Lucia Nevai

"Tamara Johanssen is pushing thirty and life has taken an unplanned turn: her successful sister, her only living relative, has banished her from Manhattan to the rural crossroads of Dustin in upstate New York. Put under the watch of an attractive, married attorney, Tamara soon finds love and other salvations." "Buoyed by her romantic affair and her sister's pocketbook, Tamara gains the confidence to establish a modest art gallery that both engages her gifts and enriches her meager surroundings. When she was seventeen, Tamara was orphaned in a shocking way and controlled by a predatory teacher. In Dustin, her liberation from trauma and bad love - and Lucia Nevai's warm and hilarious first novel - begins. Population thirty-nine, the hamlet of Dustin is small in size but large in personalities, including Donna and Iris of the womanart factory, specializing in strawberry pot holders; southern transplant Glorine, whose mere voice serves as an antidepressant to Tamara; and Shirley Girt of Girt Real Estate, who calls Dustin "the up-and-coming arts town."" "Tamara cautiously engages with the hamlet's oddballs and eccentrics, eventually learning important personal lessons from their determination, humor, vitality, and heartbreak. These unlikely relationships give her the strength to make peace with her tragic past - and to finally "stay put" in her present."--BOOK JACKET.

Salvation follows gladiator-pit-ruler Malek and sky-ruler Soran. Their two states face destruction unless the men can form a bond they both can trust. Sexy and violent, with great battles in a beautiful cloud city, Hawke’s work has been described as dark, bloody, and thought-provoking. Salvation should appeal to readers of gay fiction and stories involving men loving men. Famed gladiator Malek the Destroyer has spent years secretly plotting a revolution against the oppressive Senate that rules his planet. Popular victors who have retired, left the city of Dis, or even apparently died in the arena have secretly trained as Malek’s revolutionary army. But Malek’s revolution won’t stand a chance if only one city fights it. He reaches out to Soran, leader of the one autonomous city left on the planet, Aerix. Soran leads a caste of Skyknights, starfighter pilots famed for elaborate body modifications that make them nimble fighters and grueling training as soldiers and fighter pilots. Malek invites Soran to Dis to secure an alliance—and to tempt him with promises of power.

Bear helps his friends get over their hurt feelings about being excluded from games the others are playing.