Welcome to Paradise Valley, where the locals thrive on the rural landscape, the quirky Oregonian living, and the history of the lesbian commune that founded it.
Mixing small town attitudes with lesbian dating? Sounds like another day in Paradise.
Genre: LGBT, Romance
JANUARY EMBERS
City girl Mikaiya “Mik” Marcott returns to her hometown to help her ailing grandmother. But who does she see first when she’s barely reached the city limits?
Ariana Mura, the girl whose heart she broke ten years ago.
Only Ari isn’t a “girl” anymore. She’s a grown woman who doesn’t take crud from anyone. The lanky Ariana with a flower crown in her long hair is now the big and tough Ari, Paradise Valley’s strongest EMT and all-around “native gal” the other townsfolk are prepared to defend.
Locking eyes with her serves a grim reminder to Mik that coming home isn’t always a small-town parade. It reminds them both of the worst night of their lives.
In a small town, these two former lovebirds will never avoid one another. Do they make peace with their tumultuous past? Or do they acknowledge the embers of love that still simmer in their heartbroken shells?
Who will stoke the fires first?
FEBRUARY KISSES
Heaven’s Cafe is the social epicenter of Paradise Valley, but Heaven Mossberg doesn’t have much of a social life to show for it. Between the demanding small business life and dealing with her ex-husband’s pleas to get back together, there isn’t a lot of time for one thirty-year-old to kick back and chill.
Enter Salama Amari, one of the more recent newcomers to Paradise Valley. Author, blogger, and online columnist Salama spends her days typing away in Heaven’s Cafe, partly because it’s the only place to get a decent cup of decaf… and because she can’t stop staring at the woman who seems to have her whole life figured out.
Salama wants to be more like the loud and confident Heaven. Heaven wants someone who will bring her back down to Earth.
When are they finally going to lock eyes from across the cafe?
It might be sooner than they imagine.
MARCH MADNESS
Joan and Lorri have been partners for years, but their mission to have a baby has placed a damper on their love. After the most recent miscarriage, the couple has begun questioning their relationship.
Yet Joan’s dreams of having the family she always wanted won’t end because of some heartbreak. Yet as she regroups and prepares to try again, she comes up against an obstacle she least expected.
Lorri. The partner who refuses to explain why she feels sick to her stomach.
Joan doesn’t know the whole story about Lorri’s upbringing. Lorri would rather drown herself in college basketball tournaments than talk about her issues. It will take the advice of some trusted locals and one bad night to potentially save these two weary souls.
Will the madness finally end?
APRIL STARS
Hollywood B-list actress Fleur Rosé desperately needs a break from her hectic schedule. When she sees her chance to make a break for it, she drives as far as Paradise Valley, with the media (and her manager) hot on her heels.
Cue Jalen Stonehill, stage right. One of the county’s busiest plumbers happens to be in the right place, right time when she crosses Fleur’s path and is sucked into her glitzy world of tabloid fodder and social media wannabes. All Jalen wanted was a hot dog for lunch…
Instead, she gets a famous girlfriend!
Paradise Valley is about to get its first real whiff of fame when Hollywood shows up on their doorstep, ready to explain away Fleur’s presence in their very gay town. Good thing her manager has a story at the ready. All they need is Jalen’s cooperation.
MAY FLOWERS
If anybody deserves a break, it’s Hesper Chess, the only registered CPA within fifteen miles of Paradise Valley. Once tax season is over, she dreams of nothing but mai tais and sandy beaches. Too bad she knows a lot about personal finance, and can’t bring herself to spend the money!
But before she can rest on her laurels, she hears a cry from one of the town’s many business owners.
Florist Meadow Hobfield is being audited. She needs help. A lot of it.
These two townspeople who have never shared many conversations are now about to spend a lot of time together. So much so that Hesper will learn the truth behind Meadow’s love for flowers and Meadow will crack the code behind Hesper’s coarse personality.
This month will take a turn in ways they never imagined.
Here’s hoping they learn to survive it.
JUNE BRIDE
Doctor Brandelyn “Brandy” Meyer has dreamed of the picture-perfect wedding since she was a little girl. Now that fiancee Sunny Croker is ready to tie the knot? All hell breaks loose as Dr. Bridezilla is unleashed, and she has a few victims in sight!
Sunny is the embodiment of her name, with her blond hair and genial disposition. Yet even the owner of Paradise Valley’s biggest B&B can’t keep her cool when Brandy’s vision overwrites who Sunny really is. Their previously unbreakable bond goes up against the ultimate test!
Paradise Valley’s wedding of the year will be the only thing residents talk about for months. But will it be the impeccable flowers and sweet vows they discuss over coffee at Heaven’s Cafe? Or how a certain someone was left at the altar?
There’s only one way to find out. Check it out in the halfway mark of A YEAR IN PARADISE, which shits gears to a whole new storyline!
JULY SKIES
Nobody loves Paradise Valley more than Mayor Karen Rath, a woman who works tirelessly to keep the town’s cogs turning and the people content. This doesn’t leave much time for love and dating, but the single mom of two grown kids has better things to do.
Until a stranger comes to town.
Dahlia Granger of Hibiscus Films is on a mission. Ever since Paradise Valley hit the national news, Dahlia is compelled to create a documentary exploring the history and culture of a town founded by lesbians.
She may have an agenda. Just a tiny one.
Karen and Dahlia represent two very different sides of this film, but their attraction is undeniable. Can Dahlia peel back Karen’s veneer and reveal her true self? Or will Karen have to kick Dahlia out of her town first?
Assuming the townsfolk don’t get to Dahlia first, anyway…
AUGUST HEAT
Firefighter Krys Madison is used to the single life. Although a womanizer, she’s been experiencing a dry spell for the past… year.
She doesn’t realize what’s missing until she discovers a litter of kittens after a barn fire. The only one who can help is rural veterinarian Siobhan O’Connor, a reclusive woman who prefers a life of solitude – and doesn’t need someone like Krys causing trouble in her life.
Too bad Krys is instantly smitten with the redheaded beauty. Too bad Siobhan doesn’t think she’s too bad, either!
But it will take a lot of healing for Siobhan to finally move on from the breakup that still haunts her heart. Someone like Krys? Her heat may start fires Siobhan never asks to have extinguished.
SEPTEMBER LESSONS
On the first day of senior year in a new school, Alabaman transplant Carrie Sage meets the girl of her lesbian dreams.
Too bad the mayor’s daughter is a bit too straight to go for a troublemaking Southerner like Carrie.
Enter Leigh-Ann Hardy, the only girl in Clark High School who knows a thing or two about the girl Carrie crushes after like it’s Valentine’s Day. After all, Leigh-Ann and the mayor’s daughter used to be best friends!
While Carrie navigates life in a brand-new place that automatically labels her more trouble than she’s worth, Leigh-Ann faces a truth she’s been suppressing her whole life in Paradise Valley.
She might be a little bit gay. It only took the new girl to make her see that!
OCTOBER TWILIGHT
Life as a small-town housewife is usually what Sally Greenhill needs. With four kids and a busy wife to keep her preoccupied, she’s got more than enough to do from sunrise to sunset – at all times of year. It’s a miracle she hasn’t had a mid-life crisis yet.
But as Deputy Candace Greenhill becomes bogged down in an arsonist investigation, Sally begins to suspect that the ring of flaming rebels might be closer than any of them foresaw. These suspicions are doubly compounded when their oldest child, Tucker, becomes involved with an online website that Sally doesn’t fully understand.
With Halloween right around the corner, both Sally and Candace are too busy to keep an eye on the precocious son with an eye for adventure… and trouble. It’s going to take a lot of parenting tenacity and a keen understanding of one another to keep people sleeping safe in Paradise Valley.
NOVEMBER RAINS
Frankie Delacour has everything she could possibly want in life: a steady business, a supportive family, and townsfolk who don’t give her too much flack.
All right, so she doesn’t have a girlfriend, let alone a wife. She swears she can live without one. She’s too busy minding her little brother and her deli, anyway.
But one of her online friends is talking more and more about finally meeting in real life. In fact, Z, aka Elaine Hadley of the teashop Tea & Thyme has been wanting to meet for years, but Frankie can’t bring herself to consent.
She hasn’t told Elaine a few things. Such as who she actually is.
Some things are left best on the internet. Like the endless possibilities of a girlfriend maybe, someday. Not that Frankie is getting her hopes up or anything.
DECEMBER WISHES
In the final installment of A YEAR IN PARADISE, we fly through town and catch up with every couple to grace the page so far. But while Christmas shopping and holiday parties light up the windows, one lonely resident comes to the unfortunate conclusion that Paradise Valley might not be for her.
Skylar Kersten originally moved to town with friend Mikaiya a year ago. Yet what Skylar quickly realized was that one could not simply pack up her bags and leave her worries behind. Paradise Valley is a small, claustrophobic town. It’s hard to make friends. It’s even harder to face one’s chronic singledom when happy couples grace every sidewalk.
While Skylar comes to terms with what she wants from life, the rest of Paradise Valley’s citizens rejoice in their strengthened bonds with one another. As the new decade approaches, one thing’s for sure.
It’s been an eventful year in Paradise Valley.