This week’s new releases post is sponsored by Mark Romero in honor of the upcoming crowdfunding launch for his Sapphic Fantasy Romance Comic, Bound By Words!
Thirteen-year-old Ivan is a tender-hearted vampire who prefers a plant-based diet. In his daydreams, he rejects his destiny and hangs out in the human world forever! But would it be worth it if it means hiding his truest self?
Born into a family of vampires, cheerful Ivan is a black sheep: he loves sunshine, his best friends are human, and he can’t stomach the thought of eating meat.
So when Ivan’s vampire fangs come in on his first day of eighth grade, he’s determined to keep them a secret. He wants to stay in day school, with his sweet group of human BFFs, rather than transfer to night school with the rest of the teenage vampire crowd. Sure, that means he’ll have to lie to everyone, but how hard can it be? He will just act normal.
Keeping his secret gets much harder when Ivan is assigned a new lab partner: transfer student Damien. Around him, Ivan acts anything but normal. He’s fainting and fumbling and far from blending in. Ivan even finds himself thinking about blood and heartbeats and vampire kisses . . . All. Day. Long.
Is it safe to spend time with humans, or is Ivan turning into a bloodthirsty vampire against his wishes? He always thought he would do anything to stay in the human world, but maybe it’s too dangerous to keep pretending. . . .
Verity Vox is a witch-in-training who has never met a problem her spells can’t solve. But when a cryptic plea for help sends her to the forgotten coal mining town of Foxfire, she soon learns even magic has its limits.
Verity discovers a curse was laid years ago by a traveling magician who vanished into the ancient Appalachian hills to seek greater power. Crops won’t grow. Bellies go hungry. Even treasured possessions fall apart. What’s worse, people have gone missing amidst rumors that they’ve sought out the magician who is lying in wait for those foolish or desperate enough to strike a deal with him.
The witch must break the curse, find a missing girl, and solve the mystery of what’s really under the mountain before the town falls forever into the clutches of the monster lurking in the hills.
A terrible accident. A horrible loss. A regrettable tragedy. That’s all anyone in Fenix can talk about when a fire consumes the local high school, taking the life of a student. The town mourns, except who really knew―let alone cared about―Eden when she was alive? And why was she in the building that night?
Five teens each hold a piece of the truth about what happened. They also have their own secrets, secrets they will fight to protect with the same fury as the blaze that killed Eden. But silence is meant to be broken, and this story can’t be extinguished…
Can two girls—one enchanted, one the enchantress—save their kingdom and each other?
Two hundred years ago, a slighted deity stole the magic from Auréal and vanished without a trace. But seventeen-year-old Odile has a plan. All her life, her father, a vengeful sorcerer, has raised her for one singular task: infiltrate the royal palace and steal the king’s crown, an artefact with enough power to restore magic. But to enter the palace, she must assume the identity of a noblewoman. She chooses Marie d’Odette: famed for her beauty, a rumored candidate for future queen…and Odile’s childhood-friend-turned-sworn-enemy.
With her father’s help, Odile transforms Marie into a swan and takes her place at court. But when the king is brutally murdered and her own brother is accused, her plans are thrown into chaos. Desperate to free her brother, Odile is forced to team up with none other than elegant, infuriating Marie, the girl she has cursed…and the girl she can’t seem to stop thinking about despite her best efforts.
To make matters worse, there are whispers that the king’s murder was not at the hands of man, but beast. Torn between loyalty to her father and her growing feelings for Marie, Odile becomes tangled in a web of treachery and deceit. To save her kingdom, she must find the true path to magic…and find the real killer before they—or it—strikes again.
James, Daphne, Koko, and Sonny have all grown up surrounded by magic in the Arcana, an organization of witches that protects the magical world, run by the mysterious and secretive Majors. Eli Jones, however, hadn’t even known other witches existed . . . until he stumbled into James. As James introduces him to the world of the Arcana, Eli finds the family he never had and a blossoming romance with James.
The five new friends soon realize that sinister things are afoot, and everything may not be what it seems at the Arcana. When the group delves deeper into the mystery surrounding the deaths of their parents and the Majors’ rise to power, they discover that they’re at the center of a curse-one they’ve just unwittingly set into motion. As the friends search for answers, they’ll have to confront the cursed legacy that links them in hopes of freeing their futures.
A Legionnaire’s Guide to Love and Peace by Emily Skrutskie
A one night stand before their one last stand.
On the eve of the battle that will decide the realm of Telrus’s fate, Katrien takes a hard look at her prospects. A mere legionnaire, she and her spear will be at the fore in the morning, facing off against the Demon Lord and his wretched army, and it’s all but certain she’ll perish in the fight. But if the end of the world is mere hours away, there’s no reason not to hook up with her handsome, dedicated battle partner, Emory—despite any antifraternization policies their centurion may have in place.
Only the world doesn’t end the next day. Instead, an insufferable prince raised in hiding comes out of nowhere with a plucky band of heroes, defeats the Demon Lord, and seals the rift to the hellish plane. The realm is saved. The war is over. And Kat suddenly has a lot more future than she knows what to do with.
But while the Demon Lord has been destroyed, peace is still a long march away. When Kat inadvertently catches the eye of the prince, she, Emory, and the rest of their motley unit are pulled to the fore of the formation—and the heart of the danger—as the army embarks on one last campaign.
As Kat and Emory work to secure a lasting peace, they’ll have to decide what they want their futures to look like—and if there’s room for love at the end of the road.
Two exes reunite to fix up and sell the bed-and-breakfast that destroyed their marriage—because some dreams, no matter how dusty or broken, deserve a second chance.
Their love story is a bit of a fixer-upper.
As newlyweds, Molly and Robin made the Hummingbird Inn into a trendy destination for queer travelers in the quirky mountain town of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. But when their career ambitions drove them apart, the young couple separated, handed over the property’s upkeep to a management firm, and never looked back.
Seven years later, Molly and Robin return to the Hummingbird Inn for very different reasons. Molly is an artist on the rise who’s been commissioned to create pieces in Eureka Springs; Robin is a celebrity chef whose restaurants have gone belly-up. Both feel entitled to their shared property, furious that the other refuses to leave, and each resorts to a series of escalating pranks in the hopes of scaring the other off. When neither woman budges, they resolve to renovate the bed-and-breakfast together, sell it, and at last go their separate ways. But their work to restore the inn’s vintage charm reignites memories—and chemistry—that make it hard to say goodbye.
Party of Three: A Sapphire Cove Suite Secrets Novella by C. Travis Rice
Version 1.0.0
“Jealousy was your word, babe. Not mine.”
Buckley Mitchell lives to put people back together again. The charming, warmhearted EMT is exactly who you want holding
your hand in the ambulance after you’ve broken a bone. And he’s just the boyfriend Mateo Cano needs to help him embrace his sexuality after years of repressing his true self. But Mateo hasn’t been entirely truthful about the complicated relationship between him and his best friend from his Marine Corps days, the accomplished crew chief who saved his life during a training accident gone wrong. Why did Master Sergeant Jeff Braxton vanish from Mateo’s life right after Mateo and Buckley got together?
When Buckley and Jeff meet for the first time at Sapphire Cove, a posh oceanfront resort in Southern California, a more complicated history is revealed. But Buckley isn’t jealous. In fact, he’s something else altogether. Something excited…and hungry. He’s spent the past year bringing Mateo’s fantasies to life. Now it’s his turn to have his fantasies realized. And to do it, Mateo will partner with the handsome older Marine who taught him everything he knows in the bedroom, turning their lavish villa at Sapphire Cove into a gateway that brings secret passions to life. Will their wild weekend be little more than a fling? Or will it change all three of their lives for the better?
After the deaths of her abusive grandparents, prodigal daughter Rhiannon “Rhea” Ballard ends her self-imposed exile and returns home to the stately Ballard House for one last goodbye. She expects to pay her respects, field awkward questions, and let her family name die with her.
But when she discovers that she had inherited everything, she must stay in the house and act as the caretaker while it is under probate to put her family’s affairs in order. As she digs into her family’s dark secrets, the spirits of the house reawaken and her own traumatic memories resurface.
With the help of the family cook, Morgan Reyes, an alluring woman with her own dark secret, and the supernatural skeptic groundskeeper, Andy Higgins, she must solve a century old mystery and put the spirits of the estate to rest before she becomes one herself.
War witch Joan Matthews wants little more than to build a life with Leigh Phan. Their hometown is rebuilding under Joan’s protection, but not everyone is happy with her solution to the most recent vampire crisis.
Meanwhile, Leigh’s bloodling powers lead to unforeseen consequences, and Joan is forced to honor a favor owed to a dangerous foe. Neither knows a greater threat lurks behind seemingly unrelated attacks across the land.
Together, Joan and Leigh once saved the town of Calvert. Now that they are separated, each must learn to save herself, or all their gains will be forfeited—and everyone they know will pay the price.
They Wish They Were Us meets Nothing Left to Tell in this young adult thriller about three girls with entangled pasts who compete for glory in their private school’s annual tournament, putting their survival skills and their relationships to the test.
Gardner isn’t like other boarding schools. They take in those who’ve been rejected everywhere else, they offer a survival skills class that has students killing and gutting animals, and then there’s the Tournament.
A competition available only to seven elite seniors, the Tournament is revered by the entire student body. They’d do almost anything—including completing a series of grueling physical challenges—to win the champion’s cup.
And this year, three seniors make the Tournament more cutthroat than ever.
Max, the ruthless scholarship student who can’t afford any distractions, not even her ex best friend Nora’s stupid confession of love at the end of last year that ruined everything between them.
Nora, who always put herself on the sidelines so Max could have everything she wanted, but might just be ready for center stage now that Max has brutally excised herself from Nora’s life.
And Teddy, the transfer who’s on her last chance and will chase any high that can pull her back from the gaping, dark void inside herself that’s always threatening to pull her in.
If one of them wants to win, then they can’t let anything—or anybody—get in their way.
Fiora Barrowling lives in a world where sorcerers rule over humans. After surviving an encounter with The Radiance—the very worst of the sorcerers—she’s whisked away to the incredible Incorruptibles (“Inc”) Academy, a school for resistance fighters in training. But most of the other students think Fiora hasn’t earned her place there, and when things start to go wrong and it seems the sorcerers have a spy in the academy, all eyes are on Fiora. With all odds stacked against her, can Fiora prove that she belongs?
This post is sponsored by Timothy Jay Smith and Fire on the Island, out today in paperback! Set against the very real refugee crisis on the beautiful, sun-drenched Greek islands, Fire on the Island paints a nuanced and loving portrait of a community in crisis while shedding light on the challenges of life in contemporary Greece.
Pina’s first trip to summer camp is a chance to escape her overbearing parents and finally go on an adventure with her best friend, Jo. But Camp Clear Skies hides a secret: a clearing in the deep woods the older kids call “the Glade.” After falling asleep here, Pina and Jo are able to enter one another’s dreams, transforming into superheroes and knights in shining armor, fighting back their nightmares in epic adventures.
At first, the friends think they’ve discovered a secret more exciting than any video game—until Pina’s nightmares start leaking out into waking life. Worse, something seems to have followed them back from those dreams…and whatever it is, it’s taking over Jo. Jo has always been the superhero in their friendship, but Pina can’t just abandon them to their fate.
To save her friend, Pina journeys deeper into the Glade than she ever has before, facing the worst of her own fears and Jo’s. There, she must confront the consciousness trying to steal her friend’s body and learn what happened twenty years ago that shut down Camp Clear Skies and changed the Glade forever.
Taylor and Marianna were each other’s whole world – best friends, running partners, practically sisters – until Marianna moved away and Taylor promptly ghosted her. When the former best friends turned rivals end up on the same cross-country team three years later, everything is a competition… and a reminder of past feelings, as well as blossoming new ones.
Marianna runs because she’s angry.The oldest child of a single mother, she knows all about responsibility – for her siblings, at her part-time job. She just has to stay focused and be faster than the past nipping at her heels if she wants to secure a new, brighter future. With or without Taylor.
Taylor runs to prove herself. The only child of an almost-Olympian, she’s no stranger to high expectations. With enough effort, she knows she can immortalize herself with a state record and make her parents proud. Then, she can figure out her own passion. Shedefinitely doesn’t have time to untangle her feelings towards Mari.
Can this pair figure out a way to work together before their past catches up with them?
This post is sponsored by Penguin Random House Canada in honor of The Vinyl Diaries: Sex, Deep Cuts, and My Soundtrack to Queer Joy by Pete Crighton. Big hearted, funny, thoughtful, and wildly entertaining, The Vinyl Diaries is a celebration of sex, music and the discovery of our true selves.
Thirteen-year-old Ivan is a tender-hearted vampire who prefers a plant-based diet. In his daydreams, he rejects his destiny and hangs out in the human world forever! But would it be worth it if it means hiding his truest self?
Verity Vox is a witch-in-training who has never met a problem her spells can’t solve. But when a cryptic plea for help sends her to the forgotten coal mining town of Foxfire, she soon learns even magic has its limits.
A terrible accident. A horrible loss. A regrettable tragedy. 
Can two girls—one enchanted, one the enchantress—save their kingdom and each other?
James, Daphne, Koko, and Sonny have all grown up surrounded by magic in the Arcana, an organization of witches that protects the magical world, run by the mysterious and secretive Majors. Eli Jones, however, hadn’t even known other witches existed . . . until he stumbled into James. As James introduces him to the world of the Arcana, Eli finds the family he never had and a blossoming romance with James.
A one night stand before their one last stand.
Two exes reunite to fix up and sell the bed-and-breakfast that destroyed their marriage—because some dreams, no matter how dusty or broken, deserve a second chance.
War witch Joan Matthews wants little more than to build a life with Leigh Phan. Their hometown is rebuilding under Joan’s protection, but not everyone is happy with her solution to the most recent vampire crisis.
They Wish They Were Us 
Fiora Barrowling lives in a world where sorcerers rule over humans. After surviving an encounter with The Radiance—the very worst of the sorcerers—she’s whisked away to the incredible Incorruptibles (“Inc”) Academy, a school for resistance fighters in training. But most of the other students think Fiora hasn’t earned her place there, and when things start to go wrong and it seems the sorcerers have a spy in the academy, all eyes are on Fiora. With all odds stacked against her, can Fiora prove that she belongs?
Pina’s first trip to summer camp is a chance to escape her overbearing parents and finally go on an adventure with her best friend, Jo. But Camp Clear Skies hides a secret: a clearing in the deep woods the older kids call “the Glade.” After falling asleep here, Pina and Jo are able to enter one another’s dreams, transforming into superheroes and knights in shining armor, fighting back their nightmares in epic adventures.
You can’t outrun love.
