Emberline Press

Priya Ramaswamy runs a bakery in the Adirondack town of Speculator, makes the best rye bread north of Albany, and has kept her body to herself for thirteen years. When Sam 'Crank' Whitcomb walks into her shop on the anniversary of her mother's death, she recognizes him from a summer camp two counties over and, three months later, she lets him upstairs - the first man she's ever let anywhere. He is called away by his club president that night and doesn't come back. A week later, a photograph of Crank in a Glens Falls motel room with an unnamed woman arrives in the bakery's inbox and in every Taconic Ridge member's email. Priya throws it away. She sells the bakery, moves to Albany, learns French, and adopts a dog named Biscuit. Fourteen months later, Crank rides ten hours to Albany with a notarized affidavit from Vera, the woman in the photo - a former Taconic Ridge prospect with a harassment complaint against the club's president. Priya believes him. And then she tells him the truth: support without honesty is not support. If he wants her, he can spend a thousand miles of gravel earning it one Sunday at a time.

Sera Quinn erwacht vier Tage vor Neumond aus dem Kryoschlaf - und noch vor dem Mittagessen teilt ihr das Schiff mit, dass sie eine Gefährtin hat. Commander Vhark, der Alien-Aufseher, groß, still und an sein eigenes Gesetz gebunden: Eine Verbindung muss freiwillig sein. Vor der gesamten Kolonie lehnt er sie ab. Er hätte gehen sollen. Doch er kann nicht. Das Implantat zieht sie in gemeinsame Träume, gemeinsame Schichten und schließlich für drei Tage in einen verschlossenen Wartungsraum - nur sie, er und ein Kühlmittelleck. Dort findet Sera den Vertrag. Sein Captain verkauft das Wasser der Kolonie, bevor auch nur ein Stiefel den Staub berührt. Und der einzige Mann, der das stoppen kann, ist der, der sie abgelehnt hat. Als die Kestrel andockt, nimmt Sera nicht die Rampe nach unten. Sie nimmt den Aufzug zum Ratssaal.

Eden Vasquez was hired at twenty-two as an assistant and married at twenty-five because her boss, Calder Vance, told her in a boardroom that it was the cleanest way to keep her. Nine years on she is chief operating officer on paper and unpaid wife in practice: he reads her emails, owns her calendar, and corrects her in front of staff like she's still typing his memos. When a graduate named Theo is publicly humiliated for a mistake Eden made, she recognizes the machinery - because she has been maintaining it. She starts moving her own signature off his reach, and then she finds the NDA. It has one name on it. Hers. What follows is six weeks of watching, copying, apologizing to Theo, and staying quiet until a board meeting she can finally walk out of. A dark bully marriage-in-crisis romance about a woman who built the cage, and learned the lock.

Chiara Amato was married at twenty-one to seal a truce. Ten years later the truce is dead, the marriage is dead, and Chiara has nothing with her name on it. When she files for divorce, her husband's brother offers her a deal. Lorenzo Ferraro runs the family and is the only man Matteo is afraid of. Stay married six more months, keep the ceremonial face, and walk away with money, a passport, and no one following. She takes it. Six months becomes nine. She sits through dinners and funerals and learns the names of every man who runs the family - and then one of them threatens her sister. Chiara stops playing. She goes to a commissioner who has been building a file for two years and gives him everything except one name. The family is dismantled from the top. She is not. She leaves with an apartment of her own and a passport in a drawer she does not open.

Poppy Sinclairs Mann ist tot und der einzige zweite Schlüssel zu seinem Arbeitszimmer gehrt ihrer besten Freundin Gwen. Die Polizei verdächtigt Poppy. Um ihre Unschuld zu beweisen, muss sie sich mit Gwens entfremdetem Bruder Sam Okafor zusammentun, einem Feuerwehrmann mit Groll und einem guten Herzen. Gemeinsam decken sie Dereks geheimes Leben auf: Offshore-Konten, eine falsche Identität und einen Fälscherring, der von einer lokalen Kunstgalerie aus operiert. Doch der schlimmste Verrat kommt erst noch Gwen war nicht nur Dereks Geliebte, sie war seine Komplizin. Als Poppy und Sam dem wahren Mrder näher kommen, legt jemand Feuer in einem Lagerhaus, und Sam muss sich entscheiden: Poppy retten oder den Brandstifter fassen. Ein gemütlicher Amateurdetektiv-Krimi mit einer Verrats-Romanze im Kern perfekt für Fans von Locked-Room-Rätseln und langsamen zweiten Chancen.

Anya Petrova hat eine einzige Regel: Niemals einem Mann etwas schulden. Doch dann verschwindet ihr Bruder mit einer Viertelmillion der Solntsevskaya und die Schuld landet bei ihr. Ash Volkov holt sich, was ihm zusteht. Er ist 44, gebaut wie ein Sarg und verhandelt nicht. In einem Hinterzimmer steckt er ihr einen Ring an den Finger und sagt, dass sie jetzt ihm gehrt. Anya hasst ihn aus Prinzip. Aber als ein rivalisierender Boss ihr einen Ausweg anbietet verrate Ash, rette deinen Bruder , nimmt sie ihn an. Sie weiß nicht, dass alles nur ein Test war. Sie weiß nicht, dass ihr Bruder nie in Gefahr war. Sie weiß nicht, dass Ash Volkov längst entschieden hat, dass er sie niemals gehen lassen wird. Erzwungene Ehe. Altersunterschied. Bratva. Kein Safeword.

Katja Orlowa führt seit sechs Jahren die Bücher der Solnzewo-Bratwa und wurde zu genau null Besprechungen eingeladen. Als ihr Onkel sie an die Wolkov-Bratwa verschachert, um einen Hafendeal abzuschließen, geht sie mit dem Betrug ihres Onkels unter dem Mantel in die Ehe. Asche Wolkov wollte keine Frau. Er wollte das Hauptbuch. Was er bekommt, ist eine Frau, die zwischen Trauung und Empfang ein Zwlf-Millionen-Dollar-Leck in seinen Schiffsgewinnen findet. Er bietet ihr einen Deal an: Bring die Bücher in Ordnung, sitz mit am Tisch, und halt deine Hände von mir fern. Zwei von drei Punkten hält sie ein. Dann stellt sich heraus, dass das Leck Asches eigener Bruder ist, und Wanja beschließt, dass die schnellste Art, Familienangelegenheiten zu regeln, darin besteht, Katja von der Straße zu holen. Asche war noch nie ein Mann, der verhandelt. Ein Bratva-Roman über eine arrangierte Ehe mit einem Enemies-to-Lovers-Feuer, das langsam genug brennt, um wehzutun.

Ash Corrigan ist in die Sonora-Wüste gekommen, um den Mann zu tten, der seinen Bruder ermordet hat. Dass Cyrus 'Bone' Bonaventura ihn auf den ersten Blick erkennt und ihn trotzdem bleiben lässt , damit hat er nicht gerechnet. Bone ist Präsident der Cinder Kings, ein Mann mit einer Kugel, die er nicht loswird, und einem Club, den er nicht mehr lange halten kann. Er hat Ashes Bruder gettet, und die Gründe dafür will er für immer begraben. Ash will sie aus ihm herausholen, egal wie. Doch je tiefer Ash in die Welt der Kings eintaucht, desto schwerer fällt es ihm, den Mann zu hassen, dessen Hände er auf sich spüren will. Und als ein Kartell von jenseits der Grenze beschließt, dass die Wüste ihnen gehrt, müssen Ash und Bone sich entscheiden: die Rache, die sie geformt hat, oder der einzige Mensch, den sie je wirklich gewollt haben. Manche Männer kommen nicht sauber aus der Wüste heraus. Manche wollen es auch gar nicht.

Anya Petrova has one rule: never owe a man anything. Then her brother vanishes with a quarter million of the Solntsevskaya's money, and the debt lands on her. Ash Volkov collects what's owed. He's 44, built like a coffin, and doesn't negotiate. He puts a ring on her finger in a back room and tells her he owns her now. Anya hates him on principle. But when a rival boss offers her a way out - betray Ash, save her brother - she takes it. She doesn't know the whole thing was a test. She doesn't know her brother was never in danger. She doesn't know Ash Volkov has already decided he's never letting her go. Forced marriage. Age gap. Bratva. No safeword.

Ash Corrigan came to the Sonora desert to kill the man who murdered his brother. He didn't plan on Cyrus 'Bone' Bonaventura recognizing him on sight - or on letting him stay anyway. Bone is president of the Cinder Kings, a man with a bullet he can't get out and a club he can't hold much longer. He killed Ash's brother for reasons he intends to keep buried. Ash intends to get them out of him one way or another. But the deeper Ash rides into the Kings, the harder it is to hate the man whose hands he wants on him. And when a cartel from across the border decides the desert belongs to them, Ash and Bone have to choose: the revenge that built them, or the only person either of them has ever actually wanted. Some men don't get out of the desert clean. Some don't want to.

Katya Orlova has balanced the Solntsevo's books for six years and been invited to exactly zero meetings. When her uncle trades her to the Volkov bratva to close a port deal, she walks into the marriage with his fraud taped inside her coat. Ash Volkov didn't want a wife. He wanted the ledger. What he gets is a woman who finds a twelve-million-dollar leak in his shipping revenue between the ceremony and the reception. He offers her a deal: fix the books, sit at the table, keep your hands off me. She keeps two of the three. Then the leak turns out to be Ash's own brother, and Vanya decides the fastest way to settle family business is to take Katya off the street. Ash has never been a man who negotiates. This is an arranged marriage bratva romance with an enemies-to-lovers burn slow enough to hurt.

Poppy Sinclair's husband is dead, and the only other key to his study belongs to her best friend, Gwen. The police think Poppy did it. To clear her name, she must team up with Gwen's estranged brother, Sam Okafor, a firefighter with a grudge and a good heart. Together they uncover Derek's secret life: offshore accounts, a fake identity, and a forgery ring operating out of a local art gallery. But the worst betrayal is yet to come-Gwen wasn't just Derek's mistress, she was his accomplice. As Poppy and Sam close in on the real killer, someone sets a warehouse on fire, and Sam must choose between saving Poppy and catching the arsonist. A cozy amateur sleuth mystery with a betrayal romance at its core, perfect for fans of locked-room puzzles and slow-burn second chances.

Hazel Hayes hat genug von Männern. Nachdem sie ihrem gewalttätigen Ex entkommen ist, konzentriert sie sich darauf, ihr Leben neu aufzubauen. Doch als ihr Auto in Whitetail Falls liegen bleibt, wird sie von dem heißesten Mechaniker gerettet, den sie je gesehen hat. Ryker James ist ein Witwer mit einem Herzen aus Stein, aber Hazels Kurven und ihr Mut lassen ihn wieder lebendig fühlen. Er weiß, dass er zu alt und zu kaputt für sie ist, aber er kann nicht fernbleiben. Als ihr Ex sie aufspürt, wird Ryker alles tun, um sie zu beschützen selbst wenn es bedeutet, in den Krieg zu ziehen. Knnen dieses Curvy Girl und ihr Biker für immer zueinanderfinden?

Belladonna House has been hiring archivists for ninety years. It has been losing them just as long. Nessa Quinn takes the job because the salary is obscene and her life is small enough that nobody will come looking. That, it turns out, is exactly what the house requires: a resident with nothing outside the walls. A resident who will never want to leave. Drusilla Belladonna, its owner, has wanted to leave for a century. She has failed nine times. She is done trying, and she has promised herself she will not let the house take another woman with it. Then Nessa starts filing letters addressed to her in her own handwriting - dated tomorrow, and every day after. A house that eats people. A vampire who counted them. And one woman who has nothing left for it to take.

The Metro City Vipers have one season before the GM dissolves them for being a tax write-off. Six players, no wins, no coach who'll stay, and one assistant equipment manager who used to be an Olympic hopeful before her knee said otherwise. Birdie Lee is supposed to hand out towels. Instead she's running secret drills, taping sticks at midnight, and learning which of them shuts down after a loss and which of them can't sleep before a game. The league doesn't care. The men do. And as the playoff line comes into focus, Birdie realizes she's stopped needing one of them to save her - she needs all three of them to skate beside her.

Die Metro City Vipers haben eine Saison, bevor der General Manager sie als Steuerabschreibung auflst. Sechs Spieler, keine Siege, kein Trainer, der bleibt, und eine Assistentin der Ausrüstungswartung, die einmal Olympiahoffnung war, bevor ihr Knie ihr einen Strich durch die Rechnung machte. Birdie Lee soll Handtücher austeilen. Stattdessen leitet sie heimliche Trainings, klebt nachts Schläger und lernt, wer nach einer Niederlage abschaltet und wer vor einem Spiel nicht schlafen kann. Die Liga interessiert das nicht. Die Männer schon. Und als die Playoff-Linie in Sichtweite kommt, erkennt Birdie, dass sie nicht mehr einen von ihnen braucht, der sie rettet sie braucht alle drei, die an ihrer Seite laufen.

Ten years ago, I held Owen Vasquez the night after his mother's funeral, and I never told him what that night made. I raised our daughter alone in a small mountain town, built a quiet life, and told myself he was better off not knowing. Then the president of the High Sierra Reapers walked into my library to find a book about his own mother, and he saw my daughter's photograph. She has his mother's eyes. He wants to meet her. He wants to know why I left. And the man who murdered his mother just got released from prison on a technicality, which means the family we're finally trying to build is the family he's coming after next. I've spent a decade keeping Owen out of my life. Now I need him in it - for our daughter, for the man I never stopped loving, and for the family we should have had all along.

Elodie Marsh is twenty-six, three months behind on rent, and holding the gavel at a charity auction she helped organise to save the vineyards she loves. She is not supposed to bid. She is definitely not supposed to win her own boss. Theo Karalis is forty-one, freshly widowed his father's estate, and desperate enough to put himself on the block. When Elodie accidentally takes the lot, Theo insists on honouring the date - and one day in Napa turns into six weeks of secrets. But the harvest is failing, the estate manager is lying, and Theo's ex-wife wants the property for herself. Elodie has one chance to prove what she's worth - and it has nothing to do with the bid. An age gap boss romance set in wine country, with a slow burn and a heroine who refuses to be surplus.

Elodie Marsh is twenty-six, three months behind on rent, and holding the gavel at a charity auction she helped organise to save the vineyards she loves. She is not supposed to bid. She is definitely not supposed to win her own boss. Theo Karalis is forty-one, freshly widowed his father's estate, and desperate enough to put himself on the block. When Elodie accidentally takes the lot, Theo insists on honouring the date - and one day in Napa turns into six weeks of secrets. But the harvest is failing, the estate manager is lying, and Theo's ex-wife wants the property for herself. Elodie has one chance to prove what she's worth - and it has nothing to do with the bid. An age gap boss romance set in wine country, with a slow burn and a heroine who refuses to be surplus.

For eleven years Oona Marsh has tracked runaway humans through the hills and brought them back to the house that bought them. She is the best in the business. She never asked where they were running to. Then one of them stops in the snow, turns around, and tells her three things about the contract she signs, the house she serves, and the list her own name is on. Now Oona is the one running, across two hundred miles of winter, pursued by the only man alive who ever trusted her - Ivor Vane, whom she left tied to a radiator eleven years ago. He does not intend to kill her. Everyone is very clear about that. He intends to bring her back alive. And the house pays full price for the ones who come back alive.

Sable Ronin has been married to Ilya Morozov for six years. She signs his daylight documents, hosts his dinners, and sleeps very heavily. Then a routine blood panel comes back wrong, three markers over, and Sable - who used to run forensic toxicology - starts counting backwards through six years of nights. Her husband has been drinking from her while she sleeps. He calls it protection. He capped the draws. He paid her family's debts. He never asked. So Sable does what she does: she builds a case, with timestamps and vials and a chain of custody. Then she files it with a divorce attorney and an underground tribunal on the same afternoon. Four centuries of power, and Ilya never once thought to ask. He will, now. It is far too late.

I grew up under the Rusted Sons' roof. I knew every bolt on every bike in that yard. I did not know that the man they call Ace would look me dead in the eye during his own member vote and say 'not her.' So I left. Six years, one shop, one town with no motorcycles in it. Then the Sons ride through and Judd Beaumont walks into my garage holding his new old lady's helmet like it means something. He didn't recognise me. He will. The bond he snapped is still in there, and it's been eating him every mile since I left. I told him I'd fix one bike and go. I'm going to fix one bike and go. I'm just not going to let him watch me do it.

Sable Ronin ist seit sechs Jahren mit Ilya Morozov verheiratet. Sie unterschreibt seine Tagesdokumente, empfängt seine Gäste und schläft sehr tief. Dann kommt ein routinemäßiges Blutbild falsch zurück, drei Marker zu hoch, und Sable - die früher forensische Toxikologie betrieben hat - beginnt, sechs Jahre Nächte rückwärts zu zählen. Ihr Ehemann hat sie im Schlaf getrunken. Er nennt es Schutz. Er hat die Entnahmen begrenzt. Er hat die Schulden ihrer Familie bezahlt. Er hat nie gefragt. Also tut Sable, was sie tut: Sie baut einen Fall auf, mit Zeitstempeln und Proben und einer Beweiskette. Dann reicht sie ihn am selben Nachmittag bei einem Scheidungsanwalt und einem Untergrundtribunal ein. Vier Jahrhunderte Macht, und Ilya hat nie daran gedacht zu fragen. Er wird es jetzt tun. Es ist viel zu spät.

Nova Ashgrave is not a shifter. She forged her way into Blackveil Academy to prove who killed her mother - and by the end of her first week, three wolves have bonded to her. Bram, heir to the pack she wants to burn. Silas, the healer who knows her secret and won't say it out loud. Dain, who has been thrown out of every other school and would burn this one down for her. The bond pulls them into the same dream every night: a field, a howl, blood on her hands. Somewhere behind Blackveil's old stone, the truth is written down and signed. When the pack-mother opens her blood at the ceremonial ring in front of the whole hall, Nova's lie spills across the stones - and three wolves choose her over their own names. She was going to leave with proof. She's leaving with the northern wing on fire.

Aoife Brennan's wedding was a signing ceremony. The groom didn't stay for the cake. There are three loans on her now and three Callaghans holding them. Ronan, who has never in his life used his hands for anything he could do with a page. Fionn, who does the opposite. Tadhg, who owns the pubs and is now short a bartender. Four months to settle the debt or the pubs close and Aoife goes to a man in Liverpool whose name she has been politely told not to learn. So she does the only thing nobody is expecting. She starts pouring. She learns the till, then the book, then the second book. She finds out where her husband is - Dublin, paying rent, no forwarding - and she does not tell the brothers. Because somewhere in the third month she stops being the loan and starts being the lender.

Sasha Petrov has been hiding from her old life for two years. It finds her in the form of a Manzanita charter sergeant with a borrowed leather cut and a job offer she can't refuse. Be the dead president's widow. Prove he was murdered. Don't get killed doing it. The man keeping her cover is Doran Vasquez, who hates her cover story, hates her fake grief, and hates that he's starting to believe it. Three weeks in a one-room apartment above a bar. One motel room in Reno. One name said out of turn. When the killer turns out to be the treasurer, the funeral becomes a trial and Doran becomes the sentence. Sasha leaves with her real name. She comes back with his.

Marina Baranov spült in der Küche ihres Onkels Geschirr und stiehlt Kreditkarten, um ihre Schwestern zu ernähren. Als die Petrov-Bratva ihren Onkel wegen Schulden ttet, betritt sie das geschlossene Hotel am Meer und bietet dem Boss drei Dinge an: das Hauptbuch ihres Onkels, den Käufer, den er betrogen hat, und sich selbst. Sie ist nicht auf Rache aus. Sie will einen Job. Kiril Petrov nimmt das Buch und traut ihr nicht. Seine Leutnants, Zwillinge mit einem gemeinsamen Groll, trauen ihr noch weniger. In einem heißen Sommer am Schwarzen Meer modernisiert Marina ihr Geld, schaltet einen Zollbeamten aus und entscheidet, ob sie alle drei Männer an den Geheimdienst verkaufen soll. Am Ende werden sie nicht verkauft. Sie werden behalten. Und der Zollbeamte kommt nicht vom Boot zurück.

Leila Ramos has spent ten years building a reputation as the investigator who doesn't miss. Then she walks into a warehouse fire and finds Rafe Kestrel in the ash: fifty-two, private fixer, and the man who walked away from her career a decade ago without a word. He tells her the fire is arson with a signature he's been chasing for six years. He wants her on the case. She wants to tell him no. She takes it. The closer she looks, the more the signature looks like her old partner's hand, and the more Rafe looks like the man who took a fall for her and never told her why. He's twice her age and half her scruples. She's the only one who can finish this without burning. She thinks she's done being surprised by him. She's wrong.

Marina Baranov washes dishes in her uncle's restaurant and steals credit cards to keep her sisters fed. When the Petrov bratva kills her uncle over a debt, she walks into their shuttered seaside hotel and offers the boss three things: the ledger her uncle kept, the buyer he was skimming for, and herself. She is not there for revenge. She is there for a job. Kiril Petrov takes the ledger and does not trust her. His lieutenants, twins with a matching grudge, trust her less. Over one hot summer on the Black Sea, Marina modernises their money, cuts out a customs officer, and decides whether to sell all three men to the security services. In the end they don't get sold. They get kept. And the customs officer does not come back from the boat.

Mira Kovalenko signed her father's debt with a pen. She paid it with a ring. At dawn in a Brooklyn courthouse she becomes Mrs. Dimitri Volkov - a wife installed in a penthouse like a piece of furniture, under three rules: no touching, no questions, no leaving. Her husband is the Pakhan's colder half-brother, and he looks at her like a contract, not a woman. Then Mira finds her father's ledger in the room she was told to never enter, and every number says the same thing: she was sold twice. Dimitri took a bullet meant for her once. He says it was duty. Mira has a ledger, a stolen password, and one night to prove it wasn't. Some vow is going to break tonight.

One dead man's will. One bride. Three husbands. Alessia Moretti agreed to marry a Vittale to save her father's name. She did not agree to marry all three. Luca negotiates. Dario breaks things. Matteo hates her with a heat that has nothing to do with hate. They think the arrangement makes her theirs. Alessia has other plans. She is going to learn every schedule, every account, every soft place in that house - and then she is going to run it, with all three of them standing behind her. Until a rival syndicate offers her the one thing she actually wants: freedom. A forced marriage mafia reverse harem romance.

Her father paid his last debt with his daughter's name on the paper. Camille Bruno has a restaurant in Queens, a knife she loves, and no intention of marrying anyone. On a Tuesday she is told she is engaged to Salvatore Bruno - fifty-one, immaculate, and owed sixty years of favors by her family. He gives her the ground floor of his brownstone and a contractor's number. He does not ask her to be anything. He does not explain why the restaurant that raised her almost lost its lease five years ago, or who quietly paid for it. He is old enough to have been her father's friend. He is rich enough to have bought anything else. He waited five years to tell her anything at all. When a rival family moves on his routes, Camille walks into the room with a tray in her hands. Salvatore watches. He does not stop her. He should have known better.