Tough and demanding LAPD Detective Kate Delafield is the leader of the investigation into a high-rise office building murder. The case is intriguing but routine - until Kate interviews the only witness, Ellen O'Neil. When Ellen O'Neil took her new job over the objections of her lover, she wasn't expecting to become embroiled in murder. The curiosity that Kate Delafield rouses is equally unexpected. But it is never far from Ellen's mind that she is merely a name on an interview sheet to the tight-lipped detective.

The isolated, sleepy little village of Timber Falls—built on the bend of a swift mountain river—swells during the summer months as tourists flock to town to run the river, lured there by the Class IV and Class V rapids. A gruesome murder of a college student—a river rat—brings the FBI to town. Lynn Carter, a disgraced LAPD detective, was offered an out—a position on a team of unorthodox FBI agents. When her commander sent her to Timber Falls—a town by only the stretch of the imagination—she had no idea she would find her peace there. No idea she might find love.

Homicide detective Tori Hunter was used to doing things her way. But even after six different partners in seven years, she was not prepared for the hot-tempered Samantha Kennedy. Samantha, on the other hand, was trying to juggle a new job and a demanding boyfriend and now finds herself with an even greater challenge - being partnered with the most difficult detective in the entire squad.

Captain Sabine Fleischer is a skilled and dedicated US Army surgeon deployed to a combat hospital in Afghanistan. She is also one of the thousands of troops who are forced to serve in silence because of the military's anti-gay policy of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT)". Usually driven and focused, Sabine finds that battles raging both inside and outside are making it more and more difficult for her to deal with her emotions. Dealing with loss and mortality, lack of privacy, sleep deprivation, loneliness, and the isolation forced on her by Don't Ask, Don't Tell are all taking their toll.

There'd been a Rivers at the helm of Argyle Community Hospital for six generations, and Harper Rivers was set to take her father's place whenever he decided to hang up his shingle. Unfortunately, the board of directors had other ideas - they accepted a buyout offer from a health-care conglomerate with plans to close the hospital's doors to the community that depended on it. And Presley Worth, a high-powered corporate financier, came to town to oversee the closure.

Attorney Wren Bishop knew it would be an adjustment to go from her cushy, lucrative career in big law to the public defender’s office, but she’s completely unprepared for the suspicion from her colleagues and the animus from her adversaries at what was billed as a close-knit courthouse. To top it off, her first case pits her against Lennox Roy, a gorgeous yet fierce prosecutor with a reputation for cajoling juries and breaking hearts.

The youngest daughter, Aster always keeps her head down and lets her siblings stand in the spotlight. She sells her gourmet doughnuts from Hole in One, the small drive-through stand in sleepy Homer’s Bluff, Kansas, and daydreams about seeing the big beautiful world. Love is never going to happen, especially when the only other lesbians in town are already married to each other.

After the death of her grandmother, reluctant heiress Madilyn Marak agrees to stay with her grandfather at the estate for the summer. There, she finds an old diary hidden in an antique desk in the attic—The Apple Diary—written by her great-grandmother Isabel. In there, she finds the love story of Isabel and Lorah, along with a photograph of the two young women from 1933. The diary, like the love affair, was short and brief, but rich and vivid enough for her to feel a true bond with the women despite the heartbreaking ending.

Kelsey Brunel knows exactly what the future holds: She’ll one day inherit the Arizona dude ranch that has been in her family for three generations. She tells herself that the business and her good friends are all she’ll ever want or need. Long-term relationships aren’t in the picture, which, after witnessing the devastation of her parents’ failed marriage, is just fine with her.

Harriet “Harry” and Desi Basantes spent 16 years waiting to find each other again, and now they’re weeks away from a wedding and the baby they’ve planned since high school. Desi’s sister Rachel Thompson is happy for them. Rachel might wish for her own grand love affair, but her attraction to Harry’s ex Serena Ladding doesn’t exactly spell happily ever after. Angola State Penitentiary is one of the toughest prisons in the country, but when Desi’s ex-husband Byron Simoneaux sees the chance to run, he does with only one goal in mind: