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Love Over Lattes

Desert Monsoon Series, Book 1
Diana Hicks

2018 Honorable Mention
324 Pages
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Romance - Contemporary

2018 Honorable Mention
When recent college graduate Valentina loses the deal on her dream rental and the chance to bring her son home to live with her, she has no choice but to accept the help of the intimidating-as-hell stranger she's admired from her coffee shop seat for the last six months. 

Wealthy businessman Derek Cole has one focus: to save his company. But when he offers to help Valentina, he begins to reevaluate what's really important to him.

He's on the verge of losing everything while Valentina struggles to keep what little she has together. Can love over lattes help them build something new?

Awards:
2018 Royal Dragonfly Book Award - First Place
2018 Chatelaine Book Awards - Short Listed
2018 Readers' Favorite Awards - Honorable Mention

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Sweet Temptation

The Agony and the Ecstacy of Passion
Sarah Stuart

2018 Honorable Mention
442 Pages
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Romance - Contemporary

2018 Honorable Mention
Evie Taylor is a career girl with no time for men, but she has a secret passion for Michael Marsh, the unattainable world-famous singer, The Diamond Superstar. Michael has been widowed for two years and the young detective who helped close the case on his wife’s murder still haunts his dreams. He doesn’t expect to find a deadly enemy in Evie’s mother.

Teenage Greta, jealous of her adored father paying attention to Evie, joins an Internet chatroom, where she is targeted by a sex-trafficker. The Spy, a journalist hell-bent on destroying Michael, sets out to prove he has an incestuous relationship with his eldest daughter, he encourages his adult twins to sleep together, and he is responsible for appalling injuries inflicted on Greta.

Can Evie save Greta, defeat The Spy and her mother, and win the heart of the man who’s turned her life upside-down?





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Escape

Chimera Club Stories #2
Cybill Cain

2018 Bronze Medal
178 Pages
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Romance - Contemporary

2018 Bronze Medal
She’s everything I never knew I needed.

I found her when I least expected it.
A painted goddess by a stormy sea, and she stole my heart.
I wanted to know her. I wanted to love her.
I wanted to show Annie Clemons the world, and let her be my muse.

He’s everything I ever dreamed of having.

I knew him from movies and television, but I didn’t know the man at all.
He was the king of the silver screen, and I’d loved him for years.
How can I tell him what a difference he’s made to me?
How can I show Max Alexander he’s the king of my heart?

They say opposites attract, but what we feel goes beyond who we are on the surface, and into something deeper and more real than we ever imagined.

Can we hold on to each other and still be true to who are?

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Camden

Xio Axelrod

2018 Bronze Medal
171 Pages
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Romance - Contemporary

2018 Bronze Medal
Sometimes there’s a moment when you know you’ve screwed up. For Camden Skinner, it’s the night a dead pop star walks into his pub.

As one-half of Skin, an agency which specializes in cleaning up behind the ultra-rich and infamous, Cam has gotten used to getting his hands dirty. A little too used to it. After the young singer at the center of a client’s controversy is found dead, Cam decides he’s out. He walks away from Skin in search of a simpler life. Maybe even a shot at redemption.

Redemption arrives in the form of Yara Bujold.

The singer’s meteoric rise to the top surprised no one more than Yara herself. All she ever wanted was to make music. Caught up in the dark underbelly of the industry, Yara is forced to fake her own death. But she can’t hide forever.

Yara tracks down one of the principals at Skin, the very people that helped to tear her down. She’ll force Camden Skinner to make it right, whatever it takes. What she doesn’t expect is remorse from the man that helped to ruin her. And she certainly doesn’t expect to lose herself in him.

Cam finds himself sucked right back into a world he’d hoped never to step foot in again, but he can’t walk away. He has to fix this. Not only for himself, but for her. For Yara. Because she might just be everything he didn’t know he needed. She just might be everything.

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The Burnout Cure

A Prescription: Romance! Book
Jill Blake

2018 Bronze Medal
198 Pages
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Romance - Contemporary

2018 Bronze Medal
When it comes to burnout, Lily Reid is an expert. Determined to turn her personal tragedy into a cautionary lesson for other physicians, she travels the country, lecturing about life balance and stress management. But her words falls on deaf ears--until she hits on a plan to appeal to a broader audience.

Enter Wolf Knox, aka "Wolfman MD." He's gorgeous, charismatic, and his patients love him. So do millions of fans who follow him online, watching the music videos he makes in his spare time. Too bad Wolf believes "burnout" is synonymous with weakness. His motto? Suck it up--and if you can't handle the pressure, get the hell out of medicine.

As Lily and Wolf clash over plans for a joint project, their mutual disdain gives way to desire. But when a fellow physician's suicide forces them to confront their own fears and prejudices, will their fledgling relationship survive?

~ Please note: this is a steamy contemporary romance. It contains adult themes and explicit language, and is meant for adults 18 and over. ~

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Secrets Hidden In The Glass

A Carter Island Novel
Cate Beauman

2018 Silver Medal
543 Pages
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Romance - Contemporary

2018 Silver Medal
The secrets of the past are always closer than we think...

Stained glass artist Callie Davis is in desperate need of a vacation. Burnt out and on the edge of a nervous breakdown, she's fleeing the pressures of her career and is taking refuge on Massachusetts' tiny Carter Island. Callie yearns for long, lazy days and pretty walks on the beach--blessed solitude and an escape from the complications of her life. Then she bumps into gorgeous Nate Carter and everything changes.

Sheriff Nathan Carter couldn't be happier now that the height of the summer season has finally come and gone. After four endless months, tourists have packed their bags and headed for the mainland. The quiet days of autumn are about to befall the town--the way Nate and his fellow Sandersonians like it best.

But nothing ends up quite the way Nate expects when he meets the beautiful blonde with the big blue eyes. Callie's pretty smiles hide secrets--deep, dark mysteries that could cost them both their lives if they continue digging into the past and cross a killer's path.

*A contemporary romance with twists of mystery and suspense

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The Sidelined Wife

More Than a Wife Series Book 1
Jennifer Peel

2018 Silver Medal
298 Pages
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Romance - Contemporary

2018 Silver Medal
She's getting back in the game, one blog post at a time.

Samantha Higgins never thought driving her husband's car would forever change her life. But one conversation later, heard through his Bluetooth, and Samantha is changing her last name. While trying to figure out who Samantha Decker is, she writes what she thinks is one final post on her blog, announcing her divorce. When the post goes viral, she finds herself with a new title, The Sidelined Wife, and an unbelievable following.

Then her younger brother's best friend, Reed Cassidy, who she used to babysit, moves back to town as the new head football coach for her son's high school team. Reed has harbored a crush for his old babysitter all these years. But, Samantha isn't keen on dating anyone, much less a younger man who used to booby trap her bedroom with firecrackers.

While Samantha is doing her best to learn the rules of single life and being a semi-celebrity, Reed comes in and changes the game. Now Samantha must decide if she should get back on the field or if she prefers the sidelines.

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Escape Clause

Mary Billiter

2018 Gold Medal
362 Pages
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Romance - Contemporary

2018 Gold Medal
What happens when the battle lines drawn become blurry? In Mary Billiter’s fun novel of solving mysteries and falling in love, a gorgeous PR guru and a happy-go-lucky single mom are linked by a determination to discover the truth and a sizzling connection.

Sometimes to escape a bad situation, you have to grit your teeth and bare your clause.

When competing hotel owners, the Carlyles, attempt a takeover of the former Brubaker hotel, now The Point Resort and also Kelsey Donigan’s second home, the front desk manager discovers long-buried secrets between the two families. Better yet, she uncovers an escape clause that not only prevents a takeover, but may also overtake generations of animosity between the two families.

Kelsey finds an ally in the most unlikely of locals. Hotel heir Oliver Carlyle’s devotion and determination to honor his mother’s final wishes places him in direct opposition with his powerful family.

Can the star-crossed couple save the historic, beachfront hotel, or will they lose each other in the process?

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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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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!