Karin Kallmaker

Jackie Frakes is a talented architectural intern whose life has fallen into unsatisfying patterns, both personally and professionally. Renowned artist Leah Beck is exhibited in galleries nationwide. But her life has darkened with the death of her lover, Sharla. Trapped by a mountain snow storm over Thanksgiving weekend, Jackie is rescued by Leah. The snowbound weekend in Leah's cabin shakes the very foundations of Jackie's life. As for Leah, Jackie provides renewal and inspiration for her work. And the exhibition of PAINTED MOON, her new series, will reveal Leah as never before,as a lesbian artist. With their relationship increasingly torn by conflict and misunderstanding, the winter weekend together will surely be their last. Then intervention comes... from a most unlikely source. One of Karin Kallmaker's most popular romances, Painted Moon has achieved the status of a timeless lesbian romance classic.

Painted Moon

Simply the Worst...Alice Cabot's only great love is science, but a lapse in judgment has exiled the New York journalist to the glitzy Gallerias and vapid bubble-babble of Beverly Hills. The assignment to do a flattering feature series on Simply the Best and the superficial nonsense it sells threatens to crush what little is left of her spirit. Simply the Best...Pepper Addington can't believe she's moved up from grunt intern to personal assistant for Helene Jolie, the celebrity socialite founder of SimplytheBest.com. Succeeding at the job she worked so hard to get is her only priority. Keep a cynical know-it-all reporter in check? She promises Helene that she can. Simply Irresistible...Expecting nothing but games from the beach-blond surfer girl that Helene Jolie has assigned to keep an eye on her, Alice is fully prepared to resist any and all of California's charms. Or so she thinks.

Simply the Best

Anita Topaz, Queen of the Bodice Rippers, is deliberately a woman of mystery. But pressure is mounting for Anita to reveal herself to her clamoring public. It's scrutiny that writer Paris Ellison can't allow, especially since the glamorous "Anita" is a work of pure fiction. Lady Diana Beckinsale excels at disappearing into a good role. Especially if that role gets her close to certain objects she desires. When Diana proposes the perfect solution to Paris's predicament, Paris is less than enthusiastic. She can't let someone as unsettling and observant as Diana get too close. But Diana is persistent. After all, if she and the handsome, secretive Paris both get what they want out of an unorthodox arrangement, then it's a win-win for them both. My Lady Lipstick is high stakes on a merry-go-round of lies--it's all fun and games until somebody loses her heart.

My Lady Lipstick

Twenty-nine-year-old Rayann Germaine, betrayed by her lover, flees in grief and rage. She meets book store owner Louisa Thatcher, a woman many years her senior, who offers shelter and work... and soon, passion, and a loving place in her life. But Rayann encounters challenges to this new love—from friends who question its wisdom, from her mother who disapproves of this liaison with a woman her own contemporary, from Louisa's son who learns for the first time his mother's true sexuality. And there are profound differences between Rayann and Louisa themselves, two women who come from dramatically different places in the spectrum of age and life experience. Their only common ground seems to be the searing attraction that they both try to deny...

Touchwood

Lillian is determined to excel at her new job as the assistant to Professor Nicole Hathaway, who is notorious for driving her assistants away, and when the two begin working together, personalities clash but sparks fly between them.

Love by the Numbers

Syrah Ardani tried independence--but the call of the Napa Valley hills and rolling vineyards of her family's winery have brought her home again. She is content with her ordered world until she learns that her father's feckless management has put Ardani Vineyards into receivership. Corporate turnaround specialist Toni Blanchard's arrival is preceded by tales of her slash-and-burn techniques. Determined to meet this soulless corporate raider head on, Syrah proudly prepares to do battle for her home and family business. Toni has reason to retreat from a high-pressure Manhattan lifestyle, not the least of which is a bitter break up. She's been told that Syrah Ardani is attractive and single, but Toni never mixes business and pleasure. Creditors clamor for a quick sale and payment. The beautiful--and hostile--Syrah wants Toni off her land and out of her life. Their clashes smolder with distrust and resentment, but also threaten to light a completely different kind of fire. Most dangerous of all is the one thing Toni can't control--the way her heart reacts when Syrah looks at her...just like that.

Just Like That

Brandy Monsoon is looking for love. Since there's never a shortage of casual playmates at the tropical resort where she works, most of the time she gets it, too. Welcome to Sanibel Island, Florida and Cancun...where each new day brings plenty of swimsuits, sandy beaches, wine, sailing and more women for Brandy to enjoy. When an all-lesbian tour group arrives for a week, Brandy is sure she'll be in paradise on earth. So used to having paramours fall at her pedicured feet, she isn't prepared for her encounter with Celina Griffin. Celina, a celebrity in the lesbian community as a humorist and writer, tells Brandy under no uncertain terms that she's not interested in a quickie with an addled sex kitten who can't get her thinking above her crotch. The encounter haunts Brandy for some time, changing the way she views her playmates as well as her thoughts about the future. When Brandy and Celina come face to face under different circumstances, will the encounter lead them to happiness...or just to a hot and steamy embrace sure to lead them both longing for more... Karin Kallmaker's first Bella After Dark novel is so hot... you may need sunglasses to read it...

All the Wrong Places

The motion picture industry is the backdrop for this novel of taking chances by Golden Crown and Lambda Literary Award-winning author Kallmaker.

Stepping Stone

Two very different reasons brought Laura Izmani and Helen Baynor to the Beach Boardwalk for a symbolic ride on the biggest wooden roller coaster on the west coast. They part strangers, but only after sharing an experience that shifted both of their lives onto new tracks. Their paths cross again decades later when Laura interviews with Helen to become the private chef for the Baynor household. Given what Laura revealed during that fateful coaster ride, she's relieved that Helen seems to have forgotten her. Fiercely protective of her children, Helen--now a famous stage actress and widow with teenaged twins--divides her time between home in a sleepy California enclave and the bright lights of Broadway. Continuing her carefully managed life until her children leave for college is all she wants. Their first roller coaster ride together may turn out to be only a prelude...

Roller Coaster

Running from past mistakes, Anidyr Bycall spends her nights tending bar in Key West and her days in researching the ice fields of Alaska, until a return to Alaska gives her a chance to reclaim her career and possibly the woman she loves.

Warming Trend

Golden Crown and Lambda Literary award-winning author Kallmaker presents this tale of two women, two outlooks, and two futures trying to become one.

The Kiss That Counted

Now out of the closet, Holly throws herself into the arms of a leather-clad stranger. She risks everything and sets out to pierce the deep shroud of mystery surrounding the woman she has come to love.

Substitute for Love

Is true love hidden in the moments people can't stop remembering . . . or in those they choose to forget? There is nothing like a high school reunion to bring the old times flooding back.

Unforgettable

A one-way stage ticket to the frontier leaves a young woman penniless and alone in Long Grass, Wyoming. With no other hope than to survive another day, she takes up the only profession open to her. Years later she encounters the cowboy she can love, and her first taste of pleasure - and happiness. Cowboys, however, are born to wander, and their kisses are as brief as the lives of young women without family or means. Accepting that her days will be numbered too few, Darlin' escapes into her scribblings where her dreams of freedom can soar over the limitless prairie. When she recognizes her own truth and a chance for love in the longing gaze of a townswoman, will she finally find kisses she can trust? Two determined women in a hostile world save themselves — and each other — in a lyric, sensual love story as only Karin Kallmaker can tell.

Cowboys and Kisses

When three love-starved lesbians decide to make up for lost time, the recipe is romance. And with Karin Kallmaker cooking, you know the result will be hot, spicy and mouth-wateringly delicious!!! Master Chef Jamie Onassis has used every penny she has to buy a beautiful country inn she plans to turn into a five-star restaurant. Unfortunately, the inn turns out to be a " handyman's special" and, without the skills or capital to make the necessary repairs, Jamie risks losing everything. Home and garden expert Valkyrie Valentine is a rising star among the do-it-yourself set. A seemingly perfect homemaker, Valkyrie seems destined to become the next Martha Stewart - as long as no one discovers her embarrassing little secret: she can't cook. Reporter Sheila Thintowski is a woman on a mission. Ever since meeting the dazzling, dynamic Valkyrie Valentine, she's been determined to interview her-- up-close and extremely personally. Sheila suspects that Valkyrie's hands-on skills extend well beyond home improvement - and she's looking for some private lessons. Delicious recipes and chocolate-as-sublimation await the reader in Karin Kallmaker's uproarious farce of cooking that doesn't stay in the kitchen.

Making Up for Lost Time

Ninety minutes, twice a day. Five days a week. Car pool heaven turns into car pool hell when Anthea Rossignole realizes her lover is having an affair with the other woman sharing their daily commute. It seems that Anthea’s succesfanul career as a cost analyst at an oil refinery is the only thing she can really count on these days. Now she’s looking for someone to share the long drive. Shay Sumoto desperately needs a car pool. Though wildly overqualified, the environmental biologist takes a low-paying job testing well samples to keep body and soul together. The debt from her father’s terminal illness and the loss of the company she and her father owned have left her with no money, no time and no sense of humor. When Shay and Anthea begin carpooling together, they find that first impressions of each other don’t bode well, and second impressions don’t improve their chemistry much. But when Shay uncovers alarming test results in her work — information that could cost both of them their jobs — Anthea is the only person she trusts for advice. Can two very different women find common ground? It's Never an Easy Commute on the Freeway of Love.

Car Pool

Here is a collection of short stories, each filled with characters and settings from the author's bestsellers In Every Port, Touchwood, Watermark, and more.

Frosting on the Cake

"Sugar Sorenson's life has gone up in flames...Literally. Struggling to make ends meet, Sugar has invested everything into her home business of supplying Sugar's Cakes and Pastries to local Denver eateries. A friend suggests she enter a local bakeoff with a $10,000 grand prize and oodles of free publicity. The money would make a world of difference to Sugar's future. Working--and baking--night and day to perfect her business and her chances of winning, she's not prepared when the apartment oven starts a fire. Within a few hours she's got no place to live, no clothes and no business, not even a bag of flour and a measuring cup. Support arrives in the form of a Victim's Advocate social worker named Tree, a sympathetic firefighter named Charlie, and the local TV producer coordinating the bakeoff competition. She's Emily, and the first one of the trio to make a serious play for Sugar in the morning, Sugar in the evening, and Sugar in the afternoon. After nine years as a single lesbian who couldn't seem to get a heartbeat from any woman anywhere, all this attention has Sugar's head spinning. Forced to live with her ailing, homophobic grandmother, she finds it difficult to openly date any of these new women in her life. They all offer changed circumstances, stability and a hope at forever. But which one will she choose?

Sugar

Home from Afghanistan to surprise her mother, Milla doesn't expect more than the best apple pie in the world and the bliss of unrationed hot showers. She's not counting on futures -- or meeting a woman like Tyna. A romantic holiday story from the award-winning pen of Karin Kallmaker."A delightful, gentle tale of an unexpected connection, Comfort and Joy is a simple story that will nevertheless warm the heart... Karin Kallmaker's writing brings the scene to life, from the chilly cemetery to a teaming hospital café, the setting is an extra player in the plot. She is the consummate storyteller who can make the simplest of tales creep into your heart." -- The Lesbian Reading Room

Karin Kallmaker

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