Mm

Across The River

by Rook Rivers

Tropes: dualpov, banter, newadult

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"Something to remember me by, little painter." Elliot Meyer draws the people he's too scared to talk to. At twenty-three, he's a late-blooming art student in Hoboken with a sketchbook full of strangers he's never once said hello to. Then his roommates drag him across the river to Vesper, a Lower East Side nightclub built inside an old funeral parlor, and Elliot makes the mistake of sketching the man holding court on the marble staircase. Donovan Black wears leather, kohl, and silver on every finger. He hosts the city's most notorious goth night, treats flirting like a blood sport, and lives by exactly one rule: gone before sunrise. By morning, Elliot has a bite on his neck, a black card in his pocket, and a question he can't stop asking. What's your real name? Because Donovan Black is a performance. By day, the man underneath keeps his curtains shut, his phone face down, and his past locked away. He has spent years making sure no one ever sees him in the light. Especially not someone who paints. But Elliot is braver in daylight than he's ever been at night. And the closer he gets to the truth, the closer he comes to the one person Donovan has been running from. Across the River is a moody, funny, aching MM romance about two men learning to stand in each other's light, and what it costs to finally be seen. - Dual POV - Night-owl goth x shy sunshine artist - Opposites attract, hurt/comfort, found family - Standalone with a guaranteed HEA Content note: references to past emotional and sexual abuse, grief, and family estrangement. None of the abuse is depicted explicitly. [Read More]

Love Me Hard

by Stellan Blake

Tropes: dualpov, grumpysunshine, lgbt

Julian Hawthorne has built his life around control and discipline. As the youngest professor at Crestview University and the presumed heir to Hawthorne Investments, he has a pristine reputation and intends to keep it that way. Then Beckett Landry walks into his classroom. Twenty-one, confident, and impossible to ignore, Beckett unsettles Julian in ways no student ever should. To the world, Beckett is confident, self-assured, and completely unbothered. What no one sees is the searing loneliness he’s carried for most of his life. Determined to build something better for himself, he carries the pain quietly and presses on. Then Julian makes him feel seen in a way he never has before, offering him a glimpse of a life where loneliness isn’t inevitable. What begins as forbidden attraction soon becomes something neither of them is prepared to lose. But the closer they become, the more they stand to risk. Family pressure mounts, and the threat of exposure puts Julian’s career and Beckett’s future in jeopardy, forcing them to choose between the lives they’ve fought to build and what’s growing between them. Told in alternating dual POV, Love Me Hard is an angsty, forbidden M/M romance about desire, sacrifice, independence, and choosing a love worth fighting for, with a guaranteed happily ever after. [Read More]

Luck Robber

by Anita Avelin

Tropes: slowburn, characterdriven, magic

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Akhio can steal luck. He has a slight problem using it, though. Case in point: when he was only eight years old, he accidentally killed his best friend, was kicked out of his village, and caused magic practitioners to become the most persecuted group to have ever existed. All in the span of a day. Now, ten years later, he’s determined to live a quiet, uneventful life working as a server in a gambling house. He steals bits of luck from the gamblers to stay hidden from the inquisitors, who plan to kill or enslave every last magic practitioner in hiding like Akhio. Especially Akhio. All in all, he has no need for dashing, annoying strangers—but a dashing, annoying stranger is exactly what Akhio gets. Young Lord Cillian makes his heart race: he smiles, he teases, he sets people on fire with nothing but a twist of his hands. Not only does that attract Akhio, but it also attracts a whole bunch of inquisitors. Now Cillian wants Akhio’s help to find a powerful mage for the rebellion of the very people Akhio doomed. Saying no would be easy, if Cillian didn’t smile so much. The only question is: whose past will catch up with them first? [Read More]

The Raven and the Wolf

by Dezmond Moon

Tropes: slowburn, firstperson, characterdriven

Four years. Two boys. One promise. Aurelian doesn't know the boy hiding behind the hay is heir to the duchy. Cory doesn't care that Aurelian is a farmer's son. Together, they grow up through fire, loss, first love, and a kiss neither of them is ready to say goodbye after. Then the world catches up. A king's edict pressures "traditional" marriages on the nobles of the land. Aurelian seeks an unwanted marriage to secure his family's farm. Cory is pressured to find a marriage he doesn't care for. Years apart, neither knows if the other remembers, or if what they had as children has survived who they've become. Found behind masks at a duke's masquerade, they get a second chance. For three nights, they can be anyone they want. But loving each other now means defying a king, two duchies, and the rules neither of them ever agreed to in the first place. This is a Cinderella-inspired childhood-sweethearts-to-lovers queer romance for anyone who loves to watch two people grow up together, be torn apart, and still refuse to let go. [Read More]

Marked in Blood

by Emmett Vance

Tropes: forcedproximity, dualpov, darkromance

He cut his own hand instead of mine. It was the kindest thing he ever did to me. They sold me to the Sasso syndicate to seal ninety days of peace — a hostage, a clause in a contract, blood witnessed across two open palms while two armies watched. The new boss was supposed to be a monster. Kiril Sasso is worse than that, and better: a wreck of a man with shaking hands and a cruel mouth, so certain he ruins everything he touches that he'd rather bury me than risk keeping me. He locks the doors. He swears he'll end me when the ninety days run out. And when he reaches for me in the dark, he does it rough, like a man taking the one thing he's sure he isn't allowed. I was thrown away once, a long time ago. I learned the wrong lesson from it: I don't leave. Not when he's cruel. Not when he shoves me toward the door. Not when there's a debt in a ledger neither of us has seen, waiting a very long time to come due. So I'll do the one thing that terrifies a man who's never been kept. When the doors finally open — I'll stay. ═══════ WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT ═══════ ✦ Dark M/M Mafia Romance — Enemies to Lovers, Blood Vow ✦ Self-destructive boss × hostage who won't break (he cuts his own hand instead of yours) ✦ Forced Proximity — ninety days, one locked house ✦ Hurt/Comfort, Dual POV (Kiril + Eli) — broken man held, not fixed ✦ Explicit, on-page, 18+ — rough turning tender ✦ HEA guaranteed — Book 1 of a trilogy ═══════ CONTENT NOTES ═══════ Explicit on-page M/M sex (18+ / rough turning tender) / self-harm at the blood vow (he cuts his own palm) + blood / captivity + hostage / organized-crime violence / past child abandonment / HEA — not a cliffhanger, but one open season-thread. ═══════ FOR ARC READERS ═══════ If you're here for the dark, welcome home. Marked in Blood is for readers who want the broken one held instead of fixed. Book 1 of three. The Tally trilogy. HEA guaranteed. — Emmett Vance [Read More]

Emerald

by Runa Saevik

Tropes: firstperson, characterdriven, dualpov

Instant download

Lev knows exactly who Bjarke is. Bjarke has no idea who Lev is. Ten years ago in Vienna, a twenty-five-year-old violinist played his heart out for Sonda, the band half the world can hum. Someone in the hall clapped. Then a voice came down the aisle and turned him into a joke. He shut his violin case that day and never opened it again. Lev Kuhar was the one who clapped. And he said nothing. For twenty years Lev was the half of Sonda nobody saw. He wrote the music. Someone else took the stage and the credit. A year ago Lev walked away without a word and went home to the Soča valley, to his bees, his sister's boats and a music room he hasn't opened since. Then a Danish folk singer who hides his face behind a stag skull walks across a festival courtyard in Ljubljana, and Lev would know that walk anywhere. He follows him into a cellar. He doesn't give his name. Afterwards, still breathing hard, Bjarke tells him exactly what he thinks of Sonda. Lev runs. Then he comes back and holds out his hand. What follows is one summer. A valley, a river the colour of its name, a two-week list that keeps getting longer. Bjarke picks up a violin for the first time in ten years, and Lev plays beside him. The man Bjarke is falling for belongs to the band he has hated for a decade, and every day Lev keeps quiet, the truth costs more. Then the past calls. The man who owned Lev's silence for twenty years wants his signature, and the leverage is Bjarke. Some names stay off the record. Some get said out loud. MM · hidden identity · enemies without knowing it · hurt/comfort · found family · high heat · HEA · standalone, Book Two of The Four Corners of Slovenia [Read More]