Bøger udgivet af Bywater Books

Lambda Literary Award-winning author returns with a stunning mystery proving that Noir is the new black.A golden city of prosperity, energy, the exciting engine of the American Dream. Just underneath, though, is a dark city, with darker ambitions. This is the world of Cantor Gold, dapper art thief and smuggler, who has her own way of securing the rewards of the American Dream. In the conformist 1950s, when same-sex romance was illegal, Cantor decides that any Law that condemns her as a criminal just for her love of women is not a Law she owes any allegiance to. As an outlaw, she thrives earning fistfuls of cash and living life on her own terms. But someone wants to take it all away. Someone wants to rob Cantor of everything: her success in the underworld, her freedom, her life.Predators are out to destroy Cantor: the cops who violently raid the Green Door Club, Cantor's favorite watering hole, where the lights are low and the women are willing; and worse, an unknown predator who threatens to destroy Cantor's life, even destroy the lives of people close to her.Murder is one of the weapons in the hunter's arsenal, involving Cantor in the dangerous fate of each corpse. Another is the taunting, threatening notes that turn up on the corpses or at Cantor's door or at the door of people she visits. And then there are the phone calls and a disguised voice. Someone is invading every minute of Cantor Gold's life.

Two-time Lambda Literary Award-winning author Ann McMan introduces readers to a spinster postal investigator for the Winston-Salem Dead Letter Office who finds herself enmeshed in the mystery of solving who is sending undeliverable love letters to the towns 18th-century hortus medicus.The year is 1960, and Gunsmoke is the most popular show on TV. Elvis Presley tops the Billboard charts, and a charismatic young senator named John F. Kennedy is running for president. And, in North Carolina, four young Black men sit down at a Woolworths lunch counter and demand service.Enter Esther Jane (EJ) Cloud, a forty-something spinster who manages the Dead Letter Office at the Winston-Salem post office. EJ leads a quiet life in her Old Salem ancestral home and spends her free time volunteering in the towns 18th-century medicinal garden.One sunny Spring morning, EJs world is turned upside down when she is handed a stack of handwritten letters that have all been addressed to a nonexistent person at the garden. This simple act sets in motion a chain of events that will lead EJ on a life-altering quest to uncover the identity of the mysterious letter writerand into a surprising, head-on confrontation with the harsh realities of the racial injustice that is as deeply rooted in the life of her community as the ancient herbs cultivated in the Moravian garden.When EJ is forced to read the letters to look for clues about the anonymous sender, what she discovers are lyrical tales of a forbidden passion that threaten to unravel the simple contours of her unexamined life. EJs official quest soon morphs into a journey of self-discovery. Her surprising accomplice on this quest becomes a savvy, street-smart ten-year-old wielding an eye patch and a limitless supply of aphorisms. Together, the unlikely duo makes pilgrimages to a tiny town called Paradise to try and crack the casewhile ultimately learning better ways to navigate the changing world around them.Dead Letters from Paradise was named one of Shelf Unbound's 100 Top Notable Indie Titles of 2022.

Summertime 1979. Rowan Marks is coming-of-age in a sparkling collision of sex and confusion.

"e;Beers gives a welcome expansion to the romance genre with her clear, sympathetic writing."e;Curve magazineErica Ryan is flying home from London after a disastrous business trip. Free spirit Abby Hayes is flying into New York City to visit her mother before jetting off again. Both end up in Gander, Canada, when their flight is diverted because of 9/11. For ninety-six hours they share a rollercoaster of emotions and find themselves drawn to one another. Will their nascent connection survive everyday life when they return home?Georgia Beers is the author of eight lesbian romances and has won the Lambda Literary Award and the Golden Grown Literacy Award.

"e;Marianne Martin is a wonderful storyteller and a graceful writer with a light, witty touch with language and a sensitivity to the emotions of people in love. There is a tenderness and brightness to her characterizations that make the personalities quite beguiling."e;Ann Bannon"e;Marianne Martin is a skilled writer who fully develops her characters and pulls the best from them."e;Mega Scene Book ReviewTwelve years ago, Charlie Crawford shot dead his two lesbian neighbors. Now he's terminally ill and requesting early release from prison.Back then, Sharon and her friends fought to bring him to justice. Now she has to find the strength to fight again. But the man who killed her friends also took her sobriety. And with it he took her partner, Laura. Sober again, allSharon hasleft is a life she's just about surviving.She'll do what she can to keep Charlie in jail. But it's hardreally hardto cope with the news that Laura's back in town.Hate has spoiled Sharon's world. There just doesn't seem any place for love. But she's forgotten just how powerful friendship can be. She'll soon remember.Indelible is the inspiring sequel to the best-selling Love in the Balance.Marianne K. Martin is the author of eight novels and has been shortlisted three times for the Lambda Literary Award.

"e;Not only does [Love in the Balance] have love and excitement, but it has issues very close to all of us."e;The Alabama Forum Gaiety"e;Marianne Martin is a wonderful storyteller and a graceful writer with a light, witty touch with language and a sensitivity to the emotions of people in love."e;Ann BannonReal life has a way of sneaking up on you.Connie likes men. Sure, she's just dumped one, but she'll find another one soon enough. Instead she finds Kasey. Who happens to be a womana lesbian, actually. Connie reckons they'll be good friends, and she soon realizes she wants more.But Kasey has already had her heart broken. Her ex-girlfriend turned out to like men. Kasey won't take a chance on that happening again. And her friends won't let her, either. Especially not Sharon.If this is love, Connie has a lot of convincing to do and a lot of people to win over. Just when it seems like maybe she has, real life comes sneaking up again. Some people hate lesbianshate them enough to kill. And it's not obvious that the authorities care. Connie and Kasey and Sharon must each put their doubts tothe side and work together to get justice.Marianne K. Martin is the author of eight novels and has been shortlisted three times for the Lambda Literary Award.

Small-town Idaho, where everyone knows your business, is no place for a baby dyke to go looking for love. Especially when murder and homophobia are stalking the streets. For Wilhelmina ';Bil' Hardy, trapped in the coils of her eccentric family and off-the-wall friends, neither the course of true love nor amateur sleuthing runs smooth. Mistaken identity, misunderstandings, and mysteries galore take Bil to places she's never dreamed of visiting.Idaho Code is a funny book about love, family, and the freedom you can find in a state that values individuality more than common sense.Joan Opyr's hobbies are politics, politics, and politics, though, for the sake of variation, she has been known occasionally to dance the polka.

When Mary McGhee moved to a small Alabama town shortly after the Second World War she was sure she could change her life for good. But then she met, Lila Dubose, the wife of her new employer.

';Marianne Martin is a wonderful storyteller and a graceful writer with a light, witty touch with language and a sensitivity to the emotions of people in love.'Ann Bannon, author of the Beebo Brinker novelsRenee Parker is no stranger to love. At only seventeen, she fought social services for the right to raise her four younger siblings. Fought and won. It's a challenge to parent kids scarred by a stepdad's suicide and a mother's imprisonment, but Renee doesn't hesitate to sacrifice her own future to give her brothers and sisters the best chance at a normal life. That, she believes, is what love does.Then a different kind of love threatens to destroy everything Renee has built. Her younger brother's epilepsy brings her into contact with nurse Olivia Dumont, and for the first time in her young life, Renee realizes there is room in her heart for someone who isn't family. But the watchful eye of social worker Millie Gordon is never far away from the Parker family. And fear of what Millie could do drives a wedge between Olivia and Renee.But the journeys they have to make separately finally bring them back to the same place. This time, have they learned how to stand up and fight for their love and their new kind of family? And will that love be enough to beat the system, even with the help of tenacious attorney Shayna Bradley?

Can a two-timing, twelve-stepping, twenty-something film freak find happiness with an activist nun?

Marie Santora comes from a volatile Italian family. But when she inherits her grandmother's estate and everyone turns nice and caring, Marie knows it's time to hit the road to Los Angeles, but not before one final family vacation.In Jamaica, Marie meets the woman who could change her life. But will she even talk to Marie after her family tells one too many of Marie's secrets? Don't miss this hilarious tale of lesbian love and family togetherness run amok. Greetings from Jamaica is a runner-up for the first annual Bywater Prize for Fiction.

After inheriting an old plantation house from an aunt she didn't know existed, Dhari Weston heads 800 miles south to see the place and meets intriguing Dr. Erin Hughes, a local history professor with a passion for old houses. Dhari's life is complicated enough without meeting such an attractive and intelligent woman: Her mother needs her, her father relies on her and her girlfriend worries her. But when Erin finds old letters and a diary, Dhari knows she can't leave until she finds out the truth . . .Marianne K. Martin is the best-selling author of five novels including Mirrors and Love in the Balance.

Paige Flemming is on the run. From the police, from her history, and from love itself. After sixteen years looking over her shoulder, she realizes it's time to run again. But when she pauses in her headlong flight to catch her breath with old friends, she crashes straight into another ghost from her past. And this time, it's not one she can easily escape.Marissa Langford is a woman living with the wreckage of her dreams. A dancer deprived of the dance by a tragic accident, she is struggling to rebuild her life when Paige's appearance rekindles bitter memories of what she has lost. For both women, their meeting asks more questions than either can readily answer.As they struggle with the turbulent emotions each provokes in the other, the net is closing on Paige. But cops are human too, and the hunter who has Paige in his sights has his own harsh emotional lessons to learn.As old secrets emerge from the darkness, this finely drawn cast of characters search deep inside themselves for the resources to battle their demons. Desire walks hand in hand with betrayal, love is held hostage by abuse and shadows threaten dreams every step of the way.In this long-awaited sequel to the best-selling lesbian romance Dawn of the Dance, Lambda Literary Award finalist Marianne K. Martin reminds us that there's no footwork fancy enough to dance out of the shadow of the past.