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High Hopes

Sue Lilley

2017 Finalist
328 Pages
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Romance - Contemporary

2017 Finalist
“It was one stolen night. He was my soulmate and I’d never felt more alive. I couldn’t tell him I got pregnant. It would’ve ruined everything. But now his daughter wants to meet him and I need to make things right.” Another tear escaped down her cheek. “Everybody’s going to hate me.”

Best friends are rocked by a heart-breaking revelation. Their cosy world is blown apart, surely there can be no second chances. How can a future be built on the quicksand of secrets and lies? Steamy, passionate, and unpredictable. If you like sizzling love triangles, don’t miss this uplifting romance.

Grace has a heart-rending secret – a love child she gave up for adoption. She was a penniless student, how could she raise a baby alone? Now, years later, her long-lost daughter is searching for answers and Grace gets a letter that will change everything.

The father is her best friend, who never knew about the baby. If Grace confesses now, she’ll destroy his marriage. But Grace yearns to do the right thing by her daughter, so does she have a choice?

Highly recommended finalist in the Book Excellence Awards and the Wishing Shelf Book Awards, High Hopes is described as "…a cleverly plotted, sassy romance…"

Set in the wilds of Poldark-country - the stormy cliffs and windswept beaches of Cornwall, High Hopes is an engrossing saga filled with suspense. Will Grace risk everything for a chance of happy-ever-after? Her dilemma is sure to melt your heart.

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Broken Wide Open

A Sand and Sunset Novel Stand-Alone Romance
Susan Griscom

2017 Honorable Mention
227 Pages
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Romance - Contemporary

2017 Honorable Mention
When your heart is broken, sometimes all you need is a gentle smile.

Grace Davidson didn’t have the smoothest childhood, but now, years later, she’s ready to start her new life with her amazing new husband—until she discovers his infidelity…with her best friend. Hurt and betrayed, Grace takes off alone for the exotic resort where she should be spending her honeymoon, only to realize it’s as lonely as it sounds. Until her hunky next-door neighbor says hello.

Leo was just a man Grace met while enjoying her un-honeymoon. They became friends, but that’s it. Yet even after she returns home, she can’t get him out of her head. Too bad she’ll never see him again.

Starting over in a new town after finding her dream job, Grace suddenly runs in to Leo in the last place she expects. But is he the man she believes him to be? Or is her heart in danger of being broken wide open?

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Crazy in Love

Annabelle Costa

2017 Honorable Mention
368 Pages
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Romance - Contemporary

2017 Honorable Mention
Reasons why I will never, ever find love:

I race to the bathroom to wash my hands every fifteen minutes.

I have dizzying panic attacks when I try to use the elevator.

I won’t shake your hand. I can’t even stand to be touched.

Dating is complicated. Love? Impossible!

Or so I always believed…

Matt Harper is the first man I’ve ever wanted to be close to. But how can I go on a date with him if the thought of dinner at a restaurant fills me with terror? How can I ever kiss the man I love if I can't even touch him?

But for the first time in my life, I want to try.

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Beautiful Secret

Dana Faletti

2017 Bronze Medal
270 Pages
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Romance - Contemporary

2017 Bronze Medal
Beautiful Secret is set mostly in the lush French Ardennes and Southern Italy. It is the story of thirty-three year old Tate Robbins, a woman who has lost almost everything that is important to her in life. When Tate decides to travel from her hometown in the North of Pittsburgh to Europe, she expects an escape from the life that is falling apart around her. Having lost both parents, Tate jumps at the opportunity when her dying Nana urges her to journey across the sea. Nana provides Tate with the vague directive to go and visit Luisa, Nana’s sister-in-law and best friend, that Luisa has something for her. It is Nana’s dying wish, so Tate hops a plane, leaving behind a failing marriage and not much else. She finds what she never knew she needed in her long-lost European family and a forbidden love affair. Alongside Tate’s narrative, Nana Maria’s story is told from her point of view and timeframe. Maria’s story is woven in between Tate’s. The tale takes place in 1940’s Calabria, where she was born and lived for the first twenty years of her life. In her own voice, Maria spins the saga of growing up in the poor rural town of Tronca in the mountains, being seduced by her cousin’s older fiancé, Giuseppe, and becoming pregnant with his love child.
Europe enraptures Tate almost immediately. Not only does the rich culture make her feel more alive than she’s felt in ages, but she finds herself completely taken with her French and Italian family. When she becomes undeniably attracted to her distant cousin by marriage, Michel, a man with a tragic past like hers, Tate’s emotions begin to unravel from the knot they’ve been tied in far too long. Torn between a magnetic pull toward the sexy Michel and a commitment to the philandering man who is technically still her husband, Tate looks forward to leaving France to travel to Italy. Before Tate leaves France, Luisa gives her an envelope and an address with directions to find the location and give the envelope to the man who lives there. Tate agrees, and she is off to experience Italy and discover her Nana’s secrets, find a new love, and a host of distant relatives she never knew about.

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The Monday Girl

The Girl Duet, Part 1
Julie Johnson

2017 Bronze Medal
316 Pages
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Romance - Contemporary

2017 Bronze Medal
Katharine Firestone is a bit of a mess. Between an acting career that’s never quite made lift-off to stardom, a pathetic love life of online-dating-app losers, and a maxed-out balance on every one of her credit cards, things can’t get much worse. So, when she’s plucked from relative obscurity to land a lead role in Hollywood’s next big blockbuster, Kat is sure she’s finally on the right track. Until she meets her co-star, Grayson Dunn… and all her plans are completely derailed. Grayson is everything you’d expect the hottest actor alive to be — charming, disarming, and cocky as hell. As their characters slowly spiral into love on screen, Kat struggles to keep herself from falling for real. She knows handing Grayson her heart and expecting him not to break it would be the biggest mistake of her life. Yet the deeper she’s immersed in his glamorous world, the more blurred the boundaries between scripted affection and sincere passion become… and the harder it is to deny that their on-camera chemistry has crescendoed into a behind-the-scenes love affair… What happens when you fall for someone who’s guaranteed to shatter you into pieces? Do you walk away? Or do you let him break you because, even broken, there’s simply no way you can’t stay? THE MONDAY GIRL is a messy contemporary romance about a mixed up girl who falls for the wrong boy. It is the first part of a duet. The second installment, THE SOMEDAY GIRL, will be released a few weeks later, in early 2017 -- pre-order it now for only $2.99! Each installment is approximately 95,000 words. Recommended for readers ages 17+ due to strong language, sexual situations, drug use, and other mature elements.

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The Friar

A Novel
Samantha Cole

2017 Silver Medal
233 Pages
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Romance - Contemporary

2017 Silver Medal
***A 2017 Readers' Favorite Award Silver Medal Winner***
(Formerly titled The Friar)

Adam Westfield is an ex-friar just released from prison. Unsure of his destiny, he roams America, hoping to find a purpose . . . and forgiveness.

A widowed mother of two, Sage Hammond is struggling to keep her horse ranch afloat. Unable to find a ranch hand willing to work for meager wages, she’s close to giving up. Then, an answer to her prayers appears—a quiet, handsome stranger.

Adam is falling in love for the first time in his life, however, strange things begin to happen at the ranch—things that are putting Sage and her children in danger—and he finds he’s willing to sell his soul to protect them. But will it be enough?

A man trying to overcome his past. A woman trying to secure her children’s future. Can they both learn to live in the present and discover that second chances do exist?

***The Road to Solace is a standalone novel and not related to any of Samantha A. Cole's current series.

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Out of the Box Everlasting

Jennifer Theriot

2017 Silver Medal
282 Pages
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Romance - Contemporary

2017 Silver Medal
**2017 Reader's Favorite Silver Medal Winner: Contemporary Romance** 
**2017 Texas Association of Authors 1st Place: Romance Series** 
Recently engaged Ash Harper and Olivia Petersen are returning home from two romance-filled weeks abroad, confronted by tragedy and chaos.

A terrible accident in the Seattle harbor has hospitalized one of Ash's children and skeletons are about to come out of the closet because of it. Dark secrets Ash had sworn to take with him to the grave will have to be told to get his son the treatment he needs.

As if that's not enough, a thoughtless decision could destroy his relationship with Olivia. Forever.

While they have the love and support of family and friends, and they've made it through some of life's toughest obstacles already, life just threw them a real curveball. No one is sure if their love will be strong enough to survive this one.

Burdened with feelings of betrayal and uncertainty, Olivia finds herself returning to familiar ground. On the outside, she and Ash seem like the perfect couple, but everyone has demons from their past. To work through the vestiges of these demons, she seeks the professional help of Dr. Trenda Silverman in Galveston, Texas. Hard questions will be asked. Harder answers will be realized.
With a Presidential election on the horizon, what better elements to add than murder, intrigue and a political conspiracy theory.
Follow Ash and Olivia on this emotionally poignant journey as they capture Everlasting. Sometimes you have to go to Hell before you can get to Heaven.
Out of the Box Everlasting is the third in the bestselling Out of the Box series, a women's contemporary romance about fate and second chances at love.
Contains adult language and situations, and is intended for readers over the age of 18.

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Stepping Stone

The Stone Series Book 2
Dakota Willink

2017 Gold Medal
392 Pages
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Romance - Contemporary

2017 Gold Medal
Sometimes the only way to take control is to surrender...

Krystina Cole is flawed and damaged from a traumatic experience. A relationship with Alexander Stone will never work. She knows that her capacity for love is limited, and that only she alone can repair the pieces of her shattered heart. But Alexander is everywhere she turns. In her mind. In her heart. And in her soul. She cannot deny him. He is her addiction and she is unable to stay away.

Alexander Stone has accepted the inevitable. If he wants to hold on to Krystina, he must bare all and release the secrets in his past. There were risks, but she is worth it. No woman has ever affected him the way that she did. She is the sunshine in his darkness. The lightning to his thunder. She is his angel.

Bound by their passion to be together, Alexander and Krystina fight to let go of their pasts. Together, they embark on a journey of self-exploration, relying on trust to be their ultimate bond. Falling completely into one another, there finally seems to be a beacon of hope for their future. But as they test their boundaries of desire, fate takes an unexpected turn, threatening their only chance at survival…

Stepping Stone is a full-length novel, over 365 pages, and the second of three books in The Stone Series.

INCLUDES A PREVIEW OF SET IN STONE, BOOK 3 IN THE STONE SERIES!

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Forever Grace

Ever After Book 2
Linda Poitevin

2016 Honorable Mention
280 Pages
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Romance - Contemporary

2016 Honorable Mention
Some secrets should never be kept
Grace Daniels would be the first to admit she's in over her head. Caring for three nieces and a nephew while hiding from a vicious enemy has her living on the razor's edge. And just when she thinks she's found the perfect sanctuary, the arrival of a new neighbor jeopardizes her peace of mind--and their safety.

Police officer Sean McKittrick just wants a little R&R to recuperate from an injury, but his plans are turned upside down when he encounters the attractive and feisty neighbor occupying the cottage next to his. Realizing Grace needs a helping hand, he can't help but warm to her and her little family. But as he and Grace become friends over stuffed toys and cooking lessons, he realizes she's hiding something--something big. Now, it's up to him to uncover the truth about the woman next door.

As Grace's secrets surface, the danger threatening her and her family looms ever closer. Can she learn to trust Sean in time to let him help her?

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Chasing Eva

In Light of Shadows Book 1
Camellia Hart

2016 Gold Medal
341 Pages
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Romance - Contemporary

2016 Gold Medal

You love a strong female lead. You love a swoon worthy book boyfriend. Then you’ve got to read this second chance romance trilogy that reviewers are raving about…

After living through her share of disloyal relationships, Evangeline Avery will be damned if she lets another man cheat her. A beautiful and confident woman, Eva is the owner of an interior design firm at the brink of collapse. She swears to bring her company back to its past glory, even if it involves sweet talking the one man who caused this turmoil in the first place - Clive Stanton.


Notorious playboy Clive Stanton is a powerful businessman and a formidable enemy of many. He doesn’t do love, or at least not until he meets her again, fifteen years after he saw her last. Eva, his crush from teenage years, the one that got away, is back in his world and he is determined to do anything to make her his.


Will passion and lust bring them together or conflict and the unforgettable scars from their pasts forever tear them apart?