Lily Seabrooke

Overwhelmed by her life as a country-pop singer, Brooke Carston is back to see her small-town family for Christmas in Mountain Crossing, and nothing more—until she runs into her childhood best friend, Nicole Livingston. Nicole’s happy in Mountain Crossing, but deep down, she knows all the girls who come into her life end up leaving. She knows better than to give in, even when her old best friend shows up in town again—and they have the same spark as ever. Of course, it doesn’t help that Brooke is bisexual, single, and the entirety of Mountain Crossing is intent on the two of them getting together. Silent Night is a 35,000-word sweet small-town childhood-friends-to-lovers Christmas romance novella, following a musician with auditory processing disorder who just wants some peace and quiet, and her childhood best friend who’s a happy small-town baker and painter. Features meddling family who tries to push the two together, constantly running into one another, and cute Christmas fluff for days. Content warnings for open-door sex scenes, queer girls trying their best not to get together, loving family who are really obvious in their attempts to get them together, and Daniel always talking about food.

To spark interest in Avery’s restaurant, and to revitalize Holly’s image, a fake relationship is the answer to both their problems. And the start of a pressing new problem: falling in love. Avery Lindt finally opened her dream restaurant—and there’s no customers. She’s staying optimistic, though: she’s confident she can fake it till she makes it, roll with the punches, and find a way to save her luxury restaurant, Paramour. But it gets harder when she gets restaurant mogul and star chef Mike Wallace angry, and finds herself on the other end of a campaign to shut down Paramour. Celebrity chef Holly Mason’s show is in trouble: people are bored with her routine of helping struggling restaurants. Worse, her ex-boyfriend Mike Wallace is making backdoor deals trying to steal the starring role. Luckily, Holly’s agent Tay has a solution: ditch her show plans for the season, throw their lot in with luxury restaurant Paramour against Mike Wallace’s racketeering operation of a restaurant partnership. The cherry on top? A fake relationship between Holly and Avery to stir up drama. It would already be a mess if Holly and Avery weren’t already struggling to hold back their attraction for one another. Despite their promise not to date, the lines between acting and reality get awfully blurry sometimes. Fake It is an 80,000-word fake-dating celebrity romance between a disillusioned TV cooking star and a bright-eyed restaurant owner who’s sure she can manifest a solution to her hard times if she believes hard enough. Features an agent named Tay who calls their brilliant ideas “inspir-Tay-tion,” plenty of descriptions of food that made me hungry while I wrote the book, and a cute bisexual trans girl who gets to fall in love. Content warnings for open-door sex scenes that get a little bit kinky, a gross man who won’t stop calling his ex-girlfriend babe, and sapphics getting in the way of their own feelings, like they always do.

Paige just inherited a restaurant. Problem is, she can’t cook. Willow Arches is a queer-destination small town, but Paige doesn’t know that—she’s never even heard of it before a granduncle she never knew about passes and leaves his restaurant, Faux Pas, in her name. A real estate developer by day, for Paige, renovating the restaurant to sell it for a tidy profit is a no-brainer. But things get harder when the restaurant is in shambles, the town’s bustling queer population is in full force when she arrives right at the start of Pride, and all of them want her gone. With no practical or people skills, and no cooking skills to run the restaurant, she’s in a world of trouble—until Willow Arches’ most eligible bachelorette, brooding soft-butch lumberjane Madison Hartley, sweeps her off her feet and kisses her in the public square. It’s a tenuous deal: Madison’s help with the restaurant, in exchange for a fake relationship, to keep the suitors off her back for Pride month. Sure, Paige has a massive crush on her, but it’ll all work out somehow, right? Right? Faux Pas is a 70,000-word fake-dating small-town culinary romance between a hapless sunshine girl and the sexy grump who lives in the woods. Content warnings for open-door sex scenes, mentions of offscreen past drug use, some lesbian bullies who turn out to be all right in the end, and really, really bad attempts at cooking. This book is part of the I Heart SapphFic Pride Collection, which contains eight standalone books from some of the top authors in sapphic fiction today. Each one promises a Pride theme and a happy ending. The collection was organized by I Heart SapphFic, which is a website for authors and readers of sapphic fiction to stay up to date on all the latest sapphic fiction news.

Ava couldn’t be less like her popstar twin sister—and now she needs to take her place. A two-month tour impersonating her pop-sensation twin sister Eva—or Nova on stage—sounds like Ava Blakely’s worst nightmare. For one thing, she can’t sing, and being on a stage is her idea of torture. But it might be the only way to save Eva’s pregnancy. Tour photographer Freja Callister just wanted a vacation and some pizza, but a last-minute request to shoot the Nova tour pulls her in—especially when the popstar seems a little different than she remembers. And much too interested in Freja now. For Ava, falling for her photographer while hiding her real identity is a catastrophe in the making. But hey, what do they have to lose? One Last Shot is a 100,000-word twin-swap popstar romance, and Lily Seabrooke’s and Jacqueline Ramsden’s first collaborative book, featuring a dysfunctional band that learns to work together, a secret identity, and a tour fling that turns a little too serious. Content warnings for open-door sex scenes, a creepy older director who wants to get young pop idols naked, Cecilia opening doors, and Mister Pippins definitely, absolutely having thoughts and feelings.

Lola never wanted to be on camera alongside an A-list star—but maybe Mackenzie is everything she needs. History professor Lola Barnes never cared about celebrities, and filming alongside superstar actress Mackenzie Vale isn’t exactly on her bucket list. But there aren’t a lot of experts on Mackenzie’s hometown on the remote Celadon Isles, so when the studio filming a deep dive of Mackenzie’s backstory comes knocking, no isn’t really an option. This exposé is the last thing Mackenzie wants to do. She’s had a good run as an actress without the ravenous press finding out she’s trans, but keeping it that way when the media is digging around in her childhood and with her gossipy family isn’t going to be easy. But it might be her last shot at her dream casting—and her agent doesn’t take no for an answer, anyway. And it isn’t any easier when Mackenzie is immediately head-over-heels for the gorgeous professor they tapped to film with her. And it isn’t any easier when going back to the isles means confronting all the things Lola ran away from there over twenty years ago—and that the only thing comforting her is a bond with the last person she’d ever expect to fall for. As a tight filming schedule, a nosy agent and a relentless director force Lola and Mackenzie to face the ghosts of their pasts, will they crumble in the face of everything they ran from once? Or can they find strength in one another and be more than they were before? Not Like Before is a 90,000-word grumpy/sunshine celebrity romance with a trans woman lead set on a fictional island where everyone is at least a little gossipy, and is the second collaborative novel between Lily Seabrooke and Jacqueline Ramsden. Features a celebrity actress made of pure sunshine and a historian who’s secretly soft under the surface, a meddling ex, Mackenzie’s meddling family, Lola’s meddling friend who loves Mackenzie more than she loves life, and Mackenzie’s agent, who is, unsurprisingly, meddling. Content warnings for on-page sex, a toxic ex, parental abandonment, gambling addiction, implicit threats of outing, a panic attack, falling off a boat, Hope being a fangirl, Taron being smug, and of course, the granny bra incident.

Breaking hearts is risky business. You never know when you might fall in love. Primrose Carter is a professional heartbreaker. As a member of FIRE, the underground group on her college campus formed of the people who have nowhere to turn but each other and dedicated to getting a leg up against the privileged kids, Primrose is an expert at getting a target to fall in love with her, getting what she needs from them, and breaking their heart on the way out. But she’s not expecting her target this time to be a woman. Giselle Lawson, competitive figure skater and the daughter of a finance mogul, has racked up one too many transgressions against FIRE. But from her perspective, she’s just trying to get by, heal from her breakup, and survive the crushing weight of her parents’ expectations—and the gorgeous woman who runs into her on the ice is suddenly the only thing she can think about. For Primrose, it should be an easy case. But Giselle might just be the one to break her. Fire & Ice is a 90,000-word college romance with a secret identity and one-sided enemies-to-lovers, featuring a secret organization, a coldblooded heartbreaker turning soft, and some juicy toaster-oven dynamics. Content warnings for on-page sex, a character having to leave their parents offscreen for their own safety, someone stuck in an unwanted engagement because of financial dynamics, a passive-aggressive jerk of a friend, and Ava not liking chocolate but definitely liking to yell at people.

Emily Garrett had a plan for after college: back to her hometown of Ember Grove, where she had a great job waiting for her that she was going to focus on. After forgiving her last girlfriend too many times and only finally getting out, she's not keen on dating again--not for a good, long while. Vanessa Schreier is a different person from when she was a kid--or at least, she hopes she is. A clique ruler in school who used her influence to bring down anyone who got in her way, she's come back to Ember Grove not too long ago to make amends. Most people know her as the woman who'll help anyone, anywhere, anytime, but some people aren't so quick to let go of the her past mistakes. One of those people is Vanessa herself. And one is the girl who just moved back in next door: Emily Garrett, her brother's best friend, her old next-door neighbor, and her favorite target to pick on as a kid. Emily's not stupid. She knows she had a crush on Vanessa as a kid even when she was bullying her, and judging by the way it feels to look at Vanessa now, she knows part of her still feels the same way. After spending college accepting one apology after another from an abusive girlfriend, she is done with accepting apologies from anyone--especially girls who make her heart race. But Vanessa, and the drive she has to make things right, are hard to avoid. The Simple Answer is a 70k-word girl-next-door romance about growth, forgiveness, and is the first book in the Ember Grove small-town romance series. Content warnings for childhood bullying, emotional manipulation, a car accident but no one gets hurt I promise, people talking about feelings, and more references to J-pop artists than I thought I'd be able to sneak into a novel.

Melissa Warden is at the top of her field, CFO of a high-powered financial institution, but there's only one problem: she doesn't know why she did any of it, what she sacrifices every second of her life for. And after lying to her family pretending she has a girlfriend to keep them from worrying about her, it backfires when they invite her girlfriend to her sister's baby shower. With everything at risk of crashing down at work, she's forced to face the fact that she's thrown her whole life away for nothing more than a title. Kayla Spencer lives by a motto that matches the name of her candy store: Life is Sweet. But her faith in that mantra is put to the test when her candy store is heading towards insolvency, and when an ex-boyfriend from a life she thought she escaped shows up to try to bring her back. Grabbing a customer you barely know to pretend to be your girlfriend just to get a pushy ex off your back is a half-baked plan, but Kayla has a lot of those. Besides, what are the odds that customer you barely know is actually a disillusioned millionaire who could also use a fake girlfriend? That would be an unbelievable coincidence that would obviously never happen. Life is Sweet is a 50k-word f/f romance between a millionaire lesbian corporate executive looking for meaning in life and a disaster bisexual just trying not to crash and burn, featuring a fake relationship that turns into a real one, pushy businesspeople who won't take no for an answer, and a rabbit named Leonardo who is a total jerk, despite how cute he is. Content warning for descriptions of domestic abuse and intimate partner violence, open-door sex scenes, and the most disastrous of bisexual disasters.

When Lena Martin gets set up with Ember Grove’s most boring bachelor Will Ashton, she doesn’t realize the worst part will be falling for his sister Grace. Especially when she finds out Grace is the girl she’s been anonymously exchanging love letters with—and who thinks her letter partner is a man. Relying on her friend Cara’s hospitality for a place to live, Lena really doesn’t have a choice when Cara tells her to start seeing her fiancé’s brother and have a date for their wedding. Never mind the fact that Lena’s been starting to realize maybe she’s not as straight as she’d thought—there’s no way she’s telling Cara that. As usual, her way out is to grin and bear it. Grace Ashton is tired of this small town and her family’s backwards attitude. After shoving her eldest brother Dan into planning his wedding with his ex and then lining up a date for her next brother Will, she knows she’s next on the chopping block, and wants to do whatever it takes to drive away this Lena Martin girl who’s apparently got her eyes on Will. And both of them find refuge in the same secret grotto, hidden deep in the woods, where they realize they’re not the only one with this secret hiding place, and leave anonymous letters for one another—and fall headfirst in love without even knowing the other’s name. And for Grace, without even knowing the anonymous letter writer she’s fallen for is a woman. But as wedding planning keeps drawing Lena and the Ashtons together, can Lena and Grace resist that same spark of connection in one another they feel from their love-letter writers? The Safest Place is a 78,000-word slow burn new adult romance set in the same small-town romance setting as and after the events of The Simple Answer, but follows different characters and stands alone. It features two absolute disasters who figure out the people they want to be, a double toaster oven plotline, overbearing family trying to get Lena with Will but her falling for his sister instead, some enemies-to-lovers that’s more like enemies-to-grudgingly-accepting-being-in-the-same-room-to-friends-to-enemies-to-best-friends-to-enemies-to-even-better-best-friends-to-lovers, and some very mushy falling in love anonymously via secret letters. Content warnings for open-door sex scenes, homophobic and abusive parents, mentions of past relationship abuse and of conversion therapy but it never happens I promise, Lena whacking Percy with a stick but he was asking for it, a very boring man who actually turns out to be all right, and a girl who stubbornly refuses to notice she’s a lesbian.

Jennifer has an assignment she can’t refuse: write a smear article on her ex-girlfriend’s restaurant and drive her from the city forever. If she accepts? The senior position that food writer Jennifer Allen has dreamed of all her life, pushing so hard for it that her relationship with her girlfriend is near breaking. But if she refuses? Merciless head content writer Genevieve Durant will end her career. Athena Walker left Port Andrea six years back ago on the back of a scandal that cost her dream. With a lifetime ban from the city’s restauranteurs’ association and a heart-crushing breakup, she gave up her lifelong dream of running a restaurant in Port Andrea—until now. Returning to Port Andrea to run a culinary gauntlet through November is Athena’s one last chance at getting into the restauranteurs’ association and fulfill her dream. But when the woman who caused her scandal six years back, hard-edged Genevieve Durant, pledges to crush her again, and the writer covering her restaurant is the woman who broke her heart six years back, Jennifer Allen, Athena finds herself in the continuation of a story she thought long over. For Jennifer, the choice should be easy. Breaking journalistic norms to get rid of her ex-girlfriend and to get seniority at the same time is a win-win situation. But thirty days in Athena’s restaurant stirs up feelings she thought long-gone. Last Chance is an 85,000-word second-chance romance in the Taste of Port Andrea collection, an unordered collection of culinary romances set in the fictional city of Port Andrea. Features a workaholic food writer who’s Serious about Everything, a carefree butch restauranteur who’s Not Serious about Anything, LOTS of sarcastic dialogue, and Parker being shifty about what she does for a living. Content warnings for open-door sex scenes, and as usual in Port Andrea, enough descriptions of food I got hungry writing it.

Emmy Montford never thought she’d make it to this song contest stage, let alone run into the reigning champion Katarina Jackson—literally. And Katarina—that’s Kat to everyone but the obnoxious girl who knocked her down in an elevator and thinks they can be friends now—never thought she’d have a bright-eyed sunshine girl doing her damnedest to attach to her. She doesn’t do friends. All that matters is winning, and nothing is going to get in her way. But not only is this televised song contest putting Emmy on the same stage as Kat, they’re paired up in everything they do, and Emmy can make friends with anyone—even the woman who’s sworn off such frivolous things as fun and friendship. Even as they compete for the title of champion—or, well, at least, Kat’s competing, Emmy doesn’t seem too invested—Emmy might just be able to chip away Kat’s walls and remind her what it’s like to care about something, and Kat might just be the meaning that Emmy’s been searching for. And getting shipped by their fans under #kataremmy doesn’t help with their feelings. Reach the Stars is a 30k-word novella featuring pop singers in a contest, a grumpy/sunshine romance, a rollercoaster ride that Kat totally doesn’t smile on, and only a little bit of angst. Content warnings for open-door sex scenes, people getting pushy with boundaries, mentions of abuse in the past, Emmy being entirely too sweet and Kat being entirely too grouchy, and hopeless lesbians trying to ignore their feelings for another while their fans are shipping them online and they’re each trying to pretend they don’t look at their shipping hashtag on Instagram while the other isn’t looking.