Dystopian
Bodyguard/Protection Romances

TJ knows she doesn’t fit in the ultraconservative Crusade of the Redeemer Church, no matter that her father is their chief of security, but leaving is difficult to say the least. Still, she has a plan. Until it gets shot to hell when her secret ex-girlfriend is taken to conversion camp where she will absolutely spill the beans. With his job on the line, her father sends TJ away until the storm blows over.

Bailey split her childhood between Portland with her mom and Tulsa with her Patriot Army dad. But she’s stayed out of Oklahoma ever since they decided together it was too risky for her to be there. She strongly prefers the blue state culture of Oregon anyway. But when her dad calls her with a job offer she can’t refuse, she risks going back into the red to protect her childhood crush, TJ.

When TJ and Bailey get caught in the political crossfire, escape is the only plan. On the run and fighting for their lives is not the time to be falling for each other. But the danger is closer than either of them knows, and when TJ is betrayed by those she loves the most, it could spell the end of their chance at forever.

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Undercurrent

By Patricia Evans

Enemies to Lovers Romance
People of Color
International Setting
Close Quarters
Non-Binary Gender
Federal Agents
Magic

When bodies start washing up on the shore in Salem Harbor, Massachusetts, an elite task force of FBI agents, profilers, and detectives join forces in a remote log cabin to decode the clues and stop the killer from targeting another victim.

Agent Tala Marshall overcame a childhood of deep generational wounds to become the country’s best criminal profiler. Now she faces her most challenging case yet, racing against the clock to profile the elusive killer before they strike again. She must partner with Wilder Mason, a local detective convinced that the murders are connected to the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, and Tala builds a connection to the task force that helps her come to terms with her tumultuous past. But Wilder wants more and is determined to find the key to both the case and Tala’s guarded heart.

Can they find the undercurrent that connects Salem’s past and present before another victim washes to shore?

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Hot Hires

By Nan Campbell and Others

When business turns to pleasure, romance ignites. 

In New York is Losing Hope by Nan Campbell: With thirty-five on the horizon and still single, Hope Mason is abandoning her beloved New York City to try her luck in bright, shiny Los Angeles. One problem. This New Yorker is terrified of driving, an essential skill for Californians. She hires instructor Val Caceres to teach her how to drive off into the sunset, but Val could be the one thing she doesn’t want to leave behind.

In Two Women, Two Weddings by Alaina Erdell: Aarti Singh’s brilliance in cardiology hasn’t diminished her longing to be an event planner, even if familial expectations demand a career in medicine. Meanwhile, Jo Samuels’s love life has taken a back seat to her demanding chef career and her desire to keep her life simple. When Aarti hires Jo to cater a wedding, their attraction is undeniable, but how can they fall in love when they’re struggling to be true to themselves?

In For Love or Money by Jesse J. Thoma: Short-seller Frances “Frankie” Sender has always been good at picking winners, but her skills might make her the ultimate loser when a company she is researching frames her for a crime. Her only chance at staying alive is Dakota “Oz” Osborne, a woman with a million-dollar reason to toss her in jail. They’ll have to trust each other and avoid the easy cash out if they want the stock to rise on a chance at love.

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McCall

By Patricia Evans

A McCall Romance | Book 1

Sara Brighton, Savannah’s rising star in the competitive culinary scene, is devastated when her historic riverside restaurant burns to the ground. Finding herself without the creative chaos that has defined her world for the last decade, she impulsively decides to pack up her life and return to McCall, Idaho, the last place she remembers being truly happy. 

Sam Draper, head of the Lake Patrol division of McCall Police Department, is less than pleased to see another entitled tourist putting down roots in her picturesque hometown. Still, Sara surprises her by helping her swerve a professional disaster, and Sam returns the favor by teaching Sara to drive the ski boat languishing at the marina. 

Their chemistry heats up under the summer sun, and they are falling in love, at least until Sara decides to buy her late father’s iconic diner and turn it into yet another pretentious gastropub. Can they build a future amid the ghosts of the past that surround them?

Reprint. Originally published Sapphire Books Publishing, August 2018.

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Promises to Protect

By Jo Hemmingwood

Friends & Community
Animals 

Park ranger Maxine Ward has a duty to protect the colony of people who live on the Georgia state park in-holding. They call themselves Tree City and treat Max as one of their own. The conservation work they do is important, and Max is more than happy to run interference between Tree City and the city of Blue Falls, Georgia.

Her commitment to protect Tree City is put to the test when social worker Skylar Austen takes a special interest in the commune. Her style of care isn’t exactly endearing herself to the community. Skylar, like Max, is a Blue Falls local and her reputation precedes her. Just not in the way she would like. Max remembers Skylar’s famed exploits from high school and is reluctant to have her anywhere near Tree City. It may have a little something to do with Max’s unresolved feelings for Skylar, but she’s never going to admit it.

As their feelings for each other deepen and outside pressures arise to threaten Tree City, Max and Skylar must put their differences aside to protect the people they care for, including each other.

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Sacred Ground

By Missouri Vaun

Amnesia
California
Bisexual

Demon hunter Jordan Price has a sacred calling she can’t escape. But when her target turns out to be an innocent, the truth shakes the foundations of her belief. Betrayed, conflicted, and badly wounded, Jordan retreats to consecrated ground to recover.

Grace Jameson wakes in a shallow grave, terrified and alone. She stumbles toward a light in the thick woods with no memory of how she got there. The light from a cabin window guides her through the darkness until she collapses.

The last thing Jordan needs is a beautiful stranger showing up in the one place she thought was truly safe. She’s certain Grace is not who she claims to be, but as the days pass, an overwhelming attraction builds between them. Doubts are vanquished by desire until Jordan discovers Grace’s demonic secret. Jordan is honor bound to hunt her, but Grace may be the only thing standing between Jordan and certain death.

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When You Smile

By Melissa Brayden

Have you ever had a crush on your babysitter? Taryn Ross sure did. Sixteen-year-old Charlotte was sophisticated, thoughtful, gorgeous, and fun. Taryn counted the minutes until they’d hang out. But Charlotte and her family moved away. 

Now a transfer student at Hillspoint University, Taryn is ready to officially come out when she runs into a familiar face at a party. Charlie, now a grad student, insists on walking a drunk Taryn home. To the detriment of Taryn’s heart (and libido), Charlie has only grown kinder (and hotter) with time.

Charlie Adler has a five-year plan: finish her MFA without any hiccups, figure out a timeline for her engagement, and become an acclaimed fiction writer. Easy, right? That is until Taryn shows up at Hillspoint and shakes up her world like a snow globe. This Taryn is different: soulful, brooding, and all grown up. Charlie’s never been attracted to a woman before, and isn’t dating your one-time charge against the rules? If only their toe-curling, mind-dulling, body-aching chemistry would calm the hell down.

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Adrift

By Sam Ledel

Financial gap/Class disparity
California
Bisexual

Janeth Castro never expected to be the most prominent bootlegger in Southern California. After growing up in Central Mexico and falling into her role in the business, she’s torn between supporting her family values and living life on her own terms. The last thing she needs is a white woman protesting at her door.

Alice Covington is many things: a pickpocket, a drifter, and now a daughter of the Prohibition movement. Under her mother’s cruel eye, she follows the protests to a mysterious mansion by the sea. Determined to play by her parents’ rules—which include not falling in love with a woman—she is surprised to find the great house host to the most surprising, and attractive, rum smuggler in town.

Janeth and Alice are caught in storms that neither can seem to escape. Obligation, fear, and old guilt claw daily at their hearts, and their chance meeting leads to an unexpected romance that may be just what they need to find safe harbor.

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Cabin Fever

By Tagan Shepard

Close Quarters

Morgan Allen arrives at her first national trade show expecting to make a splash and a ton of sales. She didn’t expect her biggest rival, Shelby Howard, to be there, stealing her thunder and all her clients. Why couldn’t Shelby just stay home and let Morgan have this one? After all, Shelby doesn’t believe in her product, not like Morgan does. She’s just successful because she’s charming and magnetic with a killer smile and legs for days.

Still, Morgan has a heart. When a major snowstorm cancels both their flights home and Morgan snags the last rental car, she offers Shelby a ride. That kindness turns into a nightmare when bad cell reception and a missed exit leaves them stranded in a secluded hunting cabin with a wrecked car and no way to call for help.

The longer they’re stuck together, the more their feelings grow. Could Morgan really be falling for the woman who might just cost her everything? And that’s nothing compared to the question that plagues them both once they’re finally rescued. Do they really have feelings for each other, or was it just cabin fever?

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Only a Bridesmaid

By Haley Donnell

Virgins/First Love
Friends to Lovers Romance

A fake bridesmaid, a socially anxious bride, and an unexpected love—what could go wrong?

It’s the strangest job that actress Meli has ever been offered—posing as a bridesmaid for an apparently friendless woman at her upcoming Caribbean wedding. Then she meets the shy bride-to-be, Hannah, and feels an instant connection that makes her put her doubts aside. She’s not only doing this because Hannah is gorgeous, even though she really is. Too bad she’s straight.

Hannah is ten steps beyond shy. Even connecting with her fiancé is difficult, despite how badly her religious parents want her to marry. But something about Meli makes her feel safe. A close encounter with Meli at the bachelorette party leaves Hannah shivery and warm, and wondering if she’s making a mistake by getting married.

To chase her real happily-ever-after, Hannah has to not only defy expectations she’s conformed to all her life, but also risk her heart getting broken and find the words—and the courage—to be her true self.

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Primal Hunt

By L.L. Raand

Shifters
Midnight Hunters | Book 9

When power struggles between the Queen of Faerie, those who seek to usurp her throne, and a deposed Vampire Queen threaten to spill into the Human realm—and that of the Weres and Vampires—wolf Alpha Sylvan Mir calls for a War Council. A coalition is forged between Liege Jody Gates’s Vampires, the Snowcrest wolf Weres, the mountain cat Weres, and Sylvan’s Timberwolves to take the battle to the enemy in Faerie. But before war can be waged, another alliance is needed—the wolf Weres must agree to provide blood for their Vampire comrades once inside Faerie.

Anya, a young wolf warrior, finds herself paired with Rafe, one of the most powerful Vampires in the Americas, in an erotic union of blood and sex that ignites her primal instincts in a way she never imagined.

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Snake Charming

By Genevieve McCluer

Freddie Bauer has never made a good decision in her centuries of life as a vampire, and ripping off the local mob was far from the worst of them. She needs to get out of Berlin for a while and heads to Toronto, the city of fiends, hoping for a chance at a better life, and hopefully more fun.

Phoebe has recently discovered her girlfriend has been lying to her for their entire relationship, while also damaging Phoebe’s image with her online followers by leaking revealing photos showing that she’s a lamia, a half snake, half human. Her friends are there to support her, and she’s ready to give up on love.

A chance encounter has Freddie and Phoebe hitting it off, but neither are looking for more than an amazing hookup. Freddie still has unfinished business, and Phoebe has an unfinished ex. Freddie’s past quickly catches up with her, along with feelings she hasn’t had in decades, and hitmen for the mob. If that wasn’t enough, her next encounter with Phoebe leaves them both questioning if a future together is even possible. Can they overcome their troubled pasts, or will it be same heartbreak, different century?

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Spirits and Sirens

By Kelly & Tana Fireside

First Responders
People of Color
Ghosts
Multicultural 
Owen Station Romance Series
Small Town Romances

Elena Murphy tried to escape the ghosts by moving as far away from Owen Station as she could get. It didn’t work. So when her dad asks her to manage the front-of-the-house at Murphy’s Mortuary Funeral Services, which her cold-as-ice brothers are burying, she packs up her art studio and comes home. This time, though, she’s not the town weirdo but an up-and-coming photographer who has embraced her sixth sense—and learned how to use it.

Allison Jones is the charismatic new assistant fire chief—and maybe the only person not happy Elena’s back. Not only is Al the first woman to hold this post in Owen Station, but she is up to her eyeballs in swirling conspiracy theories that are thwarting efforts to prevent wildfires during a record-breaking Southwest summer. The last thing she needs is somebody with Elena’s profile telling ghost stories.

Elena’s not too wild about the chief, either. No one can be that upbeat all the time and not be hiding something, right? But when Elena needs Al’s help to solve a 70-year-old mystery and finally give her tortured family peace, sparks fly. Will it be enough to melt the ice between them and let love ignite?

Advance praise from Publishers Weekly: "Kelly and Tana Fireside tantalize in their third Owen Station queer romance....[W]hen [Al and Elena] band together to solve a decades-old mystery, sparks fly. Readers will warm to Al, Elena, and the solid supporting cast, especially Elena’s feisty grandmother, who seems to know more about the mystery than she should. This quirky and tolerant small town remains a joy to visit."

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A Case for Discretion

By Ashley Moore

Financial gap/Class disparity
Age Gap
Lawyers

What happens when your carefree spring fling shows up to work as your newest summer intern?

When Gwen Strickland and Etta Monroe agree to a steamy anonymous fling, they make three promises: No names. No details. No feelings.

Gwen’s a prominent Atlanta attorney who wants nothing more than to be the next justice on the Georgia State Supreme Court. Etta is fully focused on getting out of law school unscathed. A relationship is not on the agenda, but somehow, they can’t help totally falling for each other.

Then Gwen discovers Etta has accepted a summer internship at her law firm. Logic and ethics say they should end their relationship. But logic and ethics are no match for their unstoppable attraction. Sneaking about, clandestine dating isn’t a long-term solution, but the promise of a future with Etta means Gwen must risk her biggest goal for a younger woman whose life—and plans—could change.

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Aubrey McFadden Is Never Getting Married

By Georgia Beers

Enemies to Lovers Romance
Bisexual
Friends & Community
Children / Families

All of Aubrey McFadden’s college friends are tying the knot, and she’s been invited to five weddings. Five. In one year. Who wouldn’t want to celebrate so much love and romance?

Aubrey, that’s who.

She’s going anyway, of course. It’s not her friends’ fault her college boyfriend left Aubrey on the day of their wedding. Lies, selfishness, unhappy surprises…no, thank you. And you know who’s responsible for her permanently single status?

Monica, that’s who.

Their friends all say Monica Wallace had a thing for Aubrey back then—not that Aubrey cares one little bit why that still makes her heart race. Monica convinced her best friend Cody that marrying Aubrey, settling down, and locking himself into a 9-to-5 at the expense of his dreams would be a huge mistake. Cody called off the wedding, and Aubrey has never forgiven them.

Aubrey McFadden is never getting married, but she does have five weddings to attend, and she’ll be avoiding Monica at every single one.

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Flowers for Dead Girls

By Abigail Collins

People of Color
Ghosts
Disability
Coming Out
Animals 
Bisexual

Seventeen-year-old Astra's life hasn't been easy. She has no friends, an absent father, and a mom everyone thinks is crazy. Plus, one huge secret: she can talk to ghosts.

Astra inherited her mom’s gift, but sometimes it feels more like a curse. Especially when she meets Isla, who's sweet, cheerful, and absolutely gorgeous. She’s just the right kind of girl to bring Astra out of her shell—and maybe more. The only problem? She’s dead.

When Isla enlists Astra’s help with her so-called bucket list, Astra intends to do just enough to help her move on to the afterlife. She doesn’t plan on getting close to her, and she definitely doesn’t plan on falling in love. By the time the list is finished, Astra realizes that her gift might not be such a bad thing after all.

But Isla has secrets of her own. And when the truth behind her death is discovered, even Astra’s love might not be enough to convince her to stay.

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