Kenney is usually the one who comes up with things to do -- her flair for the dramatic can make even boring old Greensboro seem interesting. And if she is a little controlling, Aurin and Fred just look the other way.Aurin has no intention of throwing off their established equilibrium. But when Neila joins their circle, Aurin realizes that she and Neila are becoming more than friends. Aurin and Neila are happy in their developing relationship, but Kenney feels left out. Can Aurin manage to mend things with an increasingly possessive Kenney, without letting her control this aspect of her life?In this stunning debut novel, Tea Benduhn looks at a teen making decisions about her future while trying not to lose her past.

    But to her surprise, quiet Melly loves playing the drums. It’s the only time she doesn’t feel like a mouse.Now, she and Olivia are about to spend the next two weeks at Camp Rockaway, jamming under the stars in the Michigan woods.But this summer brings big changes for Melly: her parents split up, her best friend ditches her, and Melly finds herself falling for a girl at camp named Adeline. To top it off, Melly's not sure she has what it takes to be a real rock 'n' roll drummer. Will she be able to make music from all the noise in her heart?

    But how, among their backward town, will Sam and Allie face what they know is true about themselves? Welcome to Daniel Boone Middle School in the 1970s, where teachers and coaches must hide who they are, and girls who like girls are forced to question their own choices. Presented in the voice of a premier storyteller, One True Way sheds exquisite light on what it means to be different, while at the same time being wholly true to oneself. Through the lives and influences of two girls, readers come to see that love is love is love. Set against the backdrop of history and politics that surrounded gay rights in the 1970s South, this novel is a thoughtful, eye-opening, look at tolerance, acceptance, and change, and will widen the hearts of all readers.

    Don’t they know silence is golden?Johnny Strong is the expert; he hasn’t spoken in two years. Not one word to anyone except the ghost. The main purpose of life is to avoid people and not get noticed. Friends? He doesn’t need them; and certainly nobody wants him despite what the ghost says.Until a new boy appears at Windybank—Finn Lyons, teenage wizard. He eats frogs, concocts potions, and is always hungry. Not only does Finn stand up for Johnny; he actively seeks his company and soon becomes part of life.First love; family and words; a heady mix to go in the potion but how will it all turn out?Hubble bubble; Johnny Strong’s in trouble! Silence is not always golden in this sweet, zany story of the purest magic at Christmas. Release date: before Dec 1

    Unsure what to do with the rest of her life, she moves home with her mother in the Cotswolds.Journalist Harriet Powell ditched London after getting sacked and divorced within six months of each other. She hopes to find peace in the village, but after meeting Josie, Harry's world will never be the same.While the two don't see eye to eye on the professional front, it's hard to deny their connection, even if Josie's mum is determined to set Josie up with anyone who isn't Harry. Can the two conquer their personal and professional struggles to let the other in?Best-selling lesbian romance author T.B. Markinson teams up with Clare Lydon and Harper Bliss to bring lesfic readers a touching trilogy set in the Cotswolds. Grab your copy of the first book of The Village Romance series that's the talk of the summer.85,000 words

    Sandry has avoided the invitation for as long as it was possible. Now Sandry has agreed to pay that overdue visit. Sandry's uncle promises guards to accompany her. But they're hardly a group of warriors! They're her old friends from Winding Circle: Daja, Tris, and Briar. Sandry hardly knows them now. They've grown up and grown apart. Sandry isn't sure they'll ever find their old connection again - or if she even wants them to. When they arrive at the pala

    With visions of being a star athlete, Lee is disappointed when he is not good enough to play on the high school soccer team. Days later, his best friend Darby and several other cheerleaders convince Lee to help them train. As the year progresses, Lee becomes more and more involved in the cheerleading program leading to his reluctant introduction to cross-dressing and feminization. There will be surprises and successes along the way as Lee blazes his own path. Spending most of his first year immersed with a group of high school girls will have an effect on Lee. He will build strong friendships with many of the girls. The majority of crossdressers are heterosexual and most people don’t understand how their preferences fit into their daily life. Every crossdresser has their own story of how their fetish developed. They also have a personal story on how they integrate crossdressing into their life. This story deals with a reluctant crossdresser who tries not to sacrifice his manhood while enjoying his unusual choice in clothing. Being a freshman in high school only complicates the situation. The story begins with a few pages to introduce the primary characters and provide a bit of historical context to allow the reader to get to know the different players. The Background section will help the reader understand the characters and their interaction in the long term. This book tries to deal with cross-dressing as part of a real life. In many ways, Lee has a life many real-world crossdressers only dream of. Given the ages of the characters, the story does not involve explicit sex. The story focuses on cross-dressing [not gender change]. Young adult readers should be comfortable reading this book. ********** The Cheerleader series follows Lee Corcoran as he grows, matures, and experiences life from pre-high school through college. The main characters in this story will be recurring in future installments in the series. While the long-term series involves romance, the first installment lays the groundwork while focusing on character development. Enjoy 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. Keywords: cross-dressing, reluctant feminization, cheerleader, romance, coming of age

    She'd like this to change, but with her and her sisters dodging their stepfather's fists every day after school, she doesn't have time to do much self-reflecting. Finally her stepfather is taken away on child abuse charges, and Karina thinks things might turn into something resembling normal. The problem is, he's not gone for good. And as Karina becomes closer with a girl at the community center where her stepfather is not showing up for his parenting classes, she starts to realize a couple things. First, for all the problems her family had tried to escape by immigrating from Haiti, they brought most of them along to upstate New York. And second, if anything is going to change for this family, it is going to be up to Karina and her sisters to make it happen. M. Sindy Felin's debut novel is the story of a young girl's coming-of-age amid the violent waters that run just beneath the surface of suburbia -- a story that has the courage to ask: How far will you go to protect the ones you love?

    In 1689 England, Lady Eliza Grey's 11 brothers are turned into swans. Rejected by her father, Eliza is flown to America by her brothers where she has a chance to save them--until she is accused of witchcraft. In the second story, set in 1981 New York, Elias Latham has AIDS, is banished from his father's house, and must learn to live on the streets. Like Eliza, Elias struggles to understand the suffering he must endure.

    Twelve-year-old Amelia Forrester has just arrived with her family and they are eager to make a new life in Phoenix City. But the mostly male town is not that hospitable to females and Amelia decides she'll earn more money as a boy. Cutting her hair and donning a cap, she joins a gang of newsboys, selling Eastern newspapers for a fortune. And that's just the beginning of her adventures. Participating in the biggest news stories of the day, Amelia is not a girl to let life pass her by - even and especially when it involves danger!

    It all started when I was 3-years-old at a family reunion and my speech impediment kept me from properly parroting what everyone else in the family was calling me. Fifteen years later and my speech impediment is marginally better but I still have a shocking wave of flame-colored hair, freckles, and I'm so shy I can barely look at my own reflection. I'm still stuck with that awful nickname. Even the other people in school call me "Ginjuh". How can a teenage guy come out to his family when they already tease him about his looks and his speech impediment? Why wouldn't a person's family realize the damage they can do to a child's self-esteem with such taunts? "It's all just in good fun, Ginjuh!" is what they tell me. Sometimes I feel like my whole family is against me, like they want me to feel worthless. At least I have my grandpa. But he's been sick for a while. Above all things--being scared of coming out, being annoyed with the taunts and jabs, being so shy my own shadow scares me--I'm terrified of losing him. But that's life, isn't it? A guy has to learn to face it...or collapse under the weight of it.

    She was all warmth and sparking light. When I was with her, my skin sighed that the center of the world was precisely here.Anna is afraid she must be unlovable—until she meets Flynn. Together, the girls swim, eat banana cake, laugh, and love. Some days Flynn is unreachable; other days she's at Anna's door—but when Anna discovers Flynn's secret, she wonders if she knows her at all. This beautifully crafted novel explores the tension between the tender moments that pull people together and the secrets that push them apart.

    But David is up to the challenge. Living in a three-bedroom semi in 1970s' working-class East Dulwich, surrounded by his somewhat colourful relatives, he is bright, smart-mouthed, fanatical about pop music and ready to shine. Rehearsals begin, and he strikes up a friendship with the handsome yet enigmatic Maxie Boswell, captain of the school football team. As their alliance deepens it appears they might become more than just good friends, but that can't be right, can it?Discovering a confidant in empathetic teacher, Hamish McClarnon, and spurred on by his no-nonsense best friend, Frances Bassey, David takes on the school bully, the National Front, and anyone else who threatens to stand in the way of true love.Vibrant, warm, and full of life, this uproarious and touching coming-of-age novel, set against the backdrop of South-East London in the thrill of the late seventies, will transport you straight back to your first music obsession and the highs and lows of your first love.

    Ivy feels invisible and ignored in the aftermath of the storm--and what's worse, her notebook filled with secret drawings of girls holding hands has gone missing.Mysteriously, Ivy's drawings begin to reappear in her locker with notes from someone telling her to open up about her identity. Ivy thinks--and hopes--that this someone might be her classmate, another girl for whom Ivy has begun to develop a crush. Will Ivy find the strength and courage to follow her true feelings?

    When Dara Cohen was little, she was a bright, shiny star. She was the cutest seven-year-old who ever sang Ella Fitzgerald, and it was no wonder she was crowned Little Miss Maine.That was then. Now Dara's seventeen and she's not so little anymore. So not little, that when her classmates find out about her illustrious resume, their jaws drop. That's just one of her many problems. Another is that her control-freak mom won't get off her case about anything. Yet the one that hurts the most is the family secret: Dara has an older sister her parents tried to erase from their lives. When a disastrously misinterpreted English project lands her in the counselor's office--and her parents pull her out of school to save face--Dara realizes she has a decision to make. She can keep following the rules and being misunderstood, or she can finally reach out to the sister she's never met--a sister who lives on a collective goat farm in Massachusetts. Dara chooses B. What follows is a summer of revelations, some heartbreaking, some joyous; of friendship, romance, a local beauty pageant; and choices. And as autumn approaches, Dara finds she may have to let go of everything she's taken for granted in order to figure out who she really is, and what family really means.