Books Tagged With what - condition - mental illness

Word Count: Click here to reveal122000 (Click here to hide)

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

Summary: Scott Weston’s car is sensible, his suits are bland, and his job is stable but boring. Mundane routine helps keep his anxiety and obsessive tendencies under control. Socializing—especially dating—isn’t on his list of strong skills either, and, made worse with the echoes of his disapproving mother. So he’s content to stay at home with his lists and cleaning and wildlife documentaries, until a one-night stand goes unexpectedly right. History has taught Devon DuCaine that dating can be uncomfortable, but there’s just something about Scott. He may be the opposite of Devon’s own long-haired, tattooed, free-wheeling spirit but he brings out the nurturer in Devon. Maybe it’s Scott’s surprising fascination with Devon’s motorcycle, or his shy surprise in moments of affection, but there’s more under those sensible suits than meets the eye. The most important person in Devon’s life, his mom, taught him love and compassion and that’s all he wants to share with Scott. Their one-night stand turns into a regular thing, but Scott doesn’t trust it to last. He’s pretty sure Devon is hiding something. He’s even more sure that once Devon gets to know him, the attraction will fade. And then there’s his mother. However many sparks fly between them, Devon will have his work cut out to convince Scott they can have their happily ever after. (This book was first published as 2 short stories, but this new version has double the content from the originals.)

Word Count: Click here to reveal147391 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealBisexual, Gay, Straight (Click here to hide)

Summary: Sex has become Zach’s choice of medicine to deal with the stresses of life in the fifth book of this eleven-book series. As Zach returns to school to further his education, he meets a potential love interest but the budding relationship is threatened by his careless sexcapades. His sexual preference only adds fuel to the fire when his sexuality becomes his mother’s main topic of discussion. What will Zach do when he’s forced to deal with that dreaded question? While Tony is taking on a huge challenge by raising his son as a single gay father, he’s forced to make tough choices regarding his son’s mother—choices that could have a lasting impact on his future relationship with his son. Tony’s union with Raidon is under fire because of Raidon’s decision to provide shelter for his estranged brother. Will Tony and Raidon get through these tough times or is the writing on the wall? Dwight is trying to step up to the plate and become the man he’s destined to be, but his past mistakes are rearing their ugly head. As Dwight elects to take the biggest step forward in his life, will his bad judgements cause his world to shatter into pieces? Will he lose Zach forever because of his life-changing decision? Will this mark the end of Zach and Dwight’s friendship?

Word Count: Click here to reveal137460 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealBisexual, Gay, Questioning, Straight (Click here to hide)

Summary: In the sixth book of an eleven-book series, Zach is facing some of the most challenging times of his life. While his relationship with Dray is soaring, Zach will soon be forced to make a decision that could impact their future. Making matters worse, Zach’s issues with his roommates have reached the boiling point. What will Zach do when his back is pushed against the wall? What will he do in this life or death situation? While Tony finally meets the person who is causing so much havoc in his life, that encounter could have fatal results. What will Tony do when he is standing face-to-face with that intruder? What does that mean for his relationship with Raidon? Will the longtime partners come out of this situation ok or will this mark the deadly end? As Dwight prepares for the biggest day of his life, he makes a calculated decision that can possibly haunt him for the rest of his life! Not only that, but Lexi receives damaging news about some of Dwight’s relationships. What will become of Dwight and Lexi? What impacts could Dwight’s calculated decision have on the people closest to him? One thing is for certain and that’s Dwight’s decision will change the course of the story forever!

Word Count: Click here to reveal130000 (Click here to hide)

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

Summary: Guilt-ridden after the massacre of his family, Isaac Salvatore turned to binge drinking to escape the pain. Now twenty-four years old, Isaac is a recovering alcoholic woefully out of practice in the magical arts, leaving his fire affinity hanging on the edge of disaster. After a month of rehab, he returns to Beacon Hill and his family, determined to remain sober, learn to control his magic, and figure out a plan for his life that doesn't involve drinking. Constantine Batiste is the oldest, most powerful vampire in the city. Born in ancient Gaul, the bastard son of a Celtic king, his long life has been shrouded in tragedy and horrors. Recent mistakes have left him wary and determined to guard his clan from all foes. When two of his clan members fall victim to an ancient evil, he summons the Necromancer of Boston for aid. Accompanying his older brother to the Tower is the handsome young fire mage once wounded by Constantine's arrogance, and their encounter reignites an attraction that burns within both Constantine and Isaac. The answer to who is targeting the vampires of Boston is buried in the dark, early days of Constantine's transition to an immortal life. Isaac finds himself saddled with a painful insight into the evil cutting a swath through the supernatural population of Boston. While his brother, Angel, takes over the hunt to find and stop the threat to the city, Isaac struggles to find a balance between helping his brother and finding his own purpose and place in the world, free from his brother's shadow. Falling in love wasn't part of his plan, but mastering the flames that burn between him and Constantine soon becomes the most important thing in his life, even as an ancient evil seeks to destroy them.

Word Count: Click here to reveal115000 (Click here to hide)

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

Summary:

Word Count: Click here to reveal40000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealBisexual, Gay, Lesbian (Click here to hide)

Summary: Lizzie Ferguson isn’t your typical 1912 woman! She does not intend to ever marry, her lovers could be male or female, she was a Pinkerton Agent, carries a Derringer in her handbag, her best friend is Stiles Long (The Pinkerton Man Series), and she will do anything to solve a case. Including dressing in rags and scrubbing toilets in a male brothel. You can read some of her adventures with Stiles and Michael in the Pinkerton Man Series. Now, she’s beginning her own adventures and she’s not afraid to do anything it takes to catch a killer.

Word Count: Click here to reveal138448 (Click here to hide)

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

Summary: Emilia Drakon was once the youngest and kindest of the dragon sorcerers, but she’s now the last of her kind. Betrayed and angry, she trades her meekness for a sword and embarks on a quest for vengeance that will lead her straight into the arms of the legendary Captain Maria Welles. Captain of the famed pirate ship, the Wicked Fate, Maria is every bit as treacherous and bloodthirsty as they say. She has her own vendetta and practically jumps at the chance to trick Emilia into joining her crew. But when their animosity toward each other blossoms into a passionate romance, the two women will have to decide what they want most. Vengeance? Or love? An award-winning sapphic fantasy for people who love dangerous women, magical worlds, and lesbian pirates.

Word Count: Click here to reveal71000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealNon Binary, Pansexual, Polyamorous (Click here to hide)

Summary: Left alone after a tsunami destroyed eir village, Lefeng would have walked into the mountains and not looked back. But a child lost on the trails redirected eir course and another survivor planted the seed of an idea – a new family. Lefeng's commitment to those ey comes to love will take em to the hated city and a new way of life. But in a slowly dying city, Lefeng's determination can only carry them so far. Set in a genderless world of polyamorous marriage, communal care work and multi-generational families, this queernormative tale abounds with details ranging from trauma recovery and neurodivergence to winter romance and city politics. Lovers of cozy narratives can soak in the story of long, steady, unsung work in these pages, the effort and joys of building lives together and building each other up. It's an experience that will stay with you for a while. If you can't get enough of found family and queer fiction in fantasy, you'll love Planting Life in a Dying City.

Word Count: Click here to reveal71390 (Click here to hide)

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

Summary: To the outside observer Ava Carmichael seemed to have it all. She was a young, successful heart surgeon married to a loving wife who had supported her through the darkest of times. But when Ava starts to feel unfulfilled by her idyllic life she looks elsewhere to satisfy her need to live life to the fullest, finding it in a second job which brings Kacey Hudson into her life. The dark, mysterious woman sparks the passion Ava craves, but the lies she tells to keep her job and Kacey hidden come with a steep price and it’s one Ava cannot afford. Will the thrill of living an uninhibited life be the thing to save Ava or will it cause her to drown in the lies she’s told?

Word Count: Click here to reveal70000 (Click here to hide)

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

Summary: Ghosts are popping up where they shouldn’t. Harlan, a ghost janitor for the police, suspects there’s a serial killer on the loose—but no one believes him. Harlan Brand is a medium who was abandoned at the Centre, a school for the psychically gifted, by his parents. He grew up lonely but safe from the ghosts that terrorized his childhood. But now, at twenty-one, he’s out in the real world. He works as a ghost janitor for the Toronto Police Service, cleaning up after crimes and hauntings in the Greater Toronto Area. Adding to the anxiety of leaving the ghost-warded safety of his school, the cop assigned as his partner seems to hate him, he’s having confusing feelings for a BDSM club owner who brings out his deepest fantasies, and ghosts are popping up where they shouldn’t. Using the ghosts as clues, Harlan begins to suspect there’s a serial killer loose, but no one believes him. Harlan will stop at nothing to discover who—or what—is preying on his city.

Word Count: Click here to reveal111330 (Click here to hide)

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

Summary: In 2116, Colonel Summer Hawkins’s jet crashed off the coast of Iran during a rescue mission and she lost her leg and career because of it. Unable to face the demons the crash provoked, Summer left Washington D.C. and her life behind. Two years later Summer’s past intrudes on her new life as a tabloid darling and she’s dragged back to Washington D.C. kicking and screaming. Forced to face the life she left behind, and the wife she abandoned, Summer struggles with her sudden reappearance in the nation’s capital while balancing her delicate mental state. Will the abrupt disruption be the thing to pull her out of the hell her life has become or will it cause her mental demons and nightmares to worsen making Summer fall deeper into the pit of despair and hopelessness she’s lived in for the last two years?

Word Count: Information not available

Character Identities: Click here to revealAce, Bisexual, Demisexual, Genderfluid, Genderqueer, Non Binary, Pansexual, Polyamorous, Transgender (Click here to hide)

Summary: Getting used to being locked up in a safe house, Devan Sullivan deals with a past he would rather forget in his attempts to help the young doctor Kieran Sung heal from his recent attack. The group is confined to the large Seath mansion, a house made specifically to protect the mob-connected children of Irish Mobster Damien Seath. Things are not what they seem, and connections that were never intended are made between unlikely members of the Seath household and the people they are striving to help protect. Outside, the FBI is scrambling to avoid an all-out war between the rival mobsters Rian Callaghan and Liam O’Brien. However, is everything between the two Family Heads as simple as it appears? Safe Haven, the second part of the Doctor’s Training Trilogy, is a story of healing that examines D/s culture, the complexities of polyamory, and how people often deal with mental and physical trauma. Follow Kieran, Devan, Varick, Carmine, and the rest of their pack as they navigate a world that rarely accepts people who do not fit in with expectations.

Word Count: Click here to reveal76100 (Click here to hide)

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

Summary: Heavily crushing on his attractive neighbor Tobias,  Boston newcomer and vegan Kyle Slidell is thrilled when Tobias agrees to a dinner date. But while picking strawberries in the community garden for their dessert, Kyle comes face to face with something he couldn’t anticipate: A wolf. In East Boston. Who attacks him. Kyle awakens in Tobias’s living room in a world he barely understands, but he learns three things: He is now a werewolf, Tobias is the Alpha of the pack Kyle’s attacker belongs to…and Kyle is still damned if he’ll eat meat. And soon he discovers that he is fated to be Tobias’s mate. Good thing he already likes the guy. Adjusting to being a werewolf is far from easy,  never mind adjusting to having a predestined mate and the disapproval of his packmates. And it’s even more complicated when a wolf from a neighboring pack, determined to destroy Tobias, kidnaps the pack’s healer. Immune to the power Tobias holds to command his pack, Kyle disobeys his mate and goes to the rescue–and to  lengths he never imagined possible. This book was originally published in 2011. The current version has been revised and re-edited with some content added. The story contains discussion of past sexual trauma (the trauma does not occur on-page, the conversation does), physical violence between werewolves, abduction, and a werewolf Alpha living with PTSD.

Word Count: Click here to reveal32000 (Click here to hide)

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

Summary: Haunted by his years at war, Boston paramedic Gael Dominic spends his time saving other people’s lives. An empty house, a single friend, and living at work, Gael is not content with his existence, but he’s close. Gael was expecting his overnight shift on Thanksgiving to be the same as always—manic crowds, heart attacks...until catastrophe strikes, and Boston’s streets run with blood. On the run from an abusive and politically powerful father, Silas has been on the cold, mean streets of Boston for days, injured, hungry and alone. When he wakes up in the middle of a nightmare, he expects to die in the same alley he was calling home. Brought together by tragedy, Silas and Gael can’t resist their attraction. Gael may have saved Silas, but it’s his alleyway angel who brings Gael back to life. As Christmas approaches, Silas and Gael learn how to love, despite their pasts. And as Silas' past closes in, Gael learns the greatest gift he could ever give isn't something bought in a store, but freely given from the heart.

Word Count: Click here to reveal136000 (Click here to hide)

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

Summary: In a relationship that violates rules and expectations, Mayr and Tash have found their perfect match in each other. Despite their fears and difficult pasts, they hope for a shared future with security and a family. When Mayr's secret first love, Arieve, proposes they create that family with her, it seems dreams could become reality. But life is complicated, and so is the delicate balance between duty and love. While Mayr protects the Dahe family at all costs, Tash is determined to succeed as a priest. Both positions require sacrifice, forcing their relationship into painful choices. To make matters worse, criminals lurk in the shadows, seeking revenge on them and those they guard. The life they want risks losing everything—including Arieve and each other. Even if they can have it all, keeping it may take more than they can give.

Word Count: Click here to reveal4364 (Click here to hide)

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

Summary: Despite having known each other for half their lives, it took years of heartache before Carter Hamilton and Riley Porter-Wright could admit they were perfect for each other. They’re in a great place now, and neither wants to rock the boat, but that hasn’t stopped Carter from thinking it’s time to ask Riley a certain question that’s been on his mind. Publisher's Note: This free story is linked to The Speakeasy series, and features Carter and Riley from Calm and Wake

Word Count: Click here to reveal77000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealLesbian, Polyamorous (Click here to hide)

Summary: Adrenaline addicted veteran, Vivian Chastain, confronts the man who has been following her for days, only to find he has a message of dire consequence for her. Spurred into action by his news, she barrels head on into a tumultuous and violent series of events. Stoic and stubborn, Vivian lands in the hospital, fighting for her life. During Vivian’s lengthy recovery, her partner is released from jail and the two reconnect, stoking up the flames of their toxic union all while Vivian dives into a blossoming relationship with a new love interest who offers fulfillment and love, if only Vivian can figure out how to allow it all in. Still on the mend, she learns that the coast is not clear as former threats return and continue to endanger her. While she cannot rest easy; friends, her work crew, and customers at the night club where she tends bar provide her with much needed fun, comradery, and support. Vivian wrestles with her temper, her penchant for physical violence, and her overwhelming emotional baggage. Struggles from within and without threaten her existence, and in the moment when death is just a breath away, Vivian’s brother shows up and changes everything.

Word Count: Information not available

Character Identities: Click here to revealAce, Bisexual, Demisexual, Genderfluid, Non Binary, Pansexual, Polyamorous, Transgender (Click here to hide)

Summary: When desperate criminals find an easy target in the autistic neurosurgeon Kieran Sung, the young doctor is soon at the mercy of a local Irish mob boss with perverse desires. Despite suffering a life-altering event at his hands, rescue finds him with relative quickness. Circumstances pull him unwillingly into a situation that brings his world crashing down, destroying the carefully laid routines and structure he desires. Kieran needs to find a new way of living, but he’s unsure how. He discovers comfort in ways he never imagined, within sensations of pressure and binding, something he has indulged all his life despite his mentor’s warnings that it is abnormal. Taking the hand of a childhood friend who desires nothing else but to help him, Kieran realizes his heart aches for more in his life. He looks around him for the first time, seeing the world in new ways that his upbringing prohibited him from doing. Circumstances bind him to a tattoo artist named Varick Jaeger, an actor named Carmine DeAngelo, and a bartender named Devan Sullivan. With this unlikely trio, Kieran must learn how to handle the upheaval in a life he now sees desperately needs change. Stolen Innocence, part one of the Doctor’s Training Trilogy, is a story of healing that examines D/s culture, the complexities of polyamory, and how people often deal with mental and physical trauma. Follow Kieran, Devan, Varick, Carmine, and the rest of their pack as they navigate a world that rarely accepts people who do not fit in with expectations.

Word Count: Information not available

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

Summary: Ben and Alex have been happily married for six years, living in the beach house left to them by Ben’s mother Allie. Their two daughters, Ally and Lucy, help Ben’s grandmother Polly keep both men on their toes. Life seems perfect. When Alex’s mother turns up, however, she opens old wounds and reveals things Alex never wanted Ben to know. Can their relationship – and their family – survive Janice’s hatred of her son? Can Alex?

Word Count: Click here to reveal98000 (Click here to hide)

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

Summary: A werewolf pack reels from the loss of five members, including the Alpha and Beta, at the teeth and claws of Canadian werewolves. Summoned by a frantic call from a young werewolf who survived the massacre, Anax Tobias Rogan, the highest-ranked wolf in the United States, heads to North Dakota to stabilize the pack. But the trip takes a toll on Tobias’s relationship with his mate, vegan werewolf Kyle Slidell. Fate put them together, but Kyle has chosen to part. A request from the Canadian Anax, Silas Creighton, gives Tobias an opportunity to rebuild things with Kyle: A road trip to Nova Scotia. As eager as Tobias to restore their relationship, Kyle agrees. With an international conflict to resolve, a traumatized young werewolf in tow, and multiple threats to his life, Tobias struggles to make time for his mate. And when unexpected enemies invade Silas’s island stronghold, Tobias and Kyle’s relationship isn’t the only thing that might come to an end. This book includes discussions of past sexual assault and physical child abuse, homophobia including a French Canadian homophobic slur, a child character living with cancer, and depictions of grief and mourning.