Not only is he on a new diet, but he's also been tasked with keeping Henry Page -- the world's most irritating witness -- alive. Which is tough when Mac's a breath away from killing the Shakespeare-quoting, ethically-challenged, egg-obsessed Henry himself. Unless killing isn't really what Mac wants to do to him.Con man Henry Page prefers to keep his distance from the law . . . though he wouldn't mind getting a little closer to uptight, handsome Agent McGuinness. As the sole witness to a mob hit, Henry's a valuable asset to the FBI. But he's got his own agenda, and it doesn't involve testifying.When evidence surfaces of a mole in the FBI office, Mac and Henry are forced to go into hiding. Holed up in a fishing cabin, they're surprised to discover that their feelings run more than skin deep. But as the mob closes in, Henry has to make his escape. And Mac has to decide how far he's willing to go to keep Henry by his side.* * * * * * *The Playing the Fool series should be read in order for maximum enjoyment.Word count: 56, 500; page count: 228This is a second edition originally published by Riptide Publishing. No content changes have been made.

    Sure, he’s a widower raising a teenage daughter who just got her first boyfriend, his book series isn’t writing itself, and he has a crush on his new neighbor — the guy next door. But everything’s just fine.Simon Lynley is doing better. He moved to Bethlehem to fall out of love and rebuild his career. An affair with his neighbor isn’t part of the plan, but the attraction between them is too hard to ignore.But when Simon’s ex follows him to Pennsylvania seeking reconciliation, and Charlie’s life starts to feel like a video on repeat, everything comes apart. Charlie worries that he’s failing as a father, and Simon is a distraction he can’t afford. Meanwhile Simon doesn’t know if he could survive being left again, and he hasn’t come all this way to make the same mistakes. But despite their fears, it’s only together that they’ll find the strength to slay old foes and build the forever they’ve been waiting for.

    Who cares if he doesn’t know any other gay people? Bradley has friends and basketball—that’s all he needs. Even if that means always sitting on the sidelines when the guys go out looking for girls.When cute film-boy TJ tries to flirt with Bradley while his friends are doing their thing, he freaks. Yeah, he’s gay, but he’s never had the opportunity to go out with a boy before. He’s never had to worry about how his friends will react to seeing him with a guy.Bradley accompanies TJ on a road trip to film TJ’s senior project documentary. In each city they visit, they meet with people from different walks of life, and Bradley learns there’s a whole lot more to being honest about himself than just coming out. He still has to figure out who he really is, and learn to be okay with what he discovers.

    If the universe had his back, he wouldn’t be on his way to the post office carrying a box of his ex-boyfriend’s things.But when Arthur and Ben meet-cute at the post office, what exactly does the universe have in store for them?Maybe nothing. After all, they get separated.Maybe everything. After all, they get reunited.But what if they can’t quite nail a first date . . . or a second first date . . . or a third?What if Arthur tries too hard to make it work . . . and Ben doesn’t try hard enough?What if life really isn’t like a Broadway play?But what if it is?

    Closeted teenager Jeremy is sent to live with wealthy relatives after his mother enters rehab. Struggling to fit into the posh world of Ballena Beach, Jeremy joins the high school swim team, dates a popular girl, and begins to think he may have landed in paradise - until his great aunt Katharine starts to dictate his every move and a late-night phone call insinuates that his father's accidental death was not so accidental after all.As Jeremy grows accustomed to the veneer of a fabulous life, so grows his need for answers - as well as the danger of immeasurable harm. Weaving together a murder mystery, sexual ambiguity, and characters with hidden identities and agendas, Nick Nolan offers listeners a deliciously witty novel about the "puppet" who wishes only to be a real boy. Strings Attached is also a surprisingly heartfelt story about coming-of-age and coming out - not necessarily in that order.

    A hitman known only as D is blackmailed into killing Jack, but when he tracks him down, his weary conscience won't allow him to murder an innocent man. Finding in each other an unlikely ally, Jack and D are soon on the run from shadowy enemies. Forced to work together to survive, the two men forge a bond that ripens into unexpected passion. Jack sees the wounded soul beneath D's cold, detached exterior, and D finds in Jack the person who can help him reclaim the man he once was. As the day of Jack's testimony approaches, he and D find themselves not only fighting for their lives... but also fighting for their future. A future together.

    Over the years, he’s convinced his best friend, Jake Masterson, to perform some dangerous-looking stunts with him. But the dare they attempt on the night of their college graduation goes sideways. The firecrackers explode too soon and both of them end up with badly burned palms.But hey, nothing gets the “terrible two-o” down for long, and they recuperate in style at Andy’s family cottage in Cape Cod. As the weeks go by, both Andy and Jake grow frustrated over the inability to use their hands for all sorts of daily activities—including getting off. So Andy begins a new series of dares that don’t just cross the friendship line, they obliterate it.But what might be mere sexual relief to Andy is serious business to Jake, who only recently got over years of secret pining for his straight best friend. Inevitably, the burns heal, summer ends, and hearts are broken. To fix things, Andy will have to face the greatest dare of all.

    It’ll be a problem for his big, fat Italian family. Still, after three failed marriages, it’s getting harder to ignore what he really wants.Vinnie attempts some self-exploration in Chicago’s Boystown bars, far from anyone who knows him. Naturally, he runs smack into someone from the neighborhood.Between working two jobs, going to school, taking care of his grandmother, and dealing with his mother’s ongoing substance abuse, Trey Giles has little time for fun, let alone dating someone who swears he’s straight. Yet after one night of dancing cheek-to-cheek, Trey agrees to let Vinnie court him and see if he truly belongs on this side of the fence—though Trey intends to keep his virginity intact.It seems like a solid plan, but nothing is simple when family is involved. When Vinnie’s family finds out about their relationship, the situation is sticky enough, but when Trey’s mother goes critical, Vinnie and Trey must decide whose happiness is most important—their families’ or their own.Second Edition.First Edition published by Samhain, 2013.

    Everyone knows that Armenians never eat out. Between bouts of interrogating the waitress and criticizing the menu, Alek’s parents announce that he’ll be attending summer school in order to bring up his grades. Alek is sure this experience will be the perfect hellish end to his hellish freshman year of high school. He never could’ve predicted that he’d meet someone like Ethan.Ethan is everything Alek wishes he were: confident, free-spirited, and irreverent. He can’t believe a guy this cool wants to be his friend. And before long, it seems like Ethan wants to be more than friends. Alek has never thought about having a boyfriend—he’s barely ever had a girlfriend—but maybe it’s time to think again.

    Alone, that is, except for his three devious cats, four saddle horses, and the forty-eight mustangs that roam the ranch. Robbie is preparing for yet another snowfall when he gets the last call he expected—a plea to pick up Lance Taylor from the county jail.Lance wasn’t just his little brother’s best friend, he was a part of the family. Then, one night, after Lance asked Robbie for something Robbie couldn’t give, he ran away and never came back. Lance was sixteen and heartbroken when he left his middle-of-nowhere hometown. Six years later, he’s at rock bottom with nowhere else to go, and no one to turn to but Robbie, the man Lance has been inconveniently in love with for most of his life.When Robbie offers Lance a place to stay, Lance expects a guest bedroom and awkward silences. Instead, he finds himself sharing Robbie’s one-room hayloft apartment and its single bed, while realizing that the old flame he carries for Robbie might not be so hopeless, after all.Long Winter is the first book in the Wild Ones series and has a happy-for-now ending. Robbie and Lance’s story continues in Signs of Spring.

    He has the grades, the extracurriculars, the athletics, and a part-time job at his dad’s shop… every detail specifically chosen to ensure the college scholarships he needs to get the hell out of the Podunk town where he lives. The last thing he needs is an unexpected attraction to Graham, an eyeliner-wearing soccer phenom from St. Louis, who makes him question his goals and his sexuality. Sure, he’s noticed good-looking boys before—that doesn’t have to mean anything, right?—but he’s got a girlfriend. There’s no room on the agenda for hooking up with Graham, but the heart doesn’t always follow the rules.As he and Graham grow close, other aspects of Connor’s life fall apart. Family pressure, bad luck, and rumors threaten to derail his carefully laid plans. Suddenly the future he’s fighting for doesn’t seem quite as alluring, especially if he has to deny who he really is to achieve it.

    Now Ollie is one prince short of his fairy tale ending, and to complicate the fairy tale further, a family emergency sees Ollie uprooted and enrolled at a new school across the country. Which he minds a little less when he realizes it's the same school Will goes to... except Ollie finds that the sweet, comfortably queer guy he knew from summer isn't the same one attending Collinswood High. This Will is a class clown, closeted ― and, to be honest, a bit of a jerk.Ollie has no intention of pining after a guy who clearly isn't ready for a relationship, especially since this new, bro-y jock version of Will seems to go from hot to cold every other week. But then Will starts "coincidentally" popping up in every area of Ollie's life, from music class to the lunch table, and Ollie finds his resolve weakening. The last time he gave Will his heart, Will handed it back to him trampled and battered. Ollie would have to be an idiot to trust him with it again.Right? Right.SIMON VS. THE HOMO SAPIENS AGENDA meets CLUELESS in this boy-meets-boy spin on Grease

    Along with the half dozen or so novels he's started, only to abandon mid-way through, his love life could be best described as a series of drive-bys. Boone has spent the past week staying at a ski lodge in the tiny mountain town of Summit City. He's been using his time alone to write while waiting for his boyfriend to join him for their anniversary. What happens to Boone when he winds up dumped on the eve of his one-year anniversary and ends up at a bar having one too many cocktails? Wade Walker.previously published in the anthology Melting the Slopes

    Powerfully written, keenly felt, "The Trouble Boy" heralds an exciting new voice in fiction. "This is about fame and celebrity and the lengths to which people will go to have a taste of it. . ."At twenty-two, Toby Griffin wants it all--fame, fortune, an Oscar-winning screenplay and a good-looking boyfriend by his side. For now, what he's got is a freelance writing job at a tanking online magazine, a walk-up sublet in the East Village and "the boys," a young posse of preppy Upper East Siders with a taste for high fashion, top-shelf liquor and other men.But for Toby, downing vodka cranberries and falling in and out of lust with a series of guys he knows as Subway Boy, Loft Boy and Goth Boy is getting old. That all changes when Toby gets the chance of a lifetime--working as a personal assistant to hip, ruthless film mogul, Cameron Cole. In this decadent, drug-fueled world of VIP lounges, endless networking and relentless hype, Toby discovers that nothing is what is seems and that anything and anyone can be spun into PR gold. Though he's making friends with all the right people. Toby realizes that succeeding in Manhattan isn't as easy as he thought--until the one tragic night that changes his future forever and puts him in a position of power he never could have imagined.But with Toby's name suddenly becoming Page Six material, his life is coming unglued. And as his professional contacts betray him and his friends reveal troubling secrets, his choices become that much harder--and that much more important. Now, in his first year on his own, Toby Griffin is about to learn the price of getting everything he ever wanted."What really makes Toby's world so familiar--along with the author's lively, often-hilarious eye for even the most mundane social details--is the crisp prose and the snappy story."-- "The San Francisco Chronicle"

    Senior Toren Grey cares more about his family and his grades than what brand of clothes he wears. He agrees with the majority consensus that he's a nerd. So he's quite surprised when resident bad boy Wesley Carroll speaks to him in the hall, stirring feelings that Toren has to hide. Disconcerted by Wes's free and easy ways, Toren can't deny the attraction between them. As he relaxes and gets to know Wes better, he finds there's more to the sexy rebel than his public image. Before long the young men are exploring new territory and falling in love, but life just isn't that simple. After they graduate, obstacles block their relationship at every turn: Wes working versus Toren in college, the virulent disapproval of parents, and everyday trials faced by any struggling young couple. Wes and Toren have to believe in each other... and never doubt that their love can conquer all.