Taking the advice (and financial support) of a wealthy aunt, he decides to "toss the tiara and get a life." Unfortunately, Daniel's only degrees are in "extensive show tune knowledge, advanced lip-synch, and how to cover up a five o'clock shadow." With his best friend beginning to die from AIDS, his ex-boyfriend prowling around, and his ex-boyfriend's new boyfriend making a pass at Daniel, what's a boy to do but throw himself into intensive weeding and planting of his new apartment garden? And if a handsome stranger should smile down at him from a nearby window, so much the better. Timothy James Beck's debut novel is detailed, realistic, and continually interesting. His main character spends so much energy exhaustively "processing" what happens to him, however, that this might as well have been a lesbian novel. With a little editing, It Had to Be You would have been a much stronger book, but patient readers will agree that Beck shows great promise along the lines of Felice Picano and Neal Drinnan. --Regina Marler

    City meets country. Though there’s no denying opposites attract, can a college kid from New Jersey and a New Mexican cowboy learn to speak the same language, let alone trust each other?When Mason Wild heads out West to escape his past, he doesn’t have a plan or a penny to his name. Luckily he finds a job with a roofing company run by a rodeo cowboy who’s kind, easy to work for, and even with his jaw wired shut, hotter than July in the high desert.Bull rider Levi Yost knows what it’s like to be down on his luck. He’s not much older than Mason, but he’s been around the block a few times, or at least around the rodeo arena. He takes a chance on the kid, giving him a job and a place to live on his ranch. The two of them discover a surprising amount of common ground, but trouble has a way of finding each of them. Mason has to learn to be fully honest with Levi, who in turn has to realize he’s not just riding out for himself anymore.

    Snow has reached the age to know the difference. He learns what really matters; not the money or luxury cars, but the steady cash flow and easy living for his family. Tragedy strikes and puts the lives of his two daughters and his wife in jeopardy and leaves him trapped in the belly of the beast. After the greatest betrayal he has ever had to deal with in his life, he does his best to keep his younger brother Daytona from following in his footsteps. Daytona refuses to heed Snow's warning and feels what once was Snow's should now be his, and he sets on a mission to take over the streets. Will he learn the real meaning about trappin' or forever be lost to the streets?

    Not only is his dream holiday slipping through his fingers, but Liam is sick and tired of getting his heart broken. Blaine Reed has a solution that can save Liam’s plans. Recently divorced, Blaine needs a break, and a couple of stress-free weeks in Rio with a sexy guy like Liam sound like heaven. Liam and Blaine hit it off right from the start, becoming good friends even before they’ve left London. Despite their efforts to ignore the simmering attraction between them, it boils over when they end up sharing a room in one of the most romantic cities in the world. Being together in Rio is easy, and it’s exactly what Liam needs – no feelings, no drama, nobody getting hurt. Until someone does. When the holiday bubble bursts, it’s up to them to find a way to be together outside of Rio’s seductive magic. **47K words** **Stand alone** **MM Romance**

    On the verge of bankruptcy, private investigator Mitch O’Reilly takes any gig that comes his way, while running his Eye Spy Supply shop in a forgotten Los Angeles strip mall. After two tours in Afghanistan, Mitch’s life amounts to operating his store, coping with his fun-loving sister, Josie, and scoring with anonymous men he meets online. That changes when he gets a break. A beloved comedy scriptwriter is murdered at a bathhouse, and Mitch is hired to prove the innocence of the club custodian. Adapting from a two-bit gumshoe to a high-profile sleuth proves more challenging than he expected. As if Mitch didn’t have enough to deal with, charismatic bathhouse operator, Trent Nakos, enters his life. After a heartbreaking past, the manager is the definition of a man the brooding P.I. actively avoids.Following leads from sprawling mansions to sketchy hoods is demanding but becomes more troublesome when deadly threats jeopardize the biggest opportunity of his career.While there is an element of romance in the story, this is not an m/m romance novel.

    But in affairs of the heart, she’s newly alone and happy to stay that way. After receiving a phone call from her aunt, she rushes across the country to be by her dying grandmother’s side.Janice Carpenter is a recently divorced literature professor who can’t seem to get her best friend’s daughter, Carla, out of her mind. Ever since Carla came out, Janice has been inexplicably fascinated by her, and when she sees her again, her feelings are uncontainable. Before she knows it, she’s offering Carla a quiet place to stay to regain her balance during her visit.Under the same roof, the fiery passion neither wants to end bursts free. But Carla was never planning to stay, and Janice struggles to come out. Will Carla and Janice realize that the road to home is closer than they think before love flees?Cover Artist: Jeanine HenningGenres: Contemporary / Romance

    How would you hold onto your sanity, your self-esteem, your very soul against someone determined to annihilate all three?In the psychological thriller BREAK HER, one woman will find herself in this almost unthinkable situation, and one man will discover that he has finally come up against someone unlike any of those he has destroyed before. On the surface, this intruder has all the advantages: strength, weapons, ruthlessness. The only way he can lose is if he finds himself responding to his victim on a human level. The only way she can win is if she rips away the protective lies she’s told herself, the hard shell of indifference she’s hidden in, and becomes again what she has not been since she lost everything that mattered to her, years ago: human.Warning: Includes graphic depictions of rape, sex, and violence and is for readers over the age of 18 only.

    A professional, hard-working, over-achiever, he’s finally realized his life-long dream of promotion, and the last thing he needs now are complications.But he can’t help being intrigued by the enigmatic Ian James. Not only is Ian flat-out gorgeous, he’s also mysterious. And he awakens in David a passion that he hasn’t felt since … well, ever.Unfortunately, Ian James is a man with a dangerous past and an even more dangerous present, and loving him will come at a cost. Can David trust him? Is he willing to put his entire career on the line to protect a man who might be playing him? Is Ian capable of loving and trusting him back?Discovering the truth will take David into the heart of blackmail, corruption, and scandal. Straight to the edge of control.The Edge of Control is a stand-alone, full-length novel with NO cliffhanger!

    His husband of twenty years is divorcing him for a woman, a baby and a second try at life. He’s lost his job and his home, and he’s living in his brother Andrew’s spare room. But if George has given up on himself, Drew is more optimistic. He’s hit on a daring idea for George’s fiftieth, a present he won’t soon forget. When a handsome sex-worker called Silver knocks on the hotel-room door, George tries to send him away. But Sil is persuasive and kind, and George’s inhibitions melt away to a night of unimagined pleasures. Stranger still, when daylight comes, George’s one-night-stand man-for-hire shows every sign of wanting to stay. But these two men are from different worlds, and George is sure it’s too late for second chances. Silver’s a mystery to him, dashing and dangerous, walking the wild side of life. A trap is closing around the silver-fox escort: will George learn to trust himself in time for Silver to be saved?

     Colby Raines--rich, heartless, cold--has given up on emotions. The last place he wanted to go was the club, surrounded by men who would pretend to worship him. He looks at them and feels nothing. Enter Finn--sweet but damaged in ways he cannot describe. Disfigured by a scar from a tragic accident, the serving boy should have been invisible to rich and powerful men. But from the second Colby sees Finn, he can't look away. But Finn is forbidden, controlled by the club's evil and powerful owner. Colby knows he should walk away. He doesn't do emotions, no matter how pretty a package they come in. But he's got a protective streak a mile wide, and when he learns of the danger Finn is in, he'll stop at nothing to keep him safe--and make him his.

    But his feelings are unrequited, and his last workplace romance ended badly, pushing his inner daddy into hiding. Besides, Dirk is dating Jayden now. There's no point in even hoping.Until yet another argument between Dirk and Jayden makes Spencer snap, bringing out his repressed daddy to get those boys calmed down.Which makes Dirk and Jayden realize that Spencer is exactly what their relationship has been missing.Spencer already has his hands full with his job and providing for a paralyzed brother. He doesn't have time for a relationship. He hardly sleeps as it is.But temptation wins out, leaving Spencer in over his head and rushing toward disaster.(Note: This story takes place in a fictional world, the same as in the Shifting Isles Series. There are multiple gods, different names for the days of the week, etc. A glossary is included.)

    But the one thing he really wants—someone to love—seems elusive. Until the couple next door moves in and Jeremy sees the man of his dreams, Shane McCallister, pushed down the stairs by a brute named Cole.Jeremy would never go after another man’s boyfriend, so he reaches out to Shane in friendship while suppressing his feelings of attraction. But the feeling of something being off only begins with Cole being a hard-fisted bully—it ends with him seeming to be different people at different times. Some days, Cole is the mild-mannered John and then, one night in a bar, he’s the sassy and vivacious drag queen Vera.So how can Jeremy rescue the man of his dreams from a situation that seems to get crazier and more dangerous by the day? By getting close to the couple next door, Jeremy not only puts a potential love in jeopardy, but eventually his very life.Warning: graphic violence, mentions of past sexual abuse

    Gruff, weary, gay Brooklyn Homicide cop Doug Orlando is facing his most shocking case: Rabbi Avraham Rabowitz lay in a pool of his own blood, a prayer shawl stuffed down his throat, and his beard shaved off. The question for Detective Orlando isn't who hated the right wing religious sect leader-Rabowitz had been the open enemy of blacks, gays, pro-choice women, even fellow Jews. In a case that moves from the depths of the ghetto to the high-rise office of a real estate glamour-boy tycoon, the suspects come in every color and shade of belief. And unless Orlando can defuse a ticking time bomb of tension by nailing the killer, the melting pot of the city is going to melt down....

    The story is told by eighteen-year-old John, who quietly whispers to his best friend one night in bed, "Do me." This novel is a breathtaking love story and an intense coming of age story that resembles no other book. John's narrative voice is one of the most unique in gay literature. Atom Heart John Beloved is literate, intimate, erotic, and delightful, delivering unexpected moments of grace.

    Defiant. Possible alcoholic. These are just a few of the terms used to describe fifteen-year-old Jacob Jasper Jones. Lately, though, JJ has a new one to add to the list: detective. He’s been having strange dreams about the fire that killed his parents ten years ago, and he thinks he finally has the clue to catching the arsonist who destroyed his family. A murder investigation isn’t the only thing the dreams trigger for JJ. They also lead to secret meetings with his estranged sister, an unlikely connection with a doctor who lost his daughter in the fire, and a confusing friendship with McKinley, a classmate of JJ’s who seems determined to help him solve the mystery. All JJ wants is to shake the problems that have followed him since that fire, and he’s convinced he must catch the arsonist to do it. But as JJ struggles to find the culprit, he sees there’s more than one mystery in his life he needs to solve.