As Kate Sherwood, I get to explore the lives of men who love other men. This is my “home” genre, where I started out, and I have a million half-formed ideas about why I’m drawn to m/m romance, but none of them are really fit for human consumption. Not because they’re dirty, just… half-formed.
The Books:
Ethan is living the good life as a student at Montreal’s McGill University. He’s out every night, partying, dancing with his friends, and meeting guys. When he sets his sights on Alex, the world’s hottest bartender, he expects a good time, and nothing more.
But things aren’t so simple with Alex. He’s been hurt too many times and he’s protective of his heart. He certainly can’t let himself get attached to a party-boy like Ethan. Except… maybe there’s more to Ethan than there seems.
As the guys grow closer, it’s harder and harder for Alex to keep the darker parts of his life away from Ethan’s brightness. But Ethan proves that he’s tougher than he seems on the outside. And maybe that means Alex can save the soft place in his heart for Ethan.
No matter what he tells himself, wealthy NYC architect Liam has never been able to forget his first love, Ben. But as he approaches midlife and realizes something is missing, can he forgive himself for the worst mistake he ever made—the one that left a hole no amount of career success can fill? Or will fear keep him from the full life he really wants?
Liam and Ben were childhood sweethearts, then college boyfriends. But when Liam cheated on Ben, Ben forced himself to cut ties and move on. He’s still living in the small town where they grew up, teaching, but it’s not the life he imagined for himself as a younger man. Still, when Liam returns, he can’t risk his heart again. He certainly can’t allow himself to love Liam again after fighting so hard to get over him.
Neither man wants to let go of the past and face their apprehension at starting over. They don’t want to fall in love a second time—but sometimes love happens whether it’s wanted or not.
The Common Law series
Jericho Crewe escaped from Mosely, Montana, when he was seventeen and built a new life for himself, first as a Marine, then as an LA police officer. Fifteen years later, he’s back, and everything is just as confusing as it was before he left.
Especially Wade Granger. Wade’s still a rebel, still a criminal, and still dangerously fascinating. As Jericho digs deeper into the town’s underbelly, he has to decide whether Wade’s the worst the town has to offer, or the only part of Mosely worth saving.
Finalist for Best Gay Mystery, 30th Annual Lambda Literary Awards
The Shelter series:
Outcasts. Losers. Addicts, thieves, whores, thugs. A group of friends struggling to get by in a world they didn’t create and don’t fully understand. And then… love. It makes everything way more difficult, but also way more worthwhile.
As an elite Sacrati fighter in the mighty Torian military, Theos is blessed with a city full of women who want to bear his children, and a barracks full of men proud to fight at his side and share his bed. He has everything he needs—until he captures Finnvid on a raid.
Finnvid is on a secret mission to prevent the Torian invasion of his homeland Elkat. Being enslaved by Torian soldiers wasn’t in his plans. Neither is his horrified fascination with the casual promiscuity of the Sacrati warriors. Men should not lie with other men—and he should not be so intrigued when they do. He definitely should not be most intrigued by the leader of the soldiers who captured him and plan to invade his home.
For Theos, everything would have been easier if the infuriating, lying, bewildering Elkati had never come into his life, but he can’t stay away. When betrayal and treachery threaten both their nations, they must work together to stop a war that could destroy their homes forever—even as they begin to question everything they’re fighting for.
Finalist for Best LGBT SF/F/Horror, 28th Annual Lambda Literary Awards
Also available as an audiobook.
At first glance, Cade and Aiden hardly seem like a match made in heaven. Their worlds couldn’t be further apart. Cade is quiet, serious, and determined to succeed; Aiden’s a party-loving frat boy. Cade comes from a rough home and worked hard to get the scholarships that make it possible for him to attend college; Aiden’s had it all thrown in his lap by supportive, kind, and wealthy parents. Cade wants nothing to do with Aiden, but from the moment they meet, Aiden is determined to find a way to bring their different worlds together.
Aiden manages to persuade Cade he’s a decent guy, and a tentative friendship becomes much more. But a trip to Aiden’s family cottage puts Cade in the path of a ghost from his past, and a dark secret he never expected to face again. Cade did what he had to do to escape his dead-end life, but now he sees he didn’t leave it as far behind him as he thought.
Also available as an audiobook.
When mercenary Jack Hunter stumbles upon Christian Manning servicing a client in a back alley, it stirs feelings he’s kept deeply buried. Hunter becomes Christian’s knight in shining armor when he rescues him from an attack and takes him to his secluded cabin to heal.
Being stuck in the cabin over the winter gives both men a chance to get their lives in order. Christian is struggling to break his heroin addiction, and Hunter needs to get away from the organization he helped start years before—a group of people who don’t appreciate being told no. It’s a toss-up which goal is more difficult. Their new starts spark a relationship between them, but nothing good comes cheap. Despite the complications, Hunter wants more, but Christian is resistant to making that commitment. When Hunter’s private security company threatens them, only nurturing the fragile trust they formed at the beginning of their love affair will save them. But for two men with very dark pasts, relying on each other might be easier said than done.
Nick Colton was a spoiled rich kid when he ran away from Seattle, leaving his best friend and lover Alex Diaz behind. More than a decade later, he’s back.
He says he’s there to donate bone marrow for his half-sister, but Alex knows there’s more to it than that. Alex wants to protect himself and everyone else from Nick’s plans, but he needs to spend time with the man in order to figure out what he’s up to. And the more time they spend together, the more Alex realizes that his own attraction to Nick is far from resolved.
Nick is bent on revenge, Alex is trying to maintain his straight and conservative lifestyle, but neither of them can forget what they used to have and what they might, someday, be able to have again.
When a man is consumed by hatred, is there anything left to love? After a tough day of counseling sessions, Anglican priest Mark Webber is looking forward to a relaxing dinner at a local restaurant. When he sees who’s bellied up to the bar, though, he reaches for his cell phone to call the police. It’s Lucas Cain, the man who killed Mark’s brother three years ago. Apparently he’s out of jail and hanging out with his old crowd, which has to be a breach of parole, right?
Pulled over upon leaving the bar, Lucas blows a clean breathalyzer and hopes this isn’t a harbinger of things to come. He’s ready to build a sober, peaceful life. His friends aren’t ready to let him move on, though, and he ends up taking refuge in an Anglican half-way house.
Thrown together, Mark and Lucas find common ground in the struggle to help a young gay man come to terms with his sexuality-and the fight against homophobic townsfolk. As attraction grows, the past is the last stumbling block between them and a future filled with hope. Warning: Bad boys being good, good boys being bad.
Every relationship leaves something behind. Dumped by his sugar daddy, part-time model Scott Mackenzie somehow ends up owning an abandoned church in rural Ontario. He dreams of using it for gay weddings, even if he’ll never have one of his own.
Joe Sutton is trying to keep his family together after his parents’ deaths. Between the family ranch, his brother’s construction company, and commitments around town, he doesn’t have time for a relationship. But Mackenzie is hard to ignore.
As both men fight their growing attraction, challenges to Mackenzie’s business threaten their relationship. If he can’t make it work, he’ll have to crawl back to the city in defeat. But the only solution involves risking the ranch Joe loves, and each man has to decide how much he’ll sacrifice for the other.
Against the Odds series
Adam Challoner was born a member of the wealthy elite, but he can’t forget that his power and comfort come from the suffering of the vast underclass—people oppressed by the very regime that keeps him safe. Living with that knowledge is uncomfortable to say the least. When Adam meets Remy Stone, his discomfort becomes intolerable.
Get in, seduce his target, give him all he could ever dream of, then get out—that’s Remy’s assignment. No man has ever been able to resist Remy before, but Adam Challoner is unlike any of Remy’s previous clients. In a world where Big Brother is always watching, Remy needs to perform his assigned duties in order to survive, but Adam seems to be as oblivious to that as he is to Remy’s charms.
Luckily, Remy’s determination to accomplish his mission piques Adam’s interest. But just when Remy’s hard work starts to pay off, a rebel bomb attack interrupts their would-be tryst. Unforeseen circumstances force them apart, then throw them back together. And just as they discover new reasons to live, they realize some things are worth dying for.
When Peter Carr’s company sends him to Southwestern Ontario to sweet-talk the town into agreeing to a gravel quarry proposal, he welcomes the challenge. Technically he’s a lawyer, but really he’s a problemsolver. He just never expected the problem to be Caleb Sinclair, the passionate but introverted artisan carpenter who lives next to the proposed quarry site.
“Know your enemy.” That’s Caleb’s philosophy. And trying to turn fertile farmland into a gravel pit earns Peter the title of “enemy.” Caleb loves that land, and if he has to make peace with his homophobic neighbors to make war on Peter, so be it. Except knowing his enemy doesn’t turn out anything like he expected. Peter’s not the fairy-tale monster—he just might be the first step to happy ever after.
Jack Lawson grew up poor and can’t forget it. He’s a huge success in the business world, but it won’t be enough until the image of “poor little Jack” is completely wiped away. When Jack runs into his old friend, Noah Mercier, he decides that Noah’s sister, an up-and-coming movie star, would be the perfect evidence of glamorous success. If Jack can win Hayley, it will be clear to everyone, including himself, that he has truly arrived.
The problem with Jack’s grand plan is that he’s more attracted to Noah. Jack’s never worried about the gender of his conquests, but Noah just isn’t flashy enough for Jack’s scheme to set the world on fire… unless Jack realizes he has practically no control over deciding who he wants—and even less choice in who he needs.
Also available as an audiobook.
Until it’s freed from the closet, love will only wither on the vine.
Cole Wheaton is out in every sense of the word—out of the closet, and recently out of a bad relationship. He hopes the new contract to design a garden for the McLeans will be the distraction he needs to get his life back on track, but there’s something about David McLean that intrigues him…and sets off warning bells.
Somewhere in the middle of a bonding chat with the passionate landscape designer, David realizes he’s attracted to Cole. It’s nothing new—he’s secretly been acting on these impulses for a while. But there’s something different, something stronger with Cole that tells him acting out with Cole will be a life-changer.
Determined not to saddle himself with another closet-case, Cole does his best to resist the temptation David presents. But David, watching Cole’s easy acceptance of his own sexuality, realizes it’s time to stop living a lie. An open marriage and cheap one-night stands aren’t enough, not anymore.
Cautious friendship grows into affection…then passion. But until they’re both ready to cut ties to their pasts, the obstacles still walling them apart could be too high for love to breach.
Warning: Contains drunken licking between friends. May cause a sudden interest in garden design.
Two men, too many monsters.
Raised off the grid, Cash has trained all his life to protect humanity from The Shift—a mysterious force that creates monsters capable of unspeakable destruction. For Cash and his warrior family, risks are just part of the job and death is an ever-present possibility.
When his daredevil tendencies defeat a monster but leave him over his head in a puddle of green goo, Cash figures his number is up…until he’s plucked to safety by a devastatingly handsome stranger.
Toby needs no weapons to fight The Shift, that’s why he’s perfected the art of laying low. Sudden moves draw unwanted attention, but he can’t stand by and watch Cash drown. Big mistake—it isn’t long before Cash is returning the favor, rescuing him from kidnappers intent on harnessing his genetic enhancements.
On the run with danger nipping at their heels, romantic sparks fly between them. But there’s no trust without truth, and things get complicated when Toby reveals everything Cash has fought against is a lie. The time has come to decide who’s the real monster—and whose side he’s on.
Warning: Super-romance, Super-sex, Super-heroism. Super-hot. Moments of Super-cute.
The Dark Horse series
Dan thinks about just driving, leaving the whole mess behind. He’s got enough money. He could just arrange to get his stuff and his horse shipped to wherever he’s going. Taking off is what he used to do when things got to be too much, and it worked pretty well, really.
Dan Wheeler thought he’d found lasting love and stability with his life and work partner, Justin Archer. But when Dan finds himself alone again, still working as a horse trainer for Justin’s parents, he has to find a way to accept that his perfect life is gone forever.
Then he meets billionaire Evan Kaminski, who arrives to buy a horse for his younger sister, and Evan’s lover Jeff Stevens, a horse trainer who seems to understand more than just Dan’s job. Struggling to deal with all the upheavals in his life, Dan finds himself drawn to both Evan’s mercurial passion and Jeff’s quiet wisdom. Is Dan strong enough to take a chance on new love, or would it be better—safer—for him to be alone?
Also available as audiobooks – Dark Horse, Out of the Darkness, Of Dark and Bright.
Mark and Alistair think they’re happy with their open relationship—they can have all the anonymous sex they want, and still come home to each other for love and affection. That changes when they discover that they’ve both hooked up with the same guy, and, worse, that they’re both falling for him.
Tyler is a happy-go-lucky type, content with coasting through life on his good looks and charm. He doesn’t have ambitions and doesn’t make plans, but when he finds himself involved with Mark and then Alistair, he starts wishing that he could have something more long-term.
But Tyler cares about them both too much to threaten their already strained relationship. Is the threesome destined to be a scorching memory, or can they find a way to overcome their challenges and hit the trifecta?
Quinn Donahue will do anyone once, so when Aaron Miller spots Quinn making his moves in a Vancouver gay bar, Aaron thinks he’s found just the guy to relieve him of his unwanted virginity. Quinn, however, has apparently decided to make an exception to his usual open-bed policy. He may be an unrepentant connoisseur of one-night stands, but he’s not going to disappoint a sweet kid like Aaron by giving him a hot night and then leaving while the sheets are still warm.
After Quinn takes a job at Aaron’s family horse farm, Aaron spots both the demons and the decency that drive Quinn’s frequent brush-offs, and it makes Aaron want him even more. But Quinn is determined that Aaron won’t go home with a man who doesn’t deserve him, so he starts sending likely candidates Aaron’s way. It takes a grim act of sacrifice for Aaron to realize exactly why Quinn’s been so skittish, and he’ll have to keep a firm grip on the man of his dreams to keep Quinn from shying away.
Also available as an audiobook.
When Kyle Champlain’s grandmother, Molly, passes away, he returns to Wetlake, Canada, to settle her estate. Kyle spent his summers in Wetlake as a child, and now he has the chance to renew his acquaintance with some old friends, including Ryan Summers, before going home to Chicago. But when Kyle tries to pressure Ryan into a business decision, their renewed friendship—and any possible attraction–is almost immediately on the rocks.
As Kyle begins to deliver the personalized bequests from Molly’s will, he meets an odd assortment of people from all walks of life and realizes he has a lot to learn about living and love. But he’ll have to fight his parents, suspicious beneficiaries, and Ryan’s fears if he plans to stay in Wetlake.
Also available as an audiobook.