A seed of hope begins to grow out of the ashes of grief, heartbreak and loss. Romance sparks in the most unexpected of places. And an unbreakable bond is formed that transcends countries, continents and even the boundaries of time...In this extraordinary collection, ten writers explore the full spectrum of love in all its messy, joyful, agonising and exhilarating forms. Celebrating and centring the romance, passion and desire of women of colour, these stories burn with an intensity and longing that lingers long after the final page.

    For no crime on his record, the young officer had been identity wiped, and his innumerable, now-forgotten enemies were still tracking him across the galaxy.

    Emphasis on hidden. If anyone from school finds out, she’ll be abandoned to her haters. Facing a long and lonely summer, Mattie finally seeks out Miyu, the reclusive daughter of a world-renowned escape artist. Following in Houdini’s footsteps, Miyu helps Mattie secretly transform herself into an escapologist and performance artist.When Will, a popular athlete from school, discovers Mattie’s act at an underground venue, Mattie fears her secret persona will be exposed. Instead of outing her, Will tells Mattie a secret not even his girlfriend knows. Through a blossoming friendship, the two must find a way to express their authentic selves. Told through the perspectives of the witty main characters, this funny and fresh debut explores the power of stage personas and secret spaces, and speaks to the uncanny ways in which friendships transform us.

    Will they be able to build with the pieces of their hearts they have left, or will their love crumble and fall, leaving them both completely shattered?Author's Note: The novel contains adult situations that are meant for 18+ and graphic situations such as rape, abuse (including sexual), neglect, suicide and drug abuse.

    The driver who gives you a lift isn’t going anywhere but off the road. Snow settles on your car in summer and the sequins found between the pages of a borrowed novel will make your fortune. Pagano’s stories weave together the mad, the mysterious and the dispossessed of a rural French community with honesty and humour. A superb, cumulative collection from a unique French voice.Why Peirene chose to publish this book:This is a spellbinding web of stories about people on the periphery. Pagano makes rural France her subject matter. She invokes the closeness of a local community and the links between the inhabitants’ lives. But then she reminds us how little we know of each other.This volume contains a selection of stories from Un renard à mains nues.

    I thought I’d leave the red-headed stranger with dark green eyes behind and good freaking riddance. Except he’s not even close to being gone. Mason McConnell is everywhere, drawing me in, like an invisible thread. I just hope that string doesn't snap and break my heart. Mason: Two weeks was all I needed to go home, spread my cat’s ashes, and visit my brother. But one foolish decision at the airport managed to throw all my plans off track. Somehow, I had unknowingly cast the line, and Charlotte Kelley took the bait. The chatty, prying American somehow had a way of bringing me back to life. I didn’t want her under my skin, and I certainly wasn’t expecting her to make her way into my heart, yet once she did, I didn’t want her to leave. But with one secret wedged between us, I'm not sure I have the right to ask her to stay.

    These poems reflect the effects of such experience: the lines, and often the images within them, are fragmented discordant. But read together, these lines, become a haunting mosaic of grief, evoking the necessary accommodations human beings make to survive what is unsurvivable. As poets have always done, Forche attempts to gibe voice to the unutterable, using language to keep memory alive, relive history, and link the past with the future.

    Liliana’s hitting all the wrong notes. She’s a sixteen-year-old exchange student with a secret crush on Carter, her new band’s smoking hot guitarist – but she’s also got a girlfriend back home. So when she writes a song about him and it lands the band a record deal, she quickly realises she’s in hot water. Soon, Liliana will have to choose – between an alluring boy and the girl she left behind, between love and lust, and between the fame that beckons and staying true to the music that’s in her heart. With shades of hit TV series Nashville, the musical passion of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and the band drama of Fleetwood Mac, this brilliant own-voices YA debut is perfect for music lovers everywhere.

    Two best friends, a straight woman and a gay man, struggle to find someone to love as much as they love each other.He’s the shoulder she leans on.He worships her.She shields and protects him.He watches over her.They’re soul mates for life.They’re not lovers; they’re best friends.Their struggle to find someone who can handle their intense bond is met with a roller coaster of raw emotion, loyalty and heartache. Follow their journey to find love.When Heather Cooper married Peter, she thought that she had finally found someone who could handle the inseparable bond she shares with her gay best friend, Justin Perrotta. It’s only a matter of time, however, before jealousy rears its ugly head and Peter’s true feelings emerge. He starts drinking, and his erratic behavior threatens their marriage.Burned by an ex-boyfriend, Justin refuses to open his heart to love again. Wild relationships and one-night stands leave him lonely and unfulfilled, even though he won’t admit it. He finds love when he least expects it, but his fear of commitment threatens to ruin the best thing that has ever happened to him. In this unique read, the reader gets two separate romances – Heather’s (m/f) and Justin’s (m/m) and their friendship, which is the real romance.

    A predominantly white Reichfield High has lost every game in the last few years to the North Prep, a school with mostly Mexican, Brazilian, and Filipino students. For the first game of the season, however, Addie and his teammates are confident that they will win—because they’ve personally made sure the lead player of the opposite team will be unable to play.Addie and his supremacist and misogynistic friends are ill-prepared for what comes next, though. They are defeated by Shaylee, the best soccer player North Prep has ever seen—who also happens to be a girl. Given an exception, Shaylee is allowed to compete in a team of all boys.Unable to accept defeat, Addie is convinced that Shaylee must be using illegal methods to beat the Reichfield team. He sets out to expose her, but discovers instead that he has secrets of his own…Learning the dark history of his own origin and of the powers that be, Addie and his unlikely new friends must work together to challenge the corrupt, racist and fascist ruling class who could destroy society as they know it.

    The family talked about Fehler Family Exterminating at every meal, even when their mom said to separate the business from the family, an impossible task. They tried to escape work with trips to their trailer camp on the Mississippi River, but the sisters did more fighting than fishing. If only there was a son to lead rural Missouri insect control and guide the way through a crumbling patriarchy.After Robbie Fehler’s sudden death, the surprising details of succession in his will are revealed. He’s left the company to a distant cousin, assuming the women of the family aren’t capable. As the mother’s long-term affair surfaces and her apocalypse prepper training intensifies, she wants to trade responsibility for romance.Facing an economic recession amidst the backdrop of growing Midwestern fear and resentment, the Fehler sisters unite in their struggle to save the company’s finances and the family’s future. To survive, they must overcome a political chasm that threatens a new civil war as the values that once united them now divide the very foundation they’ve built. Through alternating point-of-views, grief and regret gracefully give way to the enduring strength of the hive.

    For a thousand years, she fulfills the wishes of greedy masters--building their palaces, lining their pockets with gold, and granting them every earthly pleasure. All that sustains her is the hope of finding Karim, the boy she fell in love with as a human. When at last she finds a note from her beloved, she confirms he has access to the elixir of life and that he still searches for her. But someone else also hunts her. Faruq--the man who plots to use her powers to murder and seize the life forces of others--is just one step behind her. With the help of a kind master named Nathan, Adeelah continues to search for Karim while trying to evade Faruq. To complicate matters, she begins to experience growing fatigue and pain after conjuring, and finds herself struggling against an undeniable attraction to Nathan. As Faruq closes in, Adeelah must decide just how much she'll risk to protect Nathan and be with Karim forever. How much power does she really have to change her future, and what is she willing to sacrifice for an eternity of love? If she makes the wrong choice, the deaths of many will be on her hands.

    Defying the conventions of the time, they were truly innovative. Featuring meditations on everyday life, love, nature, and society, the genius of her creativity is hard to ignore.Short, yet keenly observed, her poems pack a powerful punch. This carefully chosen selection covers a range of her most loved verses and brings you face to face with the private world of one of America's greatest poets.

    Until death arrives on recently widowed bookstore owner Clark Thomas' doorstep.When the body of a local businesswoman and environmentalist gets dumped by the back door of his shop, Clark finds himself in a unique position to investigate the crime. But should he? When it comes to murder, something else drives him he doesn't want to admit.As he launches his own search for the killer, Clark comes across a variety of colorful Boardwalk inhabitants who might have had reason to kill an otherwise beloved person.Can he do it and start putting his wife's death behind him in the process, or will it open up a fresh wound?

    A young woman moves to Toronto after getting married but soon discovers her husband is not who she believes him to be. A mother reconciles her heartbreak when her sons defy her expectations and choose their own paths in life. A lonely international student returns to Bangladesh and forms an unexpected bond with her domestic helper. A working-class woman, caught between her love for Bangladesh and her determination to raise her daughter in Canada, makes a life-altering decision after a dark secret from the past is revealed.In each of the stories, characters embark on difficult journeys in search of love, dignity, and a sense of belonging.