Max and Josie have been best friends since the fourth grade, but when they're snowed in overnight and the power goes out, their "just friends" relationship is put to the test when they snuggle for warmth. Josie has only had one secret her entire life: she's been in love with her best friend for two decades. She'd never risk losing the most important relationship in her life, so she's shielded her feelings from her broad-shouldered cinnamon roll BFF, Max. Max moved back to Benning Falls, Vermont, to run his family's maple syrup farm after breaking off his engagement. As he's spent more time with his best friend, Josie, thoughts of her perfect curves and sparkling smile invade his thoughts more and more. Can this rom-com-obsessed maple syrup farmer keep his hands and spicy thoughts to himself? Or will he be willing to risk the possibility of a happily ever after even if it means risking the most solid friendship in his life? Featuring: Snowed In + Forced Proximity Best Friends to Lovers Solo Sessions Spicy Scenes Only One (warm) Bed Hurt / Comfort "Yes, sir" / "Good girl" Vermont in the Winter Maple Syrup Farm Vibes Never Have I Ever + Drunken Confessions

Max and Josie have been best friends since the fourth grade, but when they're snowed in overnight and the power goes out, their "just friends" relationship is put to the test when they snuggle for warmth.Josie has only had one secret her entire life: she's been in love with her best friend for two decades. She'd never risk losing the most important relationship in her life, so she's shielded her feelings from her broad-shouldered cinnamon roll BFF, Max.Max moved back to Benning Falls, Vermont, to run his family's maple syrup farm after breaking off his engagement. As he's spent more time with his best friend, Josie, thoughts of her perfect curves and sparkling smile invade his thoughts more and more.Can this rom-com-obsessed maple syrup farmer keep his hands and spicy thoughts to himself? Or will he be willing to risk the possibility of a happily ever after even if it means risking the most solid friendship in his life?Featuring:Snowed In + Forced ProximityBest Friends to LoversSolo SessionsSpicy ScenesOnly One (warm) BedHurt / ComfortVermont in the WinterMaple Syrup Farm VibesNever Have I Ever + Drunken Confessions

A friends to lovers holiday romance. Let me be clear: I've been friends with Caitlin Ng for more than a decade, and I've had a crush on her for just as long. And I've known, all that time, that I wasn't her type. When we met, we were both studying computer engineering at university. She was near the top of the class, and I was in danger of flunking out. Now, she's a CEO, and I, well… I'm wearing an inflatable T-Rex costume and dancing along to Christmas carols sung by an elderly barbershop quartet. Yes, I'm being paid to do this. And that's how Caitlin finds me when she leaves work late in the middle of a snowstorm. She asks to stay with me because her house is farther away and her power is out. Of course, I say yes. When the heat goes out in my apartment and she asks me to join her in bed to snuggle for warmth, I say yes, too. But being so close to her is dangerous for my heart…or could a weekend of Christmas fun actually lead to the romance I desire? * * * Jackie Lau writes soft and steamy romances with Asian characters and lots of food. The Baldwin Village series is set in a Toronto neighborhood, and each book may be read as a standalone. Book 0.5: One Bed for Christmas Book 1: The Ultimate Pi Day Party Book 2: Ice Cream Lover Book 3: Man vs. Durian KEYWORDS: holiday romance, Christmas romance, friends to lovers, unrequited love, Asian hero, Asian heroine, novella, rom-com, romantic comedy, lighthearted contemporary romance, steamy romance, cozy winter vibes, big city romance, Toronto, Canadian romance, happy ending

From bestselling author, Dr. Rebecca Sharp, comes a sexy, neighbors-to-lovers romantic comedy... Ryan Finan needed a change of scene. No more warmth. No more wooing. No more women. Needing to get over what the last woman did to him, he's fled to Michigan for the winter. A secluded cabin, a wood stove, a bottle of scotch, and guaranteed solitude are all he needs... until Winna Madden recklessly collides into his path-and other parts of him. With her fresh beauty, captivating awkwardness, and far too much talk of freshly jerked meat, Ryan struggles to give his temporary neighbor a necessary cold shoulder. Having lived in this neck of the woods all her life, Winna knows the gorgeous recluse isn't prepared for a Michigan winter-nor for the kinds of harsh truths it brings. She's determined to be a good neighbor-no matter how much he grouses. As temperatures plunge, their walls tumble down faster than the snow. Soon, the only thing left is a wild desire burning between them. But Ryan's stay always had an expiration date. When it arrives, will he walk away? Or will the warmth he found with Winna tempt him to stay?

USA Today Bestselling Author, Lexy Timms, shares a holiday romance that’ll warm the heart and having you wishing on love—or beating it with a stick! Colin Murphy Is the CEO of Murphy Inc and is a workaholic. Christmas, or any holiday in face, doesn't mean much to him. When his business trip travel plans get interrupted by a freak snowstorm, he’s forced to find a way home by other means. Abigail Thompson can’t wait for this year to be over. After losing her job, her boyfriend and apartment, she’s ready to go home for a much-needed break and to regroup. But when her plane is grounded because of a snow storm, she has to find another way. She makes her way to the car rentals only to find the last car has just been given to a tall dark sexy man. Definitely not Santa, his name is Colin Murphy. When Colin finds out they’re head in the same direction, he offers her a lift. It’s nearly Christmas afterall. What should be an easy 8-hour drive turns into 2 days of mishaps and mayhem. She knows every Christmas song off by heart, even though she can’t carry a turn. She’s happy, he’s a real Christmas Grinch. Will this unplanned fiasco be the start of something magical? Billionaire Holiday Romance Series Driving Home for Christmas The Valentine Getaway A Holiday Romance series because every holiday is special… Search Terms: bad boy obsession, bbw, new, billionaire romance, billionaire romance, happily ever after, hot and steamy, hot romance, bad boy, Alpha Bad Boy, Alpha male romance, billionaire, fake girlfriend, drugs, women's fiction, overcoming, coming of age, true love, billionaire romanc, melody anne billionaire bachelors series, free kindle romance, romance billionaire series, contemporary romance and sex, billionaire obsession, true l, famous actor, hot doctors, romance, new adult, contemporary romance, love and life, cancer, fiction, big beautiful women, big beautiful woman, fake boss, pepper winters, romantic comedy, action romance, suspense, sw, fiction, fake, sexy hero, sweet romance, hot steamy, love, Managing the Bosses, billionaire obsession

Below Deck meets Billionaire Romance in this fresh and captivating romance set on a megayacht in the Mediterranean...My boyfriend's billionaire boss always gets what he wants.Menacingly handsome and unquestionably powerful, Theo Whitman need only snap his fingers to have a flock of supermodels fall at his feet. So when his steel gray eyes first meet mine, I expect him to pass right over me, to not give so much as a second thought to my presence.Instead, he sees me.Truly sees me.And for a girl who prefers to hide behind her camera lens, it's the most unnerving experience of my life.Until he asks me to stay on his yacht for the summer.All I have to do to earn my keep is be Theo's on-call photographer when he has guests, and I'll get a free ride through the Mediterranean with my boyfriend. Easy peasy.Still, my skin prickles in warning when I say yes. As the humid days fade into balmy nights, I can't seem to avoid Theo. And when he finds me, it's like a rabbit running into a wolf.His intense gaze immobilizes me.The way he speaks strips me bare.Every brush of his skin sears me like a violent flame.My boyfriend's billionaire boss always gets what he wants.And this time, I think he wants me.

Let It Snow meets Dash and Lily's Book of Dares in this small-town Christmas romance. When Finley Brown returned to her hometown of Christmas, Oklahoma, from boarding school, she expected to find it just as she left it. Christmas hasn't changed much in her sixteen years. But instead she returns to find that her best friend is dating her ex-boyfriend, her parents have separated, and her archnemesis got a job working at her grandmother's inn. And she certainly didn't expect to find the boy she may or may not have tricked into believing that Christmas was an idyllic holiday paradise on her grandmother's doorstep. It's up to Finley to make sure he gets the Christmas he was promised. This is Finley's Christmas. It's about home and family and friends and finding her place, and along the way she also finds the best Christmas present of all: love.

“A bizarre yet effective yoking of the spy and horror genres.” —The Washington Post Book World The Lovecraftian Singularity has descended upon the world in The Labyrinth Index, beginning an exciting new story arc in Charles Stross' Hugo Award-winning Laundry Files series! Since she was promoted to the head of the Lords Select Committee on Sanguinary Affairs, every workday for Mhari Murphy has been a nightmare. It doesn’t help that her boss, the new Prime Minister of Britain, is a manipulative and deceptive pain in the butt. But what else can she expect when working under the thumb of none other than the elder god N’yar Lat-Hotep a.k.a the Creeping Chaos? Mhari's most recent assignment takes her and a ragtag team of former Laundry agents across the pond into the depths of North America. The United States president has gone missing. Not that Americans are alarmed. For some mysterious reason, most of the country has forgotten the executive branch even exists. Perhaps it has to do with the Nazgûl currently occupying the government and attempting to summon Cthulhu. It's now up to Mhari and her team to race against the Nazgûl's vampire-manned dragnet to find and, for his own protection, kidnap the president. Who knew an egomaniacal, malevolent deity would have a soft spot for international relations?

In the second edition of The Idea of Nature in Disney Animation, David Whitley updates his 2008 book to reflect recent developments in Disney and Disney-Pixar animation such as the apocalyptic tale of earth's failed ecosystem, WALL-E. As Whitley has shown, and Disney's newest films continue to demonstrate, the messages animated films convey about the natural world are of crucial importance to their child viewers. Beginning with Snow White, Whitley examines a wide range of Disney's feature animations, in which images of wild nature are central to the narrative. He challenges the notion that the sentimentality of the Disney aesthetic, an oft-criticized aspect of such films as Bambi, The Jungle Book, Pocahontas, Beauty and the Beast, and Finding Nemo, necessarily prevents audiences from developing a critical awareness of contested environmental issues. On the contrary, even as the films communicate the central ideologies of the times in which they were produced, they also express the ambiguities and tensions that underlie these dominant values. In distinguishing among the effects produced by each film and revealing the diverse ways in which images of nature are mediated, Whitley urges us towards a more complex interpretation of the classic Disney canon and makes an important contribution to our understanding of the role popular art plays in shaping the emotions and ideas that are central to contemporary experience.

“Groundbreaking in its call to reconsider our approach to the slow rhythm of time in the very concrete realms of environmental health and social justice.” —Wold Literature Today The violence wrought by climate change, toxic drift, deforestation, oil spills, and the environmental aftermath of war takes place gradually and often invisibly. Using the innovative concept of "slow violence" to describe these threats, Rob Nixon focuses on the inattention we have paid to the attritional lethality of many environmental crises, in contrast with the sensational, spectacle-driven messaging that impels public activism today. Slow violence, because it is so readily ignored by a hard-charging capitalism, exacerbates the vulnerability of ecosystems and of people who are poor, disempowered, and often involuntarily displaced, while fueling social conflicts that arise from desperation as life-sustaining conditions erode. In a book of extraordinary scope, Nixon examines a cluster of writer-activists affiliated with the environmentalism of the poor in the global South. By approaching environmental justice literature from this transnational perspective, he exposes the limitations of the national and local frames that dominate environmental writing. And by skillfully illuminating the strategies these writer-activists deploy to give dramatic visibility to environmental emergencies, Nixon invites his readers to engage with some of the most pressing challenges of our time.