Scarlet Sun by Isabel Hansen
A bucket list with an approaching deadline, a road trip across the country, and a massive crush on her best friend… April Reed’s summer is turning into quite a mess.
Nineteen-year-old April has just gotten home from college when she finds a list she wrote years ago of things she wanted to do before she turns twenty. With her birthday coming up later that summer, the clock is ticking on finishing everything on the list. Skinny dipping? Camp in Algonquin? Fall in love? How can she manage all that in time?
When April’s best friends suggest they go on a road trip to complete all the tasks on the list, it seems like the perfect solution. There’s only one problem: one of those friends is Bree, a girl that April is quickly developing a hopeless crush on. Not wanting to ruin their friendship, April vows to keep her feelings to herself — but that isn’t so easy when she’s around Bree all the time. As the trip goes on, and the two girls get pushed together more and more, April can’t help but wonder if going from friends to lovers would be as bad as she once thought.
Filled with hilarious banter and hijinks, this sapphic romance is sure to put a smile on your face.
Warning: count(): Parameter must be an array or an object that implements Countable in /home/102028-77823.cloudwaysapps.com/jqxysxqutc/public_html/wp-content/themes/megashopNEW/inc/theme-functions.php on line 1233
Description
Find more from this author on:
Amazon
Barnes&Noble
Author Site
GoodReadsAbout the author:
Isabel Hansen is an emerging Canadian author. She writes lesbian romance stories. In her spare time, she likes to read and play with her two dogs.
Here is a short sample from the book:
CHAPTER ONE
I always thought the summer after my first year of university would be magical. After all, I was returning home after eight months of living in residence — I would get to spend time with my family again, I could eat actually good food instead of the junk they served in the cafeteria, I wouldn’t have to share a bathroom with thirty other girls, and, most of all, I would have my own room.
I definitely over-idealized that idea in my mind.
My family was annoying me to no end, I apparently remembered my parents’ cooking wrong because it tasted barely better than what I had in the cafeteria at school, sharing a bathroom with my little sister was somehow worse than sharing it with thirty other college girls, and though having my own room was nice, it was also a total mess (and I would never admit this, but I missed my roommate, Elyssa).
I kicked my now empty duffel bag across the room and ran my hands through my hair. I had finally finished unpacking after coming home, but although my clothes were nearly put away, the rest of my room was still in disarray.
“I thought I was supposed to be relaxing after exams,” I muttered to myself as I turned to clean up my desk. I’d meant to clean my room before leaving for school so I wouldn’t have to deal with it when I came back, but of course, my laziness had won out, and I’d left the problem for my future self. Now cursing my past self for making that decision, I began the tedious task of sorting through the massive piles of paper on my desk. I pulled my small recycling bin over to beside the desk and began throwing out everything that I no longer needed.
There was a small knock on the door.
“Come in!” I called. I turned to see who was there. In the doorway was my eight-year-old sister, Jean. I smiled. Although we had a twelve-year age difference, I always enjoyed spending time with my sister. “Hey Jeanie. What’s up?”
“What are you doing?” Jean asked, walking into the room.
“I’m decluttering my room. Want to help?”
Jean shrugged. “Sure.”
“Can you sort through the papers and tell me if any of them don’t look like they came from a school notebook?” I asked, pointing to a stack of papers on the main part of the desk. Most of them were old high school notes, but I worried about throwing them out without at least confirming that there wasn’t anything important in the pile.
“Okay!” Jean said, bouncing on her toes.
“Thank you,” I said, ruffling her hair briefly.
I went back to sorting through my own pile, but it was only thirty seconds later that I was interrupted by Jean going, “Hey what’s this?”
I looked over as Jean tugged a small paper out of the middle of the pile, almost toppling the whole thing over. She held the page triumphantly. Unlike the other standard notebook pages, it was light pink and had drawings of flowers at the top.
“It looks like it’s from my old diary,” I muttered. I gently took the paper out of Jean’s hands and looked it over. At the top of the page, it said, 20 THINGS I WANT TO DO BEFORE I’M 20. Underneath was a list:
1. Go skinny dipping
2. Get a tattoo
3. Go on a road trip
4. Go camping in Algonquin
5. Watch the sunrise
6. Hike a mountain
7. Learn how to drive
8. Dance in the rain
9. Conquer a fear
10. Swim in the ocean
11. Fall in love — real love
12. Dye my hair
13. Read 100 books in one year
14. Learn a second language
15. Run a 10K
16. Learn how to play an instrument
17. Graduate high school
18. Donate blood
19. Be out and proud
20. Make a new list: 30 things to do before 30
Jean looked at me with wide, curious eyes.
“Well?” She prompted when I didn’t say anything. She put her fists on her hips and tapped her foot. “What is it?”
“It’s nothing,” I said. I put the paper on the top shelf of my desk, much higher than she could reach, and turned back to the task at hand. “Just some stupid list I wrote in high school.”
Jean crossed her arms and looked up at the paper that was out of her reach with a large sigh. I rolled my eyes. She really needed to learn that she was not entitled to everything just because she wanted it.
“Are you going to help me, or just stand there pouting?” I asked. Jean sighed quite loudly again, but then grabbed another small pile of papers to sort through. We worked in silence for a couple of minutes before Jean couldn’t hold in her questions anymore.
“What kind of list was it?” She asked.
I shrugged, not looking up from the papers in my hands. “Just a list.”
“Right, but what kind of list?”
Recognizing that Jean would not give up until she got what she considered a satisfactory answer, I said, “It’s a list of things I wanted to do by this summer.”
Jean frowned. “Why this summer?”
“Because I turn twenty years old this summer,” I said. I threw a stack of old high school tests in the recycling bin beside me. “There were some things I wanted to do before my twentieth birthday.”
Jean nodded solemnly. “How many have you completed?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“All of them?”
“Definitely not.”
“But some of them?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
Jean huffed, getting tired of my short answers. “Are you going to finish them?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
Jean huffed again. “I’m going downstairs.”
“Okay.”
Jean faltered, as though she expected I to stop her. I assumed she was only pretending to want to leave in the hopes that I would ask her to stay. Then, she would use wanting to know more about the list as leverage. But I could see straight through her.
“I’m really leaving,” Jean said. She took a step closer to the door. I glanced up.
“Okay, I’ll see you later.”
Jean frowned, but she did walk out. I shut the door behind her, then tried to get back to work. But within a couple of minutes, I found myself distracted again. What was on that list? I hadn’t looked it over very carefully before. How many of the items had I completed? Which ones were left? Was it possible for me to finish it before my birthday in two months?
I grabbed the list from the shelf and looked it over. Skinny dipping? I had never done that. Get a tattoo? I already had two. I glanced over the rest of the list. I wagered that I’d done about half of the items on the list. Whether or not I wanted to do the rest was a toss-up. Some of them were easy: dance in the rain, watch the sunrise, dye my hair. But some of them would be much harder, whether it be from an organizational standpoint or an emotional one: go on a road trip, conquer a fear, fall in love. I supposed if I really dedicated some time to it, I might be able to finish them, but it would definitely take a lot of effort.
I grabbed my phone and sent a picture of the list to my best friends group chat with the text, think I can manage it? It was a resounding yes from Bree and Kiara, ever the optimists, while Elyssa seemed unsure, and Harlee said there was absolutely no way. Although I knew Harlee was probably joking, hearing someone tell me I couldn’t do it made me want to try even more.
If there was one thing I enjoyed in life, it was proving people wrong.
Related products
-
The Runaway Roommate by C.S. Mae
Casey Peters has a problem and that problem is the half-Korean hottie that moved in when her former roommate moved out.
Now her life has become like an episode from one of her favorite dramas, complete with: crazy exes, roommate shenanigans and confusing plot twists.
This story is a Naughty Niblet: the perfect amount of sexy to satisfy, but not make your hips big.
What he did to her by S M Mala
Conor’s life consists of drugs, drink and getting dirty with as many women as possibly. He doesn’t care about the size, shape or colour as long as they want uncomplicated fun then he’s happy. For him love and relationships come with dire consequences and that’s not how he wants to live his life.
To Conor’s dismay, he finds his married boss Marcus, is having a fling with his very own sister Debs, and Conor has been asked to cover the trail by lying to the boss’s wife. The only problem is that he works with Neve and she’s no pushover.
When everything comes out into the open, his loyalty to friends and family are put to the test as people he thought he knew well are not what they seem. And when an ex walks back into his life he is once again ruled by the snake in his pants knowing she’s more than a handful to deal with.
Conor begins to find his simple hedonistic life being taken over by other people’s clouded judgement on their need for love, while he tries to avoid the same thing happening to him.
Except ‘love’ is creeping up on him in an unexpected place that he would just about do anything to avoid. And temptation is going to lead him and his loved ones into trouble with serious consequences.
Good Vibration by S M Mala
Sylvie works in an e-commerce company, ‘Good Vibration’, specializing in the distribution of adult toys. She’s surrounded by colorful people as well as interesting items she refuses to use.
The place has been her lifeline, even though it’s made out of silicone and plastic, for two and a half years as she still tries to come to terms with the devastation of losing of her husband while bringing up their daughter, alone.
Her world is turned upside down when her work partner collapses and his stepson, Finlay, comes in to sort out the business, which his family own.
The consummated snob isn’t impressed with it and wants it to shut it down. He finds the product and people distasteful … and it shows. And he has his own problems, as his beautiful French wife has just told him she’s pregnant but he might not be the father.
Determined to keep the place open, against someone fixed on closing it down, the pair fight tooth and nail to achieve what they want, both poles apart on how they see the world and why.
But could opposites really attract?
Or is it that they want to be with that person, but all for the wrong reasons?
It’s about finding unexpected love in the most extraordinary place when faced with every possible obstacle to stop having a ‘Good Vibration’.
Pass the Hot Stuff by Dana Page @DanaPage_author
Blythe Townsend is a belle in desperate need of having her chimes rung. But the man she is dating would have to get his head out of his briefs – his legal briefs – long enough to notice. She lives in the French Quarter with her dog, Lady Marmalade, and is determined not to go sour on love even though she has dated every nutcase along the Mississippi Delta. When she spots a man she christens Tall, Dark and Eye Candy, she starts to feel what she’s been missing. A lover of classic movies, she is going to have to reach down deep to find her inner big-shouldered broad to find something a little sweeter and overcome the obstacles that are about to be hurled at her like doubloons from a Mardi Gras parade.
Dream Lover by Té Russ
Liz and John have been best friends for years. They’ve never thought about taking things past their platonic relationship. John was previous left at the altar, and Liz has relationship issues of her own stemming all the way back from childhood.
But at some point things begin to change for John. Once he embraces the feelings he is developing for Liz, he makes it his mission to make her see whether she realizes it or not she feels the same way.
Black & White by Erol Rashit
A young man, Igor, adopts as his mother a middle aged woman, Sylvia, after meeting her in a café, each having come from the nearby cemetery. He had been visiting his mother’s grave; she, her son’s. In taking it upon himself to investigate the death of Sylvia’s son, Igor soon finds himself confronting racists. Sylvia is black; Igor is white. The deeper he delves, the more intricately embroiled he becomes and the more he becomes the focus of a police investigation himself.
Alongside the surface interplay of the characters, Igor remains preoccupied with an inquiry into the nature of existence. Within the field of human activity, notions of ‘good and bad’ and ‘pleasure and pain’ are perhaps bound to prevail, but the essence of existence must precede such differentiation. The presence of suffering in the world should not be taken as proof that the world cannot be perfect. A photograph consisting only of black or only of white would probably seem pretty boring. A world consisting only of good or only of bad would perhaps be comparable to such a photograph. Each extreme acquires its significance by being in juxtaposition with its opposite. Happiness does not result from the elimination of suffering; rather, happiness may ensue when the realm of pleasure and pain has been transcended.
One aspect of the title, Black & White, relates to issues of race. Another aspect relates to Igor’s ability in violent situations to interpret matters in black and white terms. However, it is as a general phrase covering all dualities that the title derives its primary import. The use of the ampersand character in the title imitates its usage by photographers when referring to ‘black & white’ images, and is intended to denote a synthesis of the individual terms into a unitary whole.
The book includes some brief passages depicting scenes of polyamorous sex (pleasure) and homicidal violence (pain).
Heart Robber (Lifestyle by Design Book 2) by Miranda P. Charles @MirandaPCharles
Jessa Allen knew she was plain and average. Yes, she was brainy and successful in her career as a senior writer for the popular Lifestyle by Design magazine, but she wasn’t a raving beauty who easily attracted hunky, gorgeous men like Rob Granger even if her well-meaning friends wanted her to believe she was. So when Rob asked her out, she was shocked. A seriously handsome man who had magnetism she couldn’t seem to escape wanted her. That wasn’t something that happened everyday.
Rob Granger was instantly attracted to Jessa Allen. She wasn’t the usual type he went for but there was something alluring about her that drew him like a moth to a flame. But he was a self-confessed playboy who had absolutely no plans to be tied down by any woman. He valued his freedom, first and foremost and his expanding business was the only thing he was committed to. But he was intent on satisfying his intense desire for Jessa.
They both didn’t want to fight their physical attraction for each other. But Jessa found herself falling for the man who could not promise her tomorrow. And Rob was set on only having a short fling with Jessa especially when they lived in different states – he in Melbourne and she in Sydney.
Could Jessa trust herself not to fall apart when the time came to let Rob go? And could Rob ever find freedom in what he considered as a prison to be avoided at all cost?
Breathe for Me by Natalie Anderson
The last thing Chelsea Greene wants is to be rescued, but that’s exactly what happens when she’s caught wearing nothing but her swimsuit during a midnight emergency evacuation drill. Turns out her ‘hero’ is a former lifeguard who has no hesitation in offering the kiss of life. So not happening, right?
But for emotionally chastened Chelsea, one touch changes everything. She discovers a desire to satisfy this arrogant, demanding tease. Unable to express her own fantasies, she finds unspeakable pleasure in serving his.
Xander Lawson exudes easy charm. He likes a woman unafraid to match his appetite for unfettered fun. He doesn’t do complicated or emotional. But the raw need emanating from fragile Chelsea compels him closer. He can’t resist spinning a sensual fantasy world around them.
As passion spills outside their carefully selected boundaries, Xander learns Chelsea’s stronger than he first thought. But is she strong enough to handle the intensity he’s always kept hidden?
