Showing results by publisher "Dreamspinner Press" in Literature & Fiction

After a year in medical school, Dakota Holden returned home to take care of the family business full time and help his father cope with multiple sclerosis. Devoted to his family, Dakota allows himself just one week of vacation a year, which he spends in some exotic location having all the fun he can stand. On his last vacation, a cruise, Dakota struck up a friendship with Phillip Reardon, and it fills an important role in Dakota’s life. So when Phillip decides to take Dakota up on his invitation to visit the ranch, Dakota is happy to see him and meet his veterinarian friend....

Can a person’s life change in just one day? How about seven? This is the story of seven pivotal days in Evan Donaldson’s life. Evan was a teenage street hustler when Father Valentin talked him into coming to Saint Bartholomew’s Academy. In that one day, Evan’s entire life changed. That’s the day he met his roommate, Clay Mueller, and the day Evan began to live. But Evan’s life would change again and again, from abuse to first love, to separation and heartbreak, and eventually to starting his own family.

In an act of heroism and self-sacrifice, Anderson Rawn's sister saved him from the destruction of their tiny mining colony, but her actions condemned the 13-year-old to 10 years of crushing loneliness on the hyperspace journey to a new home. Using electronics and desperation, Anderson creates a family to keep him company, but family isn't always a blessing. When Anderson finally arrives, C.J. Poulson greets him with curiosity and awe.

Six years ago, Jeff Beachum comforted a frightened teenager outside an HIV treatment clinic, and Collin Waters has remembered his kindness ever since. Now, after six years of crushing on the kind, brown-eyed sweetheart of his dreams, Collin is feeling adult and together enough to make his move. Too bad fate, which has never been kind to Jeff, has something else in mind.

All Shane Perkins ever wanted to be was a hero. But after a career-shattering decision to go down fighting, Shane comes home from the hospital to four empty walls, a pile of money, and a burning desire for someone to miss him the next time he gets hurt in the line of duty. He ends up an officer in the small town of Levee Oaks, and, addicted to the promise of family, he makes an effort to reconcile with his flighty, troubled sister. Kimmy makes her living as a dancer, and her partner steals Shane's breath at first sight.

Raine Baumer is living the party life in Chicago, indulging in short relationships with little emotional commitment. But after he’s severely injured in a gay bashing, close friend Geoff arrives to take him to the country to recuperate. There, Geoff and his partner, Eli, treat him like part of the family, and Raine meets Jonah, Eli’s brother, who is exploring life in the world outside his Amish community. Jonah and Raine’s mutual attraction draws them together, but they may not have a chance to explore it.

Seven months ago, Len Parker lost his partner of more than 20 years, and he isn’t sure how to feel about his blossoming attraction to Chris, one of his farmhands. Hesitant and still hurt, Len remains aloof and distant until he’s goaded into teaching Chris to ride. Fresh out of a 30-year career with the Marines, Chris can explore his sexuality openly for the first time in his life, but what he needs more than anything is peace. He’s convinced Len doesn’t like him until he digs a little deeper, and then, armed with hope, Chris sets out to prove that love can provide the healing.

The last thing Liam Southard expects when he flees his abusive father is to be taken in by a couple of gay ranchers. Soon he has a new job and a new perspective on his sexuality, and his life starts to turn around. Then someone pulls a gun on him. In Troy Gardener’s defense, the gun thing was a mistake. Between his marriage falling apart and living in his uncle's isolated hunting cabin, he's been a little edgy. He wants to make it up to Liam.

What should have been a brief interlude turns into something deeper when Lil Lampert meets Grier Dilorio at the Taste of Chicago. Lil is in town visiting good friends Jody Williams and Clark Stevens, and he didn’t plan to hook up with a younger man and discover a mutual love for architecture, interior design, and a unique sexual kink that keeps Lil coming back for more. By all appearances, Grier is the quintessential bad boy who loves speed, tattoos, and leather, but Lil slowly uncovers another side.

The neighboring Holden and Jessup ranches are anything but neighborly - Jefferson Holden and Kent Jessup loathe each other. But despite his father’s long-held grudge, Haven Jessup just can’t bring himself to hate, especially after Dakota Holden takes him in during a violent storm and Haven meets Dakota’s friend, Phillip Reardon.

Flynn Tomlinson has drifted for several years, working odd jobs when he needs the money and moving on when he doesn’t. He’s content with his freestyle life, not tied down, not responsible for anyone but himself. Then he comes across a Help Wanted ad in a post office in Idaho and meets Gable Sutton. Gable can’t pay Flynn until he sells his horses, but a serious accident has left him unable to work his ranch alone. Working with horses beats stacking shelves at the supermarket, and so Flynn agrees to Gable’s terms.

Hunter Krause knows better than anyone that running a ranch is hard work. Wranglers are hard to find, and even with Hunter’s foreman and entire extended family on hand, the busy ranch is constantly short-handed. So when horses go missing, Hunter’s brother-in-law hires a man Hunter would never have considered: Grant Jarreau, a man Hunter can't forgive for leaving Hunter’s best friend Gable after an incapacitating accident.

Geoff is in the city, living the gay life to the hilt, when his father's death convinces him to return to the family farm. Discovering a young Amish man asleep in his barn, Geoff learns that Eli is spending a year away from the community before accepting baptism into the church. Their budding relationship is threatened by closed-minded, gossipy relatives and the society at large, a whole new world to Eli, and he must decide whether to return to the community, his family, and the world and future he knows or to stay with Geoff and have faith in the power of love.

Len Parker is laid off during the recession in the early 80s and decides to go back to college at home in rural Michigan, where he reconnects with his best friend from high school, Ruby. He's overjoyed when she marries Cliff Laughton and overcome with sorrow when she dies an untimely death, leaving behind her husband and two-year-old son. Out of work again, Len finds a job at Cliff Laughton's sorely neglected farm. Working side by side, Len and Cliff grow ever closer, but loving another man takes a lot of courage.

Country singer Willie Meadows is a fake. He’s never ridden a horse, and his "Western" gear comes from a boutique shop in LA. No wonder Wilson Edwards, the real man in those fake boots, is suffering creative block. Determined to connect with the music, Wilson buys a ranch in Wyoming to learn the country way of life, even if he has no intention of running the business. Then Steve Peterson shows up desperate, destitute, and hungry, having just escaped a gay deprogramming hospital run by his father’s cult.

After several years of happy coupledom, Matt and Evan can relax in the knowledge that their little family has survived the worst of it. The two older girls are away at college, the twins have yet to fully hit teen angst, Matt is doing well with his part time security consulting, and Evan is about to be promoted to captain - it seems like things are calm and bright.

A year after deciding to share their lives, Matt and Evan are working on their happily ever after--which isn't as easy as it looks. As life settles down into a routine, Matt finds happiness in his role as the ideal househusband of Queens, New York, but he worries about Evan's continued workaholic--and emotionally avoidant--ways. Trying to juggle his evolving relationship with Evan and his children, Matt turns to his friend, former Seattle homicide detective Jim Shea.

Todd Burton has had enough of small-town Buckman. His abusive stepfather calls him a fag; his friend Austin makes him realize he may be gay, but Todd doesn't want to admit his stepfather is right; and he dreams of being a chef. Three good reasons to flee his hometown and pursue greener pastures. But when Todd reaches the big city, his luck runs dry. Soon he can't pay his rent and gets evicted. In the middle of a snowstorm.

Tate "Talker" Walker has spent most of his life hiding his scars under a bright punk facade, and until he sat next to Brian Cooper on a bus, it worked. But Brian has spent his whole life being the invisible man, and he's used to looking below the surface. What he sees in Talker is a fragile and lovable human being. Brian is outwardly straight, but Talker is desperate for love, and when Talker's behavior leads to some painful consequences, Brian is forced to come out of his closet—in dramatic fashion.

Upon their grandmother's death, Tristan Northland and his twin, Will, inherit her Book of Shadows and discover that one of their ancestors, a spurned witch, was responsible for dark magic that has affected the Sterling family for generations. Determined to right the ancient wrong, Tristan sets off across the ocean to reverse the centuries-old curse. Benjamin Sterling might not be happy alone - not quite human, nor accepted by true werewolves - but his life is predictable, at least until Tristan Northland shows up in his office, unannounced and with nowhere to stay.