Books Tagged With potential trigger - traumatic past

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Character Identities: Click here to revealBisexual (Click here to hide)

Summary: A mistake. A drastic fix. And the person most hurt by Jack’s choice turns out to be… Jack. Five years after joining the army, Jack is back on civvy street and struggling to find his feet. He knows he’s made the wrong choice. He knows he needs to move on. But how can he choose a new direction when he feels so lost? Jack asks advice from friends and strangers, but to find his lifeline he must remember who he is, what he stands for, and what first Rio and then Gareth have taught him.   Zero Rising traces the origins of Jack Horwood, the main character of my Power of Zero series. Both series are available from my store, all retailers, Kobo Plus, and libraries. Also available as part of a bundle. Please check my store for additional links.

Word Count: Click here to reveal91771 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary:

Nick's unwelcome past roars into his life like a tornado. Will its path destroy his and Fatboy's secret romance?

Hot and heavy under the covers, cool and distant in the public eye, Nick and FatBoy have been keeping their relationship secret from friends and coworkers at the bar. But if Nick gets his way, their first carefully planned weekend will catapult their relationship to the next level—after all, once FatBoy experiences the liberation of an exclusive gay resort, how can he possibly be content to keep their love life under wraps?

But circumstances have never been kind to Nick, and expecting Fate to give his love life a free pass is too much to ask. When an attack at the bar leaves Nick reeling and confused, it is merely the first domino to fall in a chain of events that leads Nick to question who he is, how he got there, and where he belongs. His only hope is that he’ll still have the man of his dreams at his side when he reaches the end of the road.

Word Count: Click here to reveal100000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: He was supposed to be my enemy. Not my lover. Yichen is free at last…sort of. He has escaped his imprisonment, but he’s still blood bound to the crown prince of the fae. Oh gods, how is he going to explain that to his clan? Finding a way to break the bond might not be too hard. Killing the king of the fae even seems possible. But there’s no way he can let go of the elf who protected him, risked everything for him for a hundred years? Rei is the breath in his lungs, the blood in his veins, and the beat of his heart. Somehow, he has to find a way to keep him. An elf can fall in love with a vampire, right? Two Thousand Tears is the second novel in the Kings of Chaos series, which is a spin-off from the Lords of Discord series. This book contains a somewhat broken vampire falling in love with an elf who should be his enemy but is actually his everything, shifters, meddling witches, other non-human surprises, snark, angst, car surfing, found family, brotherly bickering, magic, chaos, pouting, vampire cuddles, and an endless love that crosses lines drawn by war.

Word Count: Click here to reveal74000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: Typhoon Toby: Forces of Nature Book Two Blurb   On the surface, Toby Griffiths appears to have it all: talent, money, a brilliant mind, and model good looks. With his best friend Reese, he’s built an empire as a singer/songwriter. But beneath that glittering exterior, Toby suffers the lasting effects of betrayal (or abuse?). To keep his tempestuous past where it belongs, he insists on anonymity with lovers—no names, no personal information. A vacation fling in Bali changes all that, and he can’t get his recent playmate out of his mind. Therapist Spencer Hart left Bali with a bad case of pneumonia and a broken heart. While recovering, he's shocked to find his secretive partner on TV—and he's determined to see him again.  Spencer arranges to attend one ofToby’s fundraising galas, and their reunion is tense. Toby tries to stick to his rules… until a New Year’s kiss with Spencer washes away the last of his resistance. ButToby is a man with secrets, and when the storm that’s been holding comes ashore, it could devastate not just his professional life, but his fledgling love affair and long-time partnership with his best friend. Will Spencer stand by his side and help him weather the storm as Toby faces his worst fears?  

Word Count: Click here to reveal34000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: Unbreakable Stories: Snow is a collection of short stories and a novelette set after the events of Shatter, book 2 of the Unbreakable Bonds series and before Torch, book 3. Follow the continuing, passionate and heartfelt romance between Dr. Ashton "Snow" Frost and Jude Torres as they merge their lives together as a couple. This collection is more than 34,000 words long and contains stories such as: House Hunting with Anna Tequila Adventure Lunch No Walls are Sacred The Home We Make Safety Net Camping

Word Count: Click here to reveal66932 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: A disgraced Scot...a misplaced Quaker (The Renegade and the Runaway 2) This sequel to Unkilted finds a young Quaker-trained man and a bitter Highland outlaw together again, and not by their own design. They meet again on a Dutch trader sailing to the king’s colonies—uncharted land even more wild than Scotland’s daunting Highlands. David is on a mission to the British-occupied colonies to find his true father, a well-known frontiersman. Grier is searching for his aunt, abducted twelve years earlier, held somewhere on the coast of North Carolina. Back in Edinburgh, Iain spins his quiet web to reunite with his beloved wife. More than seeking family members, the two younger men are searching for something they may find only when they finally understand themselves, and each other. Can a naive, scholarly youth cope with life on the high seas—and become a force against a killer? Will a deeply angry man ever forget that the man he most desires bears the name of his sworn enemy?  Slow-burn romance ~ Slow reveal ~ Family secrets ~ Action and Adventure ~ Humor

Word Count: Click here to reveal120000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: Some bonds are strong enough to last a lifetime, and change the world. Rory O'Sullivan has spent his life alone. Once upon a time, he made one real human connection as a gay man. That moment happened in Nazi captivity, and the wolf he escaped with was a Soviet soldier. They had a taste of what love might mean, but in 1944, personal happiness had to come second to survival. Now, seventy years later, when he feels the presence of Nikolai, somehow close and needing him after all that time, no one— not gay Alpha Aaron of the Minneapolis West pack, or rising political threats, or even top Alpha Rick Brown himself— will stop him. Rory's going to answer the appeal he's waited a lifetime for. Some bonds can't be denied. (This is a new novel in the Hidden Wolves series.)

Word Count: Click here to reveal118000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: Life in foster care wasn’t easy. Life after prison? Unforgiving. But I’m determined to stay out of trouble, and I’m gaining a foothold on the closest I’ve ever known to normal. Then, thanks to a pair of escape artist dogs from the sanctuary where I’ve found work, I cross paths with my boss’s neighbor, Ty Adams. He’s a horse trainer, and winter is his quiet season. It’s also the season when he gets restless and lonely—two things I know all about. He’s not interested in love or romance. I’m just happy someone’s interested in me at all, even if emotions are strictly forbidden. When we’re not together, I’m thinking about him. When we are together… Well, I’m definitely thinking about what he does to me and what I want to do with him. As we keep each other warm through the Vermont winter, this feels a lot more than physical. Somehow he soothes my pain, and I wonder if I’m touching something deep inside him too. But Ty won’t let himself love anyone. I never had a chance. And now, with my past closing in, I could lose the one man I hoped I could count on. The one I thought might be different. When his present and my history collide, is it too much to hope he’ll choose me? CW: Sick horse and a minor accident involving a horse—no animal deaths or serious injuries/illnesses.

Word Count: Click here to reveal62681 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: A disgraced Scot... a misplaced Quaker (The Renegade and the Runaway 1) Gregory MacGregor is a Highlander, a moody, angry outlaw who has reasons for calling himself Grier Black. The British crown has taken his clan name, his tartan, his dagger, and his very honor. His mission in life is one of lawless rebellion. Iain Stewart is Grier’s uncle, a man who has lost both his brother and his beloved wife. He lives apart from his family in the tall dark city of Edinburgh, where he follows his wits and instincts to help the survival of his clan On the eve of a revolution, David Campbell, son of a Colonial American printer, falls afoul of occupying Redcoats. He runs straight into the hands of a ship’s captain and a lecherous opportunist. Weeks later, he finds himself in a place of peril far from home, surrounded by strangers who despise all Campbells. …And all hell breaks loose before heaven can intervene. Unkilted is a slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers tale with a few twists and wynds along the way. A sequel titled Unbroken is in progress

Word Count: Click here to reveal37000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary:

Word Count: Click here to reveal72000 (Click here to hide)

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Summary: Twenty years before Simon found Paul, a decade before Aaron joined the Minneapolis West pack, there were other gay wolves living hidden lives. Sawyer Holt thought he was dead at the age of sixteen when his brother Leon caught him kissing a human man. Dragged up in front of his Alpha, he could only hope for a painless end, especially when Rick Brown stared at him with an icy gaze and said to Leon, “I’ll take care of it.” Except what Rick gave Sawyer wasn’t death, but a new concealed life. In Minot, North Dakota, Sawyer has spent fourteen years isolated among humans, carving out a future for himself. Until a messenger arrives from Rick, saying that Leon has discovered the ruse, and it’s time to run again. Sawyer’s furious about losing his hard-won life, but intrigued by the young man carrying the message. James Ferguson doesn’t appreciate being sent from his home and pack in Virginia to run errands for the Chicago Alpha, but as Twelfth out of twelve adult wolves, he’s in no position to complain. He figures he’ll deliver the message and package, and hurry home for Thanksgiving. But a snowstorm, and the huge, muscular, confusing werewolf who rescues him, upend his plans. Soon, James’s whole world changes, and the only future he may have depends on whether he and Sawyer can survive being hunted, together. Unseen Past is a prequel novel set in the world of the Hidden Wolves, twenty years before Book 1.

Word Count: Click here to reveal125000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealBisexual, Gay, Genderfluid, Lesbian, Non Binary, Polyamorous (Click here to hide)

Summary: This city of fools will be brought to order! Deposed, her father presumed dead, her friends slaughtered and the cavern in chaos, Grace Harrington is on the run and entirely alone. The only ally she has left is the man she hates most in the world: Nathaniel Morgenstern, the assassin who murdered her mother and seduced her father. Grace’s only hope of reclaiming the throne and saving her people is to seek the aid of Éamon Tadhg, the High Druid of Arajon. But she needs to survive the hostile streets of Iole City before she can even think about fleeing to the Violet Valley. Nathaniel made a vow to Doran to protect Grace, but he could never have imagined how quickly and horrifically their lives would fall apart. Grieving the dual losses of the man he loved and his new friend Tsa Lien, Nathaniel devotes himself to the service of the overthrown Lady Archon who despises him – even if it costs him everything he is.

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Character Identities: Click here to revealBisexual, Non Binary, Polyamorous (Click here to hide)

Summary: When the Heir to the Firstborn is chosen by the Mother, the lore dictates that they must find their Companions among the tribes, and the first of those shall be Water. But when Aeris, oldest daughter and Heir to Firstborn Aria makes her Progress, her Water is nowhere to be found. The lore has once more been broken, threatening to throw the world out of balance. Two years later, as Aeris comes of age and continues to seek her missing Companion, an urgent summons from the Temple brings the Firstborn and her Court to the mountains. There, Aeris will come face to face with an enemy who has been waiting for her since her birth – a man known only as Dark. Separated from her Companions, Aeris has only one ally standing between her and the darkness that wants to possess her – a Water warrior who has never seen the sea.

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Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: The first three books in the Vasquez and James series gathered into a single volume. When badass meets artist, sparks and bullets fly. Blazing romance, chilling suspense, enduring love... *Loving Luki Vasquez: Renowned but reclusive weaver Sonny Bly James masters color, texture, and shape in his tapestries, but when he meets Luki Vasquez, an ex-ATF agent and all-around badass, his heart and desire spin out of control. The heat between them won’t be denied. United by danger, can Sonny and Luki put fear and anger aside, and fight together to save Sonny’s nephew and their own lives? *Delsyn’s Blues: Devastated by loss, Sonny James listens to a voice singing the blues from beyond the grave. Convinced he’s failed in an all-important life task, he tries to shut out Luki Vasquez and love just when he needs him the most. But when Luki finally breaks through Sonny’s fortress of grief, it’s just in time for the newly reunited couple to face a new, violent, escalating danger. *Finding Jackie: When Sonny James asked Luki Vasquez to marry him, Luki’s “yes” was accompanied by a request -- a wedding in Hawaii. Months and many trials later, their hilltop island ceremony is poignant and funny, and every bit as beautiful as they’d hoped. The honeymoon is all sex, surfing, and sunshine… until Luki’s sixteen-year-old nephew is kidnapped by a sadistic killer. When it all comes to an ultimate showdown with evil, it’s not only love at stake, but their lives.

Word Count: Click here to reveal41495 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: A bitter drunk meets a lonely paraplegic with a target on his back. Almost on the rim of the Arctic Circle, they’ve both run out of places to hide. Dirk Black is a lost soul with a troubled past. When the washed-up cop happens to see an odd notice in a newspaper, his unshakable sense of irony sends him to a remote point in Scotland’s Shetland Islands. There he discovers something he’s never wanted and bloody hell doesn’t need—a computer nerd and recluse who’s confined to a tiny promontory in the North Sea. Stephan Tavish is a scholar and business entrepreneur who’s managed to run from his family and from society, hoping for peace of mind in the solitude of his own land and his ancestor’s old isolated lighthouse. But karma has bitten him in the arse. He finds himself in a very dark place where he needs to ask for help, from a stranger who’s lost himself in a whisky bottle. Two alienated men, each with a mystery to solve, end up working together at the edge of nowhere. Together, they discover that something in their own past may hold the key to a very intriguing future.

Word Count: Click here to reveal56,400 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: Not your ordinary power exchange... Corey can’t use his safe word. Jack can’t let go of control. Meeting in the middle might be impossible. Corey is ready to start his life but struggles with balancing his need for pain and submission with making his own life choices. Jack is a well established and wealthy investor, who wants to give Corey everything but can’t figure out what his sub needs most. Can experience and youth connect where it counts? #masochisim #angst #needforpain #controlissues #loveconquersall #agedifference #hurt/comfort #establishedcouple

Word Count: Click here to reveal94581 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: A man too hard to love, and the men who love him. Gristle is a former Roman soldier who has forsaken any relationship with a man since being abandoned by beautiful young Tristus ten years ago near the Wall of Hadrian. Now in Ireland as one of a group of emigrants at the monastery of St. Patrick in Armagh, he discovers the sensual pony trainer Wynn, half his age, is deeply attracted to him. In spite of Gristle’s resolution to forsake the lure of sex, he seduces Wynn. The result is a burst of passionate encounters between them. Arriving in sacred Tara, where he is one of the mounted guard protecting Bishop Patrick during the Samhain festival, he is stricken to find that Wynn, too, has deserted him—just as he finds Tristus again after ten years, now a changed man. Ironically, neither of these men has willingly abandoned Gristle. Tristus’ disappearance from his watch one night a decade ago has instilled an immutable sorrow in Gristle's deep subconscious. And now Wynn, unknown to Gristle, is taken by nasty-minded druids, leaving him devastated by a loss he cannot rationally deal with. Told from three different POVs, the story revolves around the complex relationship among these three men. The novel deals with Gristle’s finding, rejecting, and finally trying to accept a kind of love into his parched heart.

Word Count: Click here to reveal82298 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: “You are only a prisoner when you surrender.” The second novel in The Iron Warrior series continues the edgy pairing of Gristle and Wynn. The former soldier's young lover has been too shamed to admit he’d been raped when he’d been ambushed and almost killed by two villainous druids. Throughout a series of adventures, the men are kept from a healthy partnership by Wynn’s harboring his secret and by Gristle’s own jealousies and superstitions. The two lovers find adventures both perilous and humorous in their trip from Derry to the seacoast of Ireland, then on to Wales and finally to Tara, the scene of Wynn’s recent capture. Into the uneasy relationship steps another warrior…Dub, the Wise Man (Ollamh) of the high king of Ireland, who had befriended and healed Wynn in the earlier book. Weakened by jealousy, the unconquerable Gristle lowers his guard, and he is savagely attacked. Now Wynn must join with his old mentor Dub in trying to save his life. And even if Gristle can be saved, how can the lovers ever be happy under the shroud of suffocating jealousy and buried shame?

Word Count: Click here to reveal68,000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: Casey Olson has always known he was destined to be a Navy SEAL, and the best day of his life was when he was accepted into training. The worst day was when a snapping bone ended his dream. After three combat tours in five years, Logan Carter left the Marines and self-destructed. Now he’s sober and, thanks to a forgiving ex with friends in high places, has a promising job as a civilian contractor. All he has to do is stay on the rails and out of a bottle, even when his demons won’t leave him alone. Logan likes his job, and he really likes the gorgeous man at the next desk. Casey tries not to check Logan out, but who is he kidding? From the start, despite their best efforts, neither man can resist the other. Sizzling chemistry leads to sex so hot they can both almost forget why they’re stuck in this office to begin with. It would be perfect, except Logan can’t stop reliving wars he’ll never forget and Casey can’t stop grieving the SEAL he’ll never be. And they’ll never have a future together until they can make peace with their pasts.

Word Count: Click here to reveal109000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: Two brothers, one storm. After he’s kicked out for being gay, and still reeling from being abandoned by the man he loves, Jude goes to live with his brother, Beck, who thankfully is more than happy to take him in. But Jude has other secrets he’s yet to share, for fear that even Beck will reject him, leaving him well and truly alone. When he draws the attention of werewolves, Jude discovers that everything he thought he knew about Levi, the man who abandoned him, is a lie. But one lie leads to another, ending in a vast conspiracy that threatens to destroy everything Jude loves. Beck feels guilty for leaving Jude with parents who are barely tolerable on a good day. Now that he has his brother with him, Beck does everything in his power to keep Jude safe as he learns about paranormals. When Jude plunges head first into the dangerous side of the Otherworld, Beck must allow Jude to find his own footing even though he wants to protect his brother. But perhaps Jude doesn’t need protecting. Just maybe, his brother is the protector. Tags: rejected mates vibes, second chances, all the pining, found family, chosen family Jude is terrified of losing his brother, chased by werewolves, Jude has trust issues, supernatural people, werewolves, past and present collide, druids, seers, a brother who is trying hard to be what Jude needs, parkour, Jude’s destiny is not what he thinks it is, reincarnation, a love that transcends time and place, did I mention lots of pining, Jude dives in head first just like his brother was afraid of, example of what not to be as a parent, multi-POVs, 3rd person past tense, no cliff hanger, HFN ending. *Author's Note: Werewolf’s Tale and a Druid’s Sword has been significantly changed from it’s previous release by more than 30k. Enjoy!