2020 Lesfic Bard Awards Finalists

Action Adventure

Maggie McIntyre

Wildfire

Catriona is on fire with love for her ice-queen lover, Katherine Konrad, and with expectation for the great things they can achieve together. But first, she has to introduce Kat, a global leader in mass-media and a self-made millionaire, to her penniless artist of a mother and to her reclusive, homesteading grandparents. They live up in the woods of northern Oregon, and deliberately shun everything Kat holds precious and thinks important. Over one weekend, they fly up from California to pay a visit. And this short trip unexpectedly erupts into a life and death struggle for survival for the whole family. A deadly wildfire sweeps down the valley where her grandparents live, and Kat and Cat both discover just what love means, as they work together to save not only themselves, but Cat’s family and the whole community. Hour by hour, as the fire rages, this tender love story explores what it means to cope with fear and loss in the face of natural disaster. The two women discover new strengths and depths within each other, as well as a growing awareness of how fragile life and love can be.Will the challenges they face strengthen the love and attraction they feel, or will the destructive power of a mighty wildfire prove too great? This story, set in the late summer of 2019, is a sequel to Heatwave, and was conceived before the wildfires took hold of the US west-coast in 2020.

Drama

McGee Mathews

Slaying Dragons

Can you find love after a tragic loss?

Andrea Fenwick is too busy coping with grief, isolation, and guilt over losing Dani Powell, her partner of five years, to even consider this question.

Grasping for relief anywhere she can find it–counseling, grief groups, church–she turns her pain into purpose when she helps start a youth center to address issues related to the LGBT community and mental health.

And then there’s Tommie.

Tommie Andrews, a computer whiz and occasional dog trainer, discovers she’s developing a crush on her friend and co-worker as they struggle to repair the hole left in Andrea’s heart. The timing could not be worse. Or could it?

Andrea has bravely reached out for help through this tragedy. But will that bravery allow her to see a happy future with Tommie, or will the loss of Dani prove too painful to overcome?

Fantasy

Nived

Eternal Love

There’s fire in what slips from her lips, this woman that might not even exist. So much passion and way too much aggression, trying to teach me a lesson. What if your dreams were really a reality, an old life, or an alternate path based on a technicality? Her eyes, the eyes of a tiger, burned into the back of Devin’s mind after waking from that same nightmare, but the question upon waking is who is she and why is this happening? Who is this mystery woman?

Devin is your average college student, with dreams of seeing the world with her camera and her two best friends. Her past isn’t the most pleasant, but she grew up surrounded by love and compassion and won’t let anything stand in the way of her goals, and that includes dating. Women are a distraction, and honestly, Devin didn’t know she needed one until she “bumped” into Amirah. Confusion sets in when friendship turns to feelings and Amirah being in a long-term relationship, but the confusion was overshadowed by anger and frustration as it turns out Devin and Amirah have a complicated history.

As the truth slowly comes out, Devin learns she’s not who, or even what, she thinks she is and there’s more to her story. She must embark on a journey of love, betrayal, and discovery in order to understand that she is the key to changing everything around her. Primal instincts set in when she discovers whom those eyes belong to and wrongs must be righted, but what would you expect if you found the woman of your dreams?

Fiction

Caitriona Page

Traveller

Ríona isn’t out yet. After her mother passes away, she wants nothing more than to leave her small, rural life but when she finds her perfect escape, she finds the perfect reason to stay.

After she meets Tomi, the strong, handsome mechanic with a tragic past of her own, she is forced to confront the secret she’s kept to herself, the same secret she’s trying to escape from. Reeling from a brutal heartbreak, the loss of her mother, and the end of a friendship she once thought unbreakable, Ríona has to learn to live her truth.

A coming of age story about learning to love yourself, and to trust those who call you family.

Historical

McGee Mathews

Keeping Secrets

What would you do if, after finally finding the woman of your dreams, she suddenly leaves to fight in the Civil War?

It’s 1863, and Elizabeth Hepscott has resigned herself to a life of monotonous boredom far from the battlefields as the wife of a Missouri rancher. Her fate changes when she travels with her brother to Kentucky to help him join the Union Army. On a whim, she poses as his little brother and is bullied into enlisting, as well. Reluctantly pulled into a new destiny, a lark decision quickly cascades into mortal danger.

While Elizabeth’s life has made a drastic U-turn, Charlie Schweicher, heiress to a glass-making fortune, is still searching for the only thing money can’t buy.

A chance encounter drastically changes everything for both of them.

Will Charlie find the love she’s longed for, or will the war take it all away?

Mystery

Charlotte Mills

Fair Game

What’s a retired cop to do when her lover is being targeted? Helen Taylor pulls on her boots again in this captivating lesbian mystery. A sequel to Payback, this exciting thriller will keep you on your toes.

Lexi Ryan is being targeted and can’t work out why. She’s escaped the troubled town of Warner with her beautiful partner, former Det. Chief Inspector Helen Taylor, and is looking for a quieter life. Instead she’s faced with an attempted hit-and-run and mailbox tampering.

Helen, meanwhile, is finding it hard coming to terms with civilian status. But once a cop, always a cop, and she uses her old skills to play bodyguard to Lexi and kick over the clues. As the incidents against her lover keep piling up, Helen starts to wonder if it’s one of her old enemies up to tricks, or someone from Lexi’s world.

New Author

Emma Wallis

This is Not a Love Story

This is not a love story, this is a story about growing up, leaving home, making friends, and stopping your mother from blackmailing them.

Scarlet is off to university. She’s trying to leave behind the strained relationship with her narcissistic mother, who wants her to find a rich older woman to marry.

Then Scarlet meets Dr Rhys Hunter, the head of the psychology department. Will her mother get what she wants after all?

Remember, this is not a love story.

Romance

Melissa Tereze

Playing for Her Heart

COULD YOU CHANGE WHO YOU ARE TO GUARANTEE YOUR FOREVER?

Dom Simmons is the talk of the town when it comes to football and women. But, in her mind, she can only commit to one—football.

Backing into another car was problematic, but the woman who stepped out was about to become her biggest concern.

Divorced, single mother, Blair Harrington.

Finally breaking free from a life she never wanted was supposed to be the start of something new for Blair. But of all the women she could have fallen for, she had to choose the one who wasn’t willing to give her heart away.

Though from entirely different places, Blair and Dom come to realise that their pasts are all too familiar.

Science Fiction

Chloe Spencer

Duality

A dead-end job, a slob for a boyfriend, and neglectful friends: this is Kat Wallace’s life. Ever since her best friend got married, Kat has been struggling to find happiness.

All that changes when she meets Melody Adebayo, a field agent with the mysterious transdimensional company Clockwork & Associates. Melody’s job is to send the consciousness of others to a scarier dimension in order to make them kinder and more grateful for their lives, which, in theory, will influence them to do good.

But when Kat is sent to B-215, she awakes in a world beyond her wildest dreams. She’s wealthy, well-liked, and has a successful career. Kat realizes she doesn’t need to find happiness in her own world … she can just steal it from her other self.

Because of a certain (ahem) incident, Melody owes a lot of money to her evil ex-girlfriend, and Kat works out a deal with her in order to keep visiting B-215. With each visit, a sinister plot unfolds. Kat discovers her life is at risk, and she isn’t alone in this dimension.

To eliminate the threat, she must team up with Melody, but can the two uncover the truth before Kat loses her life? More important, will they be able to move on from the mistakes they made in the past and find love with each other?

Cover

Art of Magic

KJ

A story where a touch of love and a slice of life creates a whole lot of magic.

Cath Monroe loves her teaching job, her friends, her family, and her colleagues. They fill her life and her heart. She knows that it’s important to share love with actions and words, but that last one? About the words? That’s a problem. Because when it comes to saying ‘I love you’ to her forever person, Cath discovers that she doesn’t really know anything about love at all.

Then, Rica Diamandis strolls into her life. Rica is all stardust and sexy, and Cath is intrigued. The sudden availability of a romantic blank canvas takes Cath’s breath away. But when her father is taken to hospital with a life-threatening disease, Cath boxes up the romance with Rica, and packs it into the back of her heart. Fortunately, the Universe has other ideas and Cath begins to realise that embracing emotional chaos is actually the art that creates the magic.

Lesfic Bard Awards is a participant in the Amazon Associates program.  Every click on the buy links above contributes a small % of the sale of the books to help us support our awards, advertising, and the promotion of the authors who are finalists and winners.

2019 Finalists

Action Adventure

Compound Interest by Annette Mori

The kick-ass women in The Organization are back and they have their sights set on a few new recruits. Not everyone is jumping for joy at the choices, considering subterfuge is front and center in the games the new recruits have been playing. Dani is supposed to get her happily ever after, but she’s not sure what’s real anymore including Candy’s feelings for her. When a new enemy takes Candy captive, Dani vows to uncover the truth by insisting on going on the mission to save her. Candy is not what she seems, and that presents a new set of complications for Dani and her feelings. The Organization continues to have challenges when those damn book magicians and book witches keep popping back in to warn them of new catastrophes on the horizon. She doesn’t have time for their warnings until their enemies intersect once again to keep them working together.

Young Adult

In the Blink of an Eye by Karen D. Badger

Tara Charland is an ordinary fifteen-year-old kid. She likes music, playing on her phone, going to the mall, dancing with her peeps, and movie nights with her moms and siblings. She especially likes spending time with her new girlfriend, Kelly. Ah…the idyllic life of a teenager! Then, one day, on a chilly Thursday morning, in the midst of leaf-peeping season in her Southern New York town, it all came crashing down. Tara never did pay much attention during those darned lock-down drills. In a million years, she never thought it would actually happen. You see…that’s the problem…she never thought. Tara and Kelly, her brother, Seth, and their best friends, Steve and Karissa are caught in the crosshairs. In the blink of an eye, their lives, and the lives of everyone they loved, changed forever.

Drama

High October by Elena Graf

Liz Stolz and Maggie Fitzgerald were college roommates until Maggie confessed to her parents that she’d fallen in love with a woman. Maggie gave up her dream of becoming an actress and married her high school boyfriend. Liz became a famous breast surgeon. Maggie is performing in a summer stock production near the Maine town where Liz is now a general practitioner. When Maggie breaks her leg in a stage accident, she lands in Dr. Stolz’s office. Is forty years too long to wait for the one you love?

Erotica

The Victorian by Lydia L Vaughn

Alicia Brenner isn’t adulting very well.

After her parents kick her out for being gay, she moves to a new city and tries to start over. But when she loses her job and goes to the bar to drown her sorrows, she makes out with a couple she’s never met, and wakes up to a strange bed and an even stranger offer – stay at the house and become an artist.

Pearl, who is all business (both at work and play), and Danna, who beguiles Alicia from the start, are a phenomenal couple and impossible to resist. Together, they run The Victorian, a unique artist colony and auction house, where the artists are eclectic and the patrons are loyal and have deep pockets.

After passing her “interview” with flying colors, she begins her journey into art and self-discovery. Before long, The Victorian and the artists she’s come to know mean everything to Alicia. When the house, too, is threatened, what will she do to survive?

Fantasy

The Dragon Commons by Tiffany Clavecil

The year is 2048.

The Tiered Nations are a consumer society reduced to their stomachs. Here, a denizen’s prestige is measured by their greed and consequently, their expanding waistline. Hadryn and his best friend Thaddius belong to the military branch, and they arrive at the morgue to investigate an unusual death: a limb-hewn corpse which appears to have been mauled when animals are no longer of this world. Meat products, as with all foods, are grown in laboratories and manufactured as “cubed food.”
Before Hadryn and Thaddius can further their examination of the body, two letters arrive for Hadryn. One is from a woman, Oshin Rysing, who is Hadryn’s long-time epistolary paramour, living outside the Tiered Nations in a rebel colony which resists the gluttonous ways of the city, and the second letter is from his father to notify Hadryn that Hadryn will be wedded to an unknown man, as is customary for young women of marrying age. Hadryn attends his engagement banquet with the intention of confronting his father, but strange occurrences of people who seem to be infected with a terrible disease leading to self-cannibalism arise, and a creature out of nightmares emerges.

Hadryn ventures out of the Tiered Nations for answers and to seek out Oshin. There, he meets Ardyce, a dragon, who tells him of gods, legends, and an age-old battle between her people and the mysterious race known as Wyrms.

Fiction

Living by Lise Gold

During her morning exercise, yoga instructor Cam Saunders finds herself rescuing a young woman who has walked into the sea, seemingly intent on taking her own life. When the woman in question turns out to be a famous actress, Cam promises to keep her secret safe.
Six months later, America’s sweetheart Ella Temperley is working hard to get her life back on track, grieving the loss of her twin sister and fighting a deep depression. Despite her fame, she feels alone in the world and keeps thinking of the woman she owes her life to.
After Ella shows up in Cam’s life again, the two become closer than they ever imagined possible. But what happens when friendship turns into attraction? Living is a slow-burn coming-out romance about loss, love and life.

Historical

Donning the Beard by EA Kafkalas

A gender-bending, historical romance.
In 1777, when Gabrielle’s mother dies in childbirth she is left to be raised by her father Lord Guillemot, a soldier in the King’s Army.
Orphaned Madeline is sent to live with her aunt Aimée, the lord’s housekeeper, and work for Lord Guillemot. She is assigned to care for the lord’s daughter, Gabrielle, and finds her best friend and the love of her life.
Gabrielle’s father discovers that she has taught Madeline to read and write, and tries to put an end to their friendship. They thwart his plans only to find that he has arranged a marriage for Gabrielle to Damien. Her fiancé proves to be a vile man, and unbeknownst to Gabrielle, Madeline poses as Alexandre, a new suitor. Alexandre challenges Damien to a duel of swords.
When Gabrielle discovers her new love’s true identity, the fall out sends them on a journey that takes them out of the rising French Revolution into a magical theatrical world in England. There, with the help of an actor and their father’s paramour –the grand dame of theatre– Mademoiselle Babcock, they think their dreams of have come true.
When Gabrielle’s father is rescued from imprisonment and makes his way back to England, will their dreams be dashed or will they finally get their happily ever after?

Mystery

Payback by Charlotte Mills

A thrilling lesbian mystery about trying to right a past wrong…despite the consequences.

Detective Constable Kate Wolfe is sent to a Cheshire backwater after falling foul of a disciplinary hearing in London. But before she even has a chance to settle in, Kate finds herself in a situation there’s no coming back from. She’s reported as a troublemaker to her new boss, Detective Chief Inspector Helen Taylor, a no-nonsense veteran who once had an esteemed, high-profile career.
The pair investigate a spate of arson attacks, a dead body found in a burnt out building, and a missing architect while fighting their growing attraction for each other. The discovery of a dumped vehicle in a quarry lake sparks a series of events that will change their lives forever.

New Author

Lost & Found A Mystic Meteor Tale by Elle Hyden

Two lost souls are on a collision course. One searching for a life partner while the other mourns the loss of hers.

Selina is at a crossroads. No job, no home to call her own, and no partner. She has to turn her life around, but in which direction? Returning to her Native American roots, she seeks mystical aid from the spirit world, to find the life she hungers for.
Rea has been able to find a measure of solace after her wife’s death but longs for the crack in her heart to heal. Sighting a falling star, she sends her wish out into the universe, where it’s heard by the most unlikely allies.

Selina and Rea’s paths crossed many times in the past, but they’d never connected. Now they are being inescapably drawn together by fate, desire, and a touch of the mystical. Will love and trust prevail over loss and fear, so they can have their shot at being found forever?
Join them on their souls’ journey through the Lost & Found.

Romance

Coming Home by KJ

What would happen if your regular, ordinary, safe, everyday existence suddenly became…not any of those things? When Samantha Markson, Ordinary Person, is thrust into the life of Abigail Taylor, Not At All Ordinary Person, it proves to be an experience like she’s never had before. World famous actress, Abigail Taylor, is in Melbourne filming her new movie, and is accompanied by her nine year old daughter, Grace, because Abigail wants her to experience an Australian education for three months. Sam Markson is a teacher at one of the best schools in Melbourne, and is perfectly happy doing that, thank you very much, when she’s suddenly redirected from the classroom into the job as Grace’s teacher; a move so fast that even blinking would feel like slow motion. Sam has never met anyone like Abigail Taylor, and she starts to realise that her ordinary life might actually be missing something extraordinary.

Science Fiction

Subton Switch by Jessica Lucci

Subaquatic city, 1886. Verdandi, a fiery teen tinkerer, is held captive by an evil totalitarian government. She is blasted into a chaos of beauty and fear, depression and addiction.

Verdandi discovers that her only chance of liberty lies not only in trusting her friends, but in challenging her mind and body to fulfill her time travel quest. What begins in compulsion becomes necessity, and Verdandi finds herself torn between two very different worlds, with the only reconciliation being time.
The “Watch City” trilogy continues in “Subton Switch,” creating a testament of the power within us to change ourselves, and the world.

Cover

Trick or Treat, Who’s my Sweet by BL Wilson

When wealthy, bossy, arrogant Delisa Winston discovers Nicky Gates, the man she just married as part of a business arrangement, is a woman pretending to be a man, she loses it, starting their marriage with a bang.

Nicholas/Nicolette Gates, a business person with varied tastes in women, mistakenly thinks that since Delisa is a lesbian, she’ll appreciate the revelation that she is gay as well.
Both parties think that they will continue on as before their marriage, dating who they want and enjoying the rewards of their merger. However, Nicky’s disclosure to Delisa has opened a whole new can of worms…and feelings.

Now it’s a question of what to do with the information Nicolette revealed to Delisa. Can the two women keep it a secret until they figure out what to do? Will they manage to stay married and keep their secret? If the secret gets out, what will happen to Nicolette and her company’s merger with Delisa? What will happen to Delisa’s companies and is she culpable? Do the women have a future together?

Lesfic Bard Awards is a participant in the Amazon Associates program.  Every click on the buy links above contributes a small % of the sale of the books to help us support our awards, advertising, and the promotion of the authors who are finalists and winners.