Today on the site we’re revealing the cover of A Lady to Treasure by Marianne Ratcliffe, an f/f Regency Romance releasing from Bellows Press on October 15, 2023! Here’s the story:
Louisa Silverton is the daughter of a wealthy American businessman, brought up to believe a healthy profit is the only route to happiness. With the family company over-leveraged and in need of a capital injection, she travels to England to find a rich husband.
The Honourable Miss Sarah Davenport has no time for romance. The family estate of Kenilborough is mired in debt and only she can save it. Unconventional and outspoken, Sarah is dismayed that somebody as intelligent and attractive as Louisa is willing to sacrifice herself for financial gain.
As Louisa pursues her campaign, Sarah realises her objections to the project run deeper than mere principles. At the same time, Louisa finds herself captivated by Sarah’s independent spirit. Yet to indulge their unexpected passion would surely mean the ruin of both their families. Bound by duty, will they ever be free to follow their hearts?
And here’s the lovely cover, by Matt Maguire at Candescent Press!
Buy it: Amazon UK | Waterstones
But wait, there’s more! Here’s an excerpt from Her Lady to Treasure!
The maid took Louisa out through the kitchen gardens and into a walled orchard, gesturing vaguely towards the back wall before returning to the house. There was no path, although a line of beaten-down grass between two rows of apple trees indicated where others had passed. Louisa followed it, ducking beneath boughs that drooped under the weight of ripe fruit. The dewy grass plucked at the hem of her cotton dress which was quite sodden by the time she reached a handcart full of ripe apples. This was manned by a young boy and girl, both barefoot and wearing smocks with frayed seams. A half-filled reed basket lay by their feet and apples rained down from the tree above. The children found this a great game, giggling as they caught the apples and placed them in the basket.
Louisa peered up into the branches. A pair of legs encased in close-fitting buckskin pantaloons, tucked into riding boots with a brown roll top, balanced on one of the branches. The soles of the boots had been patched in several places and the leather above was cracked and grey. They were a woman’s legs, she realised in surprise. Although slender and firm, they were too shapely to be those of a man. Distracted by such a shocking sight, Louisa did not notice a stray red orb flying towards her. It struck her on her forehead, just beneath the hairline.
‘Ow!’ she yelped in shock, clasping her hand to her brow. The torrent of apples ceased abruptly, and the owner of the boots swung herself down in one easy motion, landing on the ground with a heavy thud. Above the pantaloons, the woman wore a linen shirt with sleeves rolled up above the elbows, her front covered by a rumpled apron. She had brown hair, a few shades lighter than Louisa’s, pulled into a simple knot from which several strands had sprung free. Her face, although not delicate enough to be called pretty, was striking, with a firm, square jaw and arrestingly blue eyes.
‘Good heavens, I didn’t see you there. Are you hurt?’
‘The Honourable Sarah Davenport, I presume?’ said Louisa, still holding her hand to her forehead.
‘That title is not generally spoken, but I shall not hold it against you. Miss Davenport will do fine, or Sarah if you prefer.’
‘But Lady Kenilborough―’
‘My stepmother constantly reminds anyone within hearing of my rank, in the vain hope that one day I shall start to behave like a lady.’
***
Marianne Ratcliffe grew up in Lincolnshire. A biochemist by training, she has always found creating new worlds and interesting characters every bit as rewarding as discoveries at a laboratory bench. She has had short stories published in literary magazines and was runner-up in the Guildford Book Festival short story competition in 2010. In 2017, redundancy spurred her to focus on creative writing, and she published her debut novel, The Secret of Matterdale Hall, with Bellows Press in 2022. Marianne lives in Cheshire with her wife and two dogs.
Thirteen-year-old Eli likes baggy clothes, baseball caps, and one girl in particular. Her seventeen-year-old sister Anna is more traditionally feminine; she loves boys and staying out late. They are sisters, and they are also the only family each can count on. Their dad has long been out of the picture, and their mom lives at the mercy of her next drink. When their mom lands herself in enforced rehab, Anna and Eli are left to fend for themselves. With no legal guardian to keep them out of foster care, they take matters into their own hands: Anna masquerades as Aunt Lisa, and together she and Eli hoard whatever money they can find. But their plans begin to unravel as quickly as they were made, and they are always way too close to getting caught.
Some students enter their freshman year of college knowing exactly what they want to do with their lives. Elliot McHugh is not one of those people. But picking a major is the last thing on Elliot’s mind when she’s too busy experiencing all that college has to offer—from dancing all night at off-campus parties, to testing her RA Rose’s patience, to making new friends, to having the best sex one can have on a twin-sized dorm room bed. But she may not be ready for the fallout when reality hits. When the sex she’s having isn’t that great. When finals creep up and smack her right in the face. Or when her roommate’s boyfriend turns out to be the biggest a-hole. Elliot may make epic mistakes, but if she’s honest with herself (and with you, dear reader), she may just find the person she wants to be. And maybe even fall in love in the process . . . Well, maybe.
For over a year, the Bronx has been plagued by sudden disappearances that no one can explain. Sixteen-year-old Raquel does her best to ignore it. After all, the police only look for the white kids. But when her crush Charlize’s cousin goes missing, Raquel starts to pay attention—especially when her own mom comes down with a mysterious illness that seems linked to the disappearances.
Corinna “Corey” Nguyen’s life seems perfectly average for a closeted bisexual whiz kid with her eyes on college and a budding romance with her friend Kate. Sixteen years old and navigating senior year with her tight-knit group of best friends through crushes, breakups, and pregnancy scares, Corey mistakenly believes that running for valedictorian, choosing the right college, and coming out of the closet are the biggest things she has to worry about.
“Anytime I want, I can forsake this dinner party and jump into real life.”—Eve Babitz
When Viola Carroll was presumed dead at Waterloo she took the opportunity to live, at last, as herself. But freedom does not come without a price, and Viola paid for hers with the loss of her wealth, her title, and her closest companion, Justin de Vere, the Duke of Gracewood.
Elliott appears to be living the dream as a successful TV writer with a doting boyfriend. But behind his Instagram filter of a life, he’s grappling with an intensifying alcohol addiction, he can’t seem to stop cheating on his boyfriend with various sex workers, and his cerebral palsy is making him feel like gay Shrek.
The gods wanted blood. She fought for love.
Feyi Adekola wants to learn how to be alive again.
Sara Foster runs away from home at sixteen, leaving behind the girl she once was, capable of trust and intimacy. Years later, in Los Angeles, she is a sought-after bartender, renowned as much for her brilliant cocktails as for the mystery that clings to her. Across the city, Emilie Dubois is in a holding pattern, yearning for the beauty and community her Creole grandparents cultivated but unable to commit. On a whim, she takes a job arranging flowers at the glamorous restaurant Yerba Buena.
The Bennett family has a secret:
Randa Jarrar is a fearless voice of dissent who has been called “politically incorrect” (Michelle Goldberg, 
A diverse group of memorable characters find themselves in Paris during the build up to the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Dreamer Anne is half-Haitian, possessed of incredible gifts, but with a past she tries to bury; Laurence is desperate to spread his wings, develop his talents as a photographer, and escape the restrictions of his Canadian upbringing; Ellis, an American army surgeon, has lived through the trauma of the American Civil War and will do anything to avoid further violence. We join these characters and others as they live through, and are buffeted by, momentous historical events that will change them forever.
Vivian Lantz is cursed. Every year, terrible things happen on her first day of school. This year, Vivian has a plan to conquer eighth grade. But eighth grade? Turns out to be her worst first day yet.
Natalya Fox has twenty-hours to make the biggest choice of her life: stay home in NYC for the summer with her dad (and finally screw up the courage to talk to the girl she’s been crushing on), or spend it with her basically estranged mom in LA (knowing this is the best chance she has to fix their relationship, if she even wants to.) (Does she want to?)
What do you want most? What will you pay for it?
Welcome to the Circus of the Fantasticals.
In the first of three acts, Ponyboy’s titular narrator—a pill-popping, speed-snorting trans-masculine lightning bolt—unravels in his Paris apartment. Ponyboy is caught in a messy love triangle with Baby, a lesbian painter who can’t see herself being with someone trans, and Toni, a childhood friend who can actually see Ponyboy for who he is. Strung out, Ponyboy follows Baby to Berlin in act two, where he sinks deeper into drugs and falls for Hart, a fellow writer, all the while pursued by a megalomaniacal photographer hungry for the next hot thing. As Ponyboy’s relationships crumble, he overdoses and find himself alone in his childhood home in Nebraska. The novel’s final act follows Ponyboy to rehab, exploring the ways in which trans identity, addiction, and recovery reforge the bond between mother and child. Eliot Duncan reveals, in precise atmospheric prose reminiscent of Anne Carson and Allen Ginsberg, the innate splendor, joy, and ache of becoming oneself.
New Year’s Eve, 1999.
Darcy Evans is getting married. In a week. To a man who is her childhood dream come true. But a late-night confession from her best friend changes everything and before she even has time to unpack it, she must endure a road trip to the ceremony with her estranged mother, Marja. It was always the two of them against the world…until Marja ghosted Darcy three years ago. No car in the world has enough room for all of their baggage.
Wealthy tech whiz Sena Abrigo has deep roots in the Arizona-Mexico borderlands. But when she marches into Owen Station on red-soled stilettos like she just walked off the cover of Vogue, she plans to pull this little town into the future. And she is used to getting exactly what she wants. First, she has to get past Hazel Butler.
Summer and Leo would do anything for each other. Inspired by the way each has had to carve her place in a hostile and unforgiving world, and united by the call of the open road, they travel around sunny California in Summer’s tricked-out Land Cruiser. It’s not a glamorous life, but it gives them the freedom they crave from the painful pasts they’ve left behind. But even free spirits have bills to pay. Luckily, Summer is a skilled pickpocket, a small-time thief, and a con artist–and Leo, determined to pay her own way, has learned a trick or two.
In Parson, Texas, a small town ravaged by a devastating hurricane and the Vietnam War, twenty-nine-year-old Lou is diligently renovating a decaying old mansion for Miss Kate, the elderly neighbor who has always been like a mother to her. Mourning her brother’s death in Vietnam, Lou dreams of enjoying a more peaceful future in Parson. But those hopes are crushed when Miss Kate is murdered, and no one but Lou seems to care about finding the killer.![Meeting Her Match: A Soccer Enemies to Lovers Romance (Milwaukee Soccer Club Book 2) by [Liz Lincoln]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51EbEEkt8BL.jpg)
She loathes him. She wants him. And dammit, she just might love him.
A visit to a pancake shop leads to an unexpected May-December romance that breathes life into the monotonous routine of an older salaryman.![Still the One by [Harper Bliss]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51arq0uncVL.jpg)
All great love stories deserve a second act
Greg Marshall’s early years were pretty bizarre. Rewind the VHS tapes (this is the nineties) and you’ll see a lopsided teenager limping across a high school stage, or in a wheelchair after leg surgeries, pondering why he’s crushing on half of the Utah Jazz. Add to this home video footage a mom clacking away at her newspaper column between chemos, a dad with ALS, and a cast of foulmouthed siblings. Fast forward the tape and you’ll find Marshall happily settled into his life as a gay man only to discover he’s been living in another closet his whole life: he has cerebral palsy. Here, in the hot mess of it all, lies Greg Marshall’s wellspring of wit and wisdom.
Christian Cooper is a self-described “Blerd” (Black nerd), an avid comics fan and expert birder who devotes every spring to gazing upon the migratory birds that stop to rest in Central Park, just a subway ride away from where he lives in New York City. While in the park one morning in May 2020, Cooper was engaged in the birdwatching ritual that had been a part of his life since he was ten years old when what might have been a routine encounter with a dog walker exploded age-old racial tensions. Cooper’s viral video of the incident would send shock waves through the nation.
Sarah’s story begins as she’s researching what she believes will be a book about her high school philosophy teacher, a charismatic instructor who taught her and her classmates to question everything—in the end, even the reality of historical atrocities. As she digs into the effects of his teachings, her life takes a turn into the fantastical when her wife, Marta, is notified that she’s been investigated for sexual misconduct at the university where they both teach.
Now that Abby knows which of her so-called friends is the one behind the video of her talking “trash” on Emery, she’d love to do something with that information—if only her blackmailer didn’t know Abby’s one 
Avi Silver is a speculative fiction author, the Co-Editor-in-Chief of Augur Magazine, and poet. Pluralities, their trans slipstream-meets-space-opera novella, will be published with Atthis Arts in October 2023. In 2018, he co-founded The Shale Project, an award-winning indie arts collective through which he published the ongoing Sãoni Cycle (Two Dark Moons, Three Seeking Stars). Find his short fiction in Common Bonds: An Aromantic Speculative Anthology and Nothing Without Us Too. Their poetry has been published in Strange Horizons and Uncanny Magazine, and received an honorable mention in the 2022 Rhysling Awards. They are currently working on their first full-length book of poetry, funded by the Canada Council for the Arts. 
KB: I’m so excited to talk to you. This book, boy, from page one. I was so anxious for these girls. I spent the entire book just on the edge of my seat wondering what is going to happen to these children? How are they going to make it? I’ll stop gushing, but it’s so good.
Will loves playing center midfield on his middle school soccer team. This year, though, Will hasn’t felt like himself; his stomach has been bothering him, and he has no energy at all. When his new doctor diagnoses him with Crohn’s disease, Will hopes that means he’ll start feeling better soon and he can get back to playing with his team before the season ends.
“Welcome to the first ever Junior Irish Baking Show!”
Less than a year away from graduation, seventeen-year-old Joy is too busy overachieving to be worried about relationships. She’s determined to be Caldwell Prep’s first disabled valedictorian. And she only has one person to beat, her academic rival Nathaniel.
When David quit his band, he missed his shot at fame. For the past two years, he’s been trapped in an ordinary Seattle high school life, working summers for his dad’s construction business while his former best friends Chance and Eli became the hottest teen pop act in America.
As the daughter of a Library god, Freida has spent her whole life exploring the Library’s ever-changing tunnels and communing with the gods. Her unparalleled access makes her unique – and dangerous.
THE BSE (Best Summer Ever) LIST!
Ten years ago, the Scar Squad promised each other nothing would tear them apart. They stuck together through thick and thin, late-night surf sessions and after school spodies. Even when Casey Jones Caruso lost her twin brother Sammy to an overdose, and their foursome became a threesome, the squad picked each other up. But when Casey’s feeling for the remaining members—Francesca and Benjamin—develop into romantic attraction, she worries the truth will dissolve them and vows to ignore her heart.
Pedro and Daniel are Mexican American brothers growing up in 1970s Ohio. Their mother resents that Pedro is a spitting image of their darker-skinned father, that Daniel likes dolls, that neither boy plays sports.
Barney’s a shoo-in for his school’s 
Porta Bella Magiculinary Academy is the finest school for the art of cooking with magic, and Basil Eyres is determined to be the top student. On the first day of her senior year, Arabella Oregano, the daughter of a renowned chef, joins the academy for her senior year as well. The two are instantly smitten with each other, but Basil senses there’s something Arabella is hiding from her. Still, the two work together to stand out from the class as the end of year culinary festival approaches. But when Arabella’s secret is reveled, Basil is faced with the hardest decision of her life, which has the potential to throw her future aspirations in jeopardy.![Northranger by [Rey Terciero, Bre Indigo]](https://i0.wp.com/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/418iuTz7yxL.jpg?resize=169%2C255&ssl=1)
Cade has always loved to escape into the world of a good horror movie. After all, horror movies are scary—but to Cade, a closeted queer Latino teen growing up in rural Texas—real life can be way scarier.
A prestigious school for young magicians, the Galileo Academy has recently undergone a comprehensive overhaul, reinventing itself as a roaming academy in which students of all cultures and identities are celebrated. In this new Galileo, every pupil is welcome, but Professor Septimius Dropwort—everyone’s least favorite professor—is among those who aren’t so happy with the academy’s transformation. When the stodgy old professor is found dead on school grounds with a mysterious note clenched in his fist, the students must solve the murder themselves . . . because everyone’s a suspect.
Newly-out trans artist’s assistant Sammie is invited to an old friend’s bachelor weekend in El Campo, a hedonistic wonderland of a city floating in the Atlantic Ocean’s international waters—think Las Vegas with even fewer rules. Though they have not identified as a man for over a year, Sammie’s college buddies haven’t quite gotten the message—as evidenced by their formerly closest friend Adam asking them to be his “best man.”
Qven was created to be a Presger translator. The pride of their Clade, they always had a clear path before them: learn human ways, and eventually, make a match and serve as an intermediary between the dangerous alien Presger and the human worlds. The realization that they might want something else isn’t “optimal behavior”. I’s the type of behavior that results in elimination.
The year is 1909, and Artie Quick—an ambitious, unorthodox and inquisitive young Bostonian—wants to learn about crime. By day she holds down a job as a salesgirl in women’s accessories at Filene’s; by night she disguises herself as a man to pursue studies in Criminal Investigation at the YMCA’s Evening Institute for Younger Men.![Show Girl by [Alyson Greaves]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41-BrXlRj1L.jpg)
Alex is a young man in the employ of James McCain, founder of McCain Applied Computing and old family friend. But when their trade show models fall ill just days before the event that could make or break the company, someone has to step in and fill their shoes… and their dresses.
Nick Russo has worked his way from a rough Brooklyn neighborhood to a reporting job at one of the city’s biggest newspapers. But the late 1950s are a hostile time for gay men, and Nick knows that he can’t let anyone into his life. He just never counted on meeting someone as impossible to say no to as Andy.
A queer and dangerously hungry mountain lion lives in the drought-devastated land under the Hollywood sign. Lonely and fascinated by humanity’s foibles, the lion spends their days protecting the welfare of a nearby homeless encampment, observing obnoxious hikers complain about their trauma, and, in quiet moments, grappling with the complexities of their gender identity, memories of a vicious father, and the indignities of sentience. “I have so much language in my brain,” our lion says, “and nowhere to put it.”
Quito Cruz might be a genius piano player and composer in New York City now but it doesn’t mean that he’s any closer to his Broadway dream. Although Quito knows what the problem is. Or rather 
Bertha Mellish, “the most peculiar, quiet, reserved girl” at Mount Holyoke College, is missing. One cold November morning the junior is spotted walking through the Massachusetts woods; then, she vanishes.
The rumor went through the Nightingale like a flood, quietly rising, whispers hovering on lips in pockets of silence.
Devastatingly handsome and insanely rich, Farrell Covington is capable of anything and impossible to resist. He’s a clear-eyed romantic, an aesthete but not a snob, self-indulgent yet wildly generous. As the son of one of the country’s most powerful and deeply conservative families, the world could be his. But when he falls for Nate Reminger, an aspiring writer from a nice Jewish family in Piscataway, New Jersey, the results are passionate and catastrophic.
It is the year 1814, and life for a young lady of good breeding has many difficulties. There are balls to attend, fashions to follow, marriages to consider, and, of course, the tiny complication of existing in a world swarming with fairy spirits, interfering deities, and actual straight-up sorcerers.
It is 2007, and twenty-four-year-old Demetrio is a celebrated pastry chef in New York at the French restaurant Le Bourrelet. This will be his seventh year as the pâtissier and the chef-owner, stern but paternal, feels he should move on. When Demetrio is offered a position as head of pastries at the Four Seasons restaurant in New York, he wants nothing more than to accept it.
When a sister’s casual act of betrayal awakens their father’s demons—ones spawned by his time in Vietnamese POW camps—the effects of the ensuing violence against her brother ripple out over the course of forty years, from Lubbock, to San Francisco, to Fort Lauderdale. Swept up in this arc, the members of this family and their loved ones tell their tales. A queer coming-of-age, and coming-to-terms, and a poignant exploration of all the ways we search for home, 
What is gender and what does it mean to you? What are ways people express their gender? What if you don’t feel like the gender everyone says you are? This new resource is here to help kids make sense of who they are and how they feel.
“Can I kiss you?” It was two months before the world premiere of 
A former 
Told over the first ten years, 
In this exuberant, prize-winning collection, queer, trans, and gender-nonconforming characters seek love and connection in hilarious and heartrending stories that reflect the complexity of our current moment.
In this deeply intimate second poetry collection, Ocean Vuong searches for life among the aftershocks of personal and social loss, embodying the paradox of sitting in grief while being determined to survive beyond it. Shifting through memory, and in concert with the themes of his novel 
VJ: My goal was to explore my own experiences and feelings on these concepts, but to remember them from a child’s point of view. Young children have a tiny bit of agency over decisions in their lives, and self-expression in the form of what clothes feel right is a major opportunity for them to exercise their decision making. The push to conform is stronger as they get older but really young ones can be free and play and they have such strong feelings at that age. It was big for me as a child, and I observed the same with my own child. I also see it all around me every single day where this sense of play and self-discovery can be squashed by rigid and outdated ideas about gender. I drew on those experiences to write, hopefully, a very child-centered story about self-discovery and burgeoning self-confidence. I hope I’ve created some space for conversation about it for children and caregivers. I hope readers take from Molly’s experience that they can follow their inner compass and be brave if need be and feel just as happy as their classmates about their choices, even if it is a different one.
Harry Woodgate (pronouns: they/them) is an award-winning author and illustrator who has worked with clients including National Book Tokens, Google, The Sunday Times Magazine, Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster, Walker Books, Andersen Press, Bloomsbury, The Washington Post and Penguin Random House.
Vicki Johnson (she/her) is a children’s book author, and a former band nerd, White House staffer, and nonprofit director, among other life adventures. Her debut picture book is Molly’s Tuxedo, illustrated by Gillian Reid, releasing June 27, 2023 from Little Bee Books in their publishing partnership with GLAAD.