For Maleek Jones, hockey is his wife. Everything and everyone else is his mistress, an aside. When unexpected responsibilities land in his lap, the balance of his world is disrupted, changing the way he sees everything.

Sometimes, you just need someone to help you see things in a different light. A shift in the angle.

Love that says something, instead of just looking like it. Love you can always trust to feel like home. For both of them, it’s something that has always been just outside of their peripheral, something to be observed rather than experienced. A depth of feeling reserved for people who were “into” that, those with a different outlook, those more...deserving. Until their paths cross.

After her latest ill-fated attempt to find a forever relationship of her own, Tori Kennedy is content with connecting the dots for others, bringing them together in pursuit of lifetime love. Fresh off of the demise of her marriage, she decides to take advantage of an opportunity to do something a little—okay, a lot—crazy, and heavily fueled by an overload of emotions.

The job offer she expected after taking an unpaid internship at a major shoe company didn’t come through. The friend who’d offered her a place to stay suddenly gave her 48 hours to vacate after a misunderstanding. And when she’s forced to move back to her hometown to live with her father and his mistress-turned-wife, it almost seems impossible for things to get any worse...until she runs into her former best friend, who’s only gotten fine with time.

Simone is a woman on a mission: Stop being boring, and fall in love. That's easier said than done with no prospects on the table...or under the table...or near the table. Her luck changes when fellow neighborhood business-owner Roman Taylor walks through the door of her flower shop. Roman is single, successful, and sexy - everything Simone is looking for to embark on a whirlwind summer romance with the potential to spark an everlasting love. But things are never as "perfect" as they seem.

Keris Bradford is a woman on the brink. Of what? She doesn’t quite know. Her life is shifting, rapidly, and the sudden, captivating intrusion of Laken Kimble isn’t exactly...reassuring. For Keris, Laken is comfort and risk wrapped in one very appealing package. For Laken, Keris is barrier and providence all at once. For both, there arises a need to navigate those contrasts to a conclusion neither was looking for...a need to answer a simple question. If you want this...what are you willing to offer in exchange?

All Zarinah wanted was to fall in love. Growing up, she had kissed her fair share of frogs. When an unconventional situation leads her to Lawson, her wishes might become reality. Lawson is the new CEO of his family's hotel casino chain. He's tired of aimless dating and women just wanting his money. When he meets Zarinah, he instantly feels like she's the one.

Ashira, a belle from the suburbs, is the wealthy acting CEO of her father’s booming building firm. That's when she’s not the dancer on the Gram and TikTok, dating the latest Black Hollywood shooting star. To her, Jas, a construction laborer, is a walking conundrum. He’s fruitlessly ambitious yet steadfast in his spiritual convictions. He’s enigmatic, well-read, regimented, and poor. Oh, and a felon. An incredibly disarming parolee who wants no connection to her. Until he does.

You met them in the Valentine and Rose series. In this prelude, I will formally introduce you to Malik Anthony Clark, Tristian Neil Clark, and Langston Jamal Clark.

After a hectic school year with her classroom of first graders, Nova Grant is desperate for a break. So when her best friend invites her to spend the summer down in Miami, taking the vacation is a no-brainer. The only thing is, her best friend’s husband had the same idea, inviting his friend Guy Thompson to stay in the condo Nova was already guaranteed.

Chance Washington only has a few things on his mind when he embarks on a trip back to his hometown. Completing the assignment for work that's sending him there in the first place, helping his mom make progress on her fixer-upper home, and catching up with some of his best friends who he doesn't get to see often enough. What is not a part of those plans is hooking up with the little sister of one of his best friends.

Brandon Sims has it all. The brain that produces million-dollar ideas, the charming personality to get what he wants, and the looks to seduce any willing bachelorette. According to his mother, the only thing that’s missing is a wife and kids, and the more time he spends with his personal assistant, Calliope, the more he agrees with her. Calliope represents everything he wants in a woman—educated, ambitious, and so damn sexy. The easiest thing for him to do would be to marry the woman of his dreams, but the hard part is convincing Calliope.

Ryan and Will. Two strangers with instant chemistry on an adventure fueled by a fiery connection neither can contain. But not everything is as it seems.

Train. Fight. Repeat. That's been Princeton "The Prince" Lattimore's life for as long as he can remember. But when an interruption to his heavyweight champion world comes in the form of an alluring journalist who sees well beyond his undefeated stature, he quickly learns there’s a lot more to life outside of the boxing ring.

What happens when you’re forced to seduce the one person you vowed never to love? You get screwed...in more than one way. I walked out of Tucker Middleton’s bedroom seven years ago, leaving him hurt and angry. Now I need his help; the only way I can get it is to make him think I want him back. The only problem is we have silently vowed to hate one another for the rest of our lives. In order to get Tucker to help me - I have to seduce him. Easy right? Hell yes! I’m the CEO of CMI Consulting. If I set my mind to something, I make it happen.

Myla Rose McGraw may be 20, single, and pregnant, but she's no damsel in distress. She doesn't need a man. After all, her Grams taught her a thing or two about making lemonade out of life's lemons. Then she meets Cash Carson.

Marcus Major, author of the Blackboard best-seller Good Peoples, crafts this fun, stylish and delightfully perceptive tale of four best friends, an oath - and one very special young woman. Colin, Dexter, Ibn, and Michael have been inseparable since college. Besides sharing similar interests, they have someone very important in common - Erika. Erika is the little sister of a friend who died, and they’ve promised to watch out for her.

Boone Price and his brothers know oil; at least, the dirty, backbreaking side of working an oil rig. But when their scrubby, worthless hunting land turns out to be sitting on top of one of the biggest oil wells in North America, they go from the rig to the boardroom and end up billionaires practically overnight. Now with enough money to do whatever he wants, Boone is developing a taste for fine things.

With a nickname like "Sin", it's no wonder they call me the bad boy of hockey. Opponents curse me. Fans scream my name - in the arena and in other, much more private places. Penalties or not, I'm not afraid to dish out a little pain. But pleasure? That's my weakness. And no one knows it better than my best friend, Cassie Desrosiers. I'd have to be blind not to notice her rocking body and teasing grin. So when she invites me along on a trip to Vegas, my curiosity isn't the only thing that's aroused.

In Scandals, Monica Houston is a newly divorced mom who makes ends meet as an exotic dancer at Scandalous, the hottest club around. But if the ex finds out, she runs the risk of losing her kids. Meanwhile, sexy dancer Robin Wright thinks she might be in over her head when her sister is sent to jail and her nephew is thrust into her care. Unprepared for this new role, Robin finds herself falling for the kid’s “big brother”, even as she tries to prove her sister’s innocence.

He was my older brother's best friend. He was never supposed to be mine. I thought we would get it out of our systems and move on. One of us did. One of us left. Now he's back, looking at me like he wants to devour me. And all those feelings I'd turned into anger are brewing into something else, something that terrifies me. He broke my heart last time. This time he'll obliterate it.

Claire Walters has worked for Jason Danvers as his assistant for three years, but he’s never appreciated her as a woman - until the day she jumps out of a cake at his friend’s bachelor party.... To support her ailing mother, Claire is forced to work a second job at a party-planning company. But when her handsome boss ends up with a front-row seat to the action, she’s mortified - and he’s intrigued. With Danvers International in the middle of an important merger, Jason asks Claire to accompany him on weekend business trips - and suddenly all her fantasies are coming true.

I don't even know if love is real. After running from the bastard who brutalized me, I limped back to Arizona, choosing a vibrant college town in the hopes of starting over. I never expected to find him there. Cord Gentry. He and his brothers were tough, lusty forces of nature I'd known since childhood. Years ago Cord seduced me as a sick game. I've hated him ever since. Now here he is again, a man who beats other men bloody for money.

It's been the day from hell for Maddie Gardner. Instead of offering her a promotion, her boss made a pass at her. After she quit, she got dumped by her lukewarm boyfriend. And then when she's in the middle of a foul-mouthed meltdown in her kitchen, she notices her gorgeous green-eyed neighbor standing there.

Football star and Internet sensation Gavin "Anaconda" Adams is the biggest celebrity our little town has ever seen. But I had no idea who he was when I accidentally walked in on him naked. I was shocked, seeing all of him, a cocky grin on his face. I didn't know what to do. So I ran. No matter what I do, I can't get that image out of my head. To make matters worse, Gavin wants a date with me.

Donya Stewart's chest filled with the soft beating wings of butterflies when she first met Emmet Grayne's green eyes at the ripe age of five. Unable to identify the tugging pressure within her when in his presence, Donya moved through the first several years of her life addled by her feelings for the boy who was her best friend's brother and very much like her own sibling. But one cool autumn night in her mystifying teenage years, Emmet erases any ideas Donya has of him being anything like a sibling.

Conner Burke never expected Sofie Callahan to come back. Where she's been for the last two and half years is a mystery, and so is the reason she left in the first place. Now, though, she's back in their hometown of Shelton Bay, South Carolina, at the same time Conner's band Dirty B. is home on a tour break.

Mackenzie "Mac" Harris fled her hometown of Bluff Point, Maine after being left at the altar and seeking solace in the arms of her best friend's off-limits brother, Gavin. Seven years later, she's back to attend her best friend's wedding, and she figures she's safe now from the mistakes of her youth. But Gavin, the town's veterinarian, has never forgotten the woman who has always held his heart. And when Mac rescues a stray puppy named Tulip, only Gavin can help.

Vaughn West is at the height of his acting career. He's the it man of Hollywood - until the ultimate betrayal sends him into a downward spiral of alcohol-infused days, ending with a different woman in his bed every night. His only way out of the funk is accepting a new movie deal with the hottest director in Hollywood. Charlotte Michaels is a designer-brands girl on a thrift-store budget until she lands the mother of all jobs as Vaughn West's wardrobe assistant on his latest movie. Only their first meeting doesn't go as planned, and now, Vaughn is acting like a jerk.

Simone is a woman on a mission: Stop being boring, and fall in love. That's easier said than done with no prospects on the table...or under the table...or near the table. Her luck changes when fellow neighborhood business-owner Roman Taylor walks through the door of her flower shop. Roman is single, successful, and sexy - everything Simone is looking for to embark on a whirlwind summer romance with the potential to spark an everlasting love. But things are never as "perfect" as they seem.

Sometimes, you just need someone to help you see things in a different light. A shift in the angle.

Within the bounds of complacency, there exists a boring, beautiful sort of peace, and Khalida has found it. Welcomes it, in fact. A nice, comfortable life, with a great job, a good, albeit on and off again boyfriend, a great relationship with her younger sister...she has nothing to complain about. But that's only if she ignores the sense of unrest that has haunted her ever since she could remember, overshadowing her ability to connect in love. Only if she glosses over the fact that she’s leaning more toward a permanent off switch when it comes to Travis.

Asha's life is no fairytale, by any stretch of the imagination. There was no kind, generous father to care for and protect her from the Vegas that exists beyond the glitz and glamour of The Strip. No wise, doting mother to look over and guide her, passing down essential lessons and leading her to the right path. And certainly, no Prince Charming just around the corner, ready to rescue her from working late nights to cover steadily mounting bills.

Sometimes, the worst lies are the ones we tell ourselves. They build and build into a façade of transparency and false truth that we present to the world...until it comes crashing down because of that one person who sees right into you. “Just one more time.” “It’s not even like that.” “I’m not tripping about it.” “I’m fine. Really.”

Not a phenomenon Tempest could typically claim, but certainly the catalyst for where she’s landed. Not in peril, or pain, but in dire need of the very normalcy she’s often emulated, but never been able to obtain. Now...there’s nothing in her way, except all those years of being everything except what she now has to become.

There’s no such thing as a right time to fall in love. It happens, or it doesn’t. Possible to fake, but not force. Impossible to simply wish away. This is the path that Rob and Iris find themselves on. He’s adjusting to cross-country move, a new job, and an existence that doesn’t include the woman he thought he’d spend his life with.

It all came down to me. The one who followed the rules, never went looking for trouble - I kept to myself. I just wanted to take care of my family. To not constantly look over my shoulder, worried about the things that went bump in the night. I just wanted to survive. But that wasn't meant to be. As luck - or fate, or something - would have it, the trouble found me. I followed a rabbit through the wreckage of a half-ruined world to get back what was mine, and wound up at the end of it. In Wonderland. But there's nothing magical about it.

For better or worse… That was the promise Denver and Kensa made, but it’s a sentiment they’ve somehow lost along the way. What started as a passionate wildfire has diminished to a flicker, all but snuffed out by unspoken fears, perceived betrayal, and a complete breakdown in communication. Can either of them tuck their ego away long enough to rekindle their flame?

Murderer is a title she never expected to wear. Friend? Sure. Boss? Hell yes. But murderer? Never. If only she hadn’t threatened exactly that, just before someone winds up dead, and her fingerprints are all over the murder weapon. All he wanted was to live a quiet life, without all the danger and darkness of his past. Those plans are blown when he’s accused of a crime he has nothing to do with, leaving him with a hard decision…remain in the shadows, or do what he can to help a friend?