They'll conquer Baru’s island, rewrite her culture, criminalize her customs, and dispose of one of her fathers. But Baru is patient. She'll swallow her hate, prove her talent, and join the Masquerade. She will learn the secrets of empire. She’ll be exactly what they need. And she'll claw her way high enough up the rungs of power to set her people free. In a final test of her loyalty, the Masquerade will send Baru to bring order to distant Aurdwynn, a snakepit of rebels, informants, and seditious dukes. Aurdwynn kills everyone who tries to rule it. To survive, Baru will need to untangle this land’s intricate web of treachery - and conceal her attraction to the dangerously fascinating Duchess Tain Hu. But Baru is a savant in games of power, as ruthless in her tactics as she is fixated on her goals. In the calculus of her schemes, all ledgers must be balanced, and the price of liberation paid in full.

    She's blissfully living the vanlife, crossing the country as she pleases, working odd jobs to fund her lifestyle, treading lightly, and leaving no trace behind her. But despite the immense freedom she has as a traveling nomad, she can't help but feel that something's missing… perhaps someone. A quick trip through Madison turns far more interesting for Julia when she meets Robin Hyland. Robin is searching for answers, and a chance encounter between the two women opens up a brand new adventure that neither expected. While Julia didn't anticipate having a passenger in her van, it's hard to say no to a pretty redhead who's looking to find herself. Will Julia and Robin be able to navigate the potentially treacherous road ahead of them and come out unscathed? Can love win out over the demons that both women must face? Life on the road has its challenges, especially when you're living the bohemian life in your van. Facing those obstacles with a partner, however, might reveal a route never before considered.

    Ran away from my crazy religious parents, ran away from the judgment, and ran away from what I couldn't accept about myself. And all of that wouldn't be so bad... if I hadn't also run away from my best friend. But now I'm forced by circumstance to come back. And I'm terrified. Because I made a lot of mistakes in leaving, some of the worst mistakes of my life. I don't know if I've grown up enough to face them. I don't know if I can face Amy. Or, even worse, if she doesn't forgive me... I don't know if I can survive walking away again. Nobody has ever made me feel as good and as bad as she does.  I've never been as close to anyone as I was to Jessica. But she just left when I was at my most vulnerable. She did worse than that, in fact. There are things I don't know if I can forgive, things I never planned to forgive. And then she just waltzes back into my life unexpectedly I'm supposed to just forgive her? What if I don't want to forgive her? But that's the problem, I do want to forgive her. I want to have her as my best friend again... and so much more. But I'm terrified of what is going to happen if I allow myself to love her again. This is a standalone lesbian romance novel with HEA ending!

    Blonde and unpolished, Zoe struggles to fit in with the high-caliber rich crowd at Brentwood High. A scholarship honey, her athletics carry her far. Ryan Astor, on the other hand, has all the money and all the brains, but she can't seem to overcome her emotional struggles after a brutal year of disappointments and a disastrous summer away.When a random party lands Ryan in Zoe's lap, Zoe can't seem to shake her new addiction to the somewhat shy and obviously beautiful girl.

    A love that could birth a revolution.After the War of Kinds ravaged the kingdom of Rabu, the Automae, Designed to be the playthings of royals, took over the estates of their owners and bent the human race to their will.Now, Ayla, a human servant rising the ranks at the House of the Sovereign, dreams of avenging the death of her family… by killing the Sovereign’s daughter, Lady Crier. Crier, who was Made to be beautiful, to be flawless. And to take over the work of her father. Crier had been preparing to do just that—to inherit her father’s rule over the land. But that was before she was betrothed to Scyre Kinok, who seems to have a thousand secrets. That was before she discovered her father isn’t as benevolent as she thought. That was before she met Ayla.Set in a richly-imagined fantasy world, Nina Varela’s debut novel is a sweepingly romantic tale of love, loss and revenge, that challenges what it really means to be human.

     Alizhan can’t see faces, but she can read minds. Her mysterious ability leaves her unable to touch or be touched without excruciating pain. Rescued from abandonment and raised by the wealthy and beautiful Iriyat ha-Varensi, Alizhan has grown up in isolation, using her gift to steal secrets from Iriyat’s rivals, the ruling class of Laalvur. But Iriyat keeps secrets of her own. When Alizhan discovers that she isn’t the only one of her kind, and that a deadly plot threatens everyone like her, there’s only one person she can trust. Ev liked having a secret. None of the other girls in the village had a thief-friend. Evreyet Umarsad—“Ev” to her parents and her one friend—longs to be the kind of hero she reads about in books. But the rest of the world feels impossibly far away from her life on a farm outside Laalvur. Ev will never lay eyes on the underground city of Adappyr, the stars of the Nightward Coast, or the venomous medusas that glow in the dark depths of the sea. At least on her weekly trip to the market, Ev gets to see her thief—the strange young woman who slips by her cart and playfully steals a handful of thornfruit. When the thief needs help, Ev doesn’t hesitate. Together, they uncover a conspiracy that draws them all over Laalvur and beyond. Thornfruit is the first book in The Gardener's Hand trilogy.

    In spite of Evelyn’s terror, she is intrigued by the leader of the gang, a beautiful Highwaywoman called Bess. Increasingly entranced by Bess and the prospect of adventure, Evelyn puts up little resistance when she is kidnapped. However, she begins to suspect there is a lot more to her captor than she initially thought and what started as a light-hearted escapade rapidly turns into a desperate escape and a frantic struggle for survival.Niamh Murphy’s debut novel is not just a swashbuckling lesbian romance, but also a gripping tale of love and betrayal.

    Echo Hunter 367 is exactly what the Church created her to be: loyal, obedient, lethal. A clone who shouldn’t care about anything but her duty. Who shouldn’t be able to.When rebellious citizens challenge the Church’s authority, it is Echo’s duty to hunt them down before civil war can tumble the city back into the dark. But Echo hides a deadly secret: doubt. And when Echo’s mission leads her to Lia, a rebel leader who has a secret of her own, Echo is forced to face that doubt. For Lia holds the key to the city’s survival, and Echo must choose between the woman she loves and the purpose she was born to fulfill.

    Enter Cara, whose parallel selves happen to be exceptionally good at dying—from disease, turf wars, or vendettas they couldn’t outrun. Cara’s life has been cut short on 372 worlds in total.On this Earth, however, Cara has survived. Identified as an outlier and therefore a perfect candidate for multiverse travel, Cara is plucked from the dirt of the wastelands. Now she has a nice apartment on the lower levels of the wealthy and walled-off Wiley City. She works—and shamelessly flirts—with her enticing yet aloof handler, Dell, as the two women collect off-world data for the Eldridge Institute. She even occasionally leaves the city to visit her family in the wastes, though she struggles to feel at home in either place. So long as she can keep her head down and avoid trouble, Cara is on a sure path to citizenship and security.But trouble finds Cara when one of her eight remaining doppelgängers dies under mysterious circumstances, plunging her into a new world with an old secret. What she discovers will connect her past and her future in ways she could have never imagined—and reveal her own role in a plot that endangers not just her world, but the entire multiverse.

    And her latest target, a heavily guarded warehouse on Tevanne’s docks, is nothing her unique abilities can’t handle. But unbeknownst to her, Sancia’s been sent to steal an artifact of unimaginable power, an object that could revolutionize the magical technology known as scriving. The Merchant Houses who control this magic--the art of using coded commands to imbue everyday objects with sentience--have already used it to transform Tevanne into a vast, remorseless capitalist machine. But if they can unlock the artifact’s secrets, they will rewrite the world itself to suit their aims. Now someone in those Houses wants Sancia dead, and the artifact for themselves. And in the city of Tevanne, there’s nobody with the power to stop them. To have a chance at surviving—and at stopping the deadly transformation that’s under way—Sancia will have to marshal unlikely allies, learn to harness the artifact’s power for herself, and undergo her own transformation, one that will turn her into something she could never have imagined.

     El Glasse’s mother controls her life. What she does, who she dates, even what she’s allowed to say. El only has two ways of holding onto her freedom. One is her popular anonymous blog, hidden from Mama Glasse. The other is what she so often blogs about: her feelings for Riley, the girl who works at the ice cream parlor. Riley is fierce, free, and rides a killer motorcycle, and El cannot help but love her. But Mama Glasse can never find out about her sexuality—unless El is willing to rebel. When El runs away, Riley feels responsible. She knows what it’s like to be alone, and she can’t deny her deep desire to learn El’s story. In a move she might end up regretting, she makes a devil’s bargain with Mama Glasse to hunt El down. Riley isn’t trying to bring her home though, because she knows an evil spell when she sees one—a spell of fear and shame El is finally starting to break. This huntress might lose her own heart, but it’s a risk she’s willing to take. Word count: 103,000; page count: 325

    Any high school student with a chemjet and internet connection can download recipes and print drugs, or invent them. A seventeen-year-old street girl finds God through a new brain-altering drug called Numinous, used as a sacrament by a new Church that preys on the underclass. But she is arrested and put into detention, and without the drug, commits suicide.Lyda Rose, another patient in that detention facility, has a dark secret: she was one of the original scientists who developed the drug. With the help of an ex-government agent and an imaginary, drug-induced doctor, Lyda sets out to find the other three survivors of the five who made the Numinous in a quest to set things right.A mind-bending and violent chase across Canada and the US, Daryl Gregory's Afterparty is a marvelous mix of William Gibson’s Neuromancer, Philip K. Dick’s Ubik, and perhaps a bit of Peter Watts’s Starfish: a last chance to save civilization, or die trying.

    I figured it would be best to start at the beginning, and I’m very glad that I did. Great read!! Now, on to the next.”~ Kindle CustomerThe only woman Duchess Aurelia (Bree) Makenna ever loved died a slow and lingering death. And now, it’s her turn. Without her beloved wife, Timur, life holds no joy, no love, and no future.But sometimes, fate has other ideas.An orphan, a healer, and a diverse cast of Animal Spirit Guides join forces in this epic fantasy where love, grit, and determination not only heal a wounded heart but also lay a foundation for a battle against a black evil lurking within the Seven Realms of Ar’rothi.Bree—a warrior who, in times of need, serves her king on the battlefields of Anacafria.Katie—The Spirit Child, a nine-year-old orphan with a frightening power she must learn to yield with a warrior’s skills and the spiritual understanding of a saint.Becca and Nashotah—lesbian lovers, healers, and warriors who straddle two cultures while struggling to help the duchess and Katie trust each other’s strengths and understand their weaknesses.Perfect for animal lovers and fans of fantasy authors such as Anne McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey, The Spirit Child blends the lyrical and mystical with pulse-pounding action. ISBN: 1479319554

    She is careful to avoid intimacy and does not allow anyone to get close to her. Taylor has convinced herself, against the wishes of her friends, that being unattached will save her from inevitable heartache. However, this all changes when Zoey, a representation of everything that Taylor is not, moves in with her. The more Zoey accepts Taylor for who she really is, the more Taylor worries that Zoey could fulfill her secret desire for true human connection. Now, a frightened Taylor must decide whether she is willing to reevaluate her sense of happiness and redefine it with Zoey, even if it means running the risk of being broken in the end. Something in Return is a story about learning to let people into our lives, as oftentimes getting to know the stranger among us requires getting to know the stranger within us. It is a tale of self-preservation and self-definition. It is about breaking down the confines in which we live that we typically have built ourselves, because it is only then that we are free and able to love truly.

    It is here that the lives of two women, with two mysteries, will converge.Nineteen-year-old Night Vale pawn shop owner Jackie Fierro is given a paper marked "King City" by a mysterious man in a tan jacket holding a deer skin suitcase. Everything about him and his paper unsettles her, especially the fact that she can't seem to get the paper to leave her hand, and that no one who meets this man can remember anything about him. Jackie is determined to uncover the mystery of King City and the man in the tan jacket before she herself unravels.Night Vale PTA treasurer Diane Crayton's son, Josh, is moody and also a shape shifter. And lately Diane's started to see her son's father everywhere she goes, looking the same as the day he left years earlier, when they were both teenagers. Josh, looking different every time Diane sees him, shows a stronger and stronger interest in his estranged father, leading to a disaster Diane can see coming, even as she is helpless to prevent it.Diane's search to reconnect with her son and Jackie's search for her former routine life collide as they find themselves coming back to two words: "King City". It is King City that holds the key to both of their mysteries, and their futures...if they can ever find it.