This week’s batch of new releases includes gems by Jae, Tiana Warner, Katherine V. Forrest, Jea Hawkins, and many others, but first, a freebie by Raven J. Spencer.

THIS FREEBIE’S FOR YOU!

Willow

by Raven J. Spencer

Also available in Kindle Unlimited

When Kat agrees to protect a billionaire’s daughter, all she wants is to repay a favor. Danger and desire create an explosive mix…

Deal ends August 30th.

ONLY 2 DAYS LEFT TO ENTER!

NEW RELEASES

Here are this week’s new ebook and audio releases and announcements.

Please click on this link for how to submit books (ebook and audio) for the newsletter. IHS will not include books unless they receive a form from either the author or publisher.

Happy reading and listening,

TB, Em, Faith, & Miranda

ROMANCE

Just a Touch Away

by Jae

An enemies-to-lovers lesbian romance with an ice queen whose frosty facade is melted by the power of touch.

Hannah Martin has an unusual job: she’s a professional cuddler. While she has a big heart for her clients, she hasn’t found someone special to snuggle up to in her personal life.

Winter Sullivan isn’t looking for love. She’s an aloof workaholic who’s built walls of ice around herself. She would rather drive toothpicks under her fingernails than cuddle, and she certainly doesn’t want to share her space with anyone.

When Winter’s estranged father dies, he leaves her one last surprise: she and Hannah, a perfect stranger, will inherit a building together. But there’s a catch: first, they have to live together for ninety-two days.

Winter is determined to dislike her rival, but soon finds Hannah isn’t what she expected at all. Thanks to a hilarious doormat war, a cuddle dare from Winter’s half sister, and a kiss in the most unusual of places, the frosty fortress around her heart begins to melt.

Will she be able to accept that love might be just a touch away?

2022 IHS Reading Challenge Categories: Ice Queen; Age Gap; Slow Burn; Girl Next Door; Enemies to Lovers; Neurodiverse Character; Grumpy / Sunshine

Roadblocks

Sequel to Watching Cars Go By

by DJ Fronimos and Elke Lakey

Having newly professed her love for Lauren, Silke’s happiness is short-lived when Lauren’s grown daughter moves back home to recuperate after her car accident. Lauren, overwhelmed with working at night and taking care of Kayla during the day, struggles to make time for Silke and their fledgling relationship. Relegated to being just the roommate because Lauren stubbornly refuses to come out to her daughter, Silke becomes increasingly frustrated and soon resents Kayla.

Ana, who still carries a torch for Silke, is more than willing to come to the rescue. The chivalrous and understanding Latina is easy to turn to and Silke gladly hangs out with her. But then Alex shows up and claims she and Silke never stopped being an item. Guilty over how she left things with her back in Germany, Silke tries to appease Alex without succumbing to the old magnetism once again. Yet she can’t help being flattered by Alex’s determined attempts to win her back and of course Silke’s sophisticated ex pushes all the familiar buttons. Shortly after, Silke’s dad falls ill and she has to return to Germany. Having vowed not to lose Silke to anyone or anything, Lauren accompanies her to Europe, where together they must face what turns out to be their biggest hurdle.

Can Silke and Lauren’s love prevail against all odds? Or is their final roadblock just one too many?

2022 IHS Reading Challenge Categories: Medical Character; Hot & Steamy

Love Trauma

Forest Vale Hospital: Book 8

by Emily Hayes

Available in Kindle Unlimited

She is a Movie star… and I am her Doctor…

This is a steamy yet sweet Age Gap Lesbian Medical Romance between an Actress and her Surgeon. It is part of the Forest Vale series, but is can be enjoyed as a standalone. As with any Emily Hayes book, there is a guaranteed Happy Ever After.

Rose DeLuca is the star of the blockbuster Midnight Magnolia Trilogy. She has the world at her feet, but an accident during filming of a stunt scene lands her in the Forest Vale ER.

Rose’s Trauma Surgeon Doctor Laure Milligan might be the only person who treats her like a regular human being and shows her kindness and humanity when she really needs it.

There is an immediate connection between them.

But Doctors aren’t allowed to date their patients and Rose is a big star who is supposed to be getting back to her movie set.

There’s no hope for them as a couple, is there?

2022 IHS Reading Challenge Categories: Age Gap; Medical Character; Celebrity; Hot and Steamy

Oh My Stars

by S-Jay Hart

Available in Kindle Unlimited

Can you ever find something you never knew you’d lost?

You can outgrow a place, it’s common knowledge. You can even outgrow people. Honey Rosenberg has spent her entire life in the small town of Verity Vale and it still fits her perfectly. She lives her life in certainties. She goes to work every day with her sisters at their family deli. She bakes sweet treats that the town clamor for and she spends her nights drinking cider and playing chess, under the moonlight, with her elderly neighbor and best friend.

Everything is idyllic.

But life can turn on a dime and when it does, she wonders if things will ever feel the same.

Liv Henderson thought she had it all, beautiful girlfriend, a luxury seventh-floor apartment with a city view and job she always wanted. But then she is handed something she never asked for. The deed to a place she barely remembers. Suddenly nothing is what it seems and Liv starts to question everything she’s ever known, including herself. As Liv’s life starts to unfurl around her she soon comes to learn that in order to find ourselves we have to be ourselves.

Sometimes all you have to do is look up.

2022 IHS Reading Challenge Categories: Slow Burn; Girl Next Door; Loss / Grieving; Hot & Steamy

Through the Lens

Art of Love: Book 2

by Scarlett Knight

Available in Kindle Unlimited

Elaine’s calm, structured photographer life gets turned upside-down when her narcissistic girlfriend not only leaves her out of the blue, but steals every last penny from Elaine’s bank account. But during a fateful photo shoot, she meets the mysterious fashionista Sybil, a sexy young widower and heir to an enormous fortune. Sybil offers Elaine a surprise job that would not only get her out of debt, but would keep her very comfortable financially for years to come. During the course of their business relationship, however, Sybil introduces Elaine to her abundant life full of lavish parties, exotic vacations, and tantalizing secrets. Will Elaine keep herself guarded and professional, or will she open up to Sybil’s enticing new world, as well as another chance at love?

2022 IHS Reading Challenge Categories: Forced Proximity; Rich Girl / Poor Girl

Nurturing Hope

by Kara Ripley

Desiree Adler does not want a girlfriend. Why would she? She has a demanding career as a photographer and content creator, an eccentric but supportive family, and a huge responsibility as a foster parent to a teenager named Hope.

Desi’s life is just fine the way it is. Why risk another heartbreak?

However, Desi’s sister is annoyingly persistent and when she arranges a blind date for Desi, it’s less trouble to agree, get it over with, and return to normal life. The blind date is every bit as terrible as predicted. So why can’t Desi stop thinking about Soledad Reyes?

If Desi has any hope of finding balance in life, she must help Hope confront the ghosts of her past, while confronting her own assumptions about race, power, and identity in the present.

Content warning: drug/alcohol use/addiction, guns, incarceration, past trauma, racism, racial violence, torture (mention of), war

2022 IHS Reading Challenge Categories: POC; Cute Animal; Single Parent; Ladies in Uniform

Love and Other Rare Birds

by Angie Williams

Ornithologist Dr. Jaime Martin doesn’t have time for romance. She’s spent her life living up to her biologist-turned-conservative-senator father’s idea of who she should be. When she discovers that a bird thought to be extinct has been sighted in Alaska, Jaime seizes the opportunity to finally step out of her father’s shadow and make her career her own.

As a park ranger in Alaska’s largest national wilderness, all Rowan Fleming wants is to escape the stress of her failed marriage in the lower forty-eight. She needs solitude to heal her broken heart, so being ordered to act as a guide for an entitled senator’s daughter isn’t exactly a walk in the park.

Jaime and Rowan couldn’t be more different, but as the landscape grows treacherous and remote, they’re forced to work together to find the elusive bird. Three arguments, two whispered confessions, and one rogue bear later, they’re beginning to suspect love isn’t extinct, after all.

2022 IHS Reading Challenge Categories: Ladies in Uniform; Coming Out

HISTORICAL ROMANCE

This Time of Year

by Jea Hawkins

Available in Kindle Unlimited

The rest of Marty and Vera’s story remained untold. Until now.

“I hear it’s nice there this time of year.”

With those fateful words, Marty Bell made a choice that would further alter the course of her life and bring her back into the arms of the one person she had ever loved: Vera Morton. Paris in 1968 is a city unlike any Marty has ever known. There, she and Vera reignite their romance and work together to fade the scars left by family, war, and death.

Marty isn’t the only Bell woman to find love and purpose in the city of light. In 1912, her aunt Celia Bell’s parents exile her there to keep up appearances by ensuring her romantic exploits remain far from New York. Twenty-years-old and newly independent of her family, Celia’s one-way ticket sends her headlong into a world of dazzling decadence… just what she always wanted!

With plenty of women willing to further her hedonistic explorations, there is only one who catches Celia’s eye: the unattainable Emilie Rossignol. Even as Celia and Emilie are drawn together, a world war threatens to drive them apart. Can Celia hold onto a woman who seems as elusive as peace, or will she set into motion an endless cycle of heartbreak and loss with no chance for lasting happiness?

As Marty sets out on the next phase of her life, she unravels her Aunt Celia’s past, a past that not only mirrors hers, but also teaches that love endures beyond all else.

2022 IHS Reading Challenge Categories: Rich Girl / Poor Girl; Second Chance Romance; Historical Fiction

Ashthorne

by April Yates

In the aftermath of WWI, Adelaide Frost is on the run from a family who do not understand her. Hoping to do some good, she signs up to become a nurse at Ashthorne, a manor house newly designated as a convalescence home for injured soldiers. She quickly falls in love with the owner’s daughter, Evelyn, who hides a warm heart beneath a chilly exterior. But Evelyn has her suspicions about what’s really happening at the hospital, and as Adelaide helps her investigate, it soon becomes apparent that there are more inhabitants residing at Ashthorne than first thought.

Trigger warnings: Threat of rape/sexual assault

2022 IHS Reading Challenge Categories: Cute Animal / Pet / Wild Animal; Paranormal Romance; Historical Romance; Hot & Steamy; Ice Queen

EROTIC ROMANCE

Enthralled in Her Design

by Jolie Dvorak

Available in Kindle Unlimited

Their attraction is instant, their connection undeniable.

Syrene Harkman likes to be in control. She heads an award-winning global architectural firm, she designs things of beauty, she pays for the finest pleasures. When she loses one of the biggest jobs in her company’s history and turns forty-five on the same day, she does not appreciate the cheap, tacky, dive of a strip club her friends drag her to. With a half-decent whiskey in her hand, she decides to stay. What’s the worst that could happen?

Burlesque dancer and stripper Beatriz Rose has bills to pay, her grandmother to support and dreams of one day doing something more with that art-school degree than just repaying the student debt. She never expects true love to strike when she’s at work, but when it does, it hits her hard in the form of a steely, demanding and outright gorgeous woman. Bea breaks her own rules and finds herself in a client’s bed.

They’re perfect for each other but their worlds are a million miles apart. In the aftermath of a one night stand that flares hotter than either expected, the two women decide they’re meant for each other—but real life has other ideas.

Society tells them one night to forever is a fairy tale.

What are they prepared to surrender to prove that fairy tales can come true?

2022 IHS Reading Challenge Categories: Erotic Romance; Age Gap; Rich Girl / Poor Girl; Hot & Steamy; One Night to Forever

ROMANTIC SUSPENSE

Whimsical Angel

Whimsical Dreams: Book 3

by Tiffany E. Taylor

Teagan Malloy of the APS Seven has long been known as “Casanova” in the tiny community of Whimsy — a magnet for the hordes of women who’ve fallen for her brilliant green eyes, hard muscled body, and killer smile. But Teagan has always played the field in an effort to forget the shy, beautiful femme she loved and lost over fifteen years ago. She’s always resisted attempts by women to become “the one” in her life…because if Teag can’t have Delaney Sedgwick, she isn’t interested in having anybody.

Then the day arrives when Delaney finally comes home to her after many years away, and makes Teagan believe in miracles again. The happy couple soon finds out, however, that Delaney hasn’t come home alone.

A viciously jealous ex bent on revenge is determined to destroy Teagan and Delaney, and wants nothing more than to watch them explode in a shower of hellfire and pain. Tina Schaffner will do anything to make that happen, and she won’t rest until she’s wiped them from the face of the earth. It’s the man whom Tina has hired to help her who’s the real threat, however — someone who will not only crush Teagan and Delaney at Tina’s behest for a hefty fee, but who will also stop at nothing to take over the very lucrative security and protection business run by APS in Tampa Bay.

Planning to defraud clients and put them at risk in his quest to come out on top, Frank Bellwood proves he will do anything to be crowned the undisputed king of protection as well as the big money winner in this game. Even if it means he must engineer the total destruction of APS itself in the process.

2022 IHS Reading Challenge Categories: Romantic Suspense; BDSM

PARANORMAL & FANTASY ROMANCE

Eternally Hers

Paranormal Romance Collection

Available in Kindle Unlimited

Under a full moon, all creatures will succumb to their fate.

Explore your wildest fantasies with these page-turning lesbian paranormal romances designed to captivate you.

Fated mates.

Destined lovers.

The overwhelming instinct to complete the preordained bond will drive these women to do what they must to satisfy the need to mate.

This collection of sapphic romance tales has something for everyone, from sweet to steamy, to dark and thrilling.

The stories in the compilation are exclusive and can’t be found anywhere else. Don’t wait, this box set will only be available for a limited time before it is gone forever!

2022 IHS Reading Challenge Categories: Age Gap; Fantasy Romance; Hot & Steamy; Paranormal Romance; Speculative Fiction; POC Character; Vampire

Fluid Bonding

by Sienna Eggler

Psychic office worker meets vampiric med student.

Outside of their family, no one knows Vi Davis can read minds. Clairvoyance runs on their mother’s side, where it’s seen as a gift. Vi has no interest in reading palms or counting cards, like their brother insists. They simply want a quiet life as a humble payroll processor.

Until they meet her.

Hester Milojević is a med student with a special interest in orthopedic surgery. She also has a proclivity for blood and a lust for life, and claims to be the unimaginable—a vampire. Hester sets off a chain reaction of firsts for Vi: first date, first kiss, and so much more. But can she convince them to embrace the supernatural?

2022 IHS Reading Challenge Categories: POC Character; Medical Character; Neurodiverse Character; New Adult; Paranormal Romance; Vampire; Asexual / Demisexual 

Perfectly Matched

by Toni Logan

A beautiful Cupid, a runaway arrow, and a love that defies the stars…

Hannah is the number one Cupid on Archer Island six years running. She is beautiful, confident, and she never misses her mark. Ever. But on one fateful day, with her magical arrows drawn on two would-be office lovers, the unthinkable happens. Hannah misses her second mark, and she only has seventy-two hours to fix the mishap.

Payson Martin’s life is as unfulfilling as her job at a Las Vegas TV station. When a temp is suddenly assigned to her, she’s not sure what to make of Hannah, the striking woman who seems more interested in pushing her toward her co-worker than doing her job.

But the more time Hannah and Payson spend together, the more they begin to fall in love. Cupids are simply not allowed to fall for anyone, let alone someone meant for another. Loving Payson will mean giving up her duties and homeland, but is missing her mark the best mistake Hannah has ever made?

2022 IHS Reading Challenge Categories: Fantasy; Fantasy Romance

SCI-FI ROMANCE

Decisions

Rymellan: Book 4

by Sarah Ettritch

LOVE DISMISSED

When Sheila was accepted into the fighter pilot program but Ruth wasn’t, they knew their love would be tested. After years of infrequently seeing each other, Ruth was finally transferred to the same ship as Sheila. Their relationship thrived, but now Ruth has been transferred to the Rymellan fleet’s newest ship. Sheila is to remain on the Falcon. Will their love survive another separation?

THE KILLING OF LIEUTENANT CHRISTINE LEEDS

In the story Intervention, Lesley is sexually harassed by Lieutenant Christine Leeds. After Lesley reports the harassment to Interior, Leeds is struck and sent back to the Indoctrination Academy. What happens to adult Rymellans at the academy? And why did a military officer with a stellar record so blatantly violate the Way? Those questions and more will be answered as we follow Leeds from the moment she’s removed from her last meeting with Lesley. This is a novel-length story.

IDENTITY CRISIS

The triad is eagerly anticipating the birth of its first daughter when the Rymellan ship Osprey encounters an alien vessel heading for Rymel. The Rymellan boarding team makes a shocking discovery—one that strikes at the heart of what it means to be Rymellan and turns what should have been a joyous event for the triad into an agonizing one. This story was previously published as a standalone eBook.

FAMILY COMES FIRST

With the twins away at the Indoctrination Academy, the triad discusses who will get pregnant with their third daughter. When nobody jumps to do it, Mo volunteers, but with one condition: she will not set foot inside the Reproductive Technology Centre until Les or Jayne commit to carrying their fourth daughter. When neither of her Chosens steps forward, Mo doesn’t understand why Les is shunning her duty. But that isn’t the only issue stressing the triad. Lesley is having problems with a new superior officer, Mo suspects Ann of betraying Andrew, and Jayne receives a shocking letter.

2022 IHS Reading Challenge Categories: Sweet Romance; Sci-Fi Romance; Dystopian; Sci-Fi; Speculative Fiction

NEW AUDIOBOOKS

Delafield

A Kate Delafield Mystery: Book 10

by Katherine V. Forrest

narrated by Kate Zane

The most celebrated detective in lesbian literature returns in the most fateful case of her career . . .

Four years retired, Kate Delafield has a twenty-year-old case roaring back on her, a case from which she had recoiled, withdrawn herself. A homophobic homicide far too reminiscent of a recent, haunting, life-changing investigation of the murder of a young lesbian at the Nightwood Bar. Now she suffers in secret, knowing she is personally culpable for the mishandling of evidence.

The key decisions about the conduct of her life and her police career that have brought her directly to this time, this place in the high desert where she has taken herself. All she can do now, she resolves, is protect as best she can the people she loves most, especially Aimee, from this threat. And, until her time runs out, she can go back and investigate, determine who actually ended the life of fifteen-year-old April Shuster.

But events, people, intervene. New people in her present life, some from her past. And they will take her in the most unexpected of directions.

2022 IHS Reading Challenge Category: Mystery

Beyond the Blue

by TJ O’Shea

narrated by Cindy Kay

Numbers rule Dr. Mei Sharpe’s life. She has no husband, one friend, two daughters, and three random meetings with the same woman within four weeks. Once is chance, twice is coincidence, but upon the third meeting, even Mei in all her empirical rigidness must admit that perhaps the universe is giving her a nudge. A nudge that lands her directly in the path of Lieutenant Morgan Kelly—an affable, charming detective for the Sheriff Department’s brand-new cold case team working down the hall from Mei’s morgue.

More golden retriever than hard-boiled detective, Morgan is determined to pull the asocial widow out of her shell. As the icy scientist warms to her cheerful new friend, an irrepressible chemistry develops, and Mei begins to realize she’s perhaps a different number on the Kinsey scale than previously considered.

As Mei and Morgan struggle with guilt and grief, drama and desires, Mei finds her scientific austerity is no match for the universe and its nudges toward the startling revelation of what her heart really wants.

2022 IHS Reading Challenge Categories: Grief; Age Gap; Coming Out

Getting There

by Lyn Denison

narrated by Jenny Walters

Life was all about forks in the road, Kat’s best friend, Em, told her. And Kat knew she hadn’t chosen wisely when it came to the forks in her road of life. It seemed each road had led to dismal failure. Her family. Her relationships. All failures. Kat didn’t know why Em was still there, especially when Kat rarely took Em’s advice.

However, this time Kat had to admit, perhaps Em was right. Renovating the old house she’d inherited gave her a project. It would take her mind off her breakup with Shael, Em said.

But going back, facing her past and her bad choices, would that solve anything? She’d also be back within streets of her family home and the parents who had turned her away. Wouldn’t it simply make her feel even more depressed?

Then Kat phoned a renovation company and her life took another turn. Another fork in her road opened before her, and this time she so desperately wanted to make the right choice. She wanted to arrive at the right destination with the right person, and she knew getting there was the most important thing she’d ever do.

2022 IHS Reading Challenge Categories: Slow Burn; Return to Hometown; Girl Next Door

BUY US A COFFEE

Running IHS takes the four of us many hours every single week. Also, the costs add up. Last year we setup a Buy Us a Coffee page, which allows people to help cover the expenses. When we first announced the page, we were blown away by the response. Not only were people willing to pitch in, but all of the kind notes and encouragement brought more than a few tears to TB’s eyes. If you’d like to support us, click here. Every cup helps immensely! If you’d like to learn more about TB’s initial response to the outpouring of support, click here.

Have a wonderful day!

TB, Em, Faith, & Miranda

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