Book picks similar to
Illusion Lake by Sheryl Wright
mystery
arc
lgbtq
intrigue
The Moonstone Girls
Brooke Skipstone - 2022
Even her older brother Spencer says so, though he wouldn’t finish the thought with, “And I should have been a girl.” Though both feel awkward in their own skin, they have to face who they are—queers in the late 60s. When both are caught with gay partners, their lives and futures are endangered by their homophobic father as their mother struggles to defend them. While the Vietnam War threatens to take Spencer away, Tracy and her father wage a war of their own, each trying to save the sweet, talented pianist. At seventeen, Tracy dresses as a boy and leaves her parents in turmoil, with only the slimmest hope of finding peace within herself. She journeys to a girl with a guitar, calling to her from a photo, "Come to Alaska. We'd be great friends." Maybe even The MoonStone Girls.
My Dearest Darkest
Kayla CottinghamKayla Cottingham
but she's also not what she seems. Months before school started, Finch and her parents got into an accident that should have left her dead at the bottom of a river. But something monstrous, and ancient, and terrifying, wouldn't let her drown. Finch doesn't know why she woke up after her heart stopped, but since dying she's felt a constant pull from the school and the surrounding town of Rainwater, like something on the island is calling to her.Selena St. Clair sees right through Finch, and she knows something is seriously wrong with her. But despite Selena's suspicion, she feels drawn to Finch and has a sinking feeling that from now on the two will be inexplicably linked to one another.One night Finch, Selena, and her friends accidentally summon a carnivorous creature of immense power in the depths of the school. It promises to grant every desire the girls have kept locked away in their insecure hearts―beauty, power, adoration―in exchange for a price: human body parts. But as the cost of their wanting becomes more deadly, Finch and Selena must learn to work together to stop the horror they unleashed, before it consumes the entire island.
A Matter of Trust
Radclyffe - 2002
Sloan, a security consultant, to protect her company. Sloan shares a painful past with her associate and friend Jason McBride. Sarah Martin, is a gentle practitioner of eastern medicine. Four very different people, each wounded by personal betrayal, find their lives inextricably linked.
The Great Christmas Tree Mystery
Jamey Moody - 2021
Leaving's Not the Only Way to Go
Kay Acker - 2021
Now that he’s gone, Lauren has every intention of returning to her old life: the vibrant, successful one her father had always expected her to have, but she feels adrift without his strict guidance.Georgia Solomon designs homes for others, but as a bisexual autistic woman, she rarely feels at home herself. When her best friend dies suddenly, leaving her alone with their young daughter, her little slice of happiness vanishes, and Georgia finds herself struggling to navigate a world that doesn’t understand her.Lauren and Georgia clash at a disastrous work meeting, but Georgia’s daughter Hannah pulls them together despite themselves. As they discover new possibilities and priorities for the future, can they make room for love, or will they have to leave each other behind in order to move forward?Genre: RomanceEditor: Medora MacDougallCover Designer: Judith Fellows
The Right Thing Easy
Laina Villeneuve - 2015
All she has now is an empty home, a broken heart and a young mustang that needs a slow, gentle hand.Hope Fielding watches the intriguing, attractive newcomer with a nameless panic. She’s been the mother to her siblings most of her life, and the choices she’s made to please her family and church weren’t easy. She never dreamed she’d have to make them again.As the long mountain winter sets in, passions catch fire and two women desperately resist the choices of the heart.
Mind Games
Cara Malone - 2019
There’s just one problem – her boss doesn’t think she’s ready. When Kelsey arrives at her first death scene to find the responding officer contaminating the evidence, she starts to wonder if her boss was right.Zara Hayes hates death scenes. She’s been on patrol five long years but her chief won’t promote her until she can overcome her fear. So here she is, just feet away from a dead body while a pretty young investigator reads her the riot act because she thinks Zara screwed up her scene.With a killer on the loose, there’s no time to argue so Zara and Kelsey team up to solve the case. As they get closer to the truth – and to each other – they must confront the mind games we play… in life, in love, and even in death.ASIN moved from less recent edition
Stranded
Sarah Goodwin - 2021
She’s desperate to explain what happened to her: how the group fractured and friends became enemies; how they did what they must to survive until the boat came to collect them; how things turned deadly when the boat didn’t come…But first Maddy must come to terms with the devastating secret that left them stranded, and her own role in the events that saw eight arrive and only three leave.A gripping, twisty page-turner about secrets, lies and survival at all costs. Perfect for fans of The Castaways, The Sanitorium and One by One.
Scarlet Sun
Isabel Hansen - 2021
until someone catches feelings. Just after I got home from my first year of university, I found a bucket list that I wanted to complete before I turned twenty. I wrote it years ago and forgot all about it, which means half the stuff on the list hasn’t been completed yet. With my twentieth birthday only a couple of months away, the clock is ticking on finishing everything. Skinny dipping. Camp in Algonquin Park. Fall in Love. How am I supposed to manage all that in time?When my best friends suggest that we go on a road trip to complete everything on the list, it seems like the perfect solution. There’s only one problem: one of those friends is Bree. Beautiful and sweet Bree, who I’m quickly developing a hopeless crush on.I don’t want to ruin our friendship by admitting my feelings, so I’ve vowed to keep everything to myself. With that plan in mind, I thought I could make it through the whole road trip without any trouble. But between being around Bree all the time, and my crush that seems to be growing bigger everyday, I’m not sure if I can’t manage it.Will I be able to keep my feelings a secret for the whole trip, or will I risk ruining the best friendship I’ve ever had? Scarlet Sun is a best-friends-to-lovers lesbian romance, with a Happily Ever After ending. Filled with hilarious banter and hijinks, it is sure to put a smile on your face.
The Wrong Woman
Jane Retzig - 2015
Kate is a rapidly rising star of the trauma therapy world - London based, shy, uptight, and with an air of aloofness that masks a deep sense of insecurity. When she has to relocate her 'Traumatology for the 21st Century' conference to Horton Hill 'Deluxe' Hotel and Conference Centre in the heart of industrial West Yorkshire, she is understandably horrified by the state of the place. Horton Hill is a mess. The car park looks like the surface of the moon. The pool is a health hazard. And the staff seem incapable of speaking intelligible English. When Naz, the hotel's 'Hospitality Assistant' finds Kate struggling with her luggage, she instantly stops to help. Bright, enthusiastic and hard-working, she is drawn to Kate's barely concealed vulnerability, and desperately wants to make a good impression on the harassed, but undeniably attractive conference organiser. Despite her natural caution, as the weekend progresses, Kate finds herself warming to Naz's kindness and obvious interest in her. But she is unaware that her carefully constructed life back in London is starting to unravel. And when she finds herself accused of a terrible crime, Kate discovers that sometimes friendship and love can be found in the most unlikely of places.
Wall of Silence
Gabrielle Goldsby - 2003
A cover up ensues and Foster begins numbing herself with alcohol at a neighbourhood bar. There she meets Riley Meideros, the one person strong enough to hear Foster's painful secret and not turn away.
The Grimrose Girls
Laura Pohl - 2021
and a dark fate that may leave them all doomed.After the mysterious death of their best friend, Ella, Yuki, and Rory are the talk of their elite school, Grimrose Académie. The police ruled it a suicide, but the trio are determined to find out what really happened.When Nani Eszes arrives as their newest roommate, it sets into motion a series of events they couldn't have imagined. As the girls retrace their friend's last steps, they uncover dark secrets about themselves and their destinies, discovering they're all cursed to repeat the brutal and gruesome endings to their stories until they can break the cycle.This contemporary take on classic fairytales reimagines heroines as friends attending the same school. While investigating the murder of their best friend, they uncover connections to their ancient fairytale curses and attempt to forge their own fate before it's too late.
Cam Girl
Leah Raeder - 2015
Ellis and Vada have a friendship so consuming it’s hard to tell where one girl ends and the other begins. It’s intense. It’s a little codependent. And nothing can tear them apart.Until an accident on an icy winter road changes everything.Vada is left deeply scarred, both emotionally and physically. Her once-promising art career is cut short. And Ellis pulls away, unwilling to talk about that night. Everything Vada loved is gone.She’s got nothing left to lose.So when she meets some smooth-talking entrepreneurs who offer to set her up as a cam girl, she can’t say no. All Vada has to do is spend a couple hours each night stripping on webcam, and the “tips” come pouring in.It’s just a kinky escape from reality until a client gets serious. “Blue” is mysterious, alluring, and more interested in Vada’s life than her body. Online, they chat intimately. Blue helps her heal. And he pays well, but he wants her all to himself. No more cam shows. It’s an easy decision: she’s starting to fall for him. But the steamier it gets, the more she craves the real man behind the keyboard. So Vada pops the question:Can we meet IRL?Blue agrees, on one condition. A condition that brings back a ghost from her past. Now Vada must confront the devastating secrets she's been running from—those of others, and those she's been keeping from herself...
Relic
Anne Hagan - 2014
These days, she spends life on the road, moving from one case to another until one day when runs run right into the path of Sheriff Mel Crane. The feisty, sexy butch cop is as determined to uncover a counterfeiting ring in her county as Agent Rossi becomes to stop a stalker obsessed with Mel and hot for her company. Dana is under the added pressure of conducting an undercover investigation of her own with a tight deadline: finding and then stopping a ring of smugglers bringing high end designer knock-offs into the states.Could their cases be related? When repeated vicious attacks on Mel and on her home accelerate the danger for her and also their attraction to each other, they become desperate to find the truth and solve the two mysteries. Can they find a way to work together to resolve both cases while coming to terms with their growing feelings for one another? Can Dana move beyond her jilted lover past and find true happiness with a small town Sheriff?
Witches of Ash and Ruin
E. Latimer - 2020
Schwab's Shades of Magic trilogy and A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES.Seventeen-year-old Dayna Walsh is struggling to cope with her somatic OCD; the aftermath of being outed as bisexual in her conservative Irish town; and the return of her long-absent mother, who barely seems like a parent. But all that really matters to her is ascending and finally, finally becoming a full witch-plans that are complicated when another coven, rumored to have a sordid history with black magic, arrives in town with premonitions of death. Dayna immediately finds herself at odds with the bewitchingly frustrating Meiner King, the granddaughter of their coven leader.And then a witch turns up murdered at a local sacred site, along with the blood symbol of the Butcher of Manchester-an infamous serial killer whose trail has long gone cold. The killer's motives are enmeshed in a complex web of witches and gods, and Dayna and Meiner soon find themselves at the center of it all. If they don't stop the Butcher, one of them will be next.With razor-sharp prose and achingly real characters, E. Latimer crafts a sweeping, mesmerizing story of dark magic and brutal mythology set against a backdrop of contemporary Ireland that's impossible to put down.