He certainly had no way of knowing that it would quickly change his life and end up with him going to school as a girl.

    The high-powered high life loses all its allure in the face of family tragedy.A return to the Gulf Coast life and a chance to reconnect and reclaim what really matters leads to unexpected passion and a final chance at true love in this tumultuous summer romance from best-selling author Gerri Hill!

    It was a world I had no experience with, outside my purview, and something that, admittedly, excited me greatly. I wanted to know more about her.A stressful job in finance and investing has made it impossible for Netty to have any semblance of a functional love life. The long hours are taking their toll and as a huge new project falls in her lap, Netty is just about at her wit’s end. Late one Friday night at work, however, life brightens when a knock on her office door unveils adorably geeky Henrietta, her company’s computer consultant.Henry — computer geek, gamer, sweetheart — takes Netty on a ride that makes her question her notions of life and love, work and play, and acceptance of herself and others. Always the pretty popular girl, Netty finds herself irrevocably changing as she gets intimate with nerdy Henry, prompting her to wonder whether the path she’s been on has actually been the right one for her.Will Netty be able to shrug off the negativity around her relationship at work, navigate the conflict of interest in getting involved with her company’s consultant, and finally start living true to herself? Or will this lesbian love affair end like all the rest?

    Into her life drifts Norman Torkelson, a career con man charged with strangling to death his latest mark. At first, as Lee explains to us, the case seems routine, the evidence overwhelming. Norman--manly, magnetic and morally reprehensible--is a man who crisscrosses America looking for patsies for his cruel marriage scam: Love 'em, liquidate their assets, leave 'em. Clearly, he murdered Bobette Frisch, the dumpy, sour 50-something bar owner who had fallen madly in love with him. But just as Lee is resigning herself to the inevitable Guilty! verdict, she begins to have doubts. What, after all, was Norman's motive? Why not do what he had done for the last 20 years: run and leave behind a broke and brokenhearted victim? Lee starts to wonder if her client is not only not guilty but also covering for the real killer and, in doing so, performing the first selfless act of his life. As the Torkelson case unfolds, a second narrator chimes in to tell us the story behind the story: the tale of Lee's life. Born Lily White, Lee is a smart, pretty and privileged child coming of age on Long Island. Her parents have little time for her or her younger sister, devoted as they are to the pursuit of shallowness. Her mother, Sylvia, who looks like Lauren Bacall's twin sister with a mild eating disorder, is busy with the exhausting work of keeping up her wardrobe. Her father, Leonard Weissberg--Weiss--and finally White, is consumed by his chi-chi Manhattan fur salon, his model-bookkeeper mistress, and his obsession with the family next door, the old-money, oh-so-social Taylors. When Lee marries Jazz Taylor, the scion of these blue-bloods, her life seems blessed. Suddenly she has her mother's approval, her father's love--and a sublime husband. No matter that she has to give up her dream job in the Manhattan DA's Office to move back to Long Island with him; that's what marriage is, a series of compromises made in the name of love. Isn't it? Lily White masterfully interweaves the depths of deception surrounding the twisted Torkelson case with the stunning betrayals that devastate Lee's own life. With the characteristic intelligence and delicious, razor-sharp wit displayed in her previous bestsellers, such as After All These Years and Compromising Positions, Susan Isaacs has crafted an extraordinary novel about social mobility -- about what is phony and what is real. Lily White is the seamlessly executed story of the crimes committed in the name of the good life and the victims of these violations: Those like Bobette, who do not survive, those whose spirits are crushed, and the few, like Lee, who fight back--and find something better

    After moving to upstate New York from Atlanta, she falls in love with and purchases an old, run-down farmhouse. The only catch: she know s nothing about renovating a house, taking care of land, or snow . Joss Bauer is a New York native who grew up in her family’s construction business. She has a soft spot for old houses, but no patience for overpaid debutantes who want to play at country living. When Olivia hires Joss to do the renovations on her new home, the sparks fly, in more ways than one. It turns out both women have a lot to learn about life, love, and the meaning of home. But when a scandal threatens Olivia’s professional reputation, it puts her priorities and her new found love on the line.

    Life is good. But within a span of a few weeks, all of that changes. She’s always known she was adopted, but newly revealed lies and secrets kept by her parents make her question everything she thought she knew about her beginnings. Her ten-year relationship with her partner, Nan, is unexpectedly on shaky ground when she discovers that Nan, too, has kept a secret from her all these years. Suddenly, everything Leisa believed – about her life, about the people around her, about herself – everything is turned upside down, and nothing is as she thought it was. Pulling away to try and sort things out, Leisa reaches out to the wrong people and, in the process, nearly loses herself. Buffeted at every turn by storms that shake the very foundation of her world, Leisa must figure out whom and what she can hold fast to as the winds of change blow.

    Now, in the little town of Junction, she's known as Nat, a cowboy working on Boss Daddy's cattle ranch. She keeps to herself, renting a room in a local boarding house instead of staying in the bunk house, and with her dungarees and short hair, no one realizes she's living as a man. But Boss Daddy's pretty daughter Miss Lucille takes a notice to "Mr. Nat," and the closer the two become, the more conflicted Nat grows. She likes Miss Lucille a lot more than she knows she should, and it's easy to forget who she's pretending to be around the boss's daughter. Then Miss Lucille surprises everyone, Nat included, by announcing their engagement. Nat knows they can't marry, and if she tells Miss Lucille why, her ruse will be up. Her only choice is to leave Junction behind, even if it means breaking Miss Lucille's heart. But will Miss Lucille let Nat go so easily?

    "White Bikini Babe" is the personification of sex, clearly ready for action. Watching her makes Wendy wonder whether, by putting on a sexy bikini and getting a new attitude, she could land a hot beach guy of her own. Armed with a daring bikini and a new attitude--along with the journal in which she records her secret thoughts on the whole adventure--Wendy soon finds herself engaging in a wild and naughty affair with her perfect fantasy man, who pushes her to sexual extremes. But at what point does the game become reality? When does the person she pretends to be become the person she really is? And worse, what happens when her private diary falls into the wrong hands?

    It soon becomes obvious - though not to Jean - that she has a major crush on the candidate, Rosie Monroe.Thrilled by the excitement of politics and strangely flustered every time Rosie calls on her for help, Jean has never felt more alive. Rising to every challenge with newfound passion, she surprises everyone, including her husband, by flourishing under the stress of the hard-fought campaign.When dirty tricks by the other side damage Rosie's reputation at the worst possible moment, Jean finally realizes that her feelings are not entirely about the thrill of the job. Two decades of doing what was expected of her are abruptly turned upside down, and she realizes she may just be in love - for the first time in her life.Newcomer Robbi McCoy tells a passionate coming-of-age story about a mature woman whose life is only beginning. Full of surprises and difficult choices, Waltzing at Midnight is a heartfelt, endearing story about a woman we all know and the love that transforms her life.

     Rilsin was fated to rule the land of Saeditin-until a bloody coup killed her family around her, and she was drafted into service to the new queen, her own cousin. Now, Rilsin must choose between a long-awaited peace-and a betrayal that could ruin the very kingdom she pledged to protect...

    What if you don't follow the rules and it radically alters the course of your life?What if you get kicked out of the house and lose all your friends and everyone you love? Will you turn the corner into a world filled with unusual friends and create a new kind of family or self-destruct?BOOKLIST *STARRED* REVIEW

    Life is easy and full of hard, dusty work, but when her brother Joseph decides to become a contestant in a reality TV dating show, Romancing the Farmer, everything goes to hell.The station gets overrun by city women and stuck-up producers right in the middle of shearing season. Justine Cason, the ringleader of the circus Aimee instantly detests is an irritating, arrogant presence that she is forced to chaperone around the massive property.The two women find more in common than trading insults the more time they spend together, sparking an unexpected connection neither was looking for. As Joseph navigates the dating scene, and Aimee's sister Sally navigates a crumbling marriage, Aimee's life turns on its head in more ways than one when her blooming connection with Justine is the catalyst to leaving the land she loves.When the worst fire season in decades strikes their patch of the world, the Turner family must find a way to save themselves and the ones they dearly cherish. Can they put aside their differences to protect each other?*minor edits updated 1st May 2016*

    But that means leaving her dog, Bentley, at home. So when Natalie Fox finds a skinny, terrified dog outside the bakery, the blue-eyed canine becomes the catalyst for a relationship between the two polar opposites.

    It was not the most conventional of households, formed as it was by two women who lived as partners in life as well as in business, but it had been a welcome retreat for a shy girl who had issues with her own mother and who needed room to grow. Now both grandmothers have died, and BJ has come back to the small house near Blue Lake to sort through the remnants of their lives and the tatters of her own. She arrives with her young son, desperately in need of time to herself—time to come to terms with her husband's sudden decision to end their marriage. Over the course of the summer, childhood memories come into sharp focus, especially with the reappearance of Travis, the man for whom, when they were both teenagers, she harbored a secret crush. Now, suddenly free, she must decide whether she's ready to take a second chance at love. More unsettling, however, is the discovery of an unmailed letter written by BJ's grandmother Nonna to BJ's own late mother filled with revelations both startling and confusing. Finding secrets within secrets, BJ begins piecing together the truth of the past.Summers at Blue Lake is an engrossing and rewarding debut novel in the tradition of works by popular novelists such as Elizabeth Berg, Sue Miller, and Anita Shreve.

    Self-image, body changes, and social changes chip away at individual’s self-confidence. Withdrawal and hiding can often seem like the easiest escape. You cannot escape from life. An excellent student, our hero is ripped from his friends and everything he knows when his father is moved across the country for his job. Intent on re-establishing the mother’s employment, the parents appear to withdraw from their high school student as he is dropped into a situation where he knows no one. Everyone experiences physical and emotional problems but our protagonist is ashamed of his body and won’t even talk to his parents who seem oblivious. Wearing baggy clothes, coats and hoods, it is easy to hide his body and isolate himself since he knows no one. Others assume he is overweight, shy or has acne problems. The strangely dressed student is a magnet for bullies and everyone else ignores him. Teachers might have gotten involved or pushed him to participate in class, but as an excellent student, grades are not an issue. Life evolves into a strategy to be left alone and survive another day. Because of this, attacks are not reported. An accident at school will expose our protagonist’s secrets to a classmate. How that classmate responds will change our protagonist’s life. There are still bullying and attacks, but with newfound confidence, our hero will deal with things differently. Can this quiet, isolated person evolve into an example and build real friendships while accepting life’s little hurdles? This series of books contain examples of high school life that help the reader to identify and deal with bullying behavior in a high school setting. The books in this series are intended to be safe reading for teens and tweens. Thank you for reading on Daring Diane Disclaimer This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.