Road Tripping Across the USA Mini Reading Challenge: Ohio

Is twenty-five years long enough to forget your first love?

Do you believe in miracles? How about a Christmas miracle? Vanessa does. And twenty five years later her son, two entwined trees, and a Christmas Stroll just may be the Christmas miracle she always hoped for.

Two women, two lifetimes, a powerful attraction—will they choose love or safety?

“Love, life, and struggles in identity across centuries” (Independent Book Review): Alternating chapters follow two lesbian couples in 1862 Ohio and 2014 California. Then and now, can the women transcend the obstacles they’re facing, give in to their desire, and embrace their love? “An unexpected joy.” (Tom J. Bross)

Special Agent Luce Hansen’s Thanksgiving vacation with her new lover, forensic pathologist Harper Bennett, is cut short when she’s tasked with recapturing Deadeye, a vicious serial predator who has escaped custody.

The timing couldn’t be worse, especially when Bennett seems to be struggling with the realities of Hansen’s work and questioning whether she’s willing to risk building a life with a woman who puts work first, even when the job puts her in the line of fire.

Agent Luce Hansen returns home to Willow’s Ridge to catch a serial killer who has been murdering young women.

It’s the case she’s been waiting for, the case that compels her to return to the small town she turned her back on nineteen years ago, the case she plans to ride from the Ohio BCI all the way to the FBI.

The case worth risking her shaky relationship with her lover, Rowan. But the horrors of the case recall the unsolved murder of Luce’s first girlfriend, and Luce is forced to confront the local ex-gay ministry that haunted her youth. When the past crosses the present, will Luce lose everything she’s worked so hard to build?

An age-gap ice queen lesbian short story from the Carlisle series that asks whether you really can go home again.

Publishing magnate Vivian has it all: a flourishing career, a happy toddler, and her adoring lover, Jules. The only thing missing is family approval. Can Vivian reconcile with her family during a tense trip to the Midwest with Jules?

This short story was originally published in the anthology After Happily Ever After Once Again in 2023.

Small Town Big Love

Seduced by Mai Li’s easy charm and determination, hard-edged contractor Dale Miller agrees to take on her renovation project.After a spring storm causes significant damage to the building and renovation costs exceed Mai’s budget, Dale offers her a deal, but is it a price Mai is willing to pay?

A chance encounter leaves her locked in love.

An afternoon of bone-melting sex and a surprisingly soulful connection with Morgan leaves Eun questioning her return to Chicago. But not everyone in Sikesville is happy Eun has returned.

Steamy small town love

The life of university librarian, Amari Foster, is neatly cataloged. Work, home, and securing a future for her daughter are her focus. Hard-edged and handsome, she manages her private life with ruthless precision, cutting ties, and maintaining distance to protect her battered heart. Meeting Thalia Makris leaves her wanting more than a one-night stand, and she finds herself on the precipice of love.

This time Nüwa is playing for her life.

After a chance encounter with Julia Johnson leads to more, Nüwa Zhou imagines a life with Julia. When her stalker returns, determined to kidnap Nüwa and end anyone who stands in his way, Nüwa will do whatever it takes to keep Julia safe, but will it be enough?

A rock star and an athlete get a second chance at love in this slow-burn lesbian romance.

Nat Butler is a rock goddess with a long-running career and fans around the globe… and nothing real to hold onto. When an ugly breakup drags her into the tabloids, Nat retreats to her hometown to hide out. Instead, she comes face to face with her first love – who’s none too happy to see the woman who broke her heart fifteen years ago.

You can’t outrun your past. If you try, it will chase after you in a silver DeLorean.

The last thing Anika Singh wants is to go home to Ohio, but when her mother is diagnosed with cancer, what choice does she really have? She’ll go home if she has to, but she won’t stay long. Because all Marcine, Ohio, has for Anika is bad memories — memories of being an outcast, even within her own family, and memories of a perfect love that was soured by betrayal.

Jenny’s betrayal. Anika’s high school sweetheart-turned-ex-wife. Anika hopes she won’t run into Jenny… Or maybe she hopes she will run into her. It’s hard to say.

An ancient evil lurks in a charming Ohio small town. Can the bond of two outsiders save their new home?

Racing against time and dark mystical forces, Willow and Jennifer must work together to expose the secrets of a coven before they can unleash dangerous magic on the eve of the Harvest Moon. Joined by brave friends and townspeople, the two women engage in a high-stakes confrontation with the witches in the ruins of Bane House.

This is basically the Shasti and Madison Story.

Madison Kim finds herself on a bus headed to Denton Heights, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati. Her mother sent her there without notice to care for an elderly Korean woman Madison had never met. Madison is twenty-two-and-three-quarters years old, has a high school diploma, but isn’t smart enough to go to college…so they tell her. Now she spends her time caring for Mrs. Park, going to the beloved Cincinnati Zoo, and watching movies on her outdated phone. She’s not really sure why she’s there, but she’s taking it day by day. And then she meets strong nurturing Miss Shasti at a tea dance.

Julie Murphy meets Casey McQuiston in this unforgettable queer romance about a teen girl whose foray into fantasy tabletop roleplaying brings her new confidence, true friends, and a shot at real, swoon-worthy love.

Enter: Gloria Castañeda and her all-girls game of S&S! Crowded at the table in Gloria’s cozy Ohio apartment, the six girls battle twisted magic in-game and become fast friends outside it. With her character as armor, Hollis starts to believe that maybe she can be more than just fat, anxious, and a little lost.

A school principal and a VR programmer must overcome physical and emotional scars to find love.

The journey is emotional, and both women must decide whether to let go of the past before they can start the rest of their lives—together.

When the woman you never got over shows up asking you to play her girlfriend for the holidays, that sounds like fun in an awkward, don’t die-now-heart, kind of way.

In college, Elizabeth Smile shared a magical tryst with her roommate, Michelle Harlow. She had no idea the night would leave Elizabeth pining after her for the next ten years. Now Michelle is back with a strange offer: Will she pretend to be Michelle’s lesbian lover to beat Michelle’s cheating husband?

Raechel Anne Jolie’s early life in a working-class Cleveland exurb was full of race cars, Budweiser-drinking men covered in car grease, and the women who loved them.

After her father came home from his third-shift job, took the garbage out to the curb and was hit by a drunk driver, her life changed.

Raechel and her mother struggled for money: they were evicted, went days without utilities, and took their trauma out on one another.

Her sister was captured in Iraq, she’s the resident laughingstock at school, and her therapist tells her to count instead of eat.

Can a daring new girl in her life really change anything?

Angie is broken — by her can’t-be-bothered mother, by her high-school tormenters, and by being the only one who thinks her varsity-athlete-turned-war-hero sister is still alive. Hiding under a mountain of junk food hasn’t kept the pain (or the shouts of “crazy mad cow!”) away. Having failed to kill herself — in front of a gym full of kids — she’s back at high school just trying to make it through each day.