Showing titles in Genre Fiction

Lone Stars follows the arc of four generations of a Texan family in a changing America. Julian Warner, a father at last, wrestles with a question his husband posed: what will you tell our son about the people you came from, now that they're gone? Finding the answers takes Julian back in time to Eisenhower's immigration border raids, an epistolary love affair during the Vietnam War, crumbling marriages, queer migrations to Cambridge and New York, up to the disorienting polarization of Obama's second term.

It’s 1953 when Memory Feather and her mother, Virginia, are welcomed back home to the Mississippi Gulf Coast community of Belle Cote by Virginia’s childhood friend Mac McFadden, whose verve and energy buoy the recently divorced Virginia to embrace this new chapter. Memory (“Mem”) is unlike other girls: she is attuned to the voices of plants and animals and is missing two fingers on her twisted left hand. The three of them knit their lives together and become a close, though unconventional, family.

During a grocery run to her local shopping center, Shell Pine sees a ‘HELP NEEDED’ sign in a flower shop window. She’s just left her fiancé, lost her job, and moved home to her parents’ house. She has to make a change and bring some good into her life, so she goes inside and takes a chance. Shell realizes right away that flowers are just the good thing she's been looking for, as is Neve, the beautiful florist who wrote the sign asking for help. The thing is, Neve needs help more than Shell could possibly imagine.

When young queer dancer Wilbess “Bessy” Mulenga is arrested by corrupt police, fresh-from-the-village rookie lawyer Grace Zulu takes up his cause in her first pro bono case. Presented with a freshly beaten client, Grace protests to the police and gets barred from accessing Bessy, who then disappears from the system—and the world—without a trace. As she fights for justice for Bessy, Grace must navigate a dangerous world of corrupt politicians, traditional beliefs, and deep-seated homophobia.

Kimiâ Sadr fled Iran at the age of 10 in the company of her mother and sisters to join her father in France. Now 25 and facing the future she has built for herself, as well as the prospect of a new generation, Kimiâ is inundated by her own memories and the stories of her ancestors, which come to her in unstoppable, uncontainable waves.

Kentucky was only ever going to be a summer job. Come fall, Blue Riley would be back in North Carolina, in college. But one job led to another, one town led to another, and one woman led to another. Now, after twenty years Blue faces the hardest question of all - is it time to go home?

Julia Rosenberg loves her brother. Really loves him. Enough to: be the “best woman” at his wedding; leave behind her hard-won New York life, brilliant best friends, and drag brunches for Boca Raton, Florida; entertain the uptight bride-to-be and her vicious cronies; try (and fail) to dodge the hometown hookup buddy she can’t resist; and navigate the tricky dynamics with her divorced parents.

Archeologist Kelly Pierce lives for adventure, weaving a tapestry of exploration, seeking out artifacts that whisper stories of the past. Always ready for the next expedition, she never thought Oklahoma would be on her map. Shawn Scott thrives in predictability. As director of Descriptive Statistics, numbers are her world, but people? They're a puzzle. So, collaborating with a British archaeologist is an incongruous with her routine as a desert oasis in the Arctic.

Fin Tighe is clinging to respectability by his nail-bitten fingers. He may be the illegitimate son of an English earl, but he hasn’t spoken to his father in a decade, and his engineer’s salary is barely enough to support him and his cousin Aurelie. And Fin’s evenings spent in the clandestine gay community may be legal through a loophole in the Napoleonic Code, but they leave him vulnerable. So, when Fin’s employer, Gustave Eiffel, announces that he needs additional investors to pay for his pet project, a 300-meter tower that will dominate the city’s skyline, Fin jumps at the chance.

In the second novel of the 'Choosing to remember' series, Jerome Clarkson takes a swan dive into his past and the trauma he's carried for far too long. Jerome grew up in a very toxic and unloving environment, unable to escape the torture. His mother had him at just 13 and went on to have seven more children, that she took her frustrations out on constantly. Jerome was berated as child for being different and his mother often abused him because she believed that he was gay. From the moment his mother first beat him, Jerome felt the need to please his mother and prove her suspicions to be wrong.

Ruth, an only child of recent immigrants to New England, lives in an emotionally cold home and attends the local Catholic girls’ school on a scholarship. Maria, a beautiful orphan whose Panamanian mother dies by suicide and is taken care of by an ill, unloving aunt, is one of the only other students attending the school on a scholarship. Ruth is drawn forcefully into Maria’s orbit, and they fall into an easy, yet intense, friendship. Her devotion to her charming and bright new friend opens up her previously sheltered world.

Henley sits on the sideline of life. What else is a fat kid to do? He's determined to make a change as he enters high school and summons the courage to take a chance only to have super-jock Axel O'Connell go off on him for being a pathetic slug. Henley nearly calls it quits, but pushes forward, and then something amazing happens; Axel does an abrupt about-face and offers to help Henley lose weight and get in shape. Henley is suspicious of Axel's motives, but so desperately needs help he takes him up on his offer.

He's coaching girls for the first time... So what's the best way to relate to them? Caleb is a recent college grad and part-time volleyball coach who feels directionless in life. But when he's assigned to be an assistant coach for the club's top girls team, Caleb slowly discovers that fitting in with the team may be easier by embracing his feminine side.

Eight stories of literary dark fiction from a master storyteller. Exploring the shadow side of love, these are tales of grief, obsession, control. Intricate examinations of trauma and tragedy in raw, poetic prose. In these narratives, a woman imagines horrific scenarios whilst caring for her infant niece; online posts chronicle a cancer diagnosis; a couple in the park with their small child encounter a stranger with horrific consequences; a toxic relationship reaches a terrifying resolution . . .

This is the harsh coming-of-age story of Friedrich Schooler, a fifteen-year old boy growing up in rural Germany during the rise of Adolf Hitler. The year 1937. Friedrich is discovering his own (homo)sexual awareness and trying to come to terms with it in a time where admitting such things always got to the ears of the S.S and to prison. Being Gay and young was no bar to thier hatred. It is primarily written for the adolescent (14 – 26 year old), who would most benefit from these pages as a beginning to this terrible part of European history.

Espionage was always a game, but now British spy Mark Hardwicke wants to retire and settle down with ex-lover Dr. Stephen Thorpe - if Stephen will have him. Unfortunately, Stephen has other plans - and so do the terrorists who want Mark dead.

It is 1597 and Kit Skevy and Mariner Elgin have just robbed the wrong grave. They are young criminals in the pocket of a gang Lord named Will Twentyman, the Grave Eorl of Southwark. Mariner is the best cutpurse around, a strange Calvinist girl who dresses like a boy and is partner in crime to Kit Skevy, Southwark's best brawler who carries a secret: he cannot feel pain. When caught out in their unfortunate larceny, Kit is kidnapped by the menacing alchemist Lord Isherwood.

The year is 1980, and Mount St. Helens hasn't erupted in over one hundred years. Surely, it won't happen now? Volcanologist Nova "Cano" Kane is the first to volunteer when the rumblings start, even if it means she'll have to face her biggest regret. When Cano fled Seattle four years ago, she left behind the woman she's never been able to forget. Geology professor Dr. Allison Albright has spent four years learning to live with Multiple Sclerosis and without Nova. Now her ex has waltzed back into Allison's university and the tension between them is building like that inside the mountain.

Brought up in a devout household in Ireland, Jay is now living in London with her girlfriend, determined to live day to day and not think too much about either the future or the past. But when she learns that her beloved older brother, who died in a terrible accident, may be made into a Catholic saint, she realises she must at last confront her family, her childhood and herself . . .

In gorgeous and emotional prose, Jaquira Díaz tells a profoundly moving story of one unforgettable family. and Growing up in Puerto Rico, Maricarmen works hard, getting good grades, and cleaning houses after school. She dreams of becoming a singer. When she meets Rey, a young Black musician, she falls in love with his dynamism and his voice. But when her mother discovers their relationship, the course of Maricarmen’s life is changed forever.