Hayley Sims is the best in her field. It’s exactly why she’s just been assigned her most challenging patient yet, hockey player Elizabeth Stone. Not because Stone’s injury is complicated, but because she is intense to work with and needs someone to keep her in check. When Hayley’s personal life starts unraveling and she realizes she might be developing feelings for her patient, she’s torn between finishing her assignment and walking away to protect herself. Can Hayley get Stone back on the ice in one piece while keeping her heart from breaking?Cover Artist: Sheri HalalGenres: Contemporary / Romance

     Before he became known as Alexander the Great, he was Alexandros, the teenage son of the king of Makedon. Rather than living a life of luxury, as prince he has to be better and learn faster than his peers, tackling problems without any help. One such problem involves his increasingly complicated feelings for his new companion, Hephaistion. When Alexandros and Hephaistion go to study under the philosopher Aristoteles, their evolving relationship becomes even harder to navigate. Strength, competition, and status define one’s fate in their world—a world that seems to have little room for the tenderness growing between them. Alexandros is expected to command, not to crave the warmth of friendship with an equal. In a kingdom where his shrewd mother and sister are deemed inferior for their sex, and his love for Hephaistion could be seen as submission to an older boy, Alexandros longs to be a human being when everyone but Hephaistion just wants him to be a king. Word count: 92,000; page count: 282

    In 2010, at seventeen, Lucy Sutcliffe began an online friendship with Kaelyn, a young veterinary student from Michigan. Within months, they began a long distance relationship, finally meeting in the summer of 2011. Lucy's video montage of their first week spent together in Saint Kitts, which she posted to the couple's YouTube channel, was the first in a series of films documenting their long-distance relationship. Funny, tender and candid, the films attracted them a vast online following. Now, for the first time, Lucy's writing about the incredible personal journey she's been on; from never quite wanting the fairy-tale of Prince Charming to realising she was gay at the age of 14, through three years of self-denial to finally coming out to friends and family, to meeting her American girlfriend Kaelyn.

    Bitter Springs is a sweeping epic that takes themes from traditional Mexican literature and Old Westerns to tell the story of a man coming into his own and realizing his destiny lies in the wild open spaces with the man who loves him, far from expectations of society.

    Her father Lexander, an alchemist, harbors an evil obsession, and Catalina, his newest bride, made the grave mistake of becoming his wife. When Catalina finds herself falling in love with his daughter, Neve, instead, the deepening bond between the women sets in motion the final chapter of a story that began long ago, with a desperate longing and a handful of apple seeds. Together, Neve and Catalina must venture into the Huntsman's haunted forest to undo what has been done and set themselves free. The novella SEVEN is the lesbian retelling of the classic fairy tale, “Snow White.” It is part of the series SAPPHO’S FABLES: LESBIAN FAIRY TALES.

    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...

    She’s trying her hardest to follow in her lawyer parent's footsteps to make them proud, but in all honesty, the only family customs she truly feels inspired by are the ones that involve cutting down a giant Christmas tree, walking through the forest as the snow falls, and sipping eggnog next to the fire, surrounded by loved ones.She’s grown up alongside the Payne children, including her best friend Dylan, the young twins who exist solely to make her life harder, and, uh, the oldest Payne daughter, Stevie. Stevie, a firefighter with perfect hair and a kind heart. No big deal. Cass hasn’t had an unrequited and unconfessed crush on Stevie since she was eight-years-old or anything.When Stevie gets her heart broken, Cass doesn’t expect to be the one consoling her. And after a series of unfortunate events and a last-minute road trip bring her closer to Stevie, Cass starts questioning more than just her feelings for Stevie… like her path in life. Still, she definitely shouldn’t be trying to casually catch Stevie under the mistletoe, right?

    At least, that’s what she thinks the story is. . . When he arrives, shy Frannie befriends this older boy, who is everything that she’s not–rich, confident, cynical, sophisticated. Together, they embark on a magical summer marked by slowly unraveling secrets.

    Each day is filled with combat training to assure their safety against a mysterious virus and the creatures it creates—violent humanoids with black blood.Two years later, Brooklyn’s cabin-mate, Dawson Winters, finds a letter that shatters the illusion they’ve been living in. There is a world outside Camp Eleven, and the virus that supposedly destroyed their country seems non-existent.After a daring escape, Brooklyn finds the world they’ve left behind harbors the normalcy she remembers. But when they are attacked by a black-blooded creature in the city, Brooklyn and her friends realize there is more to Camp Eleven than they thought.Someone took them, someone trained them, and now someone is trying to find them.As their exploration continues, the group is faced with impossible feats while betrayal, love, and secrets force Brooklyn and her friends to fight for their life, their freedom, and most of all, each other.ECHO CAMPAIGNBrooklyn Harper’s worst nightmare has become her reality. She has been captured by Isolation.Trapped in a white-walled labyrinth by Juneau Malloy, Brooklyn is faced with the horrors of Isolation’s finest training yet. The skills she learned in Camp Eleven are put to the test during brutal assessments of her physical strength, mental sharpness, combat expertise, and emotional fortitude.Juneau offers the renegade Omens a deal—sign a contract and hand over their freedom or endure torturous trials day after day. A test of wills surfaces, and if Brooklyn isn’t careful, her recklessness could come at a price she isn’t willing to pay.While Brooklyn confronts her worst fears, Julian Matsumoto comes face-to-face with Isolation’s biggest secret. The unknown is at his fingertips, a plan is forming behind closed doors, and Julian must choose between a life outside the facility, or a chance to destroy the corporation who stole him and his friends from their lives once and for all.LEGACY STRAINWar is on the horizon.After fleeing the white-walled labyrinth where Brooklyn and her friends were caged, trained, tortured, and studied, the group of renegade Omens prepare for the fight of their lives. But an unexpected arrival from Kirin—the dangerous, secret project Juneau has kept locked away in Isolation’s main facility—complicates things.Despite the rumors surrounding Kirin’s loyalties and capabilities, Brooklyn decides to make an alliance. Together they form a plan to rescue their friends and take down Isolation once and for all.Julian Matsumoto is strung between two sides of his heart.Desperate times call for desperate measures, and freedom always has a cost. Julian doesn’t know if he has what it takes to pay the price, especially if that price is Kirin’s life. But the Legacy Strain is being weaponized and they don’t have time to waste.This is their only chance to escape Juneau Malloy for good, and Brooklyn Harper has been fighting for too long to back down now. Armed with deadly skills and a hunger for vengeance, the Omen Operatives set out on a risky mission to eradicate Isolation, contain the volatile Legacy Strain, and earn the freedom they’ve been chasing since Camp Eleven.

    But seventeen years ago, one sister’s betrayal defied an ancient prophecy and split their world in two. The planet ceased to spin, and a Great Abyss now divides two realms: one cloaked in perpetual night, the other scorched by an unrelenting sun. While one sister rules Aranth—a frozen city surrounded by a storm-wracked sea —her twin inhabits the sand-locked Golden City. Each goddess has raised a daughter, and each keeps her own secrets about her sister’s betrayal. But when shadowy forces begin to call their daughters, Odessa and Haidee, back to the site of the Breaking, the two young goddesses —along with a powerful healer from Aranth, and a mouthy desert scavenger —set out on separate journeys across treacherous wastelands, desperate to heal their broken world. No matter the sacrifice it demands.

    And Sarah Schulman, writing in sharp, immediate, insightful prose, has created a wonderfully modern, totally original heroine.

    Sex for money. That's the simple deal ex-freedom fighter Richard offers when he buys Denny's freedom. But as they get to know one another it becomes something more, until a ghost from Richard's past threatens to tear them apart. When ex-freedom fighter Richard buys a slave's freedom, he has a deal to offer. Being more inexperienced than he appears, he needs someone to teach him a few things. Sex for money and help is what he's proposing. Denny can always say no.Denny agrees, and as they settle into their new life, they learn things about themselves and each other, as well as the nature of freedom and love.But when are things ever that easy? Their world is suddenly shattered by a ghost from Richard's past. That's when Denny takes control, shows what he's made of and fulfills a need Richard didn't even know he had. It turns out neither are what they appear to be.

    Le Guin and Sheri S. Tepper, in which an innocent young woman becomes entangled in a web of ancient secrets and deadly lies that lie at the dark center of her prosperous island world.Eliana is a model citizen of the island, a weaver in the prestigious House of Webs. She also harbors a dangerous secret—she can dream, an ability forbidden by the island’s elusive council of elders. No one talks about the dreamers, the undesirables ostracized from society.But the web of protection Eliana has woven around herself begins to unravel when a young girl is found lying unconscious in a pool of blood on the stones outside the house. Robbed of speech by her attackers, the only clue to her identity is one word tattooed in invisible ink across her palm: Eliana. Why does this mysterious girl bear her name? What links her to the weaver—and how can she hold Eliana’s fate in her hand? As Eliana finds herself growing closer to this injured girl she is bound to in ways she doesn’t understand, the enchanting lies of the island begin to crumble, revealing a deep and ancient corruption. Joining a band of brave rebels determined to expose the island’s dark secrets, Eliana becomes a target of ruthless forces determined to destroy her. To save herself and those she loves, she must call on the power within her she thought was her greatest weakness: her dreams.

    Coal is one of the earliest collections of poems by a woman who, Adrienne Rich writes, "for the complexity of her vision, for her moral courage and the catalytic passion of her language, has already become, for many, an indispensable poet."Marilyn Hacker captures the essence of Lorde and her poetry: "Black, lesbian, mother, urban woman: none of Lorde's selves has ever silenced the others; the counterpoint among them is often the material of her strongest poems."

    Her ex is a nightmare and her boss is a pervert, the last thing she needs is her budding friendship with fellow single-mom Rhia throwing her entire life into confusion.But as their ten-year-old daughters Teagan and Piper spend more and more time with each other, Rhia and Sabrina become close. Rhia thinks she’s deluding herself by lusting after a straight woman, and Sabrina has never considered herself to be anything but straight before.