We were fortunate to be asked to announce the winners of the 2019 Lesfic Bard Awards. Look for the Gay Scribe Awards in 2021!
Here are the finalists, by category:
Action Adventure
Compound Interest by Annette Mori
The kick-ass women in The Organization are back and they have their sights set on a few new recruits. Not everyone is jumping for joy at the choices, considering subterfuge is front and center in the games the new recruits have been playing. Dani is supposed to get her happily ever after, but she’s not sure what’s real anymore including Candy’s feelings for her. When a new enemy takes Candy captive, Dani vows to uncover the truth by insisting on going on the mission to save her. Candy is not what she seems, and that presents a new set of complications for Dani and her feelings.The Organization continues to have challenges when those damn book magicians and book witches keep popping back in to warn them of new catastrophes on the horizon. She doesn’t have time for their warnings until their enemies intersect once again to keep them working together.From award-winning author, Annette Mori, find out what happens in the final chapter of the combined Asset Management/Book Addict series.
E-Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YRTZ8P8
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1950167062
Young Adult
In the Blink of an Eye by Karen D. Badger
Tara Charland is an ordinary fifteen year old kid. She likes music, playing on her phone, going to the mall, dancing with her peeps, and movie nights with her moms and siblings. She especially likes spending time with her new girlfriend, Kelly. Ah…the idyllic life of a teenager!Then, one day, on a chilly Thursday morning, in the midst of leaf-peeping season in her Southern New York town, it all came crashing down. Tara never did pay much attention during those darned lock-down drills. In a million years, she never thought it would actually happen. You see…that’s the problem…she never thought.Tara and Kelly, her brother, Seth, and their best friends, Steve and Karissa are caught in the crosshairs. In the blink of an eye, their lives, and the lives of everyone they loved, changed forever.
E-Book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B082PLTZ4J
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1945761288
Drama
High October by Elena Graf
Liz Stolz and Maggie Fitzgerald were college roommates until Maggie confessed to her parents that she’d fallen in love with a woman. Maggie gave up her dream of becoming an actress and married her high school boyfriend. Liz became a famous breast surgeon. Maggie is performing in a summer stock production near the Maine town where Liz is now a general practitioner. When Maggie breaks her leg in a stage accident, she lands in Dr. Stolz’s office. Is forty years too long to wait for the one you love?
E-Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YXSB9S9
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1733449205
Erotica
The Victorian by Lydia L Vaughn
Alicia Brenner isn’t adulting very well.
After her parents kick her out for being gay, she moves to a new city and tries to start over. But when she loses her job and goes to the bar to drown her sorrows, she makes out with a couple she’s never met, and wakes up to a strange bed and an even stranger offer – stay at the house and become an artist.
Pearl, who is all business (both at work and play), and Danna, who beguiles Alicia from the start, are a phenomenal couple and impossible to resist. Together, they run The Victorian, a unique artist colony and auction house, where the artists are eclectic and the patrons are loyal and have deep pockets.
After passing her “interview” with flying colors, she begins her journey into art and self-discovery. Before long, The Victorian and the artists she’s come to know mean everything to Alicia. When the house, too, is threatened, what will she do to survive?
E-Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RD57GGZ
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999256750
Fantasy
The Dragon Commons by Tiffany Clavecil
The year is 2048.
The Tiered Nations are a consumer society reduced to their stomachs. Here, a denizen’s prestige is measured by their greed and consequently, their expanding waistline. Hadryn and his best friend Thaddius belong to the military branch, and they arrive at the morgue to investigate an unusual death: a limb-hewn corpse which appears to have been mauled when animals are no longer of this world. Meat products, as with all foods, are grown in laboratories and manufactured as “cubed food.”
Before Hadryn and Thaddius can further their examination of the body, two letters arrive for Hadryn. One is from a woman, Oshin Rysing, who is Hadryn’s long-time epistolary paramour, living outside the Tiered Nations in a rebel colony which resists the gluttonous ways of the city, and the second letter is from his father to notify Hadryn that Hadryn will be wedded to an unknown man, as is customary for young women of marrying age. Hadryn attends his engagement banquet with the intention of confronting his father, but strange occurrences of people who seem to be infected with a terrible disease leading to self-cannibalism arise, and a creature out of nightmares emerges.
Hadryn ventures out of the Tiered Nations for answers and to seek out Oshin. There, he meets Ardyce, a dragon, who tells him of gods, legends, and an age-old battle between her people and the mysterious race known as Wyrms.
E-Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B081MRB1DT
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1709173734
Fiction
Living by Lise Gold
During her morning exercise, yoga instructor Cam Saunders finds herself rescuing a young woman who has walked into the sea, seemingly intent on taking her own life. When the woman in question turns out to be a famous actress, Cam promises to keep her secret safe.
Six months later, America’s sweetheart Ella Temperley is working hard to get her life back on track, grieving the loss of her twin sister and fighting a deep depression. Despite her fame, she feels alone in the world and keeps thinking of the woman she owes her life to.
After Ella shows up in Cam’s life again, the two become closer than they ever imagined possible. But what happens when friendship turns into attraction? Living is a slow-burn coming-out romance about loss, love and life.
E-Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07W21FZHN
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1999676378
Historical
Donning the Beard by EF Kafkalas
A gender-bending, historical romance.
In 1777, when Gabrielle’s mother dies in childbirth she is left to be raised by her father Lord Guillemot, a soldier in the King’s Army.
Orphaned Madeline is sent to live with her aunt Aimée, the lord’s housekeeper, and work for Lord Guillemot. She is assigned to care for the lord’s daughter, Gabrielle, and finds her best friend and the love of her life.
Gabrielle’s father discovers that she has taught Madeline to read and write, and tries to put an end to their friendship. They thwart his plans only to find that he has arranged a marriage for Gabrielle to Damien. Her fiancé proves to be a vile man, and unbeknownst to Gabrielle, Madeline poses as Alexandre, a new suitor. Alexandre challenges Damien to a duel of swords.
When Gabrielle discovers her new love’s true identity, the fall out sends them on a journey that takes them out of the rising French Revolution into a magical theatrical world in England. There, with the help of an actor and their father’s paramour –the grand dame of theatre– Mademoiselle Babcock, they think their dreams of have come true.
When Gabrielle’s father is rescued from imprisonment and makes his way back to England, will their dreams be dashed or will they finally get their happily ever after?
E-Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082VH4FPZ
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/195118601X
Mystery
Payback by Charlotte Mills
A thrilling lesbian mystery about trying to right a past wrong…despite the consequences.
Detective Constable Kate Wolfe is sent to a Cheshire backwater after falling foul of a disciplinary hearing in London. But before she even has a chance to settle in, Kate finds herself in a situation there’s no coming back from. She’s reported as a troublemaker to her new boss, Detective Chief Inspector Helen Taylor, a no-nonsense veteran who once had an esteemed, high-profile career.
The pair investigate a spate of arson attacks, a dead body found in a burnt out building, and a missing architect while fighting their growing attraction for each other. The discovery of a dumped vehicle in a quarry lake sparks a series of events that will change their lives forever.
E-Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NDK2VW6
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/396324125X
New Author
Lost & Found A Mystic Meteor Tale by Elle Hyden
Two lost souls are on a collision course. One searching for a life partner while the other mourns the loss of hers.
Selina is at a crossroads. No job, no home to call her own, and no partner. She has to turn her life around, but in which direction? Returning to her Native American roots, she seeks mystical aid from the spirit world, to find the life she hungers for.
Rea has been able to find a measure of solace after her wife’s death but longs for the crack in her heart to heal. Sighting a falling star, she sends her wish out into the universe, where it’s heard by the most unlikely allies.
Selina and Rea’s paths crossed many times in the past, but they’d never connected. Now they are being inescapably drawn together by fate, desire, and a touch of the mystical. Will love and trust prevail over loss and fear, so they can have their shot at being found forever?
Join them on their souls’ journey through the Lost & Found.
E-Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZMDFTWV
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1080194355
Romance
Coming Home by KJ
What would happen if your regular, ordinary, safe, everyday existence suddenly became…not any of those things? When Samantha Markson, Ordinary Person, is thrust into the life of Abigail Taylor, Not At All Ordinary Person, it proves to be an experience like she’s never had before. World famous actress, Abigail Taylor, is in Melbourne filming her new movie, and is accompanied by her nine year old daughter, Grace, because Abigail wants her to experience an Australian education for three months. Sam Markson is a teacher at one of the best schools in Melbourne, and is perfectly happy doing that, thank you very much, when she’s suddenly redirected from the classroom into the job as Grace’s teacher; a move so fast that even blinking would feel like slow motion. Sam has never met anyone like Abigail Taylor, and she starts to realise that her ordinary life might actually be missing something extraordinary.
E-Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WND8KQQ
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1085908801
Science Fiction
Subton Switch by Jessica Lucci
Subaquatic city, 1886. Verdandi, a fiery teen tinkerer, is held captive by an evil totalitarian government. She is blasted into a chaos of beauty and fear, depression and addiction.
Verdandi discovers that her only chance of liberty lies not only in trusting her friends, but in challenging her mind and body to fulfill her time travel quest. What begins in compulsion becomes necessity, and Verdandi finds herself torn between two very different worlds, with the only reconciliation being time.
The “Watch City” trilogy continues in “Subton Switch,” creating a testament of the power within us to change ourselves, and the world.
E-Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07XB84ZFY
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732349525
Cover
Trick or Treat, Who’s my Sweet by BL Wilson
When wealthy, bossy, arrogant Delisa Winston discovers Nicky Gates, the man she just married as part of a business arrangement, is a woman pretending to be a man, she loses it, starting their marriage with a bang.
Nicholas/Nicolette Gates, a business person with varied tastes in women, mistakenly thinks that since Delisa is a lesbian, she’ll appreciate the revelation that she is gay as well.
Both parties think that they will continue on as before their marriage, dating who they want and enjoying the rewards of their merger. However, Nicky’s disclosure to Delisa has opened a whole new can of worms…and feelings.
Now it’s a question of what to do with the information Nicolette revealed to Delisa. Can the two women keep it a secret until they figure out what to do? Will they manage to stay married and keep their secret? If the secret gets out, what will happen to Nicolette and her company’s merger with Delisa? What will happen to Delisa’s companies and is she culpable? Do the women have a future together?
E-Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MZ7QS9J
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1794431977
