Thus has it been since before the physical and spirit worlds divided. There are five martial Forms inspired by the elements and humans have learned them, using them to defend themselves, for thousands of years. Ever since the Empire of Iron began using the Metal Form for conquest, the secrets of each Form have been guarded more closely. Few people learn more than one Form as they did in the past. In Avrilatha – an ordinary village in the Western Plains – lives Ayah. Daughter of the village healer, Ayah’s only genuinely remarkable features are a stubborn streak and a desire to master all five Elemental Forms. When she is forced to leave her village, Ayah sets out on her quest to find teachers. Accompanied by a fox with a secret, Ayah’s journey will take her all over the continent and involve her in politics, intrigue, and war. The Empire of Iron is on the move, and the only thing in its way is one stubborn girl.

    Too bad she can’t sort out her own love life. It’s been years since Mila set foot in Cloudy Harbor, her hometown. After her first love took off without a word, Mila followed suit and moved away. But now, years later, Mila’s sister wants to get married at their childhood home, and Mila is forced to face her own loneliness. To her surprise, she finds that sleepy Cloudy Harbor has changed almost as much as she has—and that change is embodied by Rickie, the sexy, rebellious master chef at the new modern cuisine restaurant. With her dashing good looks and her culinary wizardry, Rickie charms Mila in a way she never imagined possible. But when a missing piece from Mila’s past blows into town, she realizes that she isn’t sure of anything anymore, and her delicious romance with Rickie is put to the test. Is history bound to repeat itself?

    Now ten years later they meet again. Can they forget the past and remember the love they once shared?

    From the stirrings of his adolescent libido to his eventual death from AIDS, Oscar Moore's hero confronts his destiny with raw candour, shocking self-awareness, and frightening fatalism.

    A funny, sexy modern romance about two lonely women who bond over the unexpected and fall in love despite their determination to do the opposite.Giselle was having a ero week, in fact, she was having a ero life. Her ex had finally copped to the affair she’d been having for months and they’d broken up, Giselle had just watched an idiot get the promotion she wanted at work, and her mother had showed up for lunch with a gigolo she is set to marry.Life gets even more complicated when, after drowning her sorrows at her local bar, Giselle finds a newborn baby in a dumpster a block from her house and decides to keep it. Two days later, after she’s being calling in sick to work, her best friend Sandy visits, only to discover a fridge full of baby formula and Giselle reading a book on motherhood.Sandy has to act but she doesn't want to get Giselle in trouble, so she gets in touch with a friend who can deal with the situation, Detective Dale Porter. Dale has heard it all before. Nothing surprises her and she has no problem with the idea of picking up a dumpster baby, no questions asked, from a rescuer who got “carried away.” Only, Giselle seems so distressed when the baby is taken, avowedly single Dale finds herself wanting to make it up to her.

    Tully Stephens wants only to survive her sophomore year. They soon realize how desperately they want each other, but that’s easier said than done.Tulley is a nineteen-year-old new initiate in the Gamma Alpha Epsilon sorority who has never loved a woman. Sue is the twenty-six-year-old resident adviser who jumps from bed to bed. Tulley is discovering her true self while Sue wants to discover more about the sexy young butch who’s invading her fantasies.A sorority house is never the ideal location for keeping a secret, especially when the secret is a blossoming affair. Can their love withstand the strain of the concealment? Will their time together always consist of stolen moments? Or will they complete their Initiation of Desire?

    Her mother, a distant relative of William Faulkner, told neighbors and family that her daughter had died. The two never saw each other again. Nearly twenty-five years later, after building her own family and happy home life, a lawyer called to say her mother was dead. In this story about the fragility of memory and the complexity of family, Beam decides to look back at her own dark history, and for the secret to her mother’s madness.

    Cruise over, they kept in touch, and rapidly became close friends. The following year they’re reunited for a visit which ends with a spontaneous kiss that surprises them both. That one kiss destroys their friendship, sending them back to their lives—and their partners—heartsick and remorseful.Ten years later everything—and nothing—has changed. While the path is now clear for them to reignite the old flame, the time still seems all wrong. Cassie is unable to break through the emotional walls separating her from both her estranged son and her rediscovered love, while Lauren is overcome with revelations about her late partner that shatter her belief in destiny and romance.Challenged by the past and besieged in the present, the only thing going for them is the one thing they’ve denied all these years: love.With an unforgettable journey through China as backdrop for a story of fated love, Robbi McCoy (Waltzing at Midnight, Not Every River) returns with a decade-spanning romance that explores first impressions, second chances and perhaps third time’s the charm.

    Will Frankie's secrets shatter their relationship before it begins?A sizzling hot Age Gap Romance from Grace Parkes.Cara Taylor has spent her life in a small village without much excitement. She works in a bar, lives with her best friend and without realising is in need of something new and exciting.After meeting her best friend’s new tenant Frankie, she is desperate to find out more.Can Cara break down Frankie’s barriers and find love in the land that time forgot?

    Worse, she lives in the small Alaska town of Moose Point, which never lets her forget it. From the annual Moose Madness Festival to the moose bumper stickers to the giant sign for the Moose Point Pub where she works, this town loves its moose.Worst of all? Maggie really is a moose. A moose shifter, to be specific. It's just that no one knows. No one can ever know.Except one person ...Wolf shifter Fiona Barton was one of the mean girls in high school ... and Maggie's desperate crush. Years after shaking the dust of Moose Point off her heels, she's back in town for a pack event and runs headlong into Maggie—and this time she recognizes what she didn't before: the tall girl with the shy, beautiful smile is her fated mate.Fiona is openly out; Maggie isn't. But Fi has a lot to make up for, and Maggie has a lot of soul-searching to do before a wolf and a moose can ride off into the sunset together.A hilarious and heartwarming enemies-to-lovers lesbian romcom, with a guaranteed HEA!

    City of lights, City of love... City of drama! With a year remaining on Dominique's first presidential term, the Laroche camp is gearing up for her re-election campaign. Dominique herself, however, doesn't seem so keen on going through it all again.Aurore and Solange's relationship has been on and off so many times, nobody can keep count. The prospect of being on opposing sides of an election campaign is proving too difficult to overcome. Unless one of them can find it in her heart to make a sacrifice.Claire is showing signs of a midlife crisis. Rather than test her marriage to Margot, her behaviour puts in danger Barbier & Cyr, and her friendship with Juliette and Steph.Partnerships will be questioned, loyalties will shift and priorities will be reassessed as favourite characters, and old foes, return for a new season of Parisian drama and intrigue.Warning: This title contains sensual language, ladies making love, copious wine consumption and the occasional bout of political backstabbing.

    When she meets the man of her dreams and he wants to marry her, she tries to pick the right time to tell him she is a transgender.

    Violetta's agreement is reluctant, sure the only women who might want have a screw loose. She feels her suspicions are confirmed when it is an anonymous bidder who wins the date, and things go from weird to weirder after that. This is a novella of 30,000 words.

    When tragedy strikes, Rachel is separated from her brother Sam and sent to a Jewish orphanage where Dr. Mildred Solomon is conducting medical research. Subjected to X-ray treatments that leave her disfigured, Rachel suffers years of cruel harassment from the other orphans. But when she turns fifteen, she runs away to Colorado hoping to find the brother she lost and discovers a family she never knew she had.Though Rachel believes she’s shut out her painful childhood memories, years later she is confronted with her dark past when she becomes a nurse at Manhattan’s Old Hebrews Home and her patient is none other than the elderly, cancer-stricken Dr. Solomon. Rachel becomes obsessed with making Dr. Solomon acknowledge, and pay for, her wrongdoing. But each passing hour Rachel spends with the old doctor reveal to Rachel the complexities of her own nature. She realizes that a person’s fate—to be one who inflicts harm or one who heals—is not always set in stone.Lush in historical detail, rich in atmosphere and based on true events, Orphan #8 is a powerful, affecting novel of the unexpected choices we are compelled to make that can shape our destinies.

    After a particularly bad fire leaves Alex and another member of her team in the hospital, she finds herself entranced by Dr. Rachel Tom. She doesn’t plan to fall in love and doesn’t need the hassles of a new relationship, but Rachel felt the pull as well. And she’s not the kind to let something so good slip through her fingers.Both women quickly succumb to their desires, but the relationship may be over before it begins. Alex soon realizes that the horrible blazes they’ve been fighting recently are too uniform to be anything but arson. And if she’s right, someone is setting them for the express purpose of killing firefighters.