Products

In the year 2514, the only thing more dangerous than the seas is those who sail them.

Life aboard the mercenary ship Man o’ War is rarely dull as hurricanes, swarms of jellyfish, and man-eating squid pose daily doses of danger. As intrigue and subterfuge from enemies old and new begin to surround its captain, the infamous Miranda Stillwater, even an uncanny sense of direction won’t be enough to help Compass Rose navigate these dangerous straits. As dark secrets bubble to the surface and everything she’s fought so hard for begins to crumble, Rose learns the hard way that she'll have to rely on the only person who can save her from certain disaster. Unfortunately, that person is Compass Rose herself.

This swashbuckling 26th-century high-seas adventure novel is fast-paced, whip-smart, and quirky, yet it manages to deliver a healthy dose of heart, humor, and humility on every single page.

First comes surrogacy, then comes the messy gay breakup in Tom Pyun’s tragi-comic debut novel that asks, is it ever too late to finally face yourself and grow up?

Winston Kang and Jared Cahill seem like the perfect couple. When they check-in for their flight to Cambodia, where they’re headed to meet the surrogate carrying their baby girl, even the woman at the airline counter recognizes it: “I’m so happy that marriage is legal for you guys,” she says.

But while Jared is already planning for their second kid—half white like him, half Korean like Wynn—Wynn isn't ready to give up his dreams of becoming a hip-hop dancer to become "the hostage of a crying, pooping terrorist." So he does what anyone in his position would do: He leaves Jared at the airport.

Wynn sets off on a journey around the globe, trying to figure out what it means to put himself first, from auditioning for Misty Espinoza’s comeback tour to organizing a Prince-themed flash mob. Oceans away, Jared starts to panic that no one in his life can talk to Meryl about her period or what it’s like to grow up Asian American.

Told in alternating points of view, Pyun’s sardonic and addictive page-turner confronts questions of race, identity, and privilege, and facing the question of whether it’s ever too late to finally face yourself and grow up.

Salem West and Christel Cogneau have assembled a powerhouse lineup of Bywater Books and Amble Press authors to explore, subvert, and reinvigorate the bountiful feast of All Hallows phantasmagoria in this stunning collection.

To the living, “soul food” has a specific meaning, history, and flavor. But what does “soul food” mean to the demon, ghost, fiend, witch, spirit, or vampire? How does their ingenuity and wit rise and fall in the taking, baking, erasing, embracing, and defacing of sustenance?

West and Cogneau have challenged their authors to explore these and other questions in surprising and fascinating ways. Sometimes sweet and other times terrifying, sometimes warm or otherwise demented, these stories set the table for an otherworldly feast of delight and intrigue.

Let the banquet begin . . .

Soul Food Stories is packed with literary confections by award-winning authors, Anna Burke, Jenn Alexander, Jacob Budenz, Virginia Black, Cathy Pegau, and Ann McMan.

Featured stories include:

“The Five Year Revenge Agency” by Anna Burke
“Tilly’s Tarts” by Jenn Alexander
“Of the Air and Land” by Jacob Budenz
“Ravenous” by Virginia Black
“In Speary Wood” by Cathy Pegau
“Perhaps You Missed My Signs” by Anna Burke
“Ghost Writer” by Ann McMan

When a mysterious dog shows up during the renovation of the Big City Little Theatre, one woman falls in love with the victim of a century-old homicide who might not be as dead as she seems. And now it’s a race against time to ensure she stays that way.

On New Year’s Eve, in 1923, someone walked into Michelle “Mickey” McFadden’s queer speakeasy hidden beneath the Big City Little Theater and shot her and her dog, EZ, dead. Or . . . sort of, mostly, kind of dead, maybe? Because instead of crossing over, they become trapped within the bar’s cinderblock walls. And though EZ eventually manages to wriggle his way free, Mickey remains, her spirit frozen in time.

In 2022, employees of the Big City Little Theater begin encountering a stray dog sneaking in and around the premises. When Ciara, the theater’s bookkeeper, saves the dog from being hit by a truck, she begins to suspect there’s something odd about the mysterious canine and makes it her mission to catch him and either return him to his owners or keep him as her own.

That is until Ciara and her friends happen upon the sealed-up speakeasy in the theater’s subbasement —and find the dog inside. But how did he get in there when the door was locked? And why are there bullet holes in the otherwise beautifully preserved bar? Their discovery launches them on the investigation of a lifetime, complete with an ancient murder to solve, strange occurrences to explain, and a missing person to find.

When Mickey’s spirit, which has been trapped in the mysterious in-between for the past hundred years, begins to find her way out, she and Ciara finally come face-to-face. And it’s more than the speakeasy’s old wiring that makes sparks fly. Ciara’s falling hard for Mickey and Mickey for her. Can they solve the murder and figure out how EZ returned to the world of the living before the clock strikes midnight on the next New Year’s Eve?

Because if they don’t, they’re pretty certain Mickey’s time will finally be up—this time for good.

Sometimes love finds you when you least expect it . . .

Morgan Donovan had everything she ever wanted: a dream job as a large animal veterinarian, awesome friends, and a loving and supportive fiancée. But it all comes crashing down when her fiancée dumps her after realizing that Morgan’s job will always come first. And, while Morgan still has the job and friends, her heart is broken into a million tiny pieces.

Emilia Russo is a burned-out shelter vet. When the unexpected death of her father triggers a mental breakdown that hastens the end of her relationship, she retreats to his house in Seal Cove, Maine. She plans on spending the summer renovating it while she figures out how to pull the pieces of her life back together. But when she runs into Morgan at the dock where her father’s sailboat is moored, her plans for a quiet summer of healing and reflection sink like a stone—the attraction is immediate and obvious, and Emilia finds herself slipping seamlessly into Morgan’s world.

Each woman knows this fling will end when Emilia returns to Boston at the end of the summer, but they’re unprepared for the intensity and depth of their attraction. And, as the gales of fall begin to drive leaves like spindrift upon Seal Cove, Morgan and Emilia must each come to terms with how much they’re willing to give up to stay together.

Two-time Lambda Literary Award-winning author Ann McMan introduces readers to Isabelle Lebrun, a quick-witted accidental train conductor whose love life leaves her at the wrong station.

What happens when you’re looking for love and all your best friends are romance readers?

Cue a clown car of ill-fated first dates that read more like failed first drafts of romantic fiction tropes than aspiring hunts for the love of her life.

Assistant Conductor, Izzy Lebrun, spends her days riding the rails of The Green Mountain Zephyr between her home in Philadelphia and the end of the line in St. Alban’s, Vermont. Beleaguered Izzy walks a tightrope—desperately trying to achieve a work-life balance between a job that pays the bills, and her dogged determination to finish her graduate degree so she can finally get a job that keeps her rooted in one place.

All she wants is to earn her Ph.D., get a damn cat, and find the love of her life.

Is that too much to ask?

We follow Izzy through her sometimes disastrous, sometimes implausible, but always hilarious journey through a maze of failed dates and epically bad one-night stands. Will Izzy ever reach the end of the line and have her ticket punched for a HEA or is this the end of the line for her?

Tea Leaves is an astonishing collection of fables for our time by a young writer of tremendous power and promise.

Tea Leaves presents 16 speculative short stories that place queer characters in larger-than-life situations to emphasize the surreal experience of marginalization. A queer romance spans multiple incarnations, but only in doomed cities. A gay medieval scholar must testify for his life to the otherworldly octopus who traps him in a cafe bathroom. Ignoring their better judgment, a witch brings their mortal partner on a hunt for a dangerous sorcerer and must cope with the dire consequences.

Each of the stories within Tea Leaves explores the urgency of modern queer life in encounters between the otherworldly and the queer other. In juxtaposing queer narratives with new, larger-than-life myths, Tea Leaves both exalts and lampoons the queer experience while examining the sometimes surreal obstacles of marginalization.

In rural Virginia in 1960, history professor Gen Rider has secured tenure at Baines College, a private school for white women. A woman in a man’s field, she teaches “Negro” history, which has made her suspect with a powerful male colleague. Even while she’s celebrating her triumph, she’s also mourning the break-up of a long-distance relationship with another woman—a romance she has tightly guarded, even from her straight female mentor.
As the fall semester dawns, a male instructor at the college is arrested for having sex with a man in a park. Homosexual panic envelops the college town, launching a “Know Your Neighbor” reporting campaign. The police investigation directly threatens Gen’s friend Fenton, the gay theater director at Baines. But Gen finds herself vulnerable, too, when someone leaves mysterious “gifts” for her, including a suggestive pulp novel and a romantic card.
As Gen tentatively embarks on a new relationship, a neighbor reports she’s seen Gen kissing a woman, and hearings into her morality catch her in a McCarthy-like web. With her private life under the microscope, Gen faces an agonizing choice: Which does she value more, the career she’s scraped to build against the odds or her right to a private life?

Welcome to the National Recovery Bureau, where your assets are as sacred as God’s holy word.

Vera “Nick” Nicholson is an overtaxed and underpaid attorney wasting away on the bottom rung of the gilded ladder at Turner, Witherspoon, Anders, and Tyler in Winston-Salem, NC. When a high-priced luxury car belonging to one of the firm’s top clients goes missing, Nick gets saddled with the unenviable job of recovering the vehicle―and its mysterious contents―without involving the cops. Enter Fast Eddie and his quirky band of misfits at The National Recovery Bureau, a repo agency located in a sleepy town called K-Vegas.

When Nick is unceremoniously furloughed from TWAT, she throws caution to the wind and signs on to become the newest agent of the NRB, teaming up with moonlighting third-grade schoolteacher, Frances “Frankie” Stohler. Frankie’s mortician father and beautician mother are stalwarts of the Winston-Salem community―so it’s no surprise that everyone across three counties has some connection to her family. What is surprising, however, is the Slim Jim Frankie carries in her purse and her preternatural talent for jacking cars.

Nick and Frankie’s stumbling entrée into the surreal world of asset recovery takes them on a hilarious, fast-paced, and mind-bending journey across the back roads and byways of the Tar Heel state, setting into motion a chain of misadventures that lead them both toward financial independence, cataclysmic legal jeopardy, and the discovery that true love can sometimes lurk in the most unlikely places.

"Repo romance might not be a genre, but two-time Lambda Literary Award-winner McMan makes a case that it should be with this delicious and hilarious fever-dream of a novel." —Publisher's Weekly (Starred Review)

Two-time Lambda Literary Award-winning author Ann McMan takes readers inside the inner workings of the funeral home business as only she can in this remarkable and wholly unforgettable dark romantic comedy that proves life is for the living.

Everything about Lilah Stohler is dark: her clothes, mood, and outlook on life and death. That last part is important because Lilah’s father has just retired and left her in charge of the family funeral home. But Abel Stohler knows his daughter’s comfort level rests “downstairs,” so he hires one Sparkle Lee Sink, to help Lilah manage the living part of the business of death.

 Sparkle is everything that Lilah isn’t—an empathetic marketing whiz who is a true people person.

Lilah isn’t happy about this new arrangement. Still, when business starts booming because of Sparkle’s bright personality, delicious baked goods, and knack for funereal commerce, Lilah thinks things might work out. But joy is fleeting in the funeral home business, and Lilah’s world is turned upside down when an unwitting Instagram post featuring one of her moods goes viral—and now, sightings of “The Black Bird of Chernobyl” have become an obsession across the Instaverse.

Lilah knows that Sparkle needs to go, but before she can give her the send-off she deserves, Lilah must first find a way to deal with the inconvenient attraction she’s developed for the nemesis whose unconventional methods are single-handedly transforming the death trade—and quite possibly the Black Bird, herself.

Filled with McMan's crisp humor and quirky pathos, The Black Bird of Chernobyl is a humorous dark Southern existential crisis of a romance.

In the years before the Mexican Revolution, Mexico is ruled by a tiny elite that apes European culture, grows rich from foreign investment, and prizes racial purity. The vast majority of Mexicans, who are native or of mixed native and Spanish blood, are politically powerless and slowly starving to death. Presiding over this corrupt system is Don Porfirio Diaz, the ruthless and inscrutable president of the Republic.

Against this backdrop, The City of Palaces opens in a Mexico City jail with the meeting of Miguel Sarmiento and Alicia Gavilan. Miguel is a principled young doctor, only recently returned from Europe but wracked by guilt for a crime he committed as a medical student ten years earlier. Alicia is the spinster daughter of an aristocratic family. Disfigured by smallpox, she has devoted herself to working with the city’s destitute. This unlikely pair—he a scientist and atheist and she a committed Christian—will marry. Through their eyes and the eyes of their young son, José, readers follow the collapse of the old order and its bloody aftermath.

The City of Palaces is a sweeping novel of interwoven lives: Miguel and Alicia; José, a boy as beautiful and lonely as a child in a fairy tale; the idealistic Francisco Madero, who overthrows Diaz but is nevertheless destroyed by the tyrant’s political system; and Miguel’s cousin Luis, shunned as a “sodomite.” A glittering mosaic of the colonial past and the wealth of the modern age, The City of Palaces is a story of faith and reason, cathedrals and hovels, barefoot street vendors and frock-coated businessmen, grand opera and silent film, presidents and peasants, the living and the dead.

Grace Carter, a "source" of magic, has spent the last nine months searching for Maggie Mulvaney, her "catalyst." The joy of reuniting with her partner—and her lover—is thwarted by her worst fear: Maggie remembers neither Grace nor their life together in the Order of Saint Teresa, the centuries-old organization that trained them to be the strongest demon-hunting duo in generations.

When Maggie and Grace unexpectedly come face-to-face with the demon Horde, they are forced to team up once again. As they begin to piece their lives back together, they discover that their memories have been masked by someone within the Order. Should the Horde succeed in their plan, those who have committed their lives to slay worldly demons will be relegated to little more than minions as humans are completely enslaved.

Now, Grace and Maggie must sacrifice everything, possibly even their love, and their lives, in an all-out battle to save humanity.

A mysterious figure. A dead televangelist. A series of bizarre rituals.

Margo has spent most of her life without a family, and with a telekinetic gift she can't quite explain. Since losing her mother less than a year ago, she's felt more alone than ever. When her fiancé Sam takes her to his remote Iowa hometown to meet his family and begin planning their wedding, Margo finally begins to feel like she's home. But the feeling doesn't last long, and Margo soon feels out of place among her future in-laws. Sam's family is different from what she'd expected. Not only is their obsession with a deceased televangelist unsettling, but Margo has begun seeing a strange, mysterious figure from her past—a figure that she thought was put to rest with her mother's passing.

As Sam's family begins to take over the wedding plans, Margo tries to regain some control by turning to the town's sole wedding planner, who soon becomes her only confidant, perhaps because she reminds Margo of her former love. But the more Margo tries to distance her past from her future with Sam, the deeper his family pulls her in, forcing upon her generationally archaic traditions that border on ritualistic. As Margo unearths the family's dark web of secrets, she begins to suspect that she may have been brought here for a reason, and it may cost her her life.

In the psychologically unsettling vein of I'm Thinking of Ending Things and The Women in the Dark, combined with the socially aware suspense of Get Out, The Ever End takes elevated horror to a new level with a queer, twisted, feminist story that will keep readers guessing until the end, and stay with them long after that.

Thirty-eight-year-old Xeni is secretly praying for a virgin birth—what could possibly go wrong?

Xeni is a first-generation Greek American, raised in the Greek Orthodox faith, and trained in all the essential skills of a traditional Greek housewife. She knows how to make any Greek dish scrumptious, but the one recipe she hasn’t mastered is how to make a baby—by virgin birth. Xeni is a lesbian and struggles daily to resolve what she wants with what she doesn't—praying for a miracle.

Meanwhile, free-spirited Callie, who ended up with a baby conceived during a boozy one-night stand, is trying to bridge a cultural divide with Gus, her Greek American baby daddy, by learning to cook just like his mother. When Xeni spots Callie in the produce aisle selecting limp spinach and tofu for spanakopita, she's compelled to offer her assistance. After all, food can create miracles, and they both need one.

With undeniable chemistry from their first cooking lesson, Xeni and Callie sublimate their intense attraction to one another by creating mouthwatering meals. But their good intentions are blown to shreds when Gus's mother arrives from Greece and decides that Xeni, not Callie, would make the perfect Greek wife for Gus. Now Xeni must once and for all reconcile her religious beliefs with her sexuality—and decide which love is ultimately the higher power.

The Feasting Virgin is a delectable novel that is full of heart, humor, magical realism, and a veritable feast full of tasty recipes.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE UK POLARI BOOK PRIZE 2024

Kirkus Reviews "BEST OF 2023" SELECTION.

International Latino Book Awards 2024—Best LGBTQ+ Themed Book (Honorable Mention)

Award-winning author and immigration attorney Orlando Ortega-Medina returns to 1990s San Francisco in The Fitful Sleep of Immigrants, a powerful family drama that plays out within a captivating legal thriller.

Attorney Marc Mendes, the estranged son of a prominent rabbi and a burned-out lawyer with addiction issues, plots his exit from the big city to a more peaceful life in idyllic Napa Valley. But before he can realize his dream, the US government summons his Salvadoran life-partner Isaac Perez to immigration court, threatening him with deportation.

As Marc battles to save Isaac, his world is further upended by a dark and alluring client, who aims to tempt him away from his messy life. Torn between his commitment to Isaac and the pain-numbing escapism offered by his client, Marc is forced to choose between the lesser of two evils while confronting his twin demons of past addiction and guilt over the death of his first lover.

The Fitful Sleep of Immigrants is an extraordinary and timely tale about the value of family and friendship, loyalty and love, in the face of adversity.

A compelling comedy of polyamorous romance and nonbinary adventure, this reissue of The Giddy Death of the Gays and the Strange Demise of Straights—includes a Foreword by the author and an Afterword by noted queer writer Meg-John Barker.

Caroline and her Dom live out their normal lives amongst the poverty, alcoholics, and street preachers of Swansea, Wales. But when Dom and his straight roommate fall in love—a passionate, secret, non-sexual love—their lives are transformed into a queer chaos of cross-dressing, gender-bending and free love. Will Dom hold on to his relationship? Can religious fundamentalists be adopted as pets? And just what are The Lesbians up to? The ultimate battle between preachers and drag queens, skinheads and sex workers, boyfriend and girlfriend, is set to change the city forever.

It's 1982, and China has just barely begun to open to the West.

When Lu McLean sells all her possessions and leaves Los Angeles to study Mandarin Chinese at the Beijing Language Institute, she imagines a life of serious scholarship and an eventual job as a translator at the United Nations. On the night of her arrival, Lu meets the captivating, Ming, a Chinese teacher at the institute. Still recovering from a failed ten-year relationship, Lu has vowed never to give her heart away again.

But as Lu struggles to balance Beijing's simple beauty with the confounding rigidity of ageless custom, her feelings for Ming deepen. She soon finds herself vacillating between letting herself love Ming and her escalating fears about the certain barriers that would prevent them from ever navigating a life together. Against the backdrop of China's Spiritual Pollution and a tightening cultural climate, it becomes clear that Ming cannot leave—and Lu cannot stay indefinitely. Events soon force Lu—and Ming—to balance the love that binds them against the social and political forces that threaten to tear them apart.

The Language of Light seamlessly interweaves the expressive and timeless beauty of the Chinese language with the poignant tale of a profound love, inveighing against the oppressive climate of cultural and political change.

Agatha Award-winning author, Abigail Padget returns with Book No.2 of the Blue McCarron Mystery series.

When two prominent female politicians die in San Diego of cerebral hemorrhages within days of each other, social psychologist Blue McCarron knows that their deaths are a statistical impossibility—they simply cannot be from natural causes. Within hours, a female evangelist almost dies, and threats from a religious fanatic, illustrated with blue willow plates, tie the three victims together. Blue and her lover, Roxanne, a criminal psychiatrist, are hired by the police as consultants and trace the three women to a posh plastic surgery clinic. As Blue and Rox investigate the clinic, the killer turns his attention on Blue, a strong, nontraditional woman who offends his ultraconservative religious beliefs. When Blue finds a blue willow plate on the doorstep of her isolated desert home, she knows the hunt has become a deadly game and that the unknown killer has every advantage.

The Latecomer by Sarah Aldridge was the first book published by the legendary Naiad Press and one of the first known novels to grant a happy ending to its lesbian main characters.

Coming home from a summer spent in research in Europe, Philippa unexpectedly shares her stateroom with Kay, a stranger. Philippa, nearing forty, reserved, inexperienced in close human relationships, and Kay, eight years younger, lively, gregarious, agonizing over a frustrated love affair, spend five days during their stormy Atlantic crossing learning the key to each other’s natures.

Philippa and Kay believe their arrival in New York harbor will end their brief friendship, but circumstance intervenes. They meet again in Washington, D.C., where Kay's lover's career has led to possible catastrophe for all involved. It is Philippa who must act as a mediator for Kay—hiding her growing feelings to protect Kay's best interests.

The Latecomer invites you into the world of Philippa and Kay, strangers who meet aboard a cruise ship and, despite very different lives and aspirations, find a surprising bond. Through political and romantic intrigue, they uncover the truth about themselves.

The ocean has always been a place of freedom for Lisa Whelan, and after her newborn son passes away, she returns to her family home by the sea to seek freedom from her grief. She’s not expecting to meet anyone, and is caught off guard by the attraction she feels for Rachel, the part-owner of a local restaurant. That initial spark is dampened, however, when Lisa realizes that Rachel has a child.

Rachel Murray has worked hard to build a life for herself and her son but raising Declan has not been without its challenges. Each day when Rachel picks him up from school, she says a silent prayer that he will be waiting for her in his classroom, and not in the principal’s office. Again. Her son’s behavior has grown increasingly disruptive, and Rachel is at a loss at how to help him.

Despite her grief, Lisa finds herself drawn to both Rachel and Declan. She thinks she can keep her emotions at bay— keep from drowning in grief and keep from falling in love—but she finds both to be a tidal wave, washing over her, sweeping her off her feet. Lisa never intended on falling in love with anyone, and she certainly cannot allow herself to fall for someone whose son is a constant reminder of the child she lost. Or can she?

A novice fifth-grade teacher embarks on a clandestine love affair with another teacher, which sets her on the tumultuous path of self-discovery.

It is 1963, one of the most turbulent years in American history. The escalating tensions and conflicts in society at large are playing out in classrooms, principals’ offices, and school boards across the country, along with the first stirrings of social transformation, though the past still holds its suffocating grip. And behind the closed door of the teachers’ room in one small Midwest town, two teachers set eyes on each other and find it hard to look away.

Karen Murphy, fresh from college, has taken on her first teaching job. Despite her best efforts, she can’t seem to stick to the subjects in her fifth-grade school books, helped along by the antics of a girl who upends all her lesson plans. She has a lot to learn, and her women colleagues are there to offer their advice, especially the enigmatic fourth-grade teacher, Esther Jonas. As Karen quickly discovers, the devoted spinster teacher with no life beyond the classroom is a myth—the school is teeming with passion and secrets, her own perilous desire for Esther Jonas included.

The Teachers' Room offers both a panoramic view of a changing America and an intimate portrait of the hidden lives of teachers.

Independent Publisher Books Awards (IPPY) Gold Medalist in Mid-Atlantic-Best Regional Fiction

From the author of the New York Times #1 bestseller, The Rapture of Canaan, and steeped in the rich tradition of Southern writers like Carson McCullers and Sue Monk Kidd, The Tender Grave is the gripping story of two estranged sisters who find their unlikely way toward forgiveness—and each other—through a disturbing set of circumstances.

Dori, at age 17, participates in a hate crime against a gay boy from her school and runs away to escape prosecution—and her own harrowing childhood. In her pocket, she carries the address of an older, half-sister she’s never met. She has no idea that her sister Teresa is married to another woman. When Dori and Teresa finally meet, they’re forced to confront that, while they don’t like or really even understand one another, they are inextricably bound together in ways that transcend their differences. Together, the sisters discover that shifting currents of family and connection can sometimes run deeper than the prevailing tides of abandonment and estrangement.

In The Tender Grave, Sheri Reynolds weaves complex themes of parenting, forgiveness, guilt, and accountability into a lyrical and lushly-woven tapestry that chronicles our enduring search for heart, home, and healing.

On a cold day deep in the heart of winter, Rowan’s father returns from an ill-fated hunting trip bearing a single, white rose. The rose is followed by the Huntress, a figure out of legend. Tall, cruel, and achingly beautiful, she brings Rowan back with her to a mountain fastness populated solely by the creatures of the hunt. Rowan, who once scorned the villagers for their superstitions, now finds herself at the heart of a curse with roots as deep as the mountains, ruled by an old magic that is as insidious as the touch of the winter rose. Torn between her family loyalties, her guilty relief at escaping her betrothal to the charming but arrogant Avery Lockland, and her complicated feelings for the Huntress, Rowan must find a way to break the curse before it destroys everything she loves. There is only one problem—if she can find a way to lift the curse, she will have to return to the life she left behind. And the only thing more unbearable than endless winter is facing a lifetime of springs without the Huntress.

Thorn was named to the American Library Association's 2020 Over the Rainbow Fiction Longlist.

After a lifetime spent steeped in death L.A. Franco has retired from the LAPD and has plunged head first into living—but separating her two worlds isn’t as easy as she hoped.

Following the death of “Sal” Saladino, a recluse and mentor with uncanny healing abilities, Frank is busy sloughing off her old identity as a cop and reluctantly growing into the new skin of a healer. She doesn’t understand her newfound abilities, but the patients she sees believe in them.

When a ranch hand brings her an old journal of Sal’s, Frank’s world begins to shift uncomfortably. The pages of the journal describe an injustice Sal was too cowardly to confront. And as Frank begins to work her way through the pages, her cop instincts kick in—but she’s done with that phase of her life and isn’t willing to return. However, when one of her new patients comes to her with mysterious neck pain, she begins to suspect the ailment might be related to the murder Sal has alluded to.

As Frank slowly learns to trust her newfound abilities—and her new lover—she begins to unravel the murder in the journal. When she suspects who the murderer is, Frank must choose whether she will confront them and the injustice in her old role as a cop or let bygones be bygones and continue on her new path as a healer.

Award-winning author and journalist Penny Mickelbury returns to pre-Civil War Philadelphia to continue the powerful saga of Genie Oliver and Abigail Read.

In 1857 the US Supreme Court ruled that Blacks were not—and could never be citizens. Black lives were already in peril from the hooligans who would capture and sell them South under the protection of the Runaway Slave Act, even if they weren't runaway slaves. By 1861 Southern states spoke openly of seceding from the Union to form the Confederate States and protect what they believed was their right to own slaves. If the South were to win, slavery would become the law of the land. So for many Blacks, leaving was the only option.

Genie Oliver, who frequently dresses as a man to move about the city, is no longer safe in her disguise. White people find themselves just as imperiled for providing any assistance to Blacks—which means that the former Pinkerton’s agent Ezra MacKaye, his fiancé Ada Lawrence, and heiress Abigail Read, are in as much danger as Genie and her friends, the Juniper family.

Not knowing what to expect, Ezra, Ada, and the Juniper family join Genie and Abigail as they pack up their lives and head to Canada. Their goal is to stay at least one step ahead of the brutalities of the uncivil war, but can they outpace the dangers that cross their paths every step of the way?

The California desert hasn't changed, but everything else in Blue McCarron's life is about to. After the inevitable break-up with partner Roxie in Philadelphia, Blue drags herself home—to the tumbleweeds, sidewinders, and emptiness.

A part-time job teaching Social Psychology at a private university in nearby San Diego provides at least the appearance of a life. But when Lupe, an unfriendly colleague invites her to a Mexican rock concert, everything in Blue's life begins to shift. And when the gorgeous rock star is kidnapped and the campus is blanketed with flyers calling for the death of a young, gay Spanish professor, Blue finds herself in the middle of a brand new mystery—who is behind the paper threats?

Fighting a growing and inappropriate attraction to the just-divorced Lupe, Blue searches for the culprit amid oddball board members, rancorous academics, and obscure Latin American politics. And when the threat lands at Lupe's doorstep, Blue is left with only her instinct to stop it.

Sergeant Major Scratch Keyes of the King’s Guard is having a bad day.

On what should be the biggest night of her life, everything suddenly goes horribly wrong. First, her king denies her the promotion she rightfully earned, as well as the knighthood that goes along with it. And then, when Scratch is wallowing somewhere near the fetid rock bottom, she and her best friend, the flamboyant and carefree Sergeant James Ursus, are arrested for orchestrating the abduction of Princess Frances and sentenced to death. On the whole, things could be better.

Luckily, help comes in the form of the mysterious Shae siblings—Vel and Umbrella—who inform the doomed pair that the issue of the missing Princess is far more complicated than it appears. After a daring escape, the four embark on an ill-advised rescue mission through a forest filled with beasts, bandits, and mysterious fair folk, bringing nothing with them but a kitchen knife and the vague outline of a plan. Their destination is the Between, a sacred and shadowy fae-guarded place that promises to deliver Scratch and James to the princess—if they manage to survive.

But Scratch didn’t rise above her humble childhood in the Royal City slums by accepting things at face value. It’s clear that the enigmatic Shaes are hiding something, but what do they know? Who are they working with? And why, in the name of all the divine constellations in the scrambled sky, can't Scratch stop staring at Brella?

Samara Breger’s debut novel, Walk Between Worlds is a romantic queer fantasy adventure that will make you laugh even as it keeps you on the edge of your seat.

A hate group operating in Oakland County, Michigan has claimed responsibility for a six-month-long string of arson fires and robberies at mosques, temples, and black churches around Detroit, eluding police and federal agencies. The most recent fire, at a mosque in Dearborn, kills a respected imam. His children—suspicious of law enforcement’s treatment of Muslims and afraid of reprisal—hire Charlie Mack and her team of investigators to find their father’s murderers. The Mack team begins to hunt down the clues in this local hate crime, but they aren’t prepared when they realize that those clues are pointing to a widespread conspiracy that runs through elected state officials and up to the highest levels of national leadership. FBI agent, James Saleh, returns to help the Mack Agency infiltrate and take down a homegrown militia hell-bent on starting a race war in America.

Warn Me When It's Time is a finalist for the 2022 Anthony Award Nominee for Best Paperback Original/E-Book/Audiobook Original Novel and was awarded an Independent Publishers (IPPY) Silver Medal for Great Lakes Regional Fiction.

Featuring strong queer female protagonists who must navigate class, race, religion, language, and nationality, Mala Kumar’s What It Meant to Survive is a poignant and heartbreaking commentary on life in modern-day America and Nigeria.

Ramya and Juliet begin to uplift each other and heal the moment they match on Tinder. For nearly a decade, Ramya, an American of Indian origin from Virginia, has grappled with her survivor’s guilt from a devastating mass shooting that occurred during her last year of university. Halfway around the world in Nigeria, Juliet has survived family tragedies, economic downturns, and an oppressive patriarchy. With a one-chance swipe on their phones in a country foreign to them both, the two women begin a remarkable romantic relationship that most fairy tales wouldn’t dare to depict.

But can they hold onto each other?

As their lives intertwine, Ramya suffers acute memory loss so pronounced that she sometimes forgets where she is, who she’s with, and even who she is. Periodically, Juliet experiences time freezes that throw her out of sync with everyone around her. Ultimately, the two women choose to begin a new life together in New York City, where their love will be acknowledged and respected. But for Juliet to make it through the American immigration process, the two women must get to the root causes of these memory loss and time-lapse episodes by coming to terms with their pasts.

Written by a singularly talented, wildly imaginative novelist, What It Meant to Survive is a powerful and bracing work of fiction inspired by the Virginia Tech Massacre, and the author's real-life experience navigating its long-term social and emotional impacts.

Trailblazing author, Marianne K. Martin asks, “How much are you willing to sacrifice to protect your students and the woman you love?” in this powerful and timely novel.

Johanna Beals decided sixteen years ago to sacrifice everything to raise her daughter Kayla as a single mother. She knew it was the right decision even when it led to lonely nights and broken relationships, and even when adolescent secrets challenged their mother/daughter bond. But the decision to go it alone seems easy compared to the one she is about to face.

Secrets and bouts of teenage angst don’t only challenge parents. English teacher, Miya James, has dealt with her fair share of them over the years. But Kayla Beals seems to be whispering to the wind, an act that stirs uncomfortable memories of Miya’s fractured childhood. As the school year progresses, she finds she wasn’t prepared for this student, for her mother, or for the sparks that add fuel to the teeming atmosphere of unrest, bullying, and homophobia that leaves her school district grappling with life-changing decisions for everyone involved.

Award-winning author Anna Burke returns to Seal Cove in this long-awaited third romance that is perfect for fans of small-town, friends-to-lovers, and one-bed romantic tropes.

Helping animals for a living? ✔
Having the best friends in the world? ✔
Falling in love with one of those friends? Um . . . ✔

Stevie has everything she wants, except the one thing that matters most: her friend and roommate, Angie. But the shadows of Angie’s past have a long reach, and even though everyone in the small town of Seal Cove knows Stevie and Angie have been in love for years, none of that matters if Angie herself isn’t willing to take the risk.

Risk, as far as Angie is concerned, equals loss. She once risked everything by telling the truth--and that ended badly. Very badly. Friendship is the only thing that has ever worked out for her. She can’t afford to lose Stevie--even at the expense of her own happiness.

However, when their other roommates move out of the house, each finds it harder and harder to resist their feelings. Angie must decide if the scars of her past will dictate her future, and Stevie will need to accept that sometimes, people need to save themselves.

 The Gianna Maglione/Mimi Patterson Mystery Series Continues.

Police Lieutenant Gianna Maglione, a newly-minted Captain, is still recovering from a life-threatening gunshot injury as she finds herself and her Hate Crimes Unit assigned a new boss, and a new squad called Special Intelligence Mobile and Tactical Unit, which includes hate crimes. And Gianna’s colleagues in the group are diverse, quirky, loyal, and ready for teamwork. And Mimi Patterson, who quit her job as the lead investigative reporter for Washington DC's top newspaper, is coaxed back to work after having quit rather than apologize to a racist, sexist homophobe as ordered by her new editor. The editor is gone, and the newsroom welcomes Mimi back but she has one condition: she will write no more of her reputation-building stories about corrupt government officials and politicians, and instead, concentrate on stories that help people in the community.

With hatred a bigger business than ever, taking different and uglier forms, Mimi and Gianna feel hopelessness, knowing that women are always prey for bullies and haters. Young girls—children, really—make even easier targets. When the reporter and the Captain are tipped off about a depraved ring of men and women, buying and selling young girls for profit, Mimi writes the story, paving the way for Gianna and her team to try to take the ring down. And Mimi, her vow not to cover corruption scandals be damned, helps a colleague chase down a story which winds up intersecting with Gianna’s efforts to take down the repulsive purveyors of child prostitution.

Out of this harrowing and unimaginable ugliness, the women view their jobs and relationship with new eyes, realizing they might, after all, be able to improve some horribly broken young lives, heal their own traumas and become better, stronger, more loving women to and for each other.