N Hesse

Tenleigh Falyn struggles each day to survive in a small, poverty-stricken coal-mining town where she lives with her sister and mentally ill mother. Her dream of winning the college scholarship given to one student by the local coal company and escaping the harshness of her life keeps her going. Kyland Barrett lives in the hills, too, and has worked tirelessly - through near starvation, through deep loneliness, against all odds - to win the Tyton Coal Scholarship and leave the town that is full of so much pain.

Sometimes you meet someone - maybe meet isn't the right word. You don't even have say hello for this to happen. You simply pass by them, and everything in your world changes forever. Chills flow all the way from the crook in your neck where you imagine he'd kiss you, all the way down, with only a single glance. I know you know what I'm referring to. The moment when something inside of you ignites to life, recognizing their other half that's been gone for far too long. It burns hot, destroying any hope that it's only a coincidence, and that life will go back to what it was.

The name DiMaggio means mafia royalty, but Calliope, the dynasty’s last living heir, is no princess. A teacher and singer in Nashville, she’s moved as far away from the generations-old criminal legacy as she can. But she still can’t escape her dying father’s wicked reach, or his plans for her arranged marriage to carry on the family name. Playboy Alessandro Costa has a different plan: marry her himself—temporarily. It’ll give him a chance to take down the DiMaggio patriarch and his empire, settle an old debt, and save Calliope from a catastrophic fate.

Six years ago, Maria Romano got her birthday wish—a kiss from Enzo Costa. A man she could never take her eyes off, but who seemed as haunted as her favorite book boyfriends and strictly off-limits. Just one unforgettable moment in the dark and then he was gone. Now Maria is a divorced single mom, moving on and open to romance again. Fatefully, it’s with the new head chef at her sister’s restaurant: Enzo. A gentler man than the one she remembers, yet fire still burns. And a warning still lingers: don’t get too close.

I will do anything for my family, and as the heir to the Campisi Mafia throne, I fall on my sword and do what's expected of me—it wasn't an accident that I was given the name King. I marry the girl I love—who's already in love with someone else, and because I'm a masochist, I make him her personal bodyguard. After all, who better to protect the woman I love than the man she loves? I have seven days after our wedding to own her—body and soul. Seven days to show her everything I feel.

Sundara: the lush and forbidden oasis in the desert where men travel to watch acts of sexual deviancy, and the only existence 17-year-old Karys has ever known. But despite a life where secrets and sin are in high supply, and freedom remains far beyond their reach, Karys and her partner, Zakai, find safety in each other, their passionate love the light that helps them both survive the darkness.

Vince Jennings has had two loves in his life. Music and Bristol Matthews. His guitar skills catapult him to stardom with the most popular rock band on earth. But it takes walking away from Bristol—his first love—to make this happen. Despite the groupies, the success, the fun, life under the bright glare of fame and fortune isn’t enough. Deep, dark pain threatens to derail all he’s worked for, until fate brings her back into his life.

There are three things you need to know about Elizabeth Bennett: She's smart as a whip, always in control, and lives by a set of carefully crafted rules. She's learned the hard way that people you love the most always hurt you in the end. But then she meets Declan Blay, the new neighbor at her apartment complex. A tattooed British street fighter, he's the campus bad boy she's supposed to avoid, but when he saves her from a frat party gone bad, all her rules about sex and love fly out the window.

I met West Haven when I was eight years old. He taught me to play poker when I was nine, and we made paper airplanes together when I was eleven. He kissed me when I was sixteen. He was the best part about my family’s summer vacations to Montana. He was the boy who stole my heart. I was twenty-three when life ripped us apart. Years later, I’m breaking my vow and returning to the ranch, not as a guest but its new owner. West might want me gone, but even he has to admit the only way to save his family’s legacy is with my help.

My first day in Montana, I got into a tug-of-war over a grocery store shopping cart. The most handsome man I’d ever seen broke up the scuffle before he asked me on a date. I was seconds away from accepting but then he told me his name. As an owner of the Haven River Ranch, Jax Haven wasn’t my boss. But he wasn’t not my boss either. Obviously, my only option was to turn him down, scurry away, then pretend like he was a stranger on my first day of work. And obviously, I could never, ever admit that he was my secret crush.