Book picks similar to
An Alaskan Wedding by Nance Sparks
second-chance
child-children
arc
lgbtq
If You Dare
Sandy Lowe - 2020
Stuck in her hometown over the holidays. Stuck in a Wi-Fi dead zone. Stuck watching her longtime crush make out with her ex-best-friend. The small town of Sunrise Falls thrives on gossip, and everyone’s talking about the mess she’s made of her life back in San Francisco. One festively decorated bar and two vodka tonics later, a game of truth or dare seems like just the thing to distract her. Until the dare to seduce the next woman who walks through the door brings her face-to-face with librarian Emma Prescott.Emma’s a good girl with a mind dirty enough to make a sex worker blush. A painful experience as a teenager has left her anxious and afraid of her own desire, but when gorgeous Lauren West kisses her senseless, Emma thinks maybe she’s finally found the perfect person to help her break free. That is, until Lauren comes clean about what really turns her on and reveals passions far darker than Emma ever anticipated.Reader Advisory: If You Dare contains explicit fantasies of non-consent.
Ice
Lyn Gardner - 2012
This time...it's worse.Ice begins when a boy is kidnapped from a London park and Detective Inspectors Alex Blake and Maggie Campbell are brought together to work on the case. While their goal is the same, their work ethics are not. Intelligent, perceptive and at times disobedient, Alex Blake does what she believes it takes to do her job. Maggie Campbell has a slightly different approach. She believes that rule books were written for a reason. Unexpectedly, their dynamics mesh, but when her feelings for Alex become stronger than she wants to admit, Maggie provokes the worst in Alex to ensure that they will never be partners again. Three years later, fate brings them together again. Their assignment is simple, but a plane crash gets in their way. Now, in the middle of a blizzard, they have to try to survive...and fight the feelings that refuse to die.
Christmas Inn Maine
Chelsea M. Cameron - 2019
Everything was going according to plan until the cottage she rented turned out not to exist and she ends up snowed in at a charming inn that happens to be owned by the family of her most-hated coworker, Laura Sterling. Talk about bad luck.Colden ends up saying yes to Laura’s mother when she insists on giving her a room. It’s only for a night, but she somehow finds herself agreeing to spend Christmas with the Sterlings as well. She blamed the festive atmosphere that she couldn’t seem to escape. Maybe there’s something in the mistletoe?Against her will, Colden finds herself being sucked into the comfort and joy of the season, even though she can’t seem to escape Laura, who is literally everywhere Colden is, like she’s doing it on purpose. Things get even worse when they’re forced to share a bed when there’s a fire at a local farm and the inn offers all the available rooms to the family. Colden finally realizes there’s a thin line between annoyance and attraction, and she and Laura definitely crossed it. She’s also pretty sure that Laura’s mother is shipping them hard and so is the rest of her family, right down to her great-grandmother whose main companion is a two-hundred-pound pig named Minnie.Will the magic of the holiday season melt Colden’s heart? Or will she go back to Boston alone, with only the memories to keep her warm?
Mistletoe and Ivy
Jacqueline Ramsden - 2021
With every book she reads, she hopes for her own magical holiday love story.Kit Gunderson is back in Beaumont for the holidays and feeling more at home than she has in a long time, especially when she meets her adorable niece’s teacher, Ms. Stringer. As they bond over the school’s winter production, their distaste of holiday tacos, and Kit learning to ski, everything seems to be falling into place.The only problem? Ivy’s poked around and figured out exactly who Kit’s author persona is—except that she’s totally wrong, and has no idea the woman she’s falling for is the favorite author she knows she could never keep her cool around, Ivy Winters.After all, there’s no better way to meet your favorite author than by accidentally falling in love first.
The Alpha Affair
Bridget Essex - 2021
This country girl grew up in Sylvania, a little mountain town outside of Pittsburgh populated entirely by wolves. Out of all of the members of her boisterous family, she’s the most stubborn.But she’s met her match in Darcy Williams.When Lizzie and Darcy first meet at a charity auction, it’s not so much a spark as an instant inferno. Darcy is sexy as all hell, a smoldering force of nature and a deeply mysterious lady: so Lizzie’s immediately smitten.Until Darcy opens her mouth. Because this alpha wolf on vacation from L.A. is as snobby as they come. And Lizzie just happens to be an alpha, too.Two alphas can’t possibly see eye to eye, and two headstrong women who hate each other can’t possibly fall in love...right?
The Politics of Love
Jen Jensen - 2020
Everything's totally fine, except that it really isn't. Shelley manages depression and crippling anxiety because of the secret she can never reveal: she's gay.Rand Thomas is a psychotherapist, transgender rights activist, and political liberal. Widowed and struggling with her wife's toxic parents, Rand isn't going to allow herself to love again.When Shelley and Rand meet in Manhattan, neither one expects to find that the other is exactly who they need.
The Island Between Us
Wendy Hudson - 2021
After a life spent exploring the most remote places on earth, she’s found her way back home to Scotland, where she teaches her expert survival skills.Kelsey Campbell has spent her whole life acting, both personally and professionally, and has had it with the pressure of keeping everyone else happy. Craving somewhere far from the glaring spotlight, she signs up for a two-week team survival course.It’s not just the remote island location that appeals to Kelsey. There’s the fact she met the course leader years ago and always regretted how they left things.However, just as Georgia and Kelsey are renewing their long-lost connection over bushcraft, a storm hits, leaving them stranded. With the group’s lives now in Georgia’s hands, the race is on to find a way home.As the reality of survival kicks in, their battle becomes about more than just facing the elements.
Far from Home
Lorelie Brown - 2016
I’m straight . . . I think. I also have a mountain of student loans and a smart mouth. I wasn’t serious when I told Pari Sadashiv I’d marry her. It was only party banter! Except Pari needs a green card, and she’s willing to give me a breather from drowning in debt.My off-the-cuff idea might not be so terrible. We get along as friends. She’s really romantically cautious, which I find heartbreaking. She deserves someone to laugh with. She’s kind. And calm. And gorgeous. A couple of years with her actually sounds pretty good. If some of Pari’s kindness and calmness rubs off on me, that’d be a bonus, because I’m a mess -- anorexia is not a pretty word -- and my little ways of keeping control of myself, of the world, aren’t working anymore.And, if I slip up, Pari will see my cracks. Then I’ll crack. Which means I gotta get out, quick, before I fall in love with my wife.
Ordinary is Perfect
D. Jackson Leigh - 2019
In fact, she bought a rundown farm on seventy acres to retreat from the world and live out her simple, ordinary life. Atlanta marketing superstar Autumn Swan’s world is anything but simple. Constantly plugged in to what’s trending on social media, it’s her job to keep her clients ahead of the competition. When her favorite cousin dies suddenly, she finds herself the owner of a modest country home, guardian to a sullen, tomboyish ten-year-old, and neighbor to an intriguing woman who isn’t as ordinary as she appears.
Change of Heart
K.A. Moll - 2019
She’s successful, wealthy, and a highly sought after Washington lobbyist. At first glance, one might think that she has it all. She doesn’t. Not even close. She lives life in the fast lane without a moment to spare. She leaves no time to smell the roses. She’s consumed by work in a world of politics and power brokers. She has money, her job, booze, and nothing else. In quiet moments, against her will, her mind drifts back to her days in high school and to all that she gave up. Jack Camdon is a complex woman, and yet not at all. She earns her living as an entomologist, has a passion for bees, and the environment. She’s an Ojibwe healer and someone who has a good grasp on the things that are most important. Jack is also a woman who has never moved beyond the sudden and unexplained departure of her high school sweetheart, her lover, and her soul mate. When circumstances bring Courtney back to town two decades later, their paths will cross. Can high school sweethearts, apart for the entirety of their adult life, rekindle their flame that still burns hot? Or, will hurt feelings, shattered trust, and conflicting priorities destroy their second chance at love?
Spindrift
Anna Burke - 2020
But it all comes crashing down when her fiancée dumps her after realizing that Morgan’s job will always come first. And, while Morgan still has the job and friends, her heart is broken into a million tiny pieces.Emilia Russo is a burned-out shelter vet. When the unexpected death of her father triggers a mental breakdown that hastens the end of her relationship, she retreats to his house in Seal Cove, Maine. She plans on spending the summer renovating it while she figures out how to pull the pieces of her life back together. But when she runs into Morgan at the dock where her father’s sailboat is moored, her plans for a quiet summer of healing and reflection sink like a stone—the attraction is immediate and obvious, and Emilia finds herself slipping seamlessly into Morgan’s world.Each woman knows this fling will end when Emilia returns to Boston at the end of the summer, but they’re unprepared for the intensity and depth of their attraction. And, as the gales of fall begin to drive leaves like spindrift upon Seal Cove, Morgan and Emilia must each come to terms with how much they’re willing to give up to stay together.
The Art of Pretending (Trope-ily Ever After #1)
Raquel De Leon - 2020
She eats, she sleeps, she works. On the path to becoming a manager, she doesn't spare much time for anything else.Then she bumps into Nira, one of the regulars she's had a crush on for years, for the first time in a while.Nira isn't in a good place. She needs a friend.Ashley decides that putting the crush aside is a no-brainer. She'll be the friend Nira needs, even if it ends up giving Nira's other friends the wrong idea.There are definitely worse things than people assuming they're dating.
Barring Complications
Blythe Rippon - 2014
So when the Court decides to hear a case about gay marriage, Justice Victoria Willoughby must navigate the press, sway at least one of her conservative colleagues, and confront her own fraught feelings about coming out. Just when she decides she’s up to the challenge, she learns that the very brilliant, very out Genevieve Fornier will be lead counsel on the case.Genevieve isn’t sure which is causing her more sleepless nights: the prospect of losing the case, or the thought of who will be sitting on the bench when she argues it."With flashbacks to the main characters’ time at Harvard Law, we plainly see what kind of choices and sacrifices that generation was forced to make, to achieve what they wanted to achieve.......The author is to be commended for portraying this historical backdrop without judgment but with full emotional intensity. Blythe Rippon leads the reader right into that maelstrom of history, which mangled so many gay lives.......This backstory enhances the importance of the main storyline and shows why the decision for marriage equality was a landmark case. And it is fitting that the story at the end points at the next frontier, the fight for transgender rights." --Lambda Literary
Deck the Halls
Caitlin Ryan - 2020
Between raising her daughter alone and running an online crafting business, she really doesn't have time to worry about putting up a tree, or baking cookies for Santa. When's she is called into her daughter's classroom, she is shocked to find out her daughter's teacher is her high-school sweetheart. Thirteen years and one failed marriage later, she had no interest in rekindling their romance.Valerie Rivers loves Christmas. Christmas decorations, Christmas candy, Christmas sweaters. If it's Christmas themed, she has to have it. Leaving her high-school girlfriend, Bridget, to pursue an acting career is one of her biggest regrets. When Ms. Buttermilk, Aria's mother, turns out to be Bridget, she sees a second chance at everything she walked away from.Bridget has changed, and it's up to Valerie (with a little help from Aria) to help her rekindle her love of Christmas. Is 25 days enough to fall in love, find her Christmas spirit, and keep their sanity long enough to make it through the annual Christmas market, or do they need a Christmas miracle?